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A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
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The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
I understand that. What baffles me is how willing he is to accept the FPTP system they have in the US, especially with his history. Given the beginning of his tweet, you’d think he’d conclude with an appeal to reform the system, to make it viable to vote for third parties. Instead, he acts as if the system was a constant of the universe, not a man made one that can quite easily be changed. He lays down the perfect argument for a reform of the system, without actually speaking out in favor of it. Thats whats wild to me.
And who should be the one to actually do the reforming? Everyone always asks for reform in the system but no one actually wants any specific entity to do it.
The people doing the reforming would need to be the people with the power to change the system in those ways. I’m not familiar enough with the system in the US to know whether that is the president, the supreme court, congress, or some other entity, but someone has the power to do that I’m quite certain.
To get them to do this, the people would need to pressure them into it, be it with their vote, petitions, demonstrations, social media posts or whatnot. There are many ways to achieve change, but it won’t happen as long as people just keep voting for the lesser evil, because “eh, what can you do”