It’s impossible in U.S. society not to frequently encounter the demand to vote, no matter what, no matter for whom, as a basic civic duty. Voting is supremely important, we’re told, a right, a responsibility, a moral requirement, something people died for which if you don’t use (even if it’s useless) you will effectively be pissing on their graves. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said “If everyone would vote, it wouldn’t matter what the billionaires wanted.”
Let’s accept all of that at face value for the sake of argument. Let’s suppose it is our primary duty as members of society to vote. Personally, I always do, and it takes about 5 minutes out of my year. Sometimes I even promote candidates, and one might ask why that isn’t a supreme duty too, since it can impact how and whether numerous other people exercise their sacred duty to vote. Or we could extend that line of thinking further and ask why it isn’t the duty of each of us to work to change our culture so that only better candidates can get nominated, since that seems relevant to our duty to vote for some of those candidates. But I want to ask a different question at the moment.
y withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, the US is effectively saying the global climate crisis is not our problem. This is American exceptionalism run amok. The US acts as if it can opt-out of the only planet we have because, well, because we’re special. This is not logical, this is not practical, this is not moral, and this is not possible. This is delusional. This is a crime against humanity. And yet the House Democrats remain obsessed with the low-level intrigues of Ukraine, Trumps, Bidens, and other clowns while turning away from the growing global catastrophe. Yes, there’s some evidence of minor-league failed chicanery on several sides of the Ukraine mashup. But the case is a joke compared to the climate crisis, and our Democratic leadership chooses to focus on the picayune over the universally tragic.
