Whould everyone doing nothing be a viable option?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Seigest@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

This is a Canadian asking about the US. Though given that crappy state of things here we could consider it as well.

If the next president isn’t picked as a result of the popular vote but as a result of the system being terrible then a majority of the people of the country will have been wronged.

Instead of doing civil war about it, what if there was a mass movement to just do nothing. Everyone just grabs a chair and sits on their lawn or in a park all day and just chills out instead of working, attending events, or really participating in the economy in any significant way. Take a sick day or somthing if it helps. But anybody can do nothing.

In only a few days, maybe less, the economy whould take a massive hit. Just everyone sits around untill a fair election is called without any electoral college or first past the post nonsense.

Obviously there’s huge challenges to this. Like finding an end condition everyone can agree on. Also getting a representative to ensure the demands had been met. the huge wave of firing, threats, and violence from the other side whould probably have some effect. But the other side is a minority, and could be overwhelmed.

So if big enough, could it work?

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Comments

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Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yes, that’s called a general strike. Fairly common tactic for independence movements and workers rights movements, you still see them in South America sometimes. They’re not easy to organize, you need a lot of pissed off people.

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- activ8r@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  You have a lot of pissed off people and your country has a history of saying fuck you to political figures you don’t like 😉
  
  Love, Your English Allies
  
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merde@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
☞ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike

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- Seigest@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  That whould typically involve unions. No need for them here though.
  
  Unions are great for a lot of things but they’d be less inclined to help on this as they, don’t all support the same parties, and probably dont want their workers to violate any contracts as it would damage future negotiations.
  
  I think isn’t a matter of labour and would be stonger without unions. It needs to be from the people.
  
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  - NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    It is a general strike, what you are suggesting. Whether you like the name or not.
    
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  - seaQueue@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    You don’t need a union to strike, you can self organize and just do it
    
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bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It seems fairly likely Trump will win the popular vote

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- glimse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  He is up by FIVE MILLION votes as of this comment. Fuck the red states
  
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Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It’s a nice idea, but a design feature built in to most countries is that the majority of people are too poor to skip a day of work. Losing their job, or simply not being paid for a days work could tip people into starvation, default on existing debts, or loss of access to expensive medication.

Anyone high enough on the pyramid to be the target of such a protest does not care if the economy tanks. They control the country now, they can just defund education even more than it already is to line their pockets.

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linearchaos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
They’ve already said that they’re perfectly fine with the economy taking a massive hit. Nobody about to come into power gives a damn about the economy, They can simply siphon money out of whatever systems they want. Drive up the deficit and pay themselves and their corporations out of the government coffers.

Even if they gave a damn about the economy, what are you going to push for collectively? The department of Justice is about to be fully corrupted. The separation of church and state is being removed. There’s nothing that they’re going to be able to give to satisfy the needs of the public short of a complete replacement of government which they are not going to just roll over on.

I don’t think you can general strike out of a dictatorship.

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iii@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

if the next president isn’t picked as a result of the popular vote but as a result of the system being terrible then a majority of the people of the country will have been wronged.

In the case of Belgium, our prime minister came from a party that had 8% of the votes.

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- zloubida@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  In France, our PM’s party received 5,41% of the votes. All the parties supporting him received, if we add up all their scores, 28.5% of the votes.
  
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- Shiggles@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  The main difference between a prime minister and a president is the fact that they’re appointed, not elected, no? Little difference when you consider the state of national primaries in the states, but still.
  
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jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I think if there is hope, it’s from exactly this.

If the system is truly that awful, we just won’t play.

I don’t know that it would be effective, but my money’s on something sufficiently buddhist and radical. Not as a most likely thing to happen, but as a most likely thing to work, since a trump coronation is the end of the systems Americans have based their whole lives on.

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