Comment by miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com on it's good to look in the mirror and understand the material outcomes of voter behavior

I have problems with people who abstained. The hard thing is, how do you change voter behavior?

I would love to have a conversation with someone who actually abstained. At least on Lemmy, the level of snark seems to drown out whatever actually was going on in their heads and I don’t see a lot of constructiveness in that pattern.

I didn’t abstain, but I might as well have for all the good voting did.

Voting is a collective exercise. Because you voted, and you didn’t get the outcome, doesn’t mean your vote didn’t matter.

Don’t let that feeling stop you from doing everything required to make sure your vote is cast (and counted), especially moving forward.

Because you voted, and you didn’t get the outcome, doesn’t mean your vote didn’t matter.

You misunderstand. It’s not that my candidate lost, it’s that I live in a solid blue state that has zero impact on the outcome of U.S. elections.

Don’t let that feeling stop you from doing everything required to make sure your vote is cast (and counted), especially moving forward.

I’ll continue to vote, but I gave up on the idea that electoralism is part of the solution when the DNC shut Bernie out of the primary in 2016 then won a legal case that sanctified their right to do so.

Better yet: vote with the expectation of defeat so you’re pleasantly surprised instead of constantly disappointed

Does voting for De La Cruz count as abstaining, for the purposes of the conversation you’d like to have?

I mean it’s not abstaining, but I would love to chat about it. What was your mindset or train of reasoning going into that decision?

Though I’m typically not a fan of deontological ethics, living in a deep red state, I afforded myself the opportunity to remain principled in a stand against genocide. If I lived in a swing state, however, I may have given more weight to a consequentialist perspective and made a different decision, though I would’ve hated myself for it.

I could say a lot more, but I wanna let you take this conversation where you want it to go, so that’s the core of my mindset behind that decision

I do respect your engagement with the realities of living in a deep red state. To me, that is cool and respectable.

Say you lived in Michigan or something. Assuming everything else was more or less the same, what information or circumstances would have swayed your decision to vote Harris versus third party?

I’ve been trying to answer this all day, and struggling to do so. I think it’s because I use living in a deep red state to excuse my decision so that people aren’t allowed to be as mad at me. But I’d also like to think that I’m principled enough to have made the same decision in a swing state, even though that’s not the answer that people want to hear.

My hope was that by outspokenly refusing to vote for Harris unless she pledged to withhold weapons from Israel, if enough people did so, she might actually adopt that stance to earn our vote. Proceeding to then vote for her anyway, despite consistently implying she wouldn’t do anything different than Biden, would have felt… idk the right word- hypocritical?

I get shat on for putting principles above practicality but, if everyone did that, we might live in a much better world. Though I’ve heard pragmatists say the exact opposite about idealists.

Voting at all is already an activity that is incongruent with my values, as it legitimizes a system that I believe in dismantling.

I guess to answer your question, I probably would’ve voted for Harris if she pledged to withhold weapons from Israel, or, if in a swing state, if I happened to be temporarily convinced of the utilitarian perspective, but it would probably have to be within like an hour of voting, and be disgusted with myself after

Game theory says none of this bs posturing matters or is relevant at all.

How do your candidates get to 270? If they can’t then you literally helped trump.

Your turn.

I know a few people who probably abstained. One was massively uninformed by talking points of misinformation and thought Harris was the devil. The other hated trump but were true republicans from way back, they would never vote for a dem.

I mean I did not abstain, I voted PSL, however I would have abstained if PSL was not available in my state. I get its not the same thing, however half the time it is construed as the same, if you would like to talk about it.

Edit: I should mention for clarity, I was going to vote that day anyway because of a state constitutional amendment that I wanted to oppose, however I was going to abstain from POTUS elections if PSL was not on the ballot.

Yeah I really tried to engage with some of them before the election, and it was impossible to break through the snark and the disingenuous/naive arguments they were spouting. I would also love to have an earnest conversation with someone who withheld their vote, but based on how how they explained themselves at the time, I’d doubt there’s a ton of critical thinking going on. Which kind of makes sense at least for Palestinian Americans whose families are being slaughtered. For them the raw emotions are justified, and I can’t fault them for not voting, even if it was ultimately against their interest. But they’re the only group I’ll give a pass.

You won’t get much more sense out of them than you’ll get from a Trumper.

With all respect, I said I want a conversation with them now that there has been an increase in harm, not people like you making predetermined analysis of their mindset. Thank you.

I’m not in any way trying to prevent you from having a conversation, I’m just predicting the outcome.

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