"I won't vote unless my very specific, personal requirements for your platform are met, period" is baby-brain engagement for lazy assholes.
You don't bend the will of the machine when you withhold your vote, you give them permission to ignore everything you say from that point forward.
You don't bend the will of the machine when you withhold your vote, you give them permission to ignore everything you say from that point forward.
Reposted from
Queer Satanic
what’s an opinion that’s got you like this around other leftists
Comments
They also have a habit of claiming that every vote for them is 100% endorsement.
Voting is meant to be about choosing the best party, but actually these days it is about the least worst.
How do we indicate that none of them is fit to govern?
Biden and the party he's led have been the most progressive Democrats of your lifetime.
And you are still being irrelevant and I love that you cannot see why.
Muting now.
And it is also quite rude... she is replying to me in a way that is unrelated to my post.
(But yeah, first female president... I guess that could be kind of cool.)
Tell me, how has voting blue no matter who allowed you to bend the will of the machine?
Then I worked in politics.
If you don't vote, you don't get wooed, you get ignored. You're put in a "can't count on you anyway" box.
Wishing for it to be different doesn't make it different.
It's not fair, it's not fun, but until you find a way to change that system, it is the reality.
Republicans win because they make big promises. Democrats lose because they come to the table already compromising
A thousand times this.
I've disliked Joe Biden to my core for YEARS and I have no problem voting for him over the insurrectionist felon dictator.
Same for Kamala Harris.
It's called picking your battles.
Better they stay in their ivory towers.
But outside of Palestinian people, I still stand by my previous statement./1
Man, actual revolutionaries went outside of the system to achieve equality so your dumbass can sit here and tell them to just vote harder.
The TLDR is if withholding your group vote is your only negotiating tactic with a party you use it.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/quiet-riot/id1747588157?i=1000667048238
Seriously, the only reason any government official has to listen to you is your ability to vote them out of office! If you outright tell them you aren't a threat to their position, what incentive do they have to listen to you?
Are you talking about some hypothetical candidate?
Or are you saying Kamala Harris says that anti-genocide protests are hate crimes?
They'd have been out there protesting this guy years and years ago if genocide was what they had sand up their pissholes about.
I am voting Harris because I’m a fucking mark and I know it.
The only real hold outs I see are people protesting actual genocide and as far as I know Harris is not committed to stop arming the war criminals.
So I respect the protest.
But, I am voting out of hate not hope.
Its bullshit. And if makes people unhappy then they should raise holy fucking hell.
That little shit would sell his family to clear his debts, put $1bn in the bank and an immunity deal.
You can vote Harris. That’s what I’m doing.
But the people who want her to commit to stop enabling genocide first are also not wrong.
Some people feel they need to withhold their vote as a negotiating tactic to get the concession.
And they’re right. That is how Democracy works.
Other people cannot in good conscience vote for anybody who supports a genocidal regime by giving it weapons.
They too, are correct.
2 parties supporting genocide is an irrational situation.
Not participating might be the most rational decision.
Don’t treat people who don’t want to participate as irrational.
That’s my point.
If you don't like the candidates for major offices, get more involved in local elections.
Most candidates still get their start running for city council, DA, or state legislature. Get the candidates you like through those primaries, and you'll see more candidates like them in major offices.
1) I don't blame Muslims or Indigenous people or Palestinians for not voting. Harris didn't earn their vote.
When left positions get more votes they move right.
When right positions get more votes they at least rhetorically move left to contrast with those positions.
Complete own goal.
But they still have enough honor & empathy to be bullied/shamed/cajoled into doing the right thing.
The Republicans & their placeholder Libertarian allies are just venal & corrupt.
I fucking know that. I also know who the GOP are now.
And now I know who to block.
they're just lazy cowards.
being in your 20s doesn't make you stupid.
plenty of their peers know what's up and what's at stake. they can't claim ignorance or "social sabotage."
I still think they’re lazy and arrogant but I also know their curriculums were suppressed.
we won't see eye-to-eye on this. I hold all adults, even new ones, accountable for all their choices, good or bad.
we all have access to the same data and sources. if they're choosing, yes, choosing, not to look, that's on them.
that laziness could kill us all.
A lot of people get way too precious about what is ultimately one of the least significant political acts we have available to us.
And you wonder why that's a hard sell.
but you really should be upset with the democratic party for not doing the bare minimum of admitting it's a genocide and promising to do anything within their power to stop it.
2. I am upset with the Democratic Party. I also recognize that they've got AIPAC looming over them, and PAC money is better positioned to throw the election to Trump than y'all are.
3. Still not seeing how sacrificing my country will help Gazans.
If you see any story with that outcome from here on out, that's what it is.
And was a huge break from neoliberalism/neoconservativism
Our national currency we use to pay our banks back for them
A loan for everyone else
Drives me insane sometimes.
Like politics doesn’t control everything from the cleanliness of the water we drink and the air we breathe to whether our employers can exploit us with impunity, whether our kids get educated, and what healthcare we can access.
Like, politics affects who can afford to pay you?
"A Senate inquiry has concluded that a Russian fake-news campaign targeted "no single group... more than African-Americans."
"Thousands of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and You Tube accounts created by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA)" (1/3)
"African-American community voters were discouraged from voting, and from supporting Hillary Clinton." (2/3)
And now Elon owns Twitter, why wouldn't they use the same tactics again in 2006?
Isn't there evidence?
Are you making an outrageous claim without any evidence whatsoever?
Are you doing this to divide America?
Sounds like something a Russian bot would do, imo.
We got 14 years of the Tories and Brexit
I just wish 20 years later that someone would put the fucking roof out so we can do something about the damn kitchen already.
Five minutes of talking to voters should disabuse you of this belief.
It is the job of an activist to work strategically to bring about the outcome they wish to see, and this includes getting votes on behalf of a candidate, even one they don't personally like but see as the least worst option.
Your vote is the only leverage you have. Threatening to withhold it is how you get politicians to listen to you.
vOtE bLuE nO mAtTeR wHo just gives politicians an excuse to walk all over you.
You have to still be reasonable and not remain stubborn if you don't get 100% of what you want.
how is that changing anything?
Call me baby brained, but you’re also calling Palestinian Americans this as well
Using that feeling as an excuse for self-righteous posturing & behavior that places their more-vulnerable fellow citizens, many of whom (myself included) exist under the threat of genocide from GOP themselves, in greater danger? Yes, absolutely.
I've tried to explain that, realistically, there are *very few good options* re Gaza (even if we cut off all funding and aid tomorrow, all that would happen is Netanyahu would just turn Israel's entire economy towards war, because he *really does not want to go to prison*)
1/x
I am in at least *five* categories at risk of genocide if that happens.
2/x
3/x
and there's no way to hold politicians accountable to their own promises except refusing to support them
but I guess someone needs to prop up the illusion of a popular mandate
I get that lesser evilism is much less catchy as an argument, but it's way more honest
if dems lose votes to green, psl or nobody, they have to shift policy for a win
you deserve every ounce of heat you get for this babybrain take
When a community's transit bus or subway system won't take you right to the front door of your desired destination, you don't just sit at home and do nothing.
You find a transit system map, determine which subway or bus will take you closest to the destination, climb aboard, and help yourself! 🤨
LGBT rights?
Gun control?
My only meaningful opinion is that the voters are too domestic and the state too international.
Whether there should be mass deportations of immigrants?
Whether it’s okay to incite racial hatred with blood libel?
Heck, whether we should even have a National Weather Service?
"You think you’re better than everyone else, but there you stand: the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns."
Timestamp 18:14
https://youtu.be/T_OO3J7BbSg?si=xwSzWZwXbWOa8FV8&t=1094
Chappell Roan: "Both sides have problems"
If they can write off your threats, you have no bargaining power. You need to find a more potent approach to have leverage.
It's better than what we fucking had for god's sake!
You're giving your consent for them to go on killing by voting for them.
You're the asshole.
We instead must vote against what we don't want.
And every time your inner 5 year old screams THAT'S NOT FAIR!, well guess what, they are right.
Conservatives will vote for a devil providing they get the one thing they want
Liberals will protest vote for 3rd party if they wont get that one thing even when they are getting 99% of what they want .
It is a real world example of the trolly problem.
That every choice means someone will be harmed. That ultimatums are making a choice which track you want to go down and that you are OK with who gets run over as a result.
It’s purely deciding the track you feel provides the least harm.
They think that by not voting, they are not complicit in the outcome. But if you have the power to even make the choice, that's when complicity begins.
Inaction is a conscious action.
There is no path here without negative consequences.
I don't really bother these days.
I quickly nope out of a conversation if it is blatantly obvious the person is not discussing in good faith.
It is tossing a bottle into the ocean thinking Harris herself will fish it out five minutes later and come running after you romcom style in the airport.
also we keep hitting people but I'm being told those aren't real people so it's fine
Also, this particular presidential election is unprecedented in a number of ways, most of which are unlikely to repeat any time soon
So I’m not really sure what your point is, here
Primaries? Hell yeah, go nuts, push as far as you can! The general, especially with FPTP, is too late for that. You have a binary choice and that’s that.
Like if someone has an actual plan that’s better I am all ears
You're fine with people dying as long as it's people you don't have to know or care about.
Harping on about people not voting for your candidate never moved a single election either.
They put the numbers into a spreadsheet and decide that tacking rightward is what gets them more votes.
It’s so stupidly self-defeating.
There’s a difference between “gaming the numbers” and trying to maximise the voting support among a broad tent of beliefs. The left flank not voting doesn’t invite pursuit.
I was just making a single point about what they think the numbers mean. Accurate or not.
I see it as the same as wearing a seat belt. It may not matter this time. But sooner or later it /will/ matter. And it doesn't impede me from doing other things to /also/ try and change the world.
Admittedly if you DO want to enact change on a specific issue and just that issue, voting is just the final step in a process that requires a LOT of time and effort and people to enact change on political policy.
The far right knows this VERY well.
Take a long, hard look at what the Republicans in power actually did during the Trump administration. They couldn't even come up with any border policy proposal. The only thing they did was pass tax cuts.
Every ideological promise made was ignored.
The reason it's a bunch of crazies now is the crazies got organized and seized the organization from the bottom up. The politicians themselves were the last step.
The right didn’t really have to go that hard right. Regular right was already pretty much right there.
They become more understandable when you start with this intellectual framework.
They don’t know that for sure!
Hell, sometimes I wonder if OUR way is the right way.
then you have to live it with for the rest of your life
Voting isn't the endgame.
Voting is picking the bus going closest to your destination.
Voting is a chess move in the middle of the game.
Vote to get closer to where you want to be
Vote so yours is the winning side.
But I imagine a lot of people would say this is probably not going to happen.
And wasteful, for that matter.
There is just no incentive to court your vote!
I noticed, since I posted it, but you might not have, because of the potential lack of reading comprehension, but I did not single out any specific single issue voter/non voter. I think all forms of it are detrimental and actively worsen democracy.