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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024

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People with depression should be encouraged to do normal person things. How far up the list would you put voting? High enough to start a major non-profit? There's plenty of functional, healthy people that don't find voting necessary or worth worrying about. At least when it comes to the psych patients it screams predatory to me.

What would a more candid presentation look like to you?

This is what it might look like to me: "yes we are a D political advocacy group that aims to register more Ds. We offer registration resources to other non-D voting demographics. As this allows us to call ourselves non-partisan and more effectively recruit potential doctors to help our political cause. We will not try nearly as hard to reach non-D voting demographics, either through resource allocation or messaging, but that is not our mission."

My candid description might be uncharitable. If it is I encourage you explain why it might be. I don't believe a truly non-partisan voter registration non-profit for hospitals goes national. It definitely doesn't creep into inpatient mental health treatment centers. Not enough juice to squeeze there. "You can register to vote here" sign in a waiting room doesn't have the same pizazz as massive non-profits with a mission and culture aligned with the interests of one party. The goal is to leverage trust in doctors on one end and hope the correct type of votes come out the other end. It's not even trying to obfuscate, really.

Addressing ethical questions should be more than half the battle in doing anything non-medicinal in medicine. That's a good standard to have in a high stakes profession.

People with depression should be encouraged to do normal person things. How far up the list would you put voting?

I would probably put it reasonably high given that they have to do it literally once in a year and then feel good they have performed their civic duty. Especially for people that likely feel significant sadness about not fulfilling many of their other duties.

There's plenty of functional, healthy people that don't find voting necessary or worth worrying about.

Traditionally we've described this as a minor abdication of duty.

yes we are a D political advocacy group that aims to register more Ds. We offer registration resources to other non-D voting demographics. As this allows us to call ourselves non-partisan and more effectively recruit potential doctors to help our political cause. We will not try nearly as hard to reach non-D voting demographics, either through resource allocation or messaging, but that is not our mission

Sure. That seems like bread and butter stuff in the advocacy world.

Maybe the disconnect is, I don't see non-partisan to be the same as non-political. Obviously any kind of GOTV is political in nature.