You know what wins in electoral politics?
Coalitions. Messy, annoying, disappointing, grudging coalitions.
(Short
This is a perfect example of what electoral victory looks like in real life: not awesome, not everything any of us would want, a parade of miserable disappointments ahead, but disaster averted — and maybe, maybe even moving the giant glacial ice sheet of society an inch in a positive direction.
People expect way too much from elections. Change doesn’t come from elections. Change happens in daily life: in human relationships, in information bubbles, in protests, in conversations, in people showing up where it counts.
Elections aren’t the source of progress. They’re dangerous single points of failure. This time, at least, it looks like France avoided the worst.
I should clarify: change •can• come from elections in the form of a malicious actor seizing power without real popular support (whether by low turnout, vote suppression, or broken process; we have all theee in the US). In that case, yes, the election itself is the cause of the change.
•Positive• change requires popular support, so when it manifests in an election, it means some form of social change is already underway.
This thread in a short metaphor:
Elections are like steering: can’t miraculously teleport you to your destination, but stop minding it for even one minute and it will wreck you.
This post from @burnoutqueen does a good job of expressing feelings I used to have 20 years ago or so:
https://tech.lgbt/@burnoutqueen/112747510965269952
I’ve since changed my thinking to flip the causal arrow in the other direction: campaigns are important, but success stems from the wider political movement created by [insert many social forces here].
Electoral campaigns are a focusing lens, not the light source.