If you chose not to decide, you still have made a choice…
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One side started war with iran while other side didn’t
One side destroyed relationship with strongest allies for nothing while other side didn’t.
One side went to war with people on the streets with ICE and lowered recruitment requirements while other side didn’t.
One side gave us Pete Hegseth while otherside didn’t.
One side started tariff war for nothing while other side didn’t.
Both sides same though I guess?
Don’t forget gutting USAID and research funding, including children’s cancer research, so they can instead pay for the hired thugs in ICE. Legitimately one of the most shameful things the US has ever done in terms of deaths caused, in the short and long term.
One side is circling their wagons around a child fucking pedophile rapist.
The other side isn’t.
NOVEMBER 2028 For President! The actual month of November, serving as actual president of the United States of America America!! FREEDDOOOMMMMMM! I do politic
Uh-oh. You promoted voting. Time for all the dbzer0 and .ml chodes to show up and tell you why you shouldn’t do that.
Which, of course, is all the more reason to vote. If you do the opposite of anything anyone from either of those instances say, you are almost assuredly doing the right thing.
If you sit on the fence as the fence burns down, you’ll end up in the dirt with everyone else.
If you aren’t blocking toxic instances on Lemmy you don’t give a damn about much and probably won’t vote anyway.
Fediverse in theory: and all these different instances can connect to each other, it’s so cool!
Fediverse in practice: [bullying people for being on the wrong instance]
the instance tribalism is always so unhinged
Blocking isn’t bullying.
Painting with a broad brush much?
Oh I’ve seen a few already. It’d be adorable that they think they are making something resembling a point if it wasn’t so intentionally harmful to the future of so many people that are being oppressed to the point of suicide.
The dumbest thing is how we still haven’t done anything close to what France and other countries are doing to actually make their voice heard. Won’t change my mind. Yes, you should go vote. You should also overthrow the government.
Too late to vote now. Republicans aren’t leaving so if Americans want their country back, they need to take action. Spoiler, they won’t.
We should start with a national, general strike.
America should call the French for help overthrowing the government, like they did 250 years ago
France isn’t overthrowing their government, they’re protesting. Huge difference.
I’m down for both.
Nobody is saying you cannot demand better from your elected officials.
But if you sit at home you let fascists win.
You can’t demand better when you give up the only leverage you have against them.
What leverage? “Give into my demands or I’ll shoot myself in the foot”?
Sorry, that should be “give into my demands or I’ll sacrifice the lives of the weak and vulnerable because their lives mean less to me than making a political point”
“You can’t vote for who actually represents you! You have to vote for your oppressor because if you don’t they will make me suffer! So, throw yourself under the bus to protect my comfort because I refuse to have solidarity with those who are currently oppressed by the status quo.”
The establishment party you keep trying to force people to vote for are already sacrificing the weak and vulnerable to maintain the system of capitalist-imperialist oppression. The party is the one sacrificing them by refusing to meet the demands of the people they are supposed to be representing.
The only (legal) leverage over the ruling class the people have is their vote for who to put in power. If you prove to always give them power regardless of if they meet the obligations of their representative position then you have thus abandoned any leverage you had to incentivize them to change.
The system is a broken one that is set up to ensure that the ruling oligarchy can continually oppress the working class so long as they threaten the middle with a “greater evil”. And it will continue as is until people stop letting perfect be the enemy of good by waiting for the perfect time to change their habits and actually vote for someone who truly represents them instead of continuing to abdicate all their political autonomy into the hands of the lesser evil.
^^^^^^ the protest non voters are part of why so many Ukrainians are dying, why Israel has stronger and more deadly weapons, why climate change just got massively accelerated, why research funding and USAID got gutted (including life saving vaccines and children’s cancer research). some many of you will die but not me so that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
If you’re going to not vote out of protest maybe don’t do it in the most impactful election of our lifetime.
Every election always seems to be framed as “the most important of our lifetime”. There will never be a perfect time to change our habits and actually do something different.
Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same. —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973)
So if we don’t attempt to change now, then when? How long do we continue to let perfect be the enemy of good?
Cool, so what is the plan?
I see so many comments leading up to every election talking about needing to flip the system, make big changes, and upset the status quo. What do we actually see? You all do absolutely nothing, then crawl back into your holes after world democracy slides deeper into hell.
Some of us are out there protesting, and organising, and trying to fix what we can in our community. But we also recognise that we need to work and vote within the system we are trapped in until we can dismantle it.
This:
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
—Karl Marx “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.” London, England. March 1850.
Vote within the system, sure. But make sure you voting for those who represent you, not the lesser evil who keeps you trapped in the system.
So you can demand better. But actually taking any concrete action to hold a party accountable when they ignore your demands is beyond the pale.
Gotta love the “logic” of ShitLibs.
You make the critical mistake in assuming that not voting for the Dems actually hurts them.
I’d say they’re also happy to be in perpetual “opposition”.
So really the only thing not voting is doing is saying that you want more dead children.
“We can demand better! We are still going to abdicate power to you regardless of if you listen but we can still technically make the demands!”
There are loads of people who think you can’t demand better from your elected officials. People were out protesting Mamdani for being a liberal zionist and I saw plenty of commenters saying how they must’ve been paid opposition because how could anyone be criticising Mamdani?
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
More like 3 people vote to drive off one cliff, 3 people vote to drive off another cliff, 3 people don’t vote, and 1 person votes not to drive off the cliff.
The 3 people who didn’t vote in your scenario could band together and vote to drive off any cliff or no cliff at all. But they won’t…because what? Their vote doesn’t matter? Not a perfect cliff? Not a perfect non-cliff? Their favorite streaming series just got released and voting is really hard?
Still a bunch of dummies not using their power.
Everyone voting to not drive off a cliff would be the best choice. Doesn’t help that liberals keep shaming people who vote that way.
Yeah, people voting against their own best interests is crazy. I guess to some people driving off a cliff is worth it as long as they get to decide who pees in which bathroom?
No, they’re making a “both sides bad” argument when one side wants desperately to find an excuse to exterminate trans people, and the other is milquetoast and ineffective.
I know you guys won’t, because your job is to convince as many people as possible not to vote after all, but god do I yearn for the day when the Democrats start to appeal to non-voters by other means than “at least we’re not as bad as the other guy”. If you think that this is an effective strategy, you might just be able to wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory. Just keep letting marginalized folk know that they shouldn’t count on their lives improving, because you’re commited to doing just slightly better than the opposition. Don’t campaign on promises of anything materially better, only on being paid off by the same interests groups as the “other side”, except for the fact you’re going to keep doing those things they paid you for - but politely. And if you think that the existence of my argument against your strategy on the internet is going to ruin your chances for it working at all, and you’re going to blame those arguing against it for your loss while you’re blasting the same old points of “we rape and murder arguably less”, then BOY can I figure out the results it’s going to bring.
Anyone who was going to vote for the lesser evil is going to do that anyway. Anyone who’s on the fence will most likely decide to sit this one out (again). Claiming it’s someones moral obligation to vote for terrible (but slightly less) people is going to depress votes, exactly as it did with Harris. Change your strategy or lose.
Just fucking… talk about the affordibility crisis and your plans to end it. About universal healthcare. About how Israel is a bunch on genocidal bastards. Just anything other than this proven, time and again, losing strategy. You have a field full of targets and a loaded gun. Only way you can miss is if you point it at your head. Or go further right to win MAGA voters, I guess…
There are democrats talking about those things, you just aren’t listening.
It’s too bad Harris didn’t during the ‘24 election, though
She did, you just weren’t listening.
Yup.
Selective hearing. It’s insane how often people complain about Dems not doing something when it’s literally part of their party’s policy platform and has been for a while.
Or how often I see someone complain about something the Dems aren’t doing when it’s something their party or their president literally passed or signed an EO for. People just don’t pay attention. And then you list out the bills or EO’s in question and they move the goalposts and cry harder to compensate for their inability to pay attention.
Do they need to do more? Duh. Do they actually get stuff done? Yeah, they actually do. And compared to the other party that only works in opposition to Americans, they technically get infinitely more done than their opponents.
It’s a combination really. Of Dems not being good at messaging and people just not fucking paying attention.
Messaging is hampered when the message is delivered by people who oppose you. The Dems don’t need help to shoot themselves in the foot, but they get it anyway.
I am, despite not being from USA I am following the midterm races from the imperial core because I know their results will affect my life, the way they did in previous elections. This post, and the vast majority of the propaganda spouted by Dems, is exactly that, though. There’s more criticism from the estabilishment Dems towards politicians that do make those points, like Mamdani or El-Sayed, than towards their opponents in the White House. And what does most of them do say about their plans in office? How do they campaign? Exactly the way you see here. And don’t get me wrong, I want bad politicians to lose and good ones to win. It’s good some do have reasonable strategy, they will do better than the dumbfucks who keep blasting that uncommited voters that don’t care about politics as much as they’ve been taught not to care, that just want to get through their hard day of work and worries - that those voters have to to make time to go and vote for slightly less known Epstein associate. It’s not even that I want those dogshit politicians to lose, though I can’t claim I see presidency of Newsom going better than Trump’s in terms of quality of living for people in USA, but probably noticably better for me in Europe. It’s just that they WILL LOSE AGAIN unless the messaging capabilities of the propagandists improve.
Too bad it’s usually 11 people on the bus 5 vote to drive off the cliff at 60mph and 4 vote to drive off the cliff at 30mph and tell the other 2 that if they vote to not drive off the cliff, the 60mph guys will win.
The people in the gray bar in the actual registered voter turnout graph below could band together and vote to, ya know, not drive off a cliff. But they won’t, even though they are the majority.
That’s the most frustrating part about politics. If everyone who thought “I would vote third party but they have no chance of winning” voted third party, the third party could win. But they don’t because it’s too risky, it takes votes away from the party they figure has a chance of winning. This is why ranked choice voting is needed.
It’s funny how even when you have more than 2 parties the system still favors a 2 party system. 2025 was strange for Canada because a lot of people voted Liberal to stop the Conservatives, not because the Liberal was a great option. Green party voters are particularly frustrating because they are a single issue party and their entire platform is pretty much in the NDP platform.
Yup. I was one of the ones who voted liberal when I’d really rather vote NDP but it was more important to stop the conservatives. This is why I wish we had ranked choice voting. A few months ago, I was randomly called for a survey. When they asked me which party I’d vote for if there was an election today, I said NDP. I want polls to show NDP has a chance of winning so maybe next election they will.
“usually” is incorrect here. Voter turnout isn’t 9 out of 11 people.
well there’s that … so there is 20 people on the bus and 11 bother to vote, 2 intend to vote for the Not Driving Off a Cliff Party, and the other 9 are arguing about how fast we should drive off the cliff.
The other 9 have been convinced that voting not to drive off a cliff has no chance of working so they must pick one of the other parties
They claim to love Democracy whilst not practicing it or getting upset poltics is brought up in their daily lives. Gotta feel bad for those who chose ignorance above all else.
Gotta feel bad for those who chose ignorance above all else.
I don’t feel bad for them. I hate them.
iT’s TrUe ThOuGh
You’re a truthophobe
What if the other choice is also driving off a cliff, but further away?
Then that buys time to develop other choices, still better than not voting.
Yeah that’s what people have been saying since like the 1800s. I forgot who said it or what it was from, but there was a post going around last election with quotes from a bunch of different periods of history with people railing against the two-party system and complaining about how every single election it’s always the same choice between voting for things to stay the same/get a little worse, or get much worse. Every election it’s the same narrative of how this is the most important election’ ever where you have to accept the slightly shitty choice to ‘save democracy’. Going back 200 years. And nothing has been done to change the system no matter how many times the ‘good’ party has been in charge, and the gradual downslide into a fascist shithole has continued regardless of who’s in charge. No matter how many times people have voted in the ‘lesser evil’, y’all are still caught in that bullshit trap. Maybe if a third party had been able to gain some ground in those 200 years things might be different, but people like you claim that voting third party is throwing your vote away just as much as non-voting, so i don’t even know what to say to someone who’s bought in so completely to the fiction that you have any sort of choice in this system. Keep voting and the corporations will keep throwing up shittier and shittier stooges to build the future they want regardless. It’s literally the quote from wargames. The game is rigged and the only winning move is not to play. And also to overthrow your piece of shit government/corporate overlords.
Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
—Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973)
Thank you.
I have voted (early). There were people on the ballot I knew I was not going to vote for, even though they would be considered the lesser of two evils. Luckily, there was a third choice which was a better choice than the main two, so they got my vote.
The people who say just voting for the lesser two evils works, well Trump proved them wrong. At some point there has to be a major change.
THIS. 1,000%
But the bus driver supports genocide. The whole bus is rotten. We should let the bus go off the cliff and then build a new bus. I’m sure enough of us will survive the crash to build a better bus afterwards. Many people will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
🤡🤡🤡
Thank you for the clown emojis because I 100% thought you were seroius because of how many fools there are on Lemmy that believe that exact sentiment and they aren’t joking. Juvenile fools.
I almost added a /s too just to be safe
Many people will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
But not from the genocides?
Appropriate emojis considering the message. Hoping they’re in place of a /s
Absolutely in place of /s
“The five non-voters are the true anarchists who see the violence inherent in the system. Actually the two who voted against driving off the cliff are wrong for even supporting a system in which voters can choose to drive the bus off the cliff. They’re actually worse than the three who voted to drive the bus off the cliff, because they tacitly approve of driving the bus off the cliff just by participating in the system which allows the bus to be driven off the cliff, while fooling themselves into feeling morally absolved of the decision to drive off the cliff! So the non-voters are the only virtuous ones in this situation”
(The /s should be clear, right?)
(The /s should be clear, right?)
… are you new to the Fediverse? I encounter such arguments uttered unironically virtually every time I browse here - especially in election season.
But the bus driver supports genocide. The whole bus is rotten.
You ever notice how the ‘burn it down’ people fall into two camps?
- not in the affected area: chicken-hawk types who advocate the sacrifice of others.
- in the affected area: I didn’t know the leopards of societal collapse, starvation, and violence, would eat my face.
Just a bunch of moralists sniffing their own farts.
How about nobody in this situation is virtuous.
Go vote for pedo blue and tell yourself how righteous and great you are compared to the other shitty option camps.
Before you bitch and moan at me for differing from groupthink: I will be voting for blue pedo this turn about but I’m not gonna be online in a fart smelling circle with a bunch of do nothing moralists about it.
Please get over yourselves, you vote for slavery that’s out of sight abroad and pedos who eat babies so you can play gta6, you aren’t righteous.
pedo blue
This reeks of desperation.
I will be voting for blue pedo this turn about
Lol. Immediately abandon your morals. You don’t have a problem calling them pedos but you’ll vote for pedos…this time.
Type 2 also includes the “why’s it taking so long? Look at all these people suffering through the collapse. We need to make it collapse faster so we get to the good part faster” people, without acknowledging that this is what collapse looks like: lots of suffering
Yeah but you can just blame all that suffering on the people trying to hold the whole thing together, because obviously if you just let the whole thing collapse then the suffering will end abruptly and a magical utopia can finally descend from the heavens! /s
Who said there was a good part to get to? Turns out damaging the bus in any manner, whether by driving, inaction, or burning it on the road, is all bad. No one has mentioned hitting the brakes... oh wait, which one of you cut the lines?
Abstaining from voting is just a vote to let others choose for you. It does not exempt you from the system.
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
You’re banned from .ml, !latestagecapitalism and r/Pyongyang.
I am also banned from .ml and LateStageCapitalism. Anyone who isn’t insufferable and possesses a functional brain is or will be banned from those wretched hives of scum and villainy.
I don’t think the people downvoting this saw the mod who banned kingofras for bad jacketing proceeded to bad jacket someone else in the next thread about this subject.
You forgot to end your comment with “, z-word pigdog!”
Remember: if you stick to your morals and refuse to cosign on genocide abroad and austerity at home, whatever the other guys you’d didn’t vote for do is all your personal fault. No blame whatsoever may be assigned to the party that felt it didn’t need your vote badly enough to stop helping genocide or abandoning Neoliberalism.
-Statements from people who can’t tell politics from sports.