> As a side note: in my experience, people who say things like “voting is not acting, you need to do more!” are not reliable voters, and not reliable activists

> As a side note: in my experience, people who say things like “voting is not acting, you need to do more!” are not reliable voters, and not reliable activists either. Well, sorry if I take the above personally, but here is another datapoint. I almost literally said the above in the post you quoted. I have voted in every election I legally could do so. I have run as a candidate in a number of elections. I have even organised groups to running for elections. I did broader activism and have organised a number of activist lawsuits. After a run in with the police I had to tune things down a bit for my family. > Electoral activism leads to broader activism. It does both, really. It is a rung on the ladder, a lot of activists start there. But it can also have the effect of soaking up a lot energy from existing activists, with very little real consequences. There is a balance. Political activism, civil activism and judicial activism also have a space and can have a better trade-off between energy invested and concrete consequences.