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this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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As a foreigner I never understood the novote sentiment in the US. You aren't voting for either candidate because you dislike them, so who would you actually vote for? AOC? RFK Jr? Bernie? Does your ideal candidate even exist in reality yet? All a no vote does is take away your own rights in your country, while the rest of the world moves on without you.
For what it's worth, both parties can be trash but one party actually can be shamed to doing the right thing once in a while.
Non voters are either children or morons.
Rational adults realise that this is the system and you have to operate inside of it despite the compromises.
Now, you want to start changing the system, start a grassroots campaign, get into politics to change the system, more power to you!
But sitting on your ass crying about both sides while doing nothing, you are simply an immature moron.
I cannot blame people for feeling jaded or disillusioned. Would we vote for Bernie? We certainly would've if the DNC didn't provably sabotage his campaign. And I cannot ignore that Biden is old and deeply unpopular among leftists, yet our party refuses to offer up a better choice because they're counting on "the devil you know" to carry him through. Who could feel enthusiastic about that? I think the hope is that the DNC will learn some kind of lesson if he loses, though I know they won't. The trend of "reduce harm now, actually improve things later" has been going on for a long time. When is "later"? What up and coming voice on the democratic side do we have to look forward to?
I have to vote, because my number one priority is trans rights and there's only one party that will do anything to protect that, but I don't do it happily. I understand too that the "vote blue no matter who" crowd has similar pressing concerns that require harm reduction. But I dislike the characterization of anyone who feels apathetic about the upcoming election as idiots or Russian bots. When you're only voting against a candidate, it's hard to feel motivated.
Yeah I see your point. Personally I think voting rights are important, especially in world history, and seeing people throw that away - to risk the country's future on making a statement - irks me a little. The most irresponsible way to make yourself heard, with the worst possible consequences. People in China and Russia don't even get a choice ffs. Plus it feels like Americans have had a four year reminder to learn this lesson already.
But I see how this feels shitty all around. I just hope people talk to one another and vote with their fellow countrymen in mind.
I'm with you. I love everything George Carlin did, except for his anti vote bits. Somehow voting is supposed to make you compliant in the current going on in government, is the argument.
The only way to change things is too consistently vote until the baby boomers are thinned out of their electoral advantage.
Carlin isn't wrong on the crucial parts.
The system is broken and cannot be fixed by voting. It must be dismantled and replaced.
But while we get started on the dismantling and replacing, maybe vote so that the current system doesn't deteriorate, break down and gets replaced by something worse before you have the chance to bring about meaningful and positive change.
Carlin is fundamentally wrong here, because he starts with the premise that national politics spring out of nothingness. That's simply not true. In almost all cases, people that are successful at national politics start at a local level. So when you want to change things, you must start locally. That means getting good candidates elected to local offices, and them moving them up to state office, and eventually to national.
Okay, yes, I see what you mean and can agree. Still I believe that this can only bring about meaningful change if it's part of an activist push for election reform.
The local level is important and easier to manage, because the power brokers, the keys to power are not that much more powerful than you are. But at a certain point the keys to power become way too influential. To reach the top in any party, you have to play by the parties rules and neither one will let you lessen their individual members influence. You would need wide ranging political agreement and cooperation (and good luck with that) or you have to change the game by redistributing power away from big players and back to the people. And that can imho. not be achieved in a highly partisan two-party system.
Or, maybe it can be, but the odds are incredibly stacked against you.
That's still tied to the grass-roots level. The party largely can't get candidates for higher office without them coming up through the system in some way. That means that the people at a local level can greatly influence state-level politics, which in turn influences national politics. But the problem you'll run into is that there are a lot of competing interests within a state, and as a single person starts to represent the views of more and more people, they need to reflect the average of those views--or be an exceptionally charismatic leader that can pull people along in their wake. It's not that the party isn't "letting" you play if you don't do things their way, it's that you simply won't have the votes.
Yes, there's a lot of money involved, and it's true that you either need to have a really strong grass-roots funding game, or else you're gonna end up owing rich people and corporations favors. So your issue is that you need to get enough people to give a shit locally, and when you do, they end up playing by your rules. Or, more correctly, the rules of the people you represent.
This is precisely how Trump won, BTW, and how he's come to own the Republican party. That's how populism works. He gave a voice--a hateful voice--to about 1/6 of the American population (about 1/3 of the Republican party), and despite traditional Republican interests being heavily stacked against him, he managed to entirely take over the party.
The problem being that a fledgling political organization has to then expend the energy to endorse a candidate outside their party and vote in support of one enemy over another enemy.
Any fledgling political organization that participates in the system in a traditional way is either
a) stupid or b) delusional or c) sacrificing vulnerable peoples actual needs in favor of ideology or d) a false-flag operation designed to weaken the side they are ostensibly closer to
Any meaningful change can only occur outside the standardized channels. Inside the existing structure the math simply demands a two-party-system that will always favor the side that can both form the biggest coalition and dissuade the opposed voters from voting. Both parties have had problems with the coalition forming for a long time, so they try everything to dissuade opposed voters.
If you want meaningful change in the US, find a way to invest your activism not into who people vote for, but into changing how voting works.
First: The "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" is a band-aid that might help with warding against the worst excesses of far-right ideology, with it in place, it should be easier to ward against the white nationalist power grab and protect vulnerable people.
Second: Electoral reform in favor of ranked choice voting. With this in place, your goal to create viable alternative candidates will be basically met. Suddenly you don't HAVE to vote for the lesser evil. The math suddenly doesn't favor a two-party-system anymore.
Third: Implementing the Fair Representation Act to bring about ranked choice voting in then multi member districts. This counteracts gerrymandering and will make the representation much closer match the voters. No more taxation without representation for the plurality of citizens.
Fourth: Some form of true proportional representation. Open or closed list proportional representation would both help with SO many problems the US faces right now, it's absolutely bonkers.
P.S.: But in the meantime... all these goals are may be more or less opposed by most democrats, but they will never be implemented when the republicans further erode american democracy. So vote democrat if you want to have any chance of bettering circumstances, at all.
Who I would vote for would be, for example, the third-party candidate I'm actually voting for.
The democrats can't be "shamed" into doing the right thing. They might be able to be pressured into doing it, and establishing a credible threat that you'll withhold your vote if they do something unconcionable is one way of exerting that pressure. They have exactly zero interest in the concerns of people whose votes are guaranteed.
And if they are completely unresponsive regardless, then the only hope of having our concerns listened to is to unseat them, by means of a third party. No matter how unlikely or how long it takes, it's still more likely than the possibility that Biden randomly starts caring about Palestinians out of the kindness of his heart.
And why do you think dems would be pressured by 3rd party voters instead of just shifting their policies to the right to attract moderates? The third party voters seek a humanitarian leader who doesn't exist and couldn't possibly thrive in the current American politcal system. Seriously give me a name for this potential candidate.
Why would the dems concern with people seeking a politician they could never provide? Shifting right has already won them an election with Biden, against the most charismatic Republican politician of the last decade. Either the dems win and nothing happens, or the republicans win and the dems shift right to attract moderates.
Funny how Trump has become "The most charismatic Republican candidate of the last decade." He was literally supported by Hillary in the "pied piper" strategy because he was supposed to be so easy to beat. I recall the conventional wisdom in 2015 was that the Republicans would have to shift to the center to appeal to Latino voters or they'd be finished because of demographics. Right up to election day, every major media outlet said he had no chance of winning, before he barely squeeked out a win, while losing the popular vote, of course. He's at negative 12% in terms of net favorability. I guess he still counts as "most charismatic Republican candidate of the last decade" but only because that's an incredibly low bar.
Well, the question is how far can they keep shifting right before they start bleeding more voters from the left than they're attracting from the center? The democrats are right wing and would much rather shift to the center, but just because they managed to barely win against a historically unpopular president in the middle of a botched pandemic doesn't mean it's a reliable strategy.
But if they think they can win without the left then they're welcome to try. I'd just better not hear anybody blaming the left afterwards if they lose.
Cool, so you're voting for tRump, got it.
Trump is a third-party candidate? Fascinating perspective.
Majority of the politicians are slaves of AIPAC, probably from blackmail material. So none of them are worthy of voting for, much less, holding any political power in any part of the U.S.
Blackmail, or overt threats of harm to their family.
But even if they're beholden to Israel on one issue, there are still a lot of other issues at stake domestically. So this nonsense about none of them worth voting for is just bullshit propaganda.
Ain't none of these politicians giving a fk about domestic issues unless it's to make more laws, taking away rights one crumb at a time.
If you want to give up your voting rights, go ahead. The rest of us will stay in reality where changes to domestic issues happen almost every single day.
Are you going to make me ask you to provide at least three changes to domestic issues in the past week just to prove a point? This isn't cartoon network... this is reality. Politicians don't give a chit unless it benefits them and or their handlers.
You can if you want to.
The ones from 2021 - 2023 are better documented though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_Joe_Biden
It is about 1 every 3-4 days.
My dude. Why do you think that laws are written, exactly? Do you think people pull them out of their ass for no reason at all? Or are they just maybe intended to deal with changing issues, whether or not you approve of the law?
Have you ever looked up something along the lines of, "stupid laws in the U.S." or "stupid laws state by state"?
You'll be surprised.
Stupid laws almost always had a reason at one time. The reason might not have been good, but it still existed.
I'm aware of one place out in the middle of fucking nowhere, South Carolina, that has a noise ordinance after 11pm. It has a noise ordinance because there's a very large gun range--several hundred acres--that has occasional night matches. Well, someone that was politically connected moved close to the range, and got pissed that about once a month there was shooting all night. So they got their buddies on the county commissioners to pass an ordinance that said no noise after 11pm. Now those night matches shut down at 11pm on the dot, because the cops are ready and waiting to issue citations to the range owner. In 100 years--if humans are still in existence as a species--no one is going to remember why there's a dumb law on the books about noise after dark in ass-fuck SC.
People need to dig a hole and put their expectations of government in that hole for them to be low enough. Once they do that they'll be less disillusioned and won't think voting is a waste.
Voting is only a waste in authoritarian countries like China, Russia and North Korea.
Yes, but if you tell folks that they're gonna get a puppy if they vote and they get a sticker with a dog on it they'll be like "Well that was a lie."
Governments move slow, and make stupid decisions all the time. The line between voting for something and getting that thing is convoluted, steep, and fraught with peril. It's not going to happen overnight. Hell, it won't happen in a decade, assuming it even happens at all.
If people knew that it takes over 30 years to maybe get something that the vast majority of people want they won't give up on voting after a couple times, and will do what I do: Vote regularly and expect nothing.