Again though, I really can’t blame people for being disillusioned with the democratic system in general, right? We’ve just been through a generational moment where any viable left opposition in the West got shit-housed into oblivion, and AOC is giving us a great lesson in what succeeding through the proper channels means in practice. And what has been the response from the political class more generally? To move even further right!
It’s a miserable situation ofc, and I don’t blame you at all for venting. But neither do I blame people for venting despite doing nothing else. Sanders raised a lot of money, and a lot of volunteer hours, and what did it yield? And the fallout from Corbynism has been as bad if not worse. Many people got blacklisted over it, and several door knockers ended up in hospital — why would anyone want to put themselves on the line like that again, especially when the potential gains are so meager?
Dgmw, I too wish that people would channel their anger through effective organizing, but imho it’s become a lot less clear in recent years what that would mean.
I still use Mastodon — as a place to dump intrusive thoughts more than anything — but there is this huge tension between people who want to chat with randoms, people who only want to chat with friends, and people who want to use it purely as a broadcast medium. The protocol/convention doesn’t really allow for managing this issue, which is a shame, but I have come to the conclusion that microblogging is just kind of cursed as a medium. It’s fundamentally all about building a personal brand, and if you have no social capital you are shit out of luck. And if you have too much, well, enter the reply guys.
Lemmy/the Reddit model on the other hand strikes a good balance between anonymity and being able to vet odd characters. Different people want different things ofc, and that’s fine, but I find I have more fruitful conversations here than on Mastodon.