voting

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Elections: The house always wins

“No to the political parties’ electoral process.”

Those to the left of the varied strains of normative fascism that pass for mainstream political discourse in the United States nowadays have likely been inundated with celebratory messages and reports of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral elections yesterday. By all accounts, today the air is a little fresher as we are all lifted up by the winds of change because around one million people in a corner of what is called the U.S. voted for a “democratic socialist,” whatever that means anymore. Faith in democracy and electoral politics abound as the “right” or “good” candidate won this time. Mamdani is the exception that proves the rule that the system works. Nagging doubts about the validity of representative democracy as a means to order our social and political lives have been put to rest. Hope has been restored. But there is a thin line between hope and naivety. I propose the following be considered alongside any rejoicing.

Nobody won. There are almost 4.7 million “active registered voters” in NYC out of a population of 8.48 million. Only two million or so people voted. Meaning the vast majority of New Yorkers, including registered voters, did not vote. As in every election, most people couldn’t be bothered to engage in the charade of casting a vote. Mamdani didn’t win. Nobody won. Nobody represents us. Nobody should be in office.

Mamdani’s victory isn’t news. He was the Democratic candidate in a Democratic city running an iteration of “The Rent is Too Damn High” campaign in a place where rent costs an average of $4,000 per month. It would be nonsensical for him not to win when almost two-thirds of registered NYC voters are Democrats. (Yes, yes, I get it, the party  and media machines were against him.) The heavens haven’t opened; politics have just played out as politics play out. Despite the overwhelming odds in his favor, Mamdani only won 50% of the vote. Andrew Cuomo, whose own shadow wouldn’t even vote for him, still managed to get more than 850,000 votes. This wasn’t a runaway victory or a landslide endorsement of democratic socialism or, even less, a statement on U.S. foreign policy. It was a Democrat winning where the Democrat always wins.

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Addiction and electoral politics

voting-addiction-insanity-einsteinOne of the most insidious aspects of addiction is that it’s a disease which convinces you that you don’t have it. It manifests in a powerful form of denial. Ask a person with addiction why they drink or use and the answer will rarely be, “Because I’m an addict.” Invariably the reply will pin the cause on a certain circumstance, person or event, or just “because I want to, I can stop anytime, leave me alone.” For the addict, the few times drinking or using didn’t lead to things getting out of control, or to a series of unintended consequences, are firmly grasped onto and elevated as proof that one doesn’t have a problem. The mountain of evidence to the contrary is swept out of mind. When things go awry they are presented as aberrations instead of what they are, which is the norm. Desperate to prove to ourselves and others that we’ve got things under control, we repeatedly pick up again, convinced that this time it will be different. It never is. And the cycle continues on its ruinous spiral.

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Elections in Mexico: Close the streets, open the way

A bus serves as a barricade in the historic city center of Oaxaca.

A bus serves as a barricade in the historic city center of Oaxaca.

On Sunday, June 7, midterm elections were held in Mexico. Well, the state attempted to hold elections. As it turns out, the people of Mexico weren’t having it. A vast majority – 71 percent in a poll I saw – did not believe that the elections would be fair. With rampant vote-buying, candidates with documented links to cartels, party-affiliated candidates running as independents, political assassinations, and an ongoing climate of impunity, massacres, terror and voracious capitalism, not many are enthusiastic about the direction Mexico is going in.

As well, the family members of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa Teaching School in Guerrero called for the elections to be boycotted unless the students were returned alive. Their argument being that a government which murders and disappears students, then criminalizes those demanding their return, and has known links to drug cartels is not to be trusted nor is capable of holding free and fair elections. The CNTE, the more militant wing of the national teachers union, joined onto the call, furious – among other things – with government moves to privatize education and introduce standardization and quotas.

The call to boycott elections turned into efforts to impede the elections from happening. Over the past week, especially in the southern rural, indigenous and poor states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas, teachers and their supporters seized National Electoral Institute (INE) offices, burning voter rolls and hundreds of thousands of ballots. In Oaxaca, teachers also blockaded the airport and seized an oil refinery and gas stations around the state, dispensing gas for free.

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