We’re used to seeing voter suppression stories that focus on restricting the types of IDs that can be used to register to vote, or which restrict the hours and places people can vote, or make it extremely difficult to vote by mail, or which make it a crime to bring food and water to people waiting in line to encourage them to stay in line. But there is another type of voter suppression and it is less obvious and more insidious:  cynicism.

Cynicism suppresses voting because if you believe that your vote doesn’t change anything, or that the system is always rigged against the good, or that every politician is on the take, or the government can’t ever accomplish anything meaningful, then you’re less likely to vote.

The cynicism push can be an overt deluge of bad things happening, like the daily fear and dread we had during TFG’s administration. Or it can be quiet pressure from people you might think you are on your side. Here’s an example:

You absolutely do not have to vote for Joe Biden. Even if you live in a swing state. https://t.co/FkYTQDr97y

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) June 27, 2023

Ah, yes, the eternal promise of third party candidates. You might think that the people pushing third party candidates in the post-TFG age are just earnest do-gooders who truly want to make America better.

For example, Cornel West. Dr. West is a well-known and well-respected public intellectual and at first I thought it made sense that he was exploring running as the Green Party candidate. I mean, I didn’t like it, but if he were going to run it could have been a transformative moment for that disgraced party. But then this happened:

Two-time Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein told CNN on Thursday that she is now assisting Cornel West, the former Harvard professor and longtime progressive activist, as he builds up his recently announced campaign for the White House.

“I’m a transition coordinator helping his campaign move from its previous People’s Party context into the Green Party and developing his team and the infrastructure that he needs to run a full-powered, people-powered campaign,” Stein said.

Hard pass. No one needs another Muscovite Candidate.

But it’s not just that a Putin friend is running his campaign, it’s the willful refusal to recognize what the right in this country are doing and choosing to splinter the coalition that can mount the best defense against what the right wants to accomplish. Hopefully West realizes that his presence in the race only benefits the fascist right.

RFK Jr is an unwell person whose campaign is financed by Steve Bannon. He has no chance to win the Democratic nomination but his presence in the news all the time with his nonsense adds to the cynicism about the democratic process and allows the Democrat haters to muck around with the primaries.

The No Labels team is a Republican stalking horse to reelect TFG. It isn’t a registered political, so it’s not subject to the same rules and disclosures as a political party would be. They’ve been actively courting Joe Manchin which I think is funny because who is going to vote for him? Liberals detest him and conservatives would pick an actual conservative. No Labels may be engaging in voter fraud so I’m hoping that’s uncovered in time to put them out of business.

So much of the impetus for the movement around third party candidates is based in an overwhelming hatred of…Democrats by leftists who are ideologically nourished by a steady diet of faked Twitter profiles that highlight fake “shitlib” content produced by right wing operatives. For some reason these obviously fake accounts are accepted as proof that the Democrats are the actual bad guys.

I can’t even anymore with this crap. Fascism is bad. I’m not quite sure why it keeps having to be repeated. Heaven 17 can sing me out.