a little thought experiment¶

Let's engage in a little thought experiment. Bear with me for a second.

First, we'll have to accept some implicit assumptions presented by the people spreading this meme around:

1) Project 2025 is feasible to enact as described, creating a "dictatorship" with no civil rights. https://t.co/5tQUTkFAcu 2) This will be all but inevitable and impossible to overcome if Republicans win the 2024 election, a qualitative shift, eradicating hope.

3) If Democrats win in 2024, Project 2025 will not be able to move forward at all, and no further stripping away of rights will occur. In this framing, I think we can get at a much more important question than whether or not we should vote for Democrats: what ELSE should we do? How far are you willing to go to prevent this grim future? Are you willing to stake everything on the uncertain outcome of an election? What are the Democrats willing to do? Are they concerned about Project 2025? If so, what specific actions are they doing to avert it altogether? They're nominally in charge right now, and yet we're seeing mini Project 2025s being enacted all over the country. If your answer is "Well, they don't have enough power to do anything!" So what would they do if they won a landslide supermajority nationwide? What systems would they put in place to ensure the "security of democracy"? Do they have a plan anywhere near as detailed as P2025? For all their talk of how "democracy is in danger," they're remarkably tight-lipped about any plans beyond voters running on a backsliding treadmill forever. Republicans have an affirmative vision for the future -- what specifically would Democrats change? If the ONLY plan is "vote for us over and over to defer the end times," with every successive election another opportunity for fascist takeover, then how can that be acceptable to you? How could you possibly settle for JUST voting if one failure is enough to lose, permanently? Now, in all fairness, I do NOT accept that framing in the first place. The system we already have is not true democracy. The "civil rights" we have are not true political rights, because such a thing is not possible without the economic rights we will never have under capitalism. What "rights" we have are feeble, fragile, and largely irrelevant to the political machinations of the state. And even those are being clawed back anyway, year after year, no matter who is in power. Democrats are demonstrably NOT protecting the rights of the oppressed. Whether you think that's because they don't have enough power, because they haven't figured out a good plan yet, or because they are fundamentally committed to an ideology that has nothing to do with protecting us (this is the correct explanation btw), it's irrelevant. Out of all the possible ways to fight fascist encroachment, we already have empirical evidence of which strategy HASN'T worked. Why would you have such blind faith that it'll suddenly work this time? Aren't you tired of trying to make something work that... has never worked? The worse the possible outcomes are, the more desperate you should get. The more you should be willing to try new strategies. Whatever "democracy" you think we currently enjoy, why would your only defense for it be scolding people who refuse to accept your framing entirely?