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this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Like it or not (I for one do not), we live in a country where only two parties matter for the presidential election (third parties DO matter for state and even congress. just not executive).
If you are (American) left leaning and you vote Green party over Democrat? You are one less vote for the Democrats which is one more vote for the republicans when the math breaks down.
Younger folk (and older folk) don't understand that because we do a horrifically bad job of teaching social studies in high school and tv shows love to emphasize "douche and a turd sandwich" logic to encourage abstaining.
Honestly? Fuck Biden. I have had serious issues with him ever since he was a wannabe cop pushing some really horrible drug legislation. But he is a Democrat and isn't trump. It is as simple as that. Maybe he won't help on a lot of issues I care about. He will help on a lot of other issues I do.
Which gets back down to it: if Palestine is the only issue you care about and the only issue anyone you care about cares about? Congrats, you won the privilege lottery and can skip the election. Otherwise? We have two candidates who basically have the same stance on Palestine and Israel (give money to the military industrial complex above all else). But they differ drastically on a LOT of other issues and a LOT of people will be harmed.
So if trans rights or women's rights or even continuing to be a democracy-ish haven't "earned your vote"? What does that say about you?
"If you don't vote for exactly one candidate, democracy dies"
I think democracy's already dead
I mean, if we don't do anything (and signs are we won't, even if Biden wins)... yeah.
But it is still harm minimization. It is another few years for people to live and not be persecuted because of the sex organs they were born with.
Except this is already happening where I live. And will continue to happen where I live under Biden. And will continue to not happen in blue states where it's not currently happening. You are deeply unserious if you think Biden is going to do shit for women or trans people. You'll have better luck pressuring Biden and the DNC to do something other than their current strategy than convincing the millions of people who ALREADY live in the reality you seem so afraid of.
If you genuinely think nothing will change regardless of who is president and who has the power to veto the batshit insane stuff republicans are pushing forward AND don't understand why losing even more supreme court seats will fucks us over massively*: Watch the fucking news and actually listen to what republicans are campaigning on.
*: Because while I am still fucking angry at the Democrats for never codifying it and RBG for being too selfish to step down when she should, understand that the massive wave of abortion bans are a direct result of trump's supreme court appointees
Then start pressuring the democratic party instead of people like me, whose vote has literally never counted towards anything because of the electoral college.
Because individuals don't matter. People do. And there might be people in swing states who are reading this and saying "Yeah. I want to see change. I am gonna vote for Jill fucking Stein".
But also? A large part of why we won in 2020 was because of Staey Abrams et al in Georgia. That was a red as hell state that almost entirely ran on voter disenfranchisement. And she and other advocates fought hard to make people ACTUALLY vote and it turned Blue. It has been an increasing acknowledgement that Texas is ACTUALLY a purple, if not blue, state but is gerrymandered to hell to prevent that.
Does every individual's vote matter? No. Of course not. But every VOTE matters. Because it keeps blue states blue and it fights the efforts to disenfranchise voters in "red" states. And you accomplish that by pointing out the stupidity of people who are advocating for change by... not voting or even outright voting against their own interests.
You know whose votes made the difference in GA? Young voters, 35 and under. The same ones who disapprove of Biden’s genocide by over 80%. These same voters, when exercising free speech to protest this genocide, are being attacked and wrongly imprisoned by Biden’s jack booted thugs for doing so.
This is why Biden’s full throated support of Israel is the hill his presidency will die upon, and no matter how much you want to try to shift the blame onto voters, it’s entirely Biden’s fault.
It's not a question of blame it's a question of working in your own self interest. Next election you have 3 choices basically. First you can make things dramatically worse by voting Trump and pushing us even closer to the fascist dictatorship we're already edging towards. Second you could vote Biden which while not really improving anything at least buys 4 more years for the GOP to continue its slow death. Third you can abstain by either not voting or voting for anybody else which dramatically hurts Biden and helps Trump because those voting for Trump aren't the ones abstaining. Sure maybe it will send a message to the DNC, although history seems to show it won't, but in the meantime you've just helped Cheeto Mussolini come into power and if you're someone who would be considered liberal there's a decent chance that's going to get you killed or at least persecuted in the near future.