Why I Don’t Vote

Red dahlia and amethyst under a crescent moon.

Voting is not equal, direct representation of the 99%. Voting is not sabotaging the capitalist system that feeds off your blood. Voting isn't abolishing prisons or freeing prison labor exploited to put out fires or make Starbucks' coffee sleeves. Voting will not unsterilize the 1000s of Brown women in US concentration camps. Voting doesn't prevent those people in concentration camps at the border being raped by prison guards. Voting did not prevent Trump from creating a more visibly fascist or authoritarian Amerikkka. Voting is not enough when Trump and Biden are more similar than they are dissimilar. 

It is that time of year where my phone and mailbox are filled with demands I vote for a better future. Proponents of voting say, if voting wasn't important why is there so much energy put into creating voting injustice like racialized redistricting, prevention of people with felonies voting, fake ballet collection boxes, delegitimization of the USPS, etc?  

I never discourage people from voting. In the same way I don't discourage non-violent protest I believe there is strength in many tactics. However, I also believe that voting is are least impactful tool as an oppressed people. Voting is an illusion created to make us feel like we are influencing a government that has historically only benefited rich, land owning cis men.

Instead of pressuring others to vote by means of guilt or shaming I wish proponents better understood why some people don't vote. Many people I know who don't vote participate in community organizing and leftist activism yearlong. This is the source of true people power. Instead of campaigning for Bernie, Biden or whoever is being used to bring more members to the Democratic Party we as people can create resistance that breaks the status quo and disruption that truly sabotages it. We can forge communities based in mutual aid that actually protects and uplifts its members. Whether it's millions of Puerto Ricans devastated by human fueled climate catastrophe, California wildfires fought by prison labor or the millions unemployed due to the lockdown, it is clear that the government does not care about the people it supposedly represents.  

There is no going back to normal. When Trump won in 2016 I was in Downtown Oakland at a Clinton campaign office watching the votes collected on TV. I remember telling a friend how disgusted I felt with myself for voting for Clinton. How I betrayed myself by voting for that "Super Predator". A white cis man shushed me and criticized me for saying such a thing. The morning after watching Bill Clinton cry during her concession speech (surely neither shed tears for any harm they've caused in Haiti) I too cried. Not for Hillary but for fear of my life as a marginalized person under this new regime, horrified at the beginning of a new phase of fascism in Amerikka.  

Trump has already stated that if Biden wins it is due to voter fraud. Trump is deathgripping his presidency and strategizing to consolidate power by any means necessary. He has discredited the media, delegitimized the USPS and encouraged violent, murderous far right militia aided by state police.  

Enzo Lorenzo and Sis, of the Marxist group Unity and Struggle, outlined what a Trump constitutional coup would like in an article and podcast posted at itsgoingdown.com Lorenzo outlines two scenarios: 1. Biden comes out with a wide lead immediately thus making it much harder for Trump to instigate a coup 2. The election is too close to call resulting in prolonged debate in the courts and rebellion on the streets.  

In Scenario 1 Trump demands the courts reconsider the faulty outcome of Biden elected and will call for his following of far right militia to take to the streets. The election would likely be decided judicially and by public opinion that Biden won. As I stated previously, Biden is not dissimilar enough from Trump to bring out any true reform around increasing income inequality exacerbated by this economic depression, abolishment of the police, ICE and "detention centers" or swift response to climate change. Biden will not end the targeting of Black activists or unjail the 1000s to be arrested at future uprisings. Lorenzo believes that even if Biden wins far right groups will only intensify actualizing their missions and civil war is likely. Lorenzo states this outcome is still preferable because it gives us, leftists, time to gather resources, formulate plans, recruit new members and to prepare for the inevitable-civil unrest.   

If Scenario 2 plays out of the election being too close to call things will come to a head much more quickly. Lorenzo imagines the GOP could successfully employ some voter suppression methods like intimidation at the polls or the impression that Trump won before mail-in ballots are completely tallied. He explains that Trump could "refuse uncounted ballots from being included, or redirect electoral college votes like in 1876 or force a congressional vote like in 1825". Biden would likely go to the courts, but how just are our courts especially with so many newly Trump elected judges?  

The courts would drag this out for weeks and likely there would be violent protesting in the street. Over the summer we saw roughly 15-26 million protesting for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade. What made this remarkable was the masses of everyday people showing up, not far leftists, not people who have been active in protests for years, but everyday fed-up Americans. If the 2nd Scenario plays out we are likely to see similarly large numbers of people outraged. Trump has already stated that if there are uprisings around election day he will not hesitate to put down a "nationwide insurrection" by using the National Guard, federal police and likely inflaming his public supporters.   

The United States natally has Pluto in Capricorn in the 2nd house. Pluto will transit Capricorn from 2008 to 2024. The second house rules material/immaterial resources, possessions, values and our relationship to our self-worth. 2008 was, of course, the Economic Collapse caused by the housing market and marked an incredibly challenging time for all people, but especially millennials looking to forge their own financial independence (remember when Obama bailed out Wall St?). 

Regardless of what scenario plays out exactly come Election Day I believe mass uprisings will occur. Again, many millennials are being set back by a second Economic Crisis and outraged over ever increasing repercussions of human-caused climate change. 

 

On Election Day transit Jupiter will be at 21 degrees Capricorn, transit Pluto will be at 22 degrees Capricorn and transit Saturn will be at 26 degrees Capricorn all in a tight conjunction to the US Natal Pluto at 27 degrees. All of these planets will be applying to Natal Pluto meaning a building up of social unrest over inequities and a growing resentment over hierarchies that do not serve the most disenfranchised. Pluto is here to excavate the wound and expose the issues being repressed at a societal/personal level. Jupiter and Pluto working together will amplify long existing discontent over government.

 

Not to mention, we will have two retrogrades adding to communication delays and Waka flocking the flame of righteous civil discontent, Mercury Retrograde and Mars Retrograde. Mercury Retrograde will go direct in Libra exact on Election Day which likely illustrates a delay on mail-in ballots or mail-in ballots being used as "evidence" that the election outcome was faulty or unjust. Libra rules what is fair and what is just, but unfortunately, reality in this dystopia may not correlate with either. If Election results go to the courts we will see weeks delays as Lorenzo speculated above. 

 

Mars Retrograde in Aries has manifested for me personally in my 7th house with unprecedented conflict with close friends and even random acts of misogynistic violence on the street. Mars will station direct Nov 13 but will be in its Post Shadow period till January 2. Again, likely we will see uprisings regardless of election results and they may play out into the new year. 

 

When Pluto was in Capricorn for the US natally it was during the American Revolution. An event of monied white men fighting other monied white men with a crown. This is a new America not only in its fascism or authoritarianism but because of a collective will that shines much brighter, a collective will of hope and desire for equity. 

 

When Puerto Rico was hit by Irma and Maria, I saw people with no relationship to my ancestral home sending water purification straws, creating benefit shows or contributing to mutual aid efforts championed by the people on the island. There is only ever-growing international discontent with income inequality, wage slavery, and the impacts of capitalism on the Earth.

Capitalism creates a mindset of apathy, this is part of its brainwashing, so we stay meek and docile clocking in our lives to barely afford our basic needs. But, for the most part, humans are not inherently apathetic, and capitalism isn't a "natural order" there are alternatives and we have seen them succeed within our own neighborhoods. We have the power to take care of each other and to build economic systems that are not for capital, but for our basic needs and that prioritize the health of our Earth/all of her inhabitants.   

 

The power is in the people so I'm asking you if you are going out to vote. Don't just stop at voting, find leftist collectives or mutual aid efforts in your city or state fighting for real equity. Stockpile supplies for protests for yourself and others and prepare for a Second Revolution. What we see in the next 4 years is unlike anything we've seen before. 

 

-Iris the Brujx