Voting is essential, of course, but never sufficient. And our political leaders have mostly been hijacked by corporate cash anyway — their infusions of money can saturate the airwaves with pro=corporate propaganda and lead large swaths of ignorant voters to choose outright corporate fascists like Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell. So we need more than voting.

I am a big advocate of “voting with our dollars” (which this author rails against) because our consumer choices — where we spend our money — are the life-blood of corporations, and if we shift those expenditures toward more responsible producers and suppliers, the large corporations will lose money, and be forced to become more responsible themselves — or at least pretend to be, through greenwashing. But again, voting with our dollars is necessary, but far from sufficient.

Nothing is sufficient of course, but our best bet for systemic change is, in my view, cultural change from the ground up. Hence my tireless advocacy of permaculture (which you can read all about in my previous responses to this and other articles, so I won’t be a broken record about it!)