Members-Only Article
One sentence in a post from earlier this afternoon really set off a firestorm in your emails. I’m going to print a selection of them later. For now, let me explain or clarify. As is so often the case, I think this is at least in part that so-common thing in political arguments: two sides tossing the same slogan back and forth and basically talking past each other because they are interpreting it as meaning different things. This is about “just vote” as some kind of generalized slogan and those who say that they’ve voted enough, voting hasn’t worked, it’s not a good enough answer, etc.
From your emails it’s clear that many of you interpret this phrase as “all you need to do is vote,” or “don’t ask questions, just vote,” or “don’t do anything else but vote.” I don’t know why anyone interprets this that way. But then again, it’s not something I tell anyone in the first place. I’m hardly someone who says, “just take the party leadership’s word for it” or “go with whatever strategy or lack of strategy they propose” since I’ve dedicated my writing at TPM for the last couple months to arguing that the White House and congressional leadership are making a category error in how they are approaching Roe and the midterm election and that it will require ordinary voters and activists to force their hand to follow a better strategy.