2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.
My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.
Not voting. Both parties suckle only at corporate teats. My domicile is in the reddest state so my vote doesn’t matter & it costs like $10–15 to mail in my ballot from abroad making it really not worth my time or money.
They said vaccines for all Americans during COVID then someone had to come in & asterisk that that doesn’t include Americans abroad. You pay taxes but no services like Medicare are offered abroad & you’re one of the last on the list of priorities so feeling disillusioned is the normal.
I live in DC, so my vote doesn’t really matter. So I’ll be leaving the president spot blank, and just voting for the most left non-incumbents I can on city council, ed board, etc etc.
Waiting for the impromptu Cornel West vs Jill Stein debate ig
A reelection of Trump will prompt seriously considering an exit strategy away from the US.
It does not matter who I vote for for federal office. My state is never close to competitive and my house district is gerrymandered.
If fascists win my districts for state office, it will not affect the balance of power in the state assemblies.
So I told all of the Democrats running for state and local office that if there is not a primary for the presidential election, then I will not vote for any Democrats in the general elections in 2024, for any office. Maybe they can put pressure on the DNC.
This is the only way I can potentially have any input.
The only way this works is if Democrats would shift left if they started losing elections because people refused to vote for old white male conservative Democrats.
But I fear they would actually shift right. The Democratic Party is not a big tent that holds both the neoliberal corporate shills and the progressives. It is a hostage situation where the neoliberal corporate shills demand our support, otherwise the fascists will kill us.
I just want to say that your vote for the federal office does matter even if you live in a non-competitive state. Some states allocate a percentage of their electoral votes rather than all or nothing but even if yours does not, voting still adds a data point that says I support this person instead of that person. There have been several times where a candidate has won the presidency without winning the most votes but it was always very close to 50%. If everybody that had a preference voted and the outcome was 55% this guy / 45% the other guy and the other guy won… that could be a real driver for change to the electoral college system.
My state is winner take all.
If my vote does not affect outcome put only expresses support, I am voting for somebody actually good (often from the Green Party).
Even if it was 55/45, nothing would change. The Senate would be very close, if not in favor of the candidate who got 45%. The House would probably also be close, because the legislatures of the states that voted for the 45% candidate would still gerrymander. The only change could come from the states that voted for the 55%. If they gave all of their votes to whoever won the national popular vote, nothing would change. If they did proportional allocation, then it would get even worse.
My vote does not matter.
People who aren’t insane on social issues have been fleeing the GOP. This is, and will continue to pull Democrats right until some viable alternative emerges, if it ever does.
Same as usual. Vote for the least harmful candidates while advocating for actual grassroots improvements, because voting harder won’t move America to the left, ever.
Apparently Americans forgot about the years 2016-2020. Trump is polling favorably and if an election was held today, he’d probably win.
Honestly there’s not that much one can do, but I will:
- Hope Trump is thrown in prison
- Vote straight ticket Democrat
- Hope another Jan. 6 doesn’t occur
- Try not to lose my shit when idiots say stuff like “both parties are equally bad”
I live in a solid blue state, so my national-level votes don’t do much (though I’ll cast them anyway).
In past years I’ve thrown a few hundred dollars at close senate and house races. In 2020 I volunteered for a phone/text bank sort of deal to make sure people were registered to vote.
Do people say both parties are equally bad? I’d agree that both parties are bad, but ‘equally’? Maybe a decade ago, but not anymore.
You’ll find republicans say that. Equally was more than a decade ago. They actually had a chance too. When the Tea Party started, it was actually grassroots. But then they got hijacked by people like the Coch brothers which twisted it to their desires.
Definitely voting for someone who doesn’t support genocide for president. Down ballot I’ll likely vote 3rd party as well, but I haven’t decided for sure.
Congrats on helping to ensure you’ll never again have the right to vote during traitor trump’s fascist dictatorship that you’ll be enabling.
removed by mod
If Trump is one vote from winning NY then he swept the board. There’s no way NY goes red in any election that has NY as the tipping point state.
Cry most likely. Voting doesn’t seem very effective and it’s less so when the choices are conservative extremist or conservative light.
Well my choices are backslide slowly by voting dem, maybe buying enough time to get out of the country safely in the next few years, or risk being federally persecuted for being trans. So I’m going to dissociate through the whole thing and hopefully won’t be able to remember voting for fucking Biden. Outside the election I do what I can to support actual leftist movements but until any of them have a chance to win against the fascists on ballots I’m team ‘slightly better of two shitty choices’. I just want to be left alone to garden I hate all of this
Come on out down voters, I’d love to hear you attempt to explain why I’m making a bad decision
Didn’t downvote you but the only difference I’ve seen and heard about as far as how things are going for minorities is when there’s a dem president libs tell minorities to stfu because they’re making them look bad.
When there’s a republican president libs pretend to support blm, when there’s a dem president libs tell them they’re secretly republican russians.
Try telling a lib the concentration camps on the border are still a problem and you’ll get a lecture about how it’s a way more compassionate concentration camp now.
I ended up writing a way bigger response than I set out to, politics…
So my minority view is only from being trans I don’t fall into other categories, I’m only talking from that view and obviously can’t speak for other groups. From my end of things Biden has undone a lot of the particularly wild stuff Trump did and is even throwing us the occasional scrap of protection. It isn’t great but I can’t say nothing has gotten better. I will say most of the stuff that has gone well is on pretty shaky ground and the next repub we get will gut all of it in a second.
Yeah Biden and dems in general are just so bad. Liberals are frustrating and definitely think the scraps I’ve gotten have solved everything and I should stop complaining. I hate it, I wish we had another choice. But that just isn’t where we are at so between Trump or every dem I’ve seen I’m going for the dems. They only have my back so far as will poll well with libs but that’s better than Trump who is actively attacking me and empowering others to do the same.
I don’t think this system can be fixed by voting for third party at this time. All that does is light a vote on fire that could have gone toward the less bad of two bad options. I do think it can be fixed or improved, slowly, by building a movement for a third party with enough traction to start getting into local offices. My hope is from there those people can push for local change that makes it easier to vote outside dem/repub which sets the scene for doing it on the big scale. That’s only possible given time and repubs are clear they’re done fucking around and we will not be given a chance for that under their rule.
Yea I’m in a small town so I’m aware how rabid and bloodthirsty the chuds are.
I’m not voting for Biden but I also live in New York so I’m privellaged to have the option to do that meaningless protest.
I thunk your spot on with thenlocala support, generally just vote for whoever the working families party candidate is even though 90% of the time it’s the same person as the dem candidate but it’s a good way to weed out the chuds that just run as dems because this is new york.
I downvoted you because of this comment. Does that help?
I appreciate you thank you
I think avoiding political memes & etc is probably a good idea.
I like the Green Party’s eco-socialism, but their anti-vaccine lunacy and inability to do anything electorally beyond run a presidential candidate every four years doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies.
I like Cornel West, and I appreciate his long-standing commitment to left-wing and anti-racist values.
That said, I live in the real world, where Donald Trump is running as an open fascist promising to make America a dictatorship if elected, and Joe Biden is the only candidate running with a realistic chance of beating him.
So I’ll be voting for every Democrat I possibly can, while wishing they were better than they are, as always.
Joe Biden is also an open fascist who is proudly facitating a genocide and ethnic cleansing
You won’t find an American president that doesn’t support Israel, you were close with bernie.
Because if there’s nothing else you can count on an American president for, it’s them being a standard-bearer for ethics.
Vote for the least worst option. Cry because I live in a red state and it won’t make any difference.
Voting trump, assuming he takes the nomination
