There are far more polling locations than ice agents. Even if they selectively pick the purple ones and deploy every agent they’re unlikely to end up with more than a couple agents at each.
I guess that also means those agents either don’t get to vote or have to do early voting.
Simple.
Everyone shows up to the polls heavily armed and stays until everyone has voted.
Actually, not even everyone has to be armed. Just enough to form a group. Do not try this on your own. Totally safe if you’re in a group that’s packing though.
So maybe armed black Panthers should show up to defend the voting stations?
Yup.
Saw a video a week or two ago. Cops roll up. Group of Black Panthers are heavily armed on a public sidewalk. The cops tell them to leave. They say “no”. The cops leave.
It’s a whole hell of a lot harder to oppress people who are heavily armed and in groups.
Panthers tend to known their rights too. Education and confidence are a powerful combination
Armed EVERYONE, panthers, housewives, mechanics, trans teens, latino families, truckers, the entire Village People stereotypical grouping, should be there armed and handing out cookies and coffee and making sure our communities are safe and that everyone, no matter their politics or identity or race or background has their say at the polls.
There are presently about 22,000 ICE agents. There will be somewhere around 100,000 polling stations in the US. Their math for “surrounding all polling stations” just isn’t working out.
They don’t need to surround every polling station. Just the ones in blue states
Good, we can focus efforts easier that way.
Time to plan to have 50 or 100 people at every polling station in every blue & red state. There should be enough retirees, unemployed, house-parents, teens to make it happen. 1 Million average Americans of every political affiliation to defend their democracy for a day.
I will be there.
Supported by White Panthers.
I rather see the Rainbow Coalition ride again, let’s take specific colors off the agenda.
Surely the FBI won’t sabotage them again this time around.
Surely.
Well at least they’re very open and clear about their intentions, and why
Eggs and water balloons. We should start with that now. What are they going to do?
Shoot you?
Shoot back. We outnumber them.
The problem is finding enough people who don’t mind probably getting killed. That’s generally why revolutions don’t happen until the people are starving and have nothing left to lose.
America likely still has a while to go before that point.
If fear repels you, they win. There is no glory in death but if you fuck em up first. What are they going to do, die again?
So you out there shooting ice? How many you killed so far?
I live in a nation that doesn’t have ICE. And I am not going to solve it for the americans. Plenty of guns per person, have at it.
I do like the Black Panters. They got the gist.
“You didn’t shoot someone yet? How can I possibly take you seriously.”
This is the argument you are making and it’s preposterous.
If you’re criticizing people for not doing something you’re ostensibly unwilling to do, that’s the preposterous argument.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Otherwise fuck off criticizing people who don’t want to die.
That’s with a royal ‘you’ since I know you’re not the person they responded to.
Drone dropped water balloons and eggs it is.
Ah yes voter intimidation, something that only happens in healthy stable democracies of course
Last time I voted cops were talking to a guy in a red hat outside, but everyone was chill and they were laughing and joking so I didn’t pay attention.
Everyone inside, totally on edge.
I found out later that guy had taken his shirt off and yelled at poll workers which was especially problematic because he had a loaded gun tucked into his pants. No holster and I’m not even sure he had a belt.
He might be there next time too, just in uniform.
I don’t give a fuck, because I know what happened in the South when people caved to that kind of voter intimidation. I’m casting a ballet even if there’s bullets actively being fired at the polling location.
All this shit does is make voting more important, that’s how we need to frame it.
Im considering finding a local polling location where I can stand watch and gather other like minded people so there are more of us than them there. They will be the intimidated, they are the minority.
Great spirit, terrible idea.
You won’t make anyone feel more comfortable, you’ll just make things crowded and chaotic.
The only reason anyone should be at a polling location is casting a vote.
You want to group up somewhere and show support, do it a block away within eyesight. Have signs and shit about how voting matters now more than ever.
Chances are ICE will come fuck with you anyways, which is still a win because then they’re not at the polling station either.
Hi, poll worker here and this is absolutely accurate. If you stand in or near our polling place we will absolutely have you removed.
However… observing polls is a core part of a functional democracy and I strongly encourage you to do so. Each county is a bit different, but essentially every single one of them have some sort of process that you can register as an observer and you’ll be legally protected while observing and documenting what you see. If you’re affiliated with a political party, contact your local officials and they can help facilitate, as most observers are party affiliated.
Excellent. Thank you. This is what we need to know. We just need to have sufficient numbers of people doing legal observation at the right places.
Can you explain to me the logic of using voting as a tactic at this point? I’m very confused by the “I’ll vote not matter what” that runs counter to the fact that we literally will have a fascist military force that will be involved in the voting process.
Do you think we live in a world that has SS troops door knocking BUT we also will somehow have a fair election as long as we are “brave enough”? Like, I’m genuinely asking. Do you think we can vote fascist out of power?
They’ll guard the polls. They’ll redistrict maps. They’ll murder people in the street and say it was “self defense”. They’ll kidnap children. But, if we just vote them out they’ll go “aw shucks, I guess we gotta pack it up”.
I genuinely want to know if people think we’re still at a point that we can just turn this around with voting. Am I out of touch? Like, I’m not trying to be a Doomer. There are other ways to fight them. I’m not saying to not vote if you’re safe to do so. But if you’re gonna dodge bullets to go vote. I really want to know if you really think that that will actually make fascist give up their power.
Multiple fronts required. No one action will be the solution. Vote to establish legitimacy. Protest to register dissent. Civic pressure to demonstrate conviction and organization. Fringe ‘performative’ resistance to sow sone unrest and uncertainty and maybe inspire. Some violence fir fear, mostly aimed at inanimates. In the street security details, like minneapolis.
And most importantly, daily microresistance and malicious compliance, sabotage, redirection, and education.
Agree completely. I am just shocked at the amount of people that stop after your first bullet point.
the overwhelming majority of the country lives paycheck to paycheck or is otherwise one accident away from destitution
keeping people just on that edge of survival but not literally starving acts as great tool for keeping the poors inline, has been the US’s bread and butter for many decades now
My take on what is likely necessary to end fascism:
- Voting - mostly a distraction, but some harm reduction
- Protesting - useful to build organization and networking
- Armed passive resistance - most important right now, to demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on violence is not absolute
- Militant groups undertaking targeted sabotage and assassination
- Building alternatives to the capitalist system
- Insurrection; uprising; civil war
The 4 boxes of liberty: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the ammo box (preferably in that order).
But, if we just vote them out they’ll go “aw shucks, I guess we gotta pack it up”.
I know Jan 6 happened, but they fucked off after losing the election in 2029 when the found no means of weaseling their way to hold onto power. Voting was a means to that end. Not the sole solution but absolutely a tool to be leveraged, imo.
Yeah but then Biden came into power and did nothing to stop fascism, continued to fund and support the same agencies, continued to support genocide in Palestine, and so on. Democrats are the enemy too. You must realize this.
That’s why I encourage everyone to engage with and support actual progressive candidates. Then you gotta vote for them when primaries roll around
This shit won’t work. It has been tried for decades. It is a big, stinking, failure. Leave it in the garbage can of history and come into the future with us, comrade. The revolution needs you.
You’re not crazy. I think most people are firmly still in denial. Nobody wants to acknowledge the ugly truth of the alternative, and the necessary sacrifices involved.
Honestly, thank you. I keep seeing people pointing at things and just following up with literally pointing back at the system that has been destroyed as the solution. I guess it is denial. But often times it’s hostile denial. Like, I’m the problem for saying we need to work outside of the system that has been destroyed. Or worse, that I caused it somehow by wanting to fight against it.
I see a lot of that, too. It’s tragic. It makes me think of faith. People believe in their gods (the system) to protect them so long as they follow the required rituals, ceremonies, and do not question their beliefs.
People are very heavily invested into their belief and trust in the system. Seeing physical evidence of how the system doesn’t work causes cognitive dissonance which can be resolved either by accepting reality (the system won’t protect me, I am very vulnerable) or by continuing to reject it in some way - denial, bargaining, doomerism, etc.
All we can do is keep fighting. More and more people are waking up. I used to get hundreds of downvotes on Reddit for telling people that laws are optional for the wealthy. I remember getting yelled at by hundreds of comments about how Bill Gates is “one of the good ones”, wouldn’t happen now, and maybe some of those people who I argued with are further left now because of me. Progress is slow so it feels invisible to us while we’re in the present. But have faith, we will win in the end.
Thanks. I don’t think we will win in my lifetime though. And that’s something I have to accept. Planting trees you won’t enjoy the shade of and all that.
Great. Send half of them to the North Pole, half of them to the South. Problem solved.
GET YOUR FUCKING GUNS, Y’ALL
If you can’t vote by ballot, vote by bullet.
Steve Bannon, the Epstein PR guy?
Yep. Does anyone know if he’s in the tRUMP-Epstein files?
Then we’ll surround ICE. Fuck em
Right. Show up and do the needful.
I’ve seen armed “guards” and my polling station before and it’s unsettling to say the least.
Say no words. Just vote.
You know, for somebody so friendly with Epstein, Bannon sure does seem to be not in jail for some fucking reason?
Well, he was pardoned by Trump.
Only for defrauding trump supporters.
Fucking nazis.
I know that the Black Panthers have a history of protecting polls while armed, but perhaps it’s time we allow people of all colors to be armed and protecting the polls.
There’s a lot more of us than there are of ICE.
Someone pointed out in another thread that schools and govt buildings where polling stations are already dont permit guns. But if ther are 50 of us there, the 10 of them they can muster will run like the cowards they are.
That’s the issue with the government’s monopoly on violence here. It’s okay if they bring their guns to terrorize people, but it’s not okay for ordinary people to protect others.
Trump wants ICE to THREATEN NON REPUBLICAN VOTERS WITH GUNS? Wow! They probably need a LOT of Funding for That! Let’s give it to Them!
-Democrats Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries!
“Be sure to give them body cams so the destruction of the constitution will be well documented” - feckless Dems
Spineless Israel lover Chuck Schumer and his lackie Hakeem Jeffries.
Might have bring out my rosebud
