PSA if you've been writing to me about how to convince your red-hat relatives to vote differently this fall:

This is not a "If I could just find the right words I know I could get through" problem.

Imagine your relatives have joined a doomsday cult.

There are 2 goals:

1. Get your people to leave the cult
2. Stop the cult from blowing up the world

#1 is about persuasion. #2 is about power.

#2 IS THE PRIORITY. We must remove their power to blow up the world.

We must remove their power to blow up the world (& stop the harm they are doing) whether or not any individual people leave the doomsday cult before the countdown clock reaches zero.

If you want to spend time engaging with your relatives and trying to persuade them and convince them, that is a nice thing to do.

But their redemption project is not the most urgent project, not by a lot.

*Anybody* who tells you "x candidate, policy, etc. is how we will get T---- voters to switch sides and win" is, frankly, gambling the safety of the world on the personal redemption arcs of racist white people.

Historically, that is the worst bet EVER.

The logic of "if we can get them to leave the cult, it solves the problem of saving the world" is attractive, because it means the possibility of redemption and changing the hearts of people we love, and because it was the theme of every Buffy/Angel season finale in history.

We outnumber them.

We must outvote them and protect the vote & the right to vote and the safety of voters.
We must bolster the leaders who actually show leadership and increase pressure the ones who keep wanting to bargain with evil.

I do not want to argue about Buffy & Angel we can have different opinions y'all FUCKING STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT THE FUCK OUT OF MY MENTIONS RIGHT THE FUCK NOW

Find a different metaphor that works for you about the ubiquity of costly redemption narratives, I don't care.

Also, re: your relatives, if you want to talk to them about who they are voting for and why, go for it. Use any words you want about why you care about what you love.

And then for every relative you try to collect, do something meaningful to make it so that somebody who wants to vote can actually vote and have their vote actually count.

Two starting places:
https://protectthevote.net/ 
https://postcardstovoters.org/ 

Our win conditions are not that we get our UncleDad Archie Bunker and AuntGrandma Karen back in time for Thanksgiving so that you don't have to write me those "surviving holidays" letters this year.

Our win conditions are, we push the fascists back hard and make it impossible for them to hurt people.

Karen & Archie's hearts are their own fucken business and changing them might be part of your work but it's not the #1 work on the to-do list.

This has been true for at least 4 years btw, but the idea that there are a whole lot of undecided swing voters in 2020 waitin' for the right kind of white guy or that "THIS WILL BE THE SCANDAL THAT FINALLY MAKES THEM SEEEEEEEE" is a deeply dangerous delusion.

The people in the cult aren't coming out of it until the cult loses its hold on meaningful power.

(& some of them are never coming out.)

In he 1990s I lived, studied, and worked in many countries that stopped being authoritarian states and tried to be something new and the win condition for hearts and minds of relatives is something like, you win and they all try to pretend they supported you all along.

And you decide how magnanimous you feel like being about that while also putting in tons of rules & safeguards so that members of the former regime cannot continue to steal all the money or hang onto power, because again, it's about power more than it is about opinion.

If you have to give it one more try with your relatives before November, because it will help *you* to know you tried everything, then I'm with you, I get you, I believe you, I love you. You already know the right words, and you don't need me for that.

But I am telling you as front-row witness to other times the statues came toppling down, we are already enough to do what has to be done if we can focus and not get lost on side-quests.

"We have to be x amount of deferential to racists or else it becomes *our entire fault* when they get more racist/keep being racist"

-Some Racist Guy, Probably (probably a NYT op-ed writer?)

"The only acceptable way to fight Nazis is to debate them respectfully on college campuses as if there are two equal sides to everything, otherwise you will ruin freeze peach"

-Someone Who Is Sure They Won't Ever Be In The Crosshairs of Nazis But Doesn't Really Care If You Are

"If a person was personally nice to you in a meaningful way, that tells you everything you need to know about their character! Defend them at all costs against unfair critique!"

-The Anonymous Abuser's Song, traditional ballad

"You stated your point imperfectly and with what I deem is excess emotion, ergo, I don't have to care about other people, you lose!"

- a cappella sea shanty in 4-part harmony recovered from the wreck of the good ship Debate Me, who went down with all hands

"But how will we possibly paaaaaaaaaaay for [a thing that is a human right]?"

-A person who is more interested in getting you to give up your human rights than in *ever* getting them paid for

If I do nothing else with this thread, hopefully it can be a review of how to quickly tell when someone isn't actually on your side but who might be convinced to pretend they are, for argument's sake, if it means they can claim some of your energy and attention.

I'm muting notifications now, so:

I love you all, and I love you perhaps most of all for the impulse that wants to save everyone you can, even the assholes (who will die just like anyone if we fail to win the day).

The problem is not your loving heart. Keep that always.

The question is who do we place at the center of our work for justice?

White people's most openly, shamelessly racist relatives have been the center for waaaaaaaaay too fucking long and there are 10,000 other fights that need your beautiful hearts and all your strength today.

If you prefer your politics rants in (free to read and share) paragraph form, I got u: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38751517