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this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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politics
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I see people saying their vote doesn't matter when they're in a highly partisan district, which is most of them.
News flash: Even the dumbest politicians can look at arithmetic. If they see their margins shrinking, they'll adjust. Or go full retard and double-down. And then get a worse beating.
Also local elections can be decided by one vote and can be just as important.
Typically more important for the average citizen. Federal changes may effect you in years, decades or never. Whereas your local politicians impact your day to day life.
Definitely not the case for women and queer people this year, but generally true.
You haven't been to the circus show that is my city board of ed meetings.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-01/ca-16-results-recount-tk-tk
Five votes. In a district of 735,000 people.
So the two runners-up were competing for who gets to lose in a run-off election?
:-/ It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
I see people saying it when they're in heavily gerrymandered districts and deeply disenfranchised states. Dems have been playing the "Just go out and vote!" game in Florida for a quarter century, and Repubs keep finding new ways to yank the football. Even ballot initiatives don't work, as the Florida gerrymandered legislature just reverses out whatever voting rights or decriminalization laws the public passes.
Okay, then protest. And also VOTE.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying "voting doesn't work so I'm not going to do anything" is just allowing them to dictate everything that will happen.
Studying the history of the electoral system and the patterns of disenfranchisement isn't equivalent to "doing nothing". And in the end, you have to be rational rather than idealistic. When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you're not going to vote him out of office.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest. You have politicians that you admit want to become the next Putin but won't say anything or of fear of pepper spray.
There's an internet meme about France surrendering. French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets. American politicians try to take away your democracy and American citizens just roll over to expose their belly.
It's not the French that surrender at the slightest bit of difficulty.
So do American college kids.
French politicians have been squeezing the pension system since at least 2006, and the street protests have come and gone without discouraging new efforts to dismantle the system.
Bully to them for trying, but without material control over industry, they're all sound and fury.
I've been voting for 24 years and have never seen this happen. They double down and that gets their voters even more fired up to vote.