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The problem with not voting
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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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As a dual citizen with Australia:
Vote, vote, vote. You are disrespecting all hard-fought wons by marginalized groups throughout 200+ years of history.
Literally, the first voters in the country were land owning white men.
People died. So you could have a say.
You are disrespecting the dead, and denying you civic duty, and your obligation in the social contract, by not voting.
People should be disgraced and shunned for not voting. I do not care what your political beliefs are, even if they are odious or fickle or contrarian or uninformed to me.
Show up and cast your ballot you otherwise absolute disrespectful coward.
Yeah, that's it... lecture and gaslight the people who have seen what you refuse to admit - that's the way to get them back on your side.
So -- and I want to be clear about this -- to honour and respect those who fought and died for my right to vote, I should show up and put a cross next to the name of someone I think is a homophobic, transphobic, bigoted piece of shit just because she is less of a homophobic, transphobic bigoted piece of shit than the other person I could put a cross next to the name of?
To me that doesn't suggest I am showing any honour or respect to anyone. It just says that I am giving up every bit of my dignity, integrity and shame and that when I stand before my ancestors in the Halls of Judgement they will look at me and shake their heads in disgust.
Yes. Either voice your opinion for who is less bad, or have no voice. The game is rigged, but it's the only game in town.
That's not how living in reality works. Tell that to the rioters of the stonewall inn. That was the most meaningful change to the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. They used their voices for multiple nights and it mobilized the community like never before. No thanks to the "repspectables" Also what do you tell the disenfranchised, the people that have been robbed of their opportunity to vote? You are essentially telling them that they are voiceless which isn't true in the slightest. They are just living under a repressive government that people have voted for time and time again thinking they are doing something good. Yet what this allows people to do is say they don't need to participate in direct action and they create "officials" that maintain narratives that further disenfranchise more people. And democrats do this too, not just republicans.
Funny choice of words, because in reality, it's a zero sum game and you either vote for the person closest to your views or risk getting the person you disagree with more. That is the reality of the situation.
Yes, direct action is very cool and very hip, and I encourage it, but we're talking about voting.
No, I am telling people that abstain from voting that they are voiceless, because they are choosing to not use it because of ~dignity~ and ~integrity~
Nobody said anything like that, you are injecting that narrative out of nowhere. Nobody said voting for Biden is the only political thing you have to do this year. Go advocate and go protest, I encourage you, but also vote.
not voting and voicing why you are not voting has so far created more discourse around the failures of the democratic party than saying "vote blue, no matter who". so to me this seems much more direct than just quietly voting.
dems thought they may have it in the bag with biden but they don't. the biden admin has the lowest approval rating of any administration. enabling a genocide and aligning with the country perpetrating it for most of your political career will do that to your approval rating.
all they have to do is say permanent ceasefire and they get all those votes back. its not a hard concept. maybe instead of threatening voters with what will happen if they lose, they should do the thing that is preventing them from winning
Sure, but is creating discourse the goal? Is the discourse even helping?
Agree
I can't speak for everyone but for me, yes
Depends on a lot of things. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. Ik there are aggressive democrat voters trying to shame and bully people into compromising themselves in an already compromising situation. They are told that what they think doesn't matter and they "don't have a voice" unless they vote. They don't have a voice because y'all wont listen. We have voted, for what... to feel dirty and used by people you will never meet? I hope my replies and posts reach the eyes of those so they know that they aren't voiceless and that this is an effective means of protest. Its obviously working by how much time and energy has been spent to try and convince us we are wrong. This is how democrats disenfranchise leftists. By saying this kind of protest and that kind of protest is ineffective, which is as ive pointed out demonstrably false because they are talking about it. You're only allowed to protest a certain way even by democrats standards.
One fateful night, Marsha P. Johnson dropped a bag of bricks on a cop car and inspired millions of LGBTQ+ people over multiple generations. A trans woman that lived on the streets and was disenfranchised her whole life and couldn't vote made real change happen that politicians could only dream of. Even trumps failed insurrection can't put anything on that series of nights at the Stonewall Inn
There is a time to vote for people based on principle and that is what you are asking me to do by voting for biden. When the next major genocide is literally being conducted with the full support of the United States and the ones overseeing it are up for election and you can literally stop another holocaust like event from happening by telling those in power that they better do something or fuck off and make a lot of noise about it, then you have to take that opportunity.
Again, is talking about it even effective? For all you know it could be having a negative impact.
Can you though? Do you really think abstaining from voting will help at all? Either Biden wins anyway, or you get someone else even more pro-zionist. That's it, those are the choices. Abstaining is literally just throwing your voice away.
I can still protest against them.
You seem to be missing my main problem -- you are asking me to put a cross against the name of someone who will strip away the basic human rights of groups of people. Which is not something I am willing to do.
Especially if I am doing it in the name of those who fought and died for their rights.
I have some integrity.
If you want to protest against them, go ahead, I have no problem with that.
Okay, but as I said, the reality of the situation is to put your cross on someone you don't like or risk someone you really don't like. I understand and empathize that it might feel like moral compromise, but I see it less like "I endorse this person and their principles" and more like harm reduction.
Is it integrity? If you are, by inaction, helping someone who will remove those human rights faster, aren't you putting those high-minded morals above the physical reality of what will happen to those marginalized groups?
And if they are as bad as each other?
I live in the UK and for the past five years the Labour party has been -- from what I can see -- turning into the Tory party. It has had no policies that aren't Tory policies. Starmer is so scared of being seen as Jeremy Corbyn that he has become a Tory MP in waiting. He is so scared of not being elected that he is pandering to the far right. He doesn't stand up for anyone who needs standing up for.
Voting for him......... I really don't see a difference between him and the Tories.
And if I put someone in power who enacts policies to the marginalised groups being erased, beaten, imprisoned or killed? Should I feel better about that?
If they are both truly as bad as each other, then yeah there is no harm reduction.
Would the other person have done it faster? Again, I don't see voting as a complete endorsement; if there is an area in which one candidate is less bad than the other, then it is in your best interest to vote for them
Sounds like you think that one: we live in a democracy, and two: that democracy somehow equals more freedom. this is not the case.
Western democracy originated in ancient Greece. This political system granted democratic citizenship to free men, while excluding slaves, foreigners and women from political participation. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, this was what democracy meant. An elite class of free men made all the decisions for everyone. Before Athens adopted democracy, aristocrats ruled society, so "rule by the people", or the idea of a government controlled (in theory) by all its (free) male citizens instead of a few wealthy families seemed like a good deal. But really it was just a new iteration of Aristocracy rule rather than the revolution it's painted as. The rich still rule society by feeding voters carefully constructed propaganda and keeping everyone poor, overworked and desperate to be granted basic needs by the state.
In democracies today, only legal citizens of a country are granted democracy. In a lot of countries, people who have been convicted of a "crime" are denied the right to vote, regardless of how long ago they served their sentence. In the US, this is used to deny voting rights to minority groups, who make up a large proportion of the prison population.
In some societies only a small minority group are allowed to participate in the democracy. In Apartheid South Africa, the minority group (European settlers) granted themselves democracy and excluded the native majority, using democracy to deprive the native population of the rights granted to European settlers. Anarchy, of course, is an absence of government; of rulers. Democracy aims for the individual to be governed, ruled, controlled by others.
America is and always has been an illegitimate apartheid state.
Sure sounds like The Powers That Be are trying to prevent marginalized people from voting, we should probably vote against that. I wonder which party is more favorable to enfranchising convicts and making voting easier.
neither the republican or establishment democrats are interested in that
One is definitely more actively opposed
oh really? NYS is a blue state no? One of the bluest, as I have been told. Should have some decent legislation surrounding incarceration, right? You ever hear of securis? Do you know how much it costs to talk to an incarcerated individual over the phone and how much that company makes in profit price gouging incarcerated folks families?
Democrats allow this to happen.
In new york, they were making hand sanitizer for COVID with prison labor. Yea, big blue New York uses prison labor. Very left of them. I'm sure the democrats are really interested in rights for convicts.
So, because New York state uses prison labor, that means Republicans haven't been drastically more active in removing access to voting? That really the best you can do? No shit Democrats suck, hot take dude, they're still not as rabidly opposed to enfranchisement as Republicans.
One of the things I've found as someone who has moves between countries and continents is how different your exposure to news and issues is. I am not a fan of out of country voters and in this case I doubt they will make a difference, and there are plenty of them, retirees, who will just follow what Fox News tells them because they are the international propaganda arm that appeals to expats that are within a retirement bubble where they are not even directly affected by their vote.
But everyone in the US should be campaigning in the streets, putting out bulletins of how corrupt Trump is and how it was an issue before he even ran for president, and how corrupt he has continued to be and influenced by internal interests intent on weakening the US. If there are no ready to print bulletins, make them and post them for others to print and distribute. Specially in the Southern states, show how much of one of those big fancy snake oil salesman from the North he really is and just how much he has been fooling everyone. Tell them not to rely on those who are bought into the Trump diatribes so that lobbyists can get politicians on the tab, because they are really only interested in making products out of them for the next for years. Remind them of how 2020 ended up and what followed, how Trump's dissing and dismissal of the WHO had consequences, and how it was only after he was removed that actions were taken to avoid getting the US stuck in the same rut China still is. Tell them how just as he dismissed WHO, he will cause a disaster with NATO, an organization commanded and empowering the US, and how a Trump win will lead to a complete loss of US power to foreign invaders already setting their sights on US soil in Alaska.
Recognize their political inclinations and points out how even well-respected representatives like Mitt Romney have been driven out of their party by charlatans, and if they are ok with it, that they should see themselves in the mirror and how they've changed since 2012. I know this is tough, but the long lost art of critical thought involves seeing and appealing to things from their perspective even when you might disagree with them yet are far better than an orange authoritarian clown. Don't campaign for Biden if you are that really disillusioned with him, campaign against Trump and for the Trump alternatives that would have appealed to the voters and would have been candidates but no longer are capable of being because of how much his snake oil has rotted the party.
And I guess people from outside the US as well, since their bubbles will certainly by trying to get them to. Unless you want to vote for Trump, then your vote has already been preregistered so those nasty Dems don't fake them, don't worry about it :)
Innocent people also died at the hands of the government that was voted in. Many people have died for amerika's imperial expansion and due to it. Many have been indentured and still are.
What if the state bars you from voting because of past criminal history, regardless of time served? What if you are disabled and cannot make it to the ballot and you live somewhere that has heavily restricted mail in voting? What if you are unhoused and don't have a physical address? You are calling to have these people shunned? How democratic and fair of you.
As if the social contract is upheld by the people you vote in. We get lied to so they get the vote and then we don't even have recourse to sue or hold them accountable. All we can do is "vote them out" but then they tell us if we don't vote for them, the world will literally end cause the other guy is evil. As if to say democrats are a force for good. lmao
The ability to vote and participate in a democracy is one thing of many that people have fought for, yes, so it should not be taken for granted. Ignoring it is throwing away the power you and everybody else who can vote have to influence how things will be in the future.
For there not being any power in withholding a vote, people sure are upset about people threatening to do it.
It has the power to let the other guy win, and for all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us, to suffer more greatly. Is has the power to relinquish control of our nation to a reactionary authoritarian nationalist movement that won't give power back willingly.
It does not, however, have the power to make things better.
I think you've missed the point.
Im not ignoring my right to vote. I am using my right to participate or not as a catalyst for dialogue. Also voting someone in doesn't guarantee they will do what we want them to or even what they say they will do. this has been proven time and time again. at this moment they want something from me, my vote, and I am denying them that until they change. Do you give a child what it wants just because it is whining? no. these politicians are supposed to answer to us, not the other way around.
you are disrespecting dead anarchists and communists by saying you need to participate in bourgeois virtue signaling instead of direct action for your fellows
Who said "instead of"?