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It's no surprise Briahna doesn't get that voting in a bourgeois election is a purely consumer-level, symbolic act considering what she was doing this year and last. You think she would get it the most given how hard her campaign was fucked over and how easily the electorate was pied piper'd to the Biden campaign by Obama and the DNC elite - even the people at who could be said to participating at the highest level (besides actually running for office) are screwed over and their votes discounted.
Elections are an endless shell game from top to bottom and the level that people actually participate in them is minuscule. The people who actually vote are barely 55% of the electorate, primary voters are even rarer, people that donate to a primary campaign or volunteer are unicorns. Briahna is confusing her own and her friends relationship to elections (and the twitterati in general), but the data is in - most people don't engage with voting because they correctly recognize how little it has to do with their lives.
Briahna and the politcally motivated class could be said to have a "collective" characteristic to their vote, but almost everyone who votes is doing so at the individual level (because they don't participate in campaigns or primaries and only passively consume info at best). There are no organizations that could actually move the vote one way or the other because all of our social bonds have been dissolved by neoliberialism (Briahna countered this by saying she isn't personally a neoliberal, which ironically proves the point that social bonds have been dissolved - but as neoliberalism operates at the societal level and not the individual). Endorsements don't matter anymore, no one is suborned to a democratic centralist org, working people lack mass class consciousness.
The closest to a collective vote we have are these shadows on the walls of plato's cave. An actual collective vote would require mass participation and mass awareness of class position and mass suborning to a centralist org.
So, are these worth a listen? I've seen mixed responses.
edit: I guess I shouldve seen the mixed responses here coming. Gotta listen to it to find out 🤷♂️
Yeah they're good. Lots of good Virgil content, some good guests, Briahna is a good left-whisperer and is good at pinning down Virgil to defend his thoughts more clearly.
I listened to the first episode and bounced off. Personally, where I’m at politically, I just don’t need yet another podcast of some wonks discussing electoralism. I’m looking for more at this point tbh. And the first episode was extremely that. Depends what you’re looking for I guess.
The only way to make voting not an individual or consumer choice is if you are compelled to vote one way or the other. People participate in revolutions because they're compelled to, they have no choice, they're snowflakes in an avalanche. Voting in the USA today can't be an avalanche (or a "blue wave") because we are not materially compelled to vote for Biden, Trump, or 3rd party. The revolution won't occur because suddenly everyone understands and agrees with the need for a socialist society, the revolution will come about because enough people have a material need to fight against the current system that the rest of society is compelled to participate.
Workers have a material need to form a union because they need better pay, are at risk of having their jobs outsourced, etc. That's collective action.
It would be nice if a consumer society chose the option of socialism over capitalism. But that would not be collective action.
I’ve been enjoying this new podcast. God damn virgil is funny. And brie is so sweet! Great combo.
