Ever heard of consent?
I’m going to show the government by not voting!
-66% of Americans
Showed them.
Damn, they should really have thought about that when picking their nominees
Got it, should riot instead.
You should.
You won’t though.
A riot on your own is just a tantrum. There’s no point of you’re not organised.
Good thing May is coming ;)
Well that’s the left fucked then.
I’m convinced that the CIA is somehow causing the American left to be unable to organize, because with organization comes power, and the left having power would mean a shift away from corporate rule.
Closest they seemed to get was the Black Panthers. So it was the FBI rather than the CIA that busted that in.
Like by infiltrating, arresting, and executing them? It’s the FBI. You know about COINTELPRO, right? There are tons of FBI documents talking about how they did exactly that. Or like… The drug war?
This shit is recent and still going on. I have a friend who’s an organizer. The FBI comes and knocks on his door every April just to tell him they’re watching him. This happens to every visible organizer in the Seattle area. I mean, fucking Durkan and Robert Child’s.
The US apparatus of state violence primarily targets the left. We live under a continuous counterinsurgency program and it’s mostly targeted and keeping the left from organizing. Go read Life During Wartime and watch Trouble episode 6.
There’s huge and well documented paper trail. The CIA prevents democracy aborad, the FBI prevents it at home.
Who’s the one that tried to get MLK Jr. to off himself due to him getting a bit too socialist? FBI? Whoever it was was probably also involved in his shooting.
That would be the FBI.
The CIA killed socialist politician in my country.
And I’m not some banana south-american dictature, I’m in western europe.
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I’m really not sure this is true, since it’s basically all people talk about right now
I’m currently in a discussion on here with a user who refuses to vote. Pointing out that Biden has done nothing and rule under Democrats has yielded zero change. All I want is for us to come together, vote Biden in, and then carry that momentum into his next term. Historically, us not on the Right have been rather poor at coming together for a goal. Republicans on the other hand act like rabid dogs until some smuck tosses a week old rancid steak in a direction and they all surge forward.
Course then it’s back to infighting. Fuck me if it hasn’t gotten us all to the point we’re at now though.
All I want is for us to come together, vote Biden in, and then carry that momentum into his next term.
So like every four years forever?
yeah, didn’t work in brazil, we just opened up for the right to elect their dumbass just before the pandemic started, it was grim, please do vote for the lesser evil.
Yeah, vote if you want, but please do more than that.
When your choices in an election are between “boring corporatists” and “100% concentrated evil” you don’t have the luxury of sitting this election out with your adorable little “protest vote.”
If authoritarians win the next election, you won’t have to worry about voting ever again.
The problem with guaranteeing your vote is that politicians take your vote for granted. They also take it as approval of their policies (like, you know, genocide).
Then it’s a problem comparison issue. Ethically, you go with the least problematic candidate.
Write “genocide” as your write in candidate.
They don’t. No vote is taken for granted. We know this because every campaign has to do GOTV every election. If you ever worked a campaign you know that voters leaning your direction are very frustrating because they will agree with everything you say and then just not show up to vote.
People protest to make themselves feel better. If you lean left you can just call up Democrats in Congress and tell them how you feel. They will listen.
just call up Democrats in Congress and tell them how you feel. They will listen.
yea the voicemail listened so well and didn’t interrupt me at all, except to tell me that there is no more room for messages.
I don’t get this “call your reps” take I see everywhere from people arguing that it’s the best and only way to be heard when literally I have been doing it for half a decade and no. No it doesn’t. Not when elections are guaranteed whether they listen or not.
Fix your party in the primaries. Support it during the general.
People protest to make themselves feel better
right, cause the stonewall riots didn’t catalyze the dying lgbtq+ movement that was originally only made up of white gay cis men “calling democrats” and trying to be respectable. sure thing bud
And if you think they didn’t overwhelmingly vote dem every time you’re sorely mistaken
The point of guaranteeing your vote in the general election is to make yourself and your interest group an invaluable base of support anyone in the party will need to succeed in a general election. Once the party has been made dependent on your group, you can pressure them via primaries, running and voting for your own candidates, making yourself and your interest group an invaluable base of support to win in a primary election.
We’ve actually seen this happen in real-time with MAGA, which has virtually taken over the GOP. They vote red in every general election, participate in every primary, and as a result are vastly overrepresented in the GOP. The difference of course, is they’re reactionary authoritarian nationalist, and we’re not.
This isn’t specific to MAGA, they’re only special because we’ve been able to watch their take over of the party, and now slowly burn it down with incompetence and unpopular policy. These changes have happened to both parties in the past, many times, and in parties all over the world.
I believe the middle ground is to vote a spoiled ballot. Which is to say, vote but leave the entry for the slots with no good candidate blank. Your participation is registered. Your approval of individual candidates is withheld. The message is loud and clear.
However this primarily works in systems where the elections are already fair and equitable, and it is simply a subset of candidates who suck.
The fundamental problem with the US electoral system - particularly wrt the electoral college - is that volume of participation doesn’t really matter. I can vote for Trump. I can vote for Biden. I can vote Third Party. I can leave it blank. I can not-vote. Trump is still going to carry my state of Texas, guaranteed.
My support for the winner of the electoral delegates is implicit in residency, it is not a function of my participation at the ballot.
Volume does matter, though. It enough people vote blue in Texas districts, the result goes the other way and overwhelming turnout can even defeat the bias of gerrymandering.
With the EC, the number of votes in any district boils down into just the winner of that district, which I think is what you’re saying, but it doesn’t negate the activity behind it. Granted, this simplification is problematic still because districts are not the same and it ignores relative district sizes. Votes still matter because we don’t know what will actually happen in each race.
Texas is historically a pretty conservative state demographically, so it would not be a surprise for Trump to win there. That’s democracy working as it should (despite flaws) to represent as many people as it can. Democracy needs people to participate and give a coordinated equal push towards our goals, and we might be surprised by how different the results could be if we all believed in it and worked together.
It enough people vote blue in Texas districts
Then we’d be California. But we’re not. Republicans still beat Dems on registration alone by a good 10-pts.
Combine that with voter caging in red districts and state harassment of voting officials in blue districts, high profile prosecution of black voters, deceptive robocalls, and straight up old fashion voter intimidation at polls, and you get a state that will remain solidly red into the foreseeable future no matter how bright blue Houston, Austin, and Dallas shine.
Even that is predicated on Texas voters continuing to support Democrats, when Democrat elected reps - from Liz Fletcher to Henry Cuellar to Ryan Guillen - drift increasingly right-wing in their politics even as their districts gain liberal votes.
Texas is historically a pretty conservative state demographically, so it would not be a surprise for Trump to win there. That’s democracy working as it should (despite flaws) to represent as many people as it can.
A state that splits 60/40 on an issue, but represents as 100% homogeneous by way of elected representatives, is not “democracy working as it should”. It is a deliberate subversion of democracy, for the purposes of limiting enfranchisement and minimizing the influence of minority voting blocs.
Our version of democracy is flawed, yes, I agree. We can talk all day about what is working against us and how it looks like it won’t win.
What I’m advocating for, though, is participating despite that. We need learn to work with the system as it is because there’s not much time to change it. Election reform, though, is my top priority going into the next presidency.
What I’m advocating for, though, is participating despite that.
The system doesn’t value your participation when it is run by people who hate you. Ritually pantomiming democracy is something you do for your own anxiety. It has no impact on the outside world.
We need learn to work with the system
We need a system within to work. But the current system is actively harming its community. Working in the system means being this guy
Election reform, though, is my top priority going into the next presidency.
Going to shut down these awful casinos with my winnings, as soon as I hit the jackpot.
What’s the alternative? Not voting so others will decide for you. Even if you don’t like both candidates, you probably hate one more than the other.
These all feel like freakout beatings in attempt to get the voters back from the bad polling numbers of Biden.
I’m not sure they will have the impact desired.
Its funny bc people from usa thinks this is smart
Every user who makes one of these “vote for the guy you warned me 4 years ago would make trump 2 inevitable” posts is getting a block.
It takes an unfathomable brass neck to see muslims resist genocide joe for years only for white liberals to swoop in every election year chanting “well the other guy wants to kill you faster” as if that makes your guy any better.
Get a fucking spine or go back to reddit.
In France you can vote “blank” which is counted separately to absentees.
That’s just stupid with extra steps…
Nope, because of the argument screenshotted by OP. How do you fail so hard at reading?
Sounds very Irish.
France is slowly descending into fascism. Every five years they have the choice between liberals and the far-right, like in the US. Voting liberals is empowering the far-right, since nazis are feeding on poverty brought by liberals.
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