How to cosplay as a Republican for midterms?

mudkip@lemdro.id · 10 hours

I’m in the US and as we all know they’re definitely planning on using ICE at the polling booths for voter intimidation. I look quite democrat/liberal (long hair, below average body hair, slightly chubby with low muscle, straight teeth) so I’ll probably be a target for it. I’ve been thinking of dressing up as a Republican so I’ll be less likely to be targeted. I don’t wanna scare people or get in trouble so I’m not going to do something as obvious as wearing a Confederate flag. I also can’t change my appearance that much so I don’t get flagged for my ID. What I do to look like a Republican without scaring others or getting in trouble?

Andy@slrpnk.net · 9 hours

First: It’s not like ice are going to walk up to white girls with blue hair and be like, ‘No voting for you, liberal.’ They don’t need to assess anyone to guess how they’re going to vote: the plan is to just reduce overall turnout at voting sites in places with a lot of Democratic voters.

The way I expect this to go is for Maga folks to drive into big cities and station themselves outside voting sites in poor, non-white neighborhoods and pretend they’re ‘looking out for non citizens who might try to vote’. The goal is to create hassles and long lines so that people who have limited time decide to leave instead of wait.

If you are able to arrive early and don’t mind waiting you’ll be fine. But a better response is to contact your county and volunteer as an election worker. If you do, you can help enforce distance requirements for observers, make sure there are no bottlenecks, make sure there is seating available, keep the line moving in good spirits, etc.

If you just make voting smooth and efficient as a volunteer, they lose.

TiredTiger@lemmy.ml · 7 hours

I’m not a fan of electoralism, but it’s worth pointing out that ICE does not have the manpower to patrol every polling place. I don’t think they could even cover every polling place in a large metropolitan area, let alone an entire state. They’ve only got like 10,000 guys. That’s not that many in a country with over 300 million people.

lichengeese@lemmy.zip · 8 hours

Do early voting, or request an absentee ballot. The latter can be hand delivered if you are paranoid about the mail

Vanth@reddthat.com · 10 hours

Blue jeans, brown shoes (boots if you have them), t-shirt with at least one US flag on it somewhere. You can also substitute for a Dallas Cowboys or the Buccanneers t-shirt.

sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 6 hours

This is how i camouflaged. Add in a trucker cap from the gas station. The down side is sometimes conservative people will try to talk to you as one of their own.

undrwater@lemmy.world · 10 hours

Punisher T-shirt ought to be sufficient.

funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works · 10 hours

Damn, Americans checking for body hair at polling booths now

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@anarchist.nexus · 10 hours

I look quite democrat/liberal (long hair, below average body hair, slightly chubby with low muscle, straight teeth) so I’ll probably be a target for it.

Nah, there are definitely Republicans that look like you. If you want to look like a “Republican”, show up in plain, unlabeled clothes, except maybe wear a shirt or cap with an AmeriKKKan flag.

Better yet, don’t give these settler-colonialist fucks the gift of your time and attention. And apparently, you’re even possibly risking your own safety to do this? It’s just not worth your time and safety, especially since the whole system is precisely engineered to be immune to the political will of the working class.

TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works · 10 hours

No you should vote

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@anarchist.nexus · 8 hours

If voting is the democratic participation in our own oppression, voting as harm reduction is a politics that keeps us at the mercy of our oppressors.

While so many on the left–including some Indigenous radicals–are concerned with consolidation of power into fascists hands, they fail to recognize how colonial power is already consolidated. There is nothing intersectional about participating in and maintaining a genocidal political system. There’s no meaningful solidarity to be found in a politics that urges us to meet our oppressors where they’re at. Voting as harm reduction imposes a false solidarity upon those identified to be most vulnerable to harmful political policies and actions. In practice it plays out as paternalistic identity politicking as liberals work to identify the least dangerous candidates and rally to support their campaigns. The logic of voting as harm reduction asserts that whoever is facing the most harm will gain the most protection by the least dangerous denominator in a violently authoritarian system. This settler-colonial naivety places more people, non-human beings, and land at risk then otherwise. Most typically the same liberal activists that claim voting is harm reduction are found denouncing and attempting to suppress militant direct actions and sabotage as acts that “only harm our movement.” “Voting as harm reduction” is the pacifying language of those who police movements. Voting as harm reduction is the government issued blanket of the democratic party, we’re either going to sleep or die in it.

To organize from a position that voting is an act of damage limitation blurs lines of the harm that settler and resource colonialism imposes. Under colonial occupation all power operates through violence. There is absolutely nothing “less harmful” about participating in and perpetuating the political power of occupying forces. Voting won’t undue settler colonialism, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, or capitalism. Voting is not a strategy for decolonization. The entire process that arrived at the “Native vote” was an imposition of U.S. political identity on Indigenous Peoples fueled by white supremacy and facilitated by capitalism.

— Voting is Not Harm Reduction: An Indigenous Perspective, emphasis mine.

dnick@sh.itjust.works · 6 hours

Not voting because it’s not a good harm reduction strategy is just another way of saying it won’t do any good so don’t bother.

If you are trying to present a nuanced argument against some specific reason ‘for’ voting, more power to you, but you are seriously coming across as a worthless bot put in place to recommend not voting wherever possible.

dnick@sh.itjust.works · 6 hours

Still, go out and vote

Astronut@lemmy.zip · 10 hours

Just put on a MAGA hat and pretend you’re the stupidest sumbitch you can be!