I don't like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.
Not voting isn't going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews and he's publicly told Israel to "finish up their war". He'll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn't a straight cisgender male back here at home.
A vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of them or their policies, it's a statement that you like their policies more than the other guy's, and "sticking it to liberals" and "refusing to support genocide" (that's not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way -- a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.
How incredibly privileged do you have to be to see an entire national election as what will happen in the Middle East and ignore Trump's campaign promises to wipe transgender Americans off the map, and further, to not realize that the same thing will happen in the Middle East regardless of which candidate wins?
I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I'll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there's a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
If i’m being realistic with myself the reason I won’t vote is because it’s futile. The USA like to give you the illusion of choice and “Democracy” while at the same time having the most undemocratic two-party system any civilized nation can have. Going through the process of voting for either a genocider or a fascist is a waste of my time, and that time can be spent playing another game of league or whatever, at least I’ll have some fun. America won’t change because of my vote, or any of your votes. America will change because of coordinated, collective action from unions and when people decide to eat the rich.
And i’d even argue that refusing to vote IS democratic and not necessarily evil. Biden committed a genocide, he needs to feel the consequences of a disinterested and conflicted democratic base.
I think we should stop rationalizing and proselytizing the act of voting. Choosing to vote for red, green or blue, or not choosing to vote at all, is a personal decision. Rationalizing it won’t do anyone any favors, and demonizing people that don’t vote or don’t vote for your personal candidate because it doesn’t fit in your ideology just makes you a bigot.
Are you participating in strikes? Have you set up a date to show up on Jeff Bezos' lawn with signs and refuse to leave?
I would if i was employed
Again, that won't change anything
What will? What shall we do, O enlightened leftist, to effect real change in this country, that you think supersedes our duty to vote?
Find the mutual aid networks in your community and join / support them.
Just generally be in community with those around you.
Join or form local weekly protests for a permanent ceasefire.
Join a union and encourage others to. Help ensure that your union has enough resources to provide support for more vulnerable members when they need to strike.
Run for local office.
My guy it’s not a duty, it’s a choice. As for effecting real change, dude i don’t fucking know i’m just an unemployed slightly depressed gen z dude. But we gotta be honest with ourselves that voting ain’t it in terms of changing things. The democrats had the same rhetoric last election and oh no now we’re in a genocide
Yeah but we should still vote. Voting and doing nothing is better than not voting and doing nothing. We can at least stop things from getting worse.
I agree with you for the first time. Maybe we should do something. I just personally think that the two-party elections are a farce, a way to trick people into thinking they're free when in reality their country is as undemocratic as North Korea but with suits and champagne.
So yeah, maybe i'll vote third party if i can get off my ass lmao
The spoiler effect is real, amigo.
U get Status Quo Joe, or u get the russian nazi. Under biden our abilities to organize and pursue whatever courses of action are not under threat. Thats not true the other way around. If it was, youd be seeing leftists actually doing something in russia or china, but it doesnt happen. Bc they get the boot. Like how the communist party that still exists in russia is only some 30yrs old bc it was the one that was hand picked to exist as controlled opposition.
I dont blame u for being depressed and disaffected, but i assure u, this country has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom. Meanwhile, I would prefer it if Poland and Lithuania werent next on Putins chopping block bc donnie twatkins and his maga cult decided fuck it, Ukraine dont deserve arms. This whole movement ive been seeing, first on reddit now here, saying voting is childish or that third party is the way to go... its all foreign sourced. If voting didnt matter, the right in this country wouldnt go to the lengths it does to suppress it. Low turn out benefits trump. Trump benefits countries that are hostile towards us. Those countries have a vested interest in ur vote.
Pre api changes on reddit, leftist spaces on reddit didnt ban ppl, they didnt remove comments, and they prided themselves on encouraging independent thinking. Suddenly after, i started picking up bans even from places like rightcantmeme bc id call out russian talking points or the fact that making fun of "vooting" wasnt praxis, just a cheap slogan to wave around the way magats wave theirs. And ghen new spaces, like ultraleft, started popping up. These new spaces outright were based around the new culture, and here something interesting started happening. Ppl (or trolls, idk) would pop in and ask, "whats the ancom (or whichever other subgroup) stance on ____?" And of course they got a bunch of cookie cutter opinions to plug in their brains and be able to turn off their critical thinking.
There was a time when the leftists there would put down such notions, telling everyone to think for themselves and that u fit where u fit. Theyd ask for the persons beliefs that they already held and ask them to debate those. All in the name of conversation. It was never about telling ppl what to think.
But here today, fuck man... im writing all this out to u bc u sound real. This shit here, all the talk of not voting or voting third party... its all the same. Its all sourced from the same, and half these accounts that spout this bs turn really vile when u suggest that damage control voting even if u suggest direct action and mutual aid in the very same comment.
Note that the Spanish anarchists still participate in their democracy. Bc they state one of their goals as making life more tenable under the current regime for everyone. If u want change, u need to still work within the system alongside whatever else u believe in. As said, if u didnt, the dictatorships u see around the world would be positively teeming with lefitst action and thought. But they aint. Bc thats not how things ever go.
You’re a fool if you think that “nothing will change” under trump. You think you’ll have a better chance affecting change after we slide even further towards fascism? You think lgbt and poc aren’t going to be persecuted even more?
Hence why i’m not voting for trump 🤷♀️
I hope for all our sakes that you don’t get what you’re asking for, but you’ll deserve it if we do.
??????? What
You apparently believe that failing to act to prevent something bad is the same thing as committing the act yourself, since you said Biden “committed” genocide.
So if you fail to act to prevent a trump presidency, then you are actually supporting it.
Since you support trump, I say you deserve what comes to you if he wins.
that's some trolley problem philosophizing >_<. No, i'm not a trump supporter. Nor am I a biden supporter. A no-vote is not the same as a vote for trump. A vote for trump IS a vote for trump. Maybe you should watch one or two more youtube videos about the trolley problem if that's where your mind is.
Tell me, how culpable were thr old SPD members that fled Germany immediately prior to the Enabling Act? The politicians who skipped town rather than vote to stop Hitler. I mean, they didn't explicitly vote for Hitler to become dictator. But they had the ability to prevent lr delay it and didn't.
At some point the rational and adult thing is to recognize that inaction is a defacto vote for the worst scenario you can imagine because you didn't attempt to stop it. If you see a car hit a little girl, and then flee, are you in the free and clear ethically and morally for just driving right by only to hear she later died because no one else tried to help?
The US is in this weird place where voters still hold nearly all the power in elections, but nobody feels like their vote matters because they never get what they want. This is by design, the general election is designed to be about compromise and getting the closest representation of the will of all the country that one person can possibly hope to be. Biden and Trump are who the averaged (Voting) American thinks should run the country whether you like it or not.
Primaries are for making statements to the candidates and the country then general elections are where, in a democratic system with a one person branch of government and multiple parties, you will almost certainly have to compromise at least a little because somewhere in the process your perfect ideals were overruled.
Not voting when able is throwing away any right to complain, if you didn't exercise your right to representation in the primary, then you voluntarily waived any standing to complain about the general election candidates, but should still choose one as this is the only step in the presidential election process where one candidate is guaranteed to lead the country and not voting is again throwing away your most accessible tool for representation.
This doesn't mean you aren't able to take other actions to influence policy after an election like protest, demonstrations, or even seeking some level of office yourself.
This needs to be more known, Not voting isn't protesting a candidate, it's only hurting those who agree with you most.
Third party is only slightly less useless with our current election system, at least it exercises ones representation, but is counter intuitive as it also makes whichever of the larger two parties that more closely aligns with you less likely to win. And this becomes more and more true the larger the 3rd party becomes and skews the whole point about the president being the averaged choice away from the center. Currently it's better to influence one of the major parties instead similar to what we've seen with the democratic party and unions and the republican party and authoritarianism.
That makes sense actually. I'll grant you that the primaries are important. But seeing as it's now a Biden vs Trump, voting is pointless. Also, I don't vibe with the rationale for not voting third party. If everybody just votes for whomever they please and most align with, without having to please a political argument saying that a third-party vote is a waste of a vote, then yeah maybe a third party might win.
But in America there's this weird mind worm of "oh, the two party system is broken! Let's vote into it because voting third party is a waste of a vote." Suddenly everyone becomes a game theory expert come election day >_<
Studies have shown that is a lie. Voters have zero impact on politicians or policies, only money has that power.