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Young Activists to Biden: Change Course on Gaza — or Lose in 2024
(www.rollingstone.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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yay "democracy"
In every voting system, not voting is equivalent to a vote for the worst option.
That’s how democracy in general works. Even with ranked choice voting, if someone only puts candidate A as their choice because they disagree with everyone else, then their vote doesn’t count if candidate A is eliminated in the first round.
Not voting at all just lowers the threshold needed to win.
I'm sorry, but that's not even close to how democracy in general works.
I've lived, worked and voted in The Netherlands where vote is proportional and there the "useful vote" (or as it should be better called "negative vote" as people vote against the other candidate rather than for a candidate) does not exist at all.
I've also lived and voted in other coutries of Europe with different systems and the Dutch one is one of the best and that certainly gets reflected in their politics (those of consensus, not partisanship) and outcomes and the only one which is as bad as the US is the British one (in fact, with a Monarch with real power and an unellected 2nd House, it's probably less democractic than the US system, though at least their uninominal electoral circles aren't as large as in the US)
(All those countries were EU countries at the time, hence why I could vote in all of them, though in some only in Local Elections and for the EU Parliament)
The US is a not a Democracy, it's this wierd Power Duopoly system with a near-symbolic vote sitting between a Power Monopoly (i.e. Dictatorship) and real Democracy.
Do not confuse your ignorance when it comes to voting systems with what is maybe one of the most visible effects of anti-democratic voting systems being "how democracy in general works". Not! Even! Close!
We’re talking about NOT voting, you illiterate fuck.
That's quite the pure animalistic lashback.
Your words: "In every voting system a non vote is a vote for the worst option"
So I just pointed you out voting systems were that's not the case.
That emotional reaction at me pointing that out and that the American voting system (clearly all that you know) is particularly anti-democratic even amongst flawed voting systems is a pretty good indication of somebody either whose identity is entwided with a nation which they must believe is superior to see themselves as inherently superior or being one of those wankers who firmly believes he's always right with no requirement for proof and whilst being incapable of taking in criticism to such a level it's an actual diagnosable mental disease, hence my criticism of the nation and that proven wrong unsupported belief resulting in such emotional pain and rage.
Normal, healthy and non-brainwashed individuals don't react like that.
That's some seriously fucked up psychological shit ridding you that I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy.
Normal, healthy individuals don't misread the original post so badly.
In systems which are parliamentary rather than presidential, there is no such thing as a single candidate (with real power) that's chosen because there is no single president representing the whole land (or, as in Germany, whilst there is one, it's purelly symbolic with no actual power).
If the parliamentary election uses proportional vote, once again there are no single candidates being selected: people vote for parties and then seats are allocated in a proportional way, so not voting is perfectly neutral and indirectly favours no party.
Even in systems with parliamentary elections using multiple candidate electoral circles, not voting only sometimes benefits a specific candidate (depending very much on the balance of the other votes).
It's only when you have single candidate electoral circles or presidential elections (for a position with real power) that not voting for one of the main parties is almost the same as voting for the other one.
Not that I'm defending not voting: personally if and when I find no candidate to my liking I'll still go and vote, only vote blank, since not voting can just be interpreted as lazy whilst going to the trouble of getting one's sorry ass of one's sofa to go and a stand in line and then vote, only to vote blank, most definitelly signals one's dissatisfaction with all parties/candidates.
It's extremelly easy for politicians to spin abstention as unimportant, but not so for blank votes.
I've actually been a member of political parties in 2 countries (and always small parties, so it's not as if I'm going personally gain from it) and have even manned voting sections, so it's not as if I'm not doing far more than average to try and improve the countries I live in.
Then again I can have this far more nouanced take on voting because I generally lived in countries were the voting system meant voting made at least some difference.
Ok ChatGPT.
Hey, if it makes you feel better to think that other people couldn't possibly write themselves something that requires broad knowledge and which you can't follow, go right ahead and tell yourself they're using an LLM.