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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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I don't think anyone here is equating not voting for Biden to being a Trumpet but due to the reality of our voting system absence of a vote is in and of itself a vote so you have to decide your best option whatever that may be.
Problem is the opposition has the same or worse policies on Palestine and worse policies on a lot of others.
I'm not a fan of this "least bad option" we've got ourselves into either but to equate the two parties or to deny the reality before us is how we allow it to get worse.
Sure. Although, I might go one step further and argue that due to the reality of our voting system (state-by-state winner-take-all) merely being counted in the census in a given district is what really counts as a "vote". The electoral college doesn't care who you vote for, only who won the majority. One of the fundamental flaws of western disproportional representation is how minority voters are functionally unrepresented.
This isn't a problem unique to the US. We routinely see elections caged and captured by dominant political parties with overlapping beliefs, from Japan to France to India. When you're being funneled into a single awful policy, there's little point in debating over which party is better on an issue that receives wide bipartisan support.
"You have to vote for Joe Biden to end the holocaust in Palestine" comes across as utterly tone-deaf, given that Biden's Democrats have been actively enabling said holocaust through arms sales, foreign policy, and willful neglect of international law.
Nobody is. But the endless apology for said "bad option" purely on the grounds that "other guy is worse" only reinforces the badness of the first guy. You're cutting your own team a blank check to rob you when you won't even entertain a third option.
That's before we even get into the futility of voting (D) in a state like Ohio or Florida or Texas (or California or New York or Washington) when the outcome of these elections is all but predetermined. The absolute least you can do is to follow the lead of those Arab/Persian communities in the Midwest and spoil some ballots to demonstrate your dissatisfaction.
Say what you will about "least bad options" but as soon as Biden watched 20% of his Minnesota support evaporate in the face of united Muslim dissident, he did actually start to bend on the issue. Had a more serious left-wing contender been on the ticket, perhaps we would have even seen a primary upset in 2024.
On the flip side, I can't help but note how far-right Evangelicals have bent the GOP on issues by throwing their support to a guy like Trump, when more traditional DeSantis / Christie / Hailey hacks insisted on triangulating between business liberal and social conservative issues.
At some level, you can't ignore the success right-wing radicals have achieved by holding their ground and threatening the success of the party by withholding their support. Moderate Republicans - who just vote for anyone with an (R) in their name because they're scared of Democrats - are the ones getting sidelined by the party leadership. Why should progressives fall into the same trap set by conservative Democrats?
Correct on all counts, no arguments here.
I also don't care what people vote for, only dislike when people encourage someone not to vote or worse accelerationism.
There are a lot of problems with our political system, inaction makes all of them worse.
Accelerationism has always been more cope than strategy.
I've always held that spoiling your ballot is far more effective than simply not voting. But I would also argue that we do a lot of deliberate disenfranchisement, particularly in reactionary states and cities. So if people are getting the sense that voting is futile (or even dangerous), I'm sympathetic to that view.