i mean. for the city council members who are pledging to re-appoint the same representatives. yes. this is indeed why government matters on every level. this is exactly why its important to vote in your local elections.

except GOTV campaigns are not necessarily stopping the power structure from ignoring social movements or even literally removing state representatives from the legislature. the defense of those legislators literally can’t be accomplished with GOTV if the state party has effectively made itself permanently in power through gerrymandering and racist politics. getting out the vote has a place in this, as you’ve outlined, but responding to this with “just vote” is woefully inadequate at best...

oh 100%, I know and I agree. but i dont see how you get “just vote” (as in, dont do anything else) from a tweet that says ‘this is why even local elections matter.’ Maybe I’m missing some context about who Olivia Julianna is?

GOTV campaigns tend to get disproportionate time and nationwide resources poured in to them as compared to other, local organizing efforts based on relative likelihood of these efforts to accomplish substantive policy goals. (surprise, surprise). However, making fun of every tweet that mentions voting doesn’t help divert attention back toward other more direct ways of putting political/social power in the hands of the people. Instead, it just feels defeatist. The sentiment that voting doesnt do anything, expressed alone and without alternatives, leads* people who dont know what else they could do for their communities to just give up and Also not vote.

* at the margins - I’m not trying to claim one tumblr post has a statistically significant effect on peoples behavior, but any post has the potential to be viewed outside your immediate circle (general “you”) and divorced from any context about who you are and what youre doing in your community

[image: 2023 April 6 tweet by 0liviajulianna, transcribed below:]

THIS IS WHY GOVERNMENT MATTERS ON EVERY LEVEL!!

THIS IS WHY YOU VOTE IN EVERY. SINGLE. ELECTION.

.

Olivia Julianna is Director of Politics and Government Affairs at Gen Z For Change:

Which nonprofit has several more initiatives than just mobilizing voters. As one might guess from the below headlines, which feature the same Olivia Julianna, and the NPR article is from last summer, it's over two point three million dollars now:

Dragging people for saying voting is the only useful political tool is valid. Dragging people for saying voting is a vastly underutilized political tool is not. Dragging Olivia Julianna for saying that? Fuck right the fuck off!