Don’t give in to the ambient cynicism. All levels of government matter and public service is meaningful and commendable. As for fixing things long term… nothing is fixed forever unfortunately, but that’s no reason not to strive for solidarity and sustainability.

Local office positions are incredibly important, and I think a lot of people overlook that importance.

Just this morning, I saw a post about how some Texas county was going to implement an abortion “travel ban” but Amarillo’s city council was not going to (https://beehaw.org/post/9016863).

They are both in Texas, they are both governed by the same state laws, but just having a different city council made a significant difference.

This is why every time there’s an election, I never skip the local election portion, it might make an even bigger difference in my day to day than my district representative (this is doubly so for school board positions if you have kids).

All this to say that if you have the mental bandwidth, energy, and time, to hold a local office position, you can absolutely make a huge difference.

It’s not meaningless. There is a lot of personal risk assessment involved, that I think varies widely from person to person, and locality to locality. But I think a lot of good can be done in local politics. Even if “big issues” are not singlehandedly fixed there, making meaningful changes in communities is the kind of thing that affects people directly and the kind of foundation we need in order to have the kind of social fabric where we can more effectively grapple with larger, scarier issues. Do it if you can! I think the lack of faith many people have in local government stems partly from the fact that many people do not any see candidates in their area who seem engaged, or who they can relate to, or who have similar values to them.

It’s not meaningless at all. It is important to have people who genuinely care and are trying to do what’s best for the community to take part.

If you have the time and the motivation then absolutely go for it. Try to make your part of the world that little bit better

I agree with @UrLogicFails, local offices are incredibly important positions. A city council can affect so many facets of citizens’ lives, for better or worse, and a decisive vote for reducing insitutionalized harms is a huge thing to bring to the table. If you’ve got the bandwidth and inclination, go for it. Even the running for a position can be a platform to bring about social change, however small it seems.

It’s something that I’ve considered, but we’re recent enough residents in a state with an insular culture (Maine - I’ll tell you the “joke” I was told by a townie shortly after moving here if you want) and trying to bootstrap a business so it’s tough to place any resources towards it currently. It’ll certainly be revisited if circumstances make it an option, though.

If I wasn’t in school I would, just to see what it’s like and find out exactly why people who hold office tend not to make drastic yet needed change.

If you really think it’s meaningless, you should give Grapevine a listen. They don’t think so

Where I am, the municipal government are also MPs in the lower house. LA seats also tend not to move much, it’s been mostly the same people in the same seats the whole time I’ve been here. The big municipalist candidate actually gave up after he lost two elections and went back to local municipal and dual power operations and organisations… so I’m much more interested in volunteering for local coops or seeing what his latest work efforts are.

Overall though I’m way more interested in municipal politics. One for philosophical reasons, since I find Bookchin’s ideas about municipalism both empirically and ideologically compelling; and two because it’s way less depressing to actually see real change happen through municipal dual power operations and establishment politics. Federal and state politics are intractably bougie and have a lot of inertia driven by money and “old boys” networks.

All the socialist success stories have been built bottom up, all the failures and nonstarters have tried to cut in where they’re inevitably forced out; or become tyrannical and drift from their original goals. Resilient systems are built from people, it’s the only way humans can function collectively in my opinion.

Probably not. I live in a pretty conservative community where local connections really matter for elections, and sadly I have neither column A nor column B going for me. Also despite looking like the kind of person who would show up to a trucker protest I really don’t handle confrontation well.

BUT local elections are super important and I think you should definitely give it a go if you think you’ve got the stuff.

Absolutely. Thing is, I’m uneducated for actual political positions, so it would require a lot of work to get up to speed. But if I had the chance, I’d do it.

Probably not because I’m a bisexual, swinger, and kinkster and I don’t want that part of my and my SO’s lives to come under scrutiny