Letters from a Young Radical

This sort of thing drives me nuts. Yeah, these campaigns are great. I have no idea if they actually work, but hopefully they do. Me, I decided to vote for a lesser evil this year, but this isn't really about my politics.

As Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." Last time we had an economic crisis like this (The Great Depression), the hero that made The New Deal happen wasn't the president who executed the orders, but the people who put pressure on him to do so.

Yes, voting is important, particularly if you're someone who believe that the ideal president can make better decisions for America's people than America's people can. I of course, don't share this view, but many people do. That's why videos like this spend all their time on trying to get people to vote the right person in, rather than talking about how once they're in power, we have to hold them accountable.

Heroification of the office of president is one of the dangerous ideas that discredits the power of the masses. Our history textbooks are rife with it. The individualist character of America makes it even worse. They benefit when we believe that uniquely special people are what changes the world, because then we won't band together with others to make demands. But history has proven that it's pressure from below that makes the real magic happen in Washington.