There are lots of names for our form of corporate rule. You can call it a duopoly or oligarchy or kleptocracy or, my favorite, a kakistocracy – rule of the most stupid, venal and unscrupulous. Political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin coined the term “inverted totalitarianism”. All apply but the one that unifies them all is what we’ve got: corporate state fascism.

But what about voting?

Yeah, what about voting? In election after election, we are betrayed as the flowery campaign promises of both parties quickly dry out and morph into whatever the corporations and wealthy demand once the politicians are comfortably in office.

Should you still vote? Sure, go ahead, but beyond local and the occasional state race, abandon any illusion that any fundamental needed change will come of it. On average, 40% of eligible voters head to the polls. Twenty-five percent vote occasionally or on single issues and 35% have given up voting altogether. Well over half of eligible voters see the fraud.

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

– Emma Goldman

Do I still vote? Yeah. Reluctantly. Glumly.

I don’t believe I have ever missed an election. I was once even a county Democratic Party co-chair. Obama’s cynical transformation from “Hope & Change” to “Bait & Switch” was a tipping point for me. I’m an independent now and trudge off to the polls with little enthusiasm or expectation of any real change resulting. I often leave ballot slots empty or write in a name from history (Eugene Debbs is a favorite).

I support people choosing not to vote because an ever-dwindling number of voters undermines the faux legitimacy of the kabuki theater that is American politics. In other words, a non-vote is a vote, and in a way – given our corrupted system – the most eloquent.

If not voting, what then?

We are in a very similar position to what was faced during the Great Depression. Back then a broad movement of labor unions and far left parties like the Socialists, Wobblies and, yes, even Communists, rose up and led massive strikes and factory occupations. There was a broad, diverse movement to provide mutual aid and support: people helping people. Many of Franklin Roosevelt’s popular reforms that rescued suffering millions were lifted whole or in part from ideas pushed by movement radicals. Because he was helping people, FDR was reelected four times despite being massively outspent.

“When everybody does better, everybody does better.”

– Jim Hightower

We need such movement politics again. We need more of what we are beginning to see: workers standing up to corporate oligarchs and corrupt union leadership. We need sit-down strikes and factory occupations. We need general strikes across industries. We need targeted boycotts. We need masses on the streets. As we have seen with massive protests in Europe, the exploitative system needs to be brought to a halt. Billionaires can’t slurp up unearned fortunes if workers refuse to run the machinery, drive the trucks, write the software, make the deliveries, install the plumbing, staff the stores, offices and coffee shops or buy their products.

Most of all we need to step beyond our tight little inward-focused identity groups to forge broad unity on the many things we agree on. I support Medicare for All and will happily join hands with someone else advocating for M4A, even if we don’t agree on other issues. That is the abandoned art of politics and exactly what most terrifies those in power and why they work so hard to divide us from and turn us against our neighbors.

So, instead of our current ‘demockracy’, let us come together to enact a genuine ‘small-d’ democratic citizens movement of survival.

It’s that, or die.

I make all original cartoons, illustrations and photography posted on DeMOCKracy.ink free for progressive groups to use. Check out the “Lines of Resistance” page for details.

• Study: US Is An Oligarchy, Not A Democracy:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746