This is a Canadian asking about the US. Though given that crappy state of things here we could consider it as well.
If the next president isn’t picked as a result of the popular vote but as a result of the system being terrible then a majority of the people of the country will have been wronged.
Instead of doing civil war about it, what if there was a mass movement to just do nothing. Everyone just grabs a chair and sits on their lawn or in a park all day and just chills out instead of working, attending events, or really participating in the economy in any significant way. Take a sick day or somthing if it helps. But anybody can do nothing.
In only a few days, maybe less, the economy whould take a massive hit. Just everyone sits around untill a fair election is called without any electoral college or first past the post nonsense.
Obviously there’s huge challenges to this. Like finding an end condition everyone can agree on. Also getting a representative to ensure the demands had been met. the huge wave of firing, threats, and violence from the other side whould probably have some effect. But the other side is a minority, and could be overwhelmed.
So if big enough, could it work?
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Yes, that’s called a general strike. Fairly common tactic for independence movements and workers rights movements, you still see them in South America sometimes. They’re not easy to organize, you need a lot of pissed off people.
You have a lot of pissed off people and your country has a history of saying fuck you to political figures you don’t like 😉
Love, Your English Allies
Just 5% of the population striking is enough to bring a country to its heels. That aside, if Americans were capable of this kind of collective action they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
Edit: Oh, and also: It seems Trump is winning the popular vote this time around.
That whould typically involve unions. No need for them here though.
Unions are great for a lot of things but they’d be less inclined to help on this as they, don’t all support the same parties, and probably dont want their workers to violate any contracts as it would damage future negotiations.
I think isn’t a matter of labour and would be stonger without unions. It needs to be from the people.
It is a general strike, what you are suggesting. Whether you like the name or not.
You don’t need a union to strike, you can self organize and just do it
I think the word for workers self-organizing and advocating for their cause is… Union(izing).
I mean there might be some other connotation to the word in US politics. But I think that’s pretty much the definition of the term.
I think they mean their “current union”. You’re right, of course, that they’d basically be forming a new union 😄 but I don’t know if it would be recognised in US law
I don’t think recognition by law is super important to that cause. I mean it’s not like they’re part of the system in that way. On contrary, they do illegal things like ask people not to come to their workplace. They threaten employers, demand change like workplace safety, … And employers don’t listen to them because they’re required to by law, but because their production will grind to a halt if they don’t. So ultimately a workers union just needs to be backed by the workers, or at least a good amount of them. That aside, we of course need some structure to things, so legistation might help. But it’s not strictly necessary. And I don’t think it even started like that. It’s mainly a means to get heard, because a single individual can be f*cked over more easily than an organized group of people. Everything else is just details.
But I really like OP’s idea. It’s nothing new, just re-inventing what we already had in the late 1800s. And it already proved to be an option. And is in use in other parts of the world.
Adding to what the other two said, unions are supposed to be a way of the people to exert power, not just get better contracts. In less self-destructive countries unions organize for political causes all the time.
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Ah perhaps I’m not used too that where I am. I appreciate unions truly, and belive we need more. But the ones I’ve been in have been nearly as corrupt as the politicians. Often run by the retired and wealthy making decisions on behalf of those still working. Often bad ones.
It seems fairly likely Trump will win the popular vote
He is up by FIVE MILLION votes as of this comment. Fuck the red states
It’s a nice idea, but a design feature built in to most countries is that the majority of people are too poor to skip a day of work. Losing their job, or simply not being paid for a days work could tip people into starvation, default on existing debts, or loss of access to expensive medication.
Anyone high enough on the pyramid to be the target of such a protest does not care if the economy tanks. They control the country now, they can just defund education even more than it already is to line their pockets.
They’ve already said that they’re perfectly fine with the economy taking a massive hit. Nobody about to come into power gives a damn about the economy, They can simply siphon money out of whatever systems they want. Drive up the deficit and pay themselves and their corporations out of the government coffers.
Even if they gave a damn about the economy, what are you going to push for collectively? The department of Justice is about to be fully corrupted. The separation of church and state is being removed. There’s nothing that they’re going to be able to give to satisfy the needs of the public short of a complete replacement of government which they are not going to just roll over on.
I don’t think you can general strike out of a dictatorship.
That’s a very interesting idea. However, the idiots in the USA have decided to elect the guy who will enact huge tariffs which will make prices rise beyond the inflation we have endured. And he will crash the US economy, which will have a domino effect on the globe. Americans are literally brainwashed to buy, buy, buy. Claiming that our economy is the most important thing (such a lie). He will devastate this country financially and those who voted for him will suffer for that choice. Trump kills everything he touches. Watch him destroy America. Putin will be so happy.
if the next president isn’t picked as a result of the popular vote but as a result of the system being terrible then a majority of the people of the country will have been wronged.
In the case of Belgium, our prime minister came from a party that had 8% of the votes.
In France, our PM’s party received 5,41% of the votes. All the parties supporting him received, if we add up all their scores, 28.5% of the votes.
The main difference between a prime minister and a president is the fact that they’re appointed, not elected, no? Little difference when you consider the state of national primaries in the states, but still.
I think if there is hope, it’s from exactly this.
If the system is truly that awful, we just won’t play.
I don’t know that it would be effective, but my money’s on something sufficiently buddhist and radical. Not as a most likely thing to happen, but as a most likely thing to work, since a trump coronation is the end of the systems Americans have based their whole lives on.
