Abstaining from voting is just a vote to let others choose for you. It does not exempt you from the system.
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.
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Cuck voting
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
Absolutely! You’re part of “the system” due to the fact that you exist…
I prefer this equivalence: abstaining is voting according to the result of the election.
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.
🤡🤡🤡
“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.
You’re… not wrong…
Might I should have included a second “…right?” after that statement
It’s a toughie. Some people think indications of sarcasm ruin the fun.
I’m of the opinion that one should always clearly indicate satire due to Poe’s Law.
I like to put it in italics and sometimes attribute it to the group I’m parodying, or if an individual, I add “probably.” Observe:
“This entire thread is woke garbage. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I’ll drive this bus off that cliff better than anyone ever has. Better than Biden ever could. Biden tried to stop the bus and fill it with illegals. Putin promised me there’s rainbows at the bottom of that valley, and not the radical left rainbows either. The kind that leads you to beautiful, clean, black gold.”
- Donald Jeffreyepsteinsfavoritecustomer Trump, probably
Anakin stare intensifies
You’ve angered the .ml and .dbzer0 trolls.
Tankie tears are my favorite beverage.
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
You can fairly reliably tell whether or not such a post/comment is made genuinely (albeit perhaps astroturfically) or sardonically by merit of the instance from which the commenter posts.
Many people will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
But not from the genocides?
How does social collapse stop the genocides? Explain that part in detail, because I’m pretty sure any global socioeconomic collapse will accelerate existing genocides and probably add quite a few more. Like, do you numpties understand half the world dies in your best case scenarios, the first of which will absolutely be all the people being genocided currently?
Oops, all of the people who had the institutional knowledge to build a new bus died in the bus accident.
You call it clowning, but this is literally the strategy that was used to defeat slavery. The “play within the system” planned was attempted for nearly a hundred years by the Abolitionists. They tried your way again and again. Slavery only ended when they abandoned your way and started a third party.
Except a third party is still voting? I only clown on third party voters when they:
a) split the vote of a single party instead of pulling from both parties and new voters (because it only helps the remaining party cement their dominance in the next election through gerrymandering etc)
b) have clown policies that appeal only to emotion, with no path to implementation (I’m looking at you, Jill Stein and Ross Perot)
Show me a legitimate third party candidate with good policy proposals and a plan to gain votes without guaranteeing the worst candidate wins and I’ll vote for 'em, campaign for 'em, and more.
Third party isn’t burning the bus down or letting it drive off the cliff. Third party (when done well) is a third bus driver choice. I’m all for that.
Appropriate emojis considering the message. Hoping they’re in place of a /s
Absolutely in place of /s
Good to know!!
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It sounds stupid because it is…
Pedal to the metal, accelerate!
But you do need to build a new bus. You should start talking about how to stop the bus, let out the passengers, then setting fire to it.
Meanwhile: .ML BAD
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.
One side destroyed relationship with strongest allies for nothing while other side didn’t.
The US has never had a single ally, maybe except Israel. Only vassals.
If you think this is the first administration to abuse and antagonize countries it usually works with, you have not been paying any attention to what has been happening for the last 250 years.
The US is singlehandedly responsible for the EU still not being more closely united, as it always had and used its de facto veto over anything.
The US has never had a single ally, maybe except Israel. Only vassals.
Okay, I’ll bite.
In what ways has Australia been, and does Australia continue to be, a vassal of the USA? From our perspective, the USA has always been an ally for a long time (both militarily and economically), but the G.W. Bush and Trump presidencies, as well as the shambles of the AUKUS deal, have tested the resolve of the Australian public.
Generally speaking, Australian politicians - including governments - have never acted towards the USA as being a governing force over our vassal-like nature, nor outside the realms of an ally, so I’m wondering where your supposition comes from in our context.
I don’t necessarily agree with the person you replied to, but the existence of Five Eyes doesn’t exactly help your position…
On the first point here is Biden’s envoy to west asia Amos Hochstein saying that they expected to be in the same situation with respect to the Ramadan War and the subsequent fallout. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuhJS1d-F6Y&t=169s
The fact that you lied about how important he was in the Biden administration is telling. Under Biden he was 1 of 4,000 senior advisors.
He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs in 2013. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.
Liar.
He was sent by biden to negotiate with lebanon following operation al-aqsa flood. He is a senior figure with unique first-person insights into the current situation in west asia and Biden’s strategy should he have been reelected.
During the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, Hochstein made multiple trips to Lebanon as a special U.S. envoy in order to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. His strategy was to push Hezbollah to pressure Hamas into accepting a ceasefire agreement to end the Gaza war. In the case Israel and Hamas were to reach such a deal, Hezbollah had promised to in turn end its attacks on Israel.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Hochstein
He is the guy Biden sent whenever US foreign policy needed to be discussed on the ground in West Asia, he is definitely not “one of 4,000”.
Dickhead. Fitting username though.
Or…
Biden was a strong supporter of the original Iran nuclear deal that Trump eventually withdrew from. Biden tried to negotiate back into the deal while president but was not able to during first term. All signs point to more negotiations during a possible biden second term(iranian ppl beginning to distrust their gov), not a 180 turn to invasion…which no one wanted(of either party) and would never have happened under Biden.
Ok, I have Biden’s go-to guy when it comes to diplomacy in west asia saying otherwise. I don’t see anything that supports this other than indications (but no commitments) all of which are prior to operation al-aqsa flood.
Edit: sorry the first response was too confrontational, the other commenter had raised my hackles with their aggressive response
Don’t forget republicans have started every war for generations(at least 60yrs). All of the sudden modern dems decide to start a war because of one guy’s opinion? It would have been the most unpopular move by a democrat since… who knows when. Far more likely is a coalition of many, now former, strong allies pressuring Iran but without military intervention.
Every government runs war simulations about everything so that is also no indication at all.
Libya. Yugoslavia. Syria.
But also, you are proving the both sides problem. Eisenhower sent a few hundred soldiers to Vietnam. It was the Democrats that escalated and went hog wild and it was the Republicans that signed the peace accords. Somalia followed the same patterns.
I was obviously including vietnam for Dems when I said 60 years. So in generations they have all been started by republicans. As much as you would like, none of the ones you mentioned were wars. Interventions yes, and republicans have been involved in many as well. But wars? Only the war mongering gop. With a shiny new Iran war to get the gop’s heart pumping again.
Edit: You’re .ml which are gop war minimizers now it seems. So strange.
So you’re not using the legal definition of wars, and you’re not using the coloquial definition of wars. You’re using an idiosyncratic definition of war that proves your point. Well done. Someone should capture that technique. It’s gold. Defining terms to match your objectives. Why didn’t I think of that?
The gulf wars started under democrats. Privatization was pushed by Clinton. Ice was created by Obama. Ya they aren’t as different as you think. I vote 3rd party for 20 years btw.
The guilf wars started in 1990, 1991 started under a republican president and democrat congress where they had overwhelming republican support and divided democrat support. 100% gop wars for sure.
Edit: with a republican commander in chief. GOP wars without doubt.
Edit2: ICE was created under W in 2003…GOP again.
Here because you need to do some reading https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-border-agents-hands-tied-obama.
And here because you need to know history
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.
I’m down for both.
Both is a great idea. Both should be the suggestion for every reasonable person.
We should start with a national, general strike.
Only if we use the free time to physically hurt the people in power. If everyone just ends up sitting at home or on the side of the road it won’t accomplish much of anything especially since they know we’ll eventually return to work and they can outlast us.
It would be nice but it’s functionally impossible due to the size and spread out nature of the US. Half the country could shut down and the other half wouldn’t even feel it. You’d need every port city and shipping company, ship rail and truck, you’d need virtually every service worker, you’d need a majority of financial institutions, in every major city in every state. And they’d need to hold for weeks. It’s not possible, and wouldn’t be even if we didn’t have the awful dog-eat-dog antisocial bullshit culture we have.
America should call the French for help overthrowing the government, like they did 250 years ago
This is our problem, not theirs.
Halloween has been designated as the night we cut down all flock cameras, perhaps we can add to the list?
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.
If it was too late to vote the republicans wouldn’t be trying to stop people from voting.
Nobody is saying you cannot demand better from your elected officials.
But if you sit at home you let fascists win.
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
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.
Fucking non-voters complaining why the democratic party doesn’t cater to their whims, never connecting that it’s because they don’t fuckin vote. But you don’t become a tankie through reason or logic.
I vote in every fucking election. I am a former paid Democratic campaign staffer. I also will not cosign on a genocide nor will I vote for any candidate offering less than full-throatednsupoort for trans rights.
I love being Schrodinger’s voter to ShitLibs like you though. Pick a lane: either my vote is worth enough that the DNC should have to earn it by stepping over a bar that’s on the fucking floor, or my vote isn’t needed and the DNC doesn’t have to cater to me. But if you’re telling me it’s my fault when the other capitalist shitweasels win, I’m gonna have to tell you it’s the fault.ofnthe party that doesn’t care enough about my vote to piss off their Wall St Paymasters to earn it.
You’re an accelerationist, a lying ass tankie. You get republicans elected, you’re responsible for everything they do. You have more blood on your hands because of your ignorant principles. You help them kill trans kids. Fuckin worthless single issue trashbag MAGAt ass mindset. You work for fascists. Like a cop but somehow more stupid and useless.
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You get republicans elected, you don’t count.
I don’t care if it hurts them or not. I’m not voting for a lesser evil or a greater one. I’ll vote my conscience, and if more of you did we’d live in a better world.
“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!”
The Republican Party thanks you for your service.
They should be thanking Clinton and Obama for creating the material conditions that made Trump and fascism viable in US electoral politics.
But actually taking any concrete action to hold a party accountable when they ignore your demands is beyond the pale.
Yeah that’s not what they said (nor implied) though, is it?
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”
^^^^^^ 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).
somemany 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.
1850
hmm
Surprise surprise you immediately go to outdated classroom rhetoric that completely disregards any context of realpolitik. Your solution is outdated classroom theory that has no practical application. Congratulations, you’re a republican, because your solution is literally just let republicans win but be smug about your integrity while me and mine get bussed to camps. Fuck you dude.
Psyop gonna op.
This is a super long and irrelevant way of admitting you’re entitled to let others chose the fate of those that desperately need you to step up for them.
So if we don’t attempt to change now, then when? How long do we continue to let perfect be the enemy of good?
When the opposition is not an actual lunatic. There has not been a more damaging president in any way, we can’t even know the death count of the gutting of research and USAID, and those impacts will be felt for decades. He showed Iran that they have control over most of the world’s economy, and now we’re strengthening one of our biggest adversaries in Russia. We’ve ruined relations with EVERY country. Not to say anyone would have predicted it would be THIS bad, but the warning signs were there in what he was promising to do. Protest vote Romney vs Obama, that would suck but at least not destroy the entire world like Trump.
“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.
Right, so weeks out from the midterms your suggestion is… to withhold your vote from one party to send some sort of scolding message, while letting the pedophile and his army of racist goons continue to round up minorities and threaten to deport elected officials they disagree with?
No one is asking you to throw yourself under the bus, just to realise that we are all, globally, under the bus already. Some people are just trying to get their head out from under the wheels for the slim hope of dragging their mangled bodies out of the way of the next car.
They’re not our representatives. They never were. They’re the representatives of the ruling class.
Each election there is a set of choices on the table, usually only bad ones. But one of them always included extra suffering for minorities. It’s your duty in good solidarity with the minorities to vote against that.
If you want better choices you need to fight for a new table. That gets done every other day that isn’t election day. 99% of your time spent on getting a new table, like the French. 1% of your time protecting the vulnerable through harm reduction.
“Every other day besides election day”
Yet libs yell at anyone that dares to criticize or demand more action than just standing on roadsides on a single weekend every 8 months. It’s always “you can’t say that now!!! You’ll discourage people from supporting our party!!!” even when the next election is over a year away.
I don’t know what to tell you there. You’re saying that people who think we should change the system from within get mad when you try to change the system from outside of it?
It feels like you’re just describing being a leftist in a world of neo-fascists and neo-liberals.
I didn’t say voting wins the libs over… I said being a revolutionary leftist doesn’t free you from voting. If you want to improve material conditions you have to fight with every tool you have. Voting is quick and easy and improves material conditions for minorities Neo-fascists want to oppress.
Libs are not going to be on our side in this. They’re part of the oppressive system we want to dismantle. A part that’s just as hard to overcome as the fascists.
Besides, making progress on a revolutionary front also forces libs to make concessions which only improve the outcomes of voting.
Fuck fascists and fuck the libs. We don’t vote lib because they’re good, we do it because it’s an easy way to limit oppression against marginalised communities while we work on anticapitalist pursuits like community building, mutual aid, and other more assertive strategies as the opportunity arises.
LMAO!
“I’ll vote for you, but you better change or I’ll vote for you again”
“I won’t vote, and make sure the side with the most repugnant people who vote for the most repugnant choice wins.”
Harris won my state by a wide margin. There is no scenario in which she would have lost my state. Even if there was, we don’t have enough electoral votes to matter. Voting is for swing states.
Your leverage is voting in the primaries, but I’m betting you don’t do that. A protest vote is a vote for the winner in our system no matter how you feel about it.
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?
I imagine they were talking specifically about the “liberal Zionist” thing, since it’s such an absurdly stupid claim to make about him.
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.
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.
Am I also a chode or does my chosen instance absolve me of my crimes of wanting to see the USA crumble?
Yes, you are a chode.
Definilty a chode. Perhaps even the definition of one.
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]
Blocking isn’t bullying.
Please block people. Way healthier then making 4+ feudposts a week begging for admins to ban people for you.
Painting with a broad brush much?
Zero logic.
The real kicker is that the guy driving the bus is being paid to drive it off a cliff by the company that makes buses so that they can sell us a new bus even though no one will be left to buy it because the bus futures boost their stock price today.
But also remember to meet your neighbors, form communities, and join political groups before Election Day.
It’s important to vote, for sure, but if we aren’t part of the selection process that provides good candidates that’s when it feels useless. This is especially true for everyone that hates both parties.Yep voting is distasteful but necessary. People often forget the second half. Of running unworthy hacks out on a rail when they inevitably turn on you. Primaries are some of the most important though often neglected votes. Along with organizing and supporting actual good candidates from the community.
As a non-American: please vote!!! Your country influences our lives too and we have had enough of that disgusting orange shit! Please vote Democrat
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.
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.
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.
It’s too bad Harris didn’t during the ‘24 election, though
She did, you just weren’t listening.
She did but all we got was 24/7 coverage of “what do you have to say about israel Palestine” because apparently ukraine doesnt exist and neither do Americans or our healthcare or iran or any other issue in the world that she was infinitely better on.
I think I would have heard about it if she had talked about how Israel is a bunch of genocidal bastards.
Mostly because she would have won the '24 election. It really was down to single-issue “uncommitted” voters in a few states. The exact number of people who voted “uncommitted” in the primary would have turned the election and made Harris president. The DNC has access to all this info just like I do. I dunno why they would wanna lose over supporting Israel, but they did.
This is bus example is basically what they did with letting Trump loose on the world. Fucking idiots.
“But muh Palestine”. Yeah, I am sure Trump was soooo much better for Palestine.
Thank you for falling for the propaganda and blaming people who didn’t want to support genocide rather than placing the blame at those in power who refused to take the most basic moral stance we can demand of our politicians.
You have failed to solve the trolley problem.
The only solution to the trolley problem is to kill the trolley driver.
Go for it. Otherwise, by doing nothing you’re failing to support harm reduction.
More like: the only problem to the trolley problem is to preach extreme action and do nothing.
I’m pretty sure “the trolley cannot be stopped no matter what” is an integral part of the thought experiment.
Which is why it’s a bad analogy to apply to real world situations. It only helps trap people into thinking the problem is unsolvable because that’s the way the system works, when in reality if the system is making you choose between things like genocide abroad or fascism at home, you should just change the system.
Oh we ABSOLUTELY blame you.
Just imagine how much worse Palestine would be if that wishy washy woman had been elected. /S
It’s a bit weird to let an insignificant almost country on the other side of the planet, filled mostly with people who hate you and your way of life, be the most important thing in your voting decisions.
No, it’s not weird at all. Litmus tests exist for a reason. Because if you’re willing to betray your voters to support genocide, there’s literally nothing else you won’t be willing to betray your voters for.
And most of those idiots don’t even know where it is on a map. It’s proof it’s not about Palestine.
They are willing to throw democratic candidates under the bus by writing in blank when they’re pro-Palestine, why should people rally behind them when they are up for election??
But by not voting I show how apathetic I am and that makes me super cool, and then I go online to brag to everyone about how super cool apathetic I am…wait…am I still apathetic if I go online to brag and fight about it?
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.
“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
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.
How do we get enough people in power who support ranked choice voting without first voting for those people in the existing system?
Put it on the ballots at the local (city, county) level. Measures don’t begin with elected officials, they begin by figuring out the prerequisites to put measures on ballots: in some places you need petitions with enough signatures by common people for a measure to be considered, the prereqs vary per locality.
Do you think I’m suggesting we shouldn’t vote because I have a criticism of the voting system?
No I am genuinely asking. I don’t know how we could do that.
We are in a thread about not voting but I am serious. How? Sorry about asking in this thead.
I don’t understand the question. The way to get to ranked choice voting IS by voting in people who support it. Why are you asking for a different way to achieve it? Nobody suggested it can be achieved otherwise. The people who are in power need to make the change happen. Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau promised to change the system and didn’t. It is difficult to change because those in power don’t have much incentive to change the system that got them in power.
Ahhh… you’re in Canada. I’m in the US. RCV is light years away for us.
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.
I get it, I have actually held a Liberal party membership at times in my life. But the last election I didn’t really see much of a difference between the LPC and the CPC, I think we’d be in the same place today if the Cons won.
There are more then 2 political parties in the USA. First-past-the-post voting chains people to two because of the spoiler effect you are demonstrating.
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?
They’ll vote to drive off their cliff just to spite the other cliff party. That party wants to drive off the east cliff? Obviously the only way to combat such extremism is to own those motherfuckers by driving off the west cliff
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.
