If 2025 taught Black people anything (often the hard way), it’s that disengagement is not neutrality. It’s surrender.
Too many of us flirted with the dangerous myths that voting doesn’t matter, that both major political parties are the same, or that withholding our vote is some kind of righteous protest. The outcomes of 2025—policy rollbacks, emboldened extremists, and communities left exposed—made painfully clear that those ideas don’t punish the system; they punish us.
The “Voting doesn’t matter” BS
One of the most damaging lies we encountered last year was the claim that voting doesn’t matter. It’s an argument that sounds radical but functions as reactionary. Black people did not gain access to the ballot because it was symbolic. We fought for it because it’s a tool.
As journalist Joy Reid and thought leader Lurie Daniel Favors have repeatedly emphasized, elections have consequences. Judges, school boards, prosecutors, governors, and presidents shape daily life long after campaign signs disappear. When we don’t vote, decisions are still made. They’re just made without us. And the resources, programs, and protections we need are directed to communities that did vote.
“Both parties are the same” fallacy
Closely tied to that myth is the lazy assertion that both major political parties are the same. If 2025 didn’t slap you upside the head with the reality that differences exist, and they matter big time, then you’re more committed to fairy tales than reality.
Pretending the Dems and GOP are “different sides of the same coin” ignores material reality. Parties may both fall short of our full liberation agenda. Still, one consistently works to expand voting rights, protect social programs, appoint judges who respect civil rights, and fund public institutions. At the same time, the other has openly embraced voter suppression, book bans, and anti-Black historical erasure.
As Black Voters Matter reminds us, the question is not whether a party loves us, but which one responds when we organize, pressure, and vote as a bloc.
The one-issue voter trap
Another lesson from 2025 is the danger of becoming a one-issue voter. Reducing our political engagement to a single concern, no matter how deeply felt, allows opportunists to manipulate us. Howard University professor Greg Carr, Ph.D., has long warned that liberation requires historical memory and strategic thinking, not emotional reaction.
Our lives are multi-dimensional. Housing, education, healthcare, environmental justice, criminal justice, and labor rights are all connected. Voting for someone who aligns with you on one issue but harms you on five others is not principled. It’s problematic. And short-sighted.
Voting isn’t a marriage proposal
We also must fundamentally change how we think about voting itself. Voting is not a popularity contest. It’s not a personality endorsement or a church roll call. Voting is a hiring decision. When you cast a ballot, you are choosing someone to bring resources, funding, programs, and protection back to your community. Sirius XM radio host Karen Hunter often reminds us that politics is about power, not performance. The only real questions are the two Favors shares almost daily on her many consciousness-raising platforms: Who will do the most good for our community? Or, when good is limited, who will do us the least harm?
No perfect candidate, only real consequences
That framing requires maturity. There’s no perfect candidate. There never has been and never will be. Waiting for someone who checks every box is a recipe for permanent disappointment and repeated losses. Voting only for candidates who “excite” you is how many of us were blindsided in 2025. Excitement does not fund schools. Charisma does not stop foreclosures. Choosing the best option available is not selling out; it’s a strategy. Write-in votes and protest votes may feel righteous, but in close elections, they are functionally wasted votes that help the worst option win.
Civic engagement requires discipline and due diligence
Civic engagement also demands work. That means researching candidates, understanding their records, and fact-checking claims before sharing them. Favors has consistently challenged Black audiences to stop outsourcing our thinking to viral clips and bad-faith actors. Spreading misinformation, especially about candidates who could materially help our communities, does the opposition’s work for them.
Case in point, the conscious and progressive comedian D.L. Hughley, along with several other brothers with national platforms, ended up apologizing to then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris for spreading misinformation about her voting record; misinformation that likely cost her tens of thousands of votes or more in 2024.
2026 and beyond: Strategy over cynicism
The final lesson of 2025 is that voting is necessary but not sufficient. Civic engagement is year-round work: Attending school board meetings, supporting local organizers, and holding elected officials accountable after election day. As Stacey Abrams has shown, sustained participation, not episodic outrage, is how power is built.
The call to action is clear. In 2026 and beyond, we must reject political nihilism and adopt a strategic approach to politics. Vote every time. Research every race. Organize between elections. Pressure those we elect. Our ancestors fought too hard for us to casually discard one of the few levers of power we possess. The lesson from 2025 is simple: when we engage intelligently and collectively, we can shape outcomes. When we don’t, someone else will “handle” our business who has no business in our business.
