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

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4 points

Thank you for this. It’s always nice to have valid reasoning backing up something you find so obvious lol

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0 points
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Not even close. Did you consent when voting for Biden that his administration could do a genocide? I hope not. This logic implies that we have a moral obligation to vote, which eliminates the free-will of individual choice.

To put it another way. If I am morally obligated to choose the lesser-evil, then that eliminates the freedom of choice. Let’s say you are in a coma during election season. Are you now complicit with everything Trump is doing because you couldn’t vote? Of course not.

By conflating voting with moral obligation, this sophist argument is an example of plausible reasoning.

A vote is a preference, a choice. It carries no burden of complicity. This is separate from ideological support. If one voted for Trump, but then regrets that support, they are no longer responsible for Trump’s actions.

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1 point

A vote is a preference, a choice. It carries no burden of complicity. This is separate from ideological support. If one voted for Trump, but then regrets that support, they are no longer responsible for Trump’s actions.

Wrong. A vote is an action. And one that has the ability to negatively (or positively) affect others in your sphere.

If you voted for Trump, me and other LGBTQ people are now at immense risk, as are many other populations. Even if you regret your vote you are complicit and have responsibility for the action you took (or didn’t take).

It’s also false to claim that because something is a moral obligation that eliminates freedom of choice. Even if you have a moral obligation you can always choose to do the immoral thing.

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0 points

I’ll concede the elimination of freedom of choice, but it does constrain and limit the freedom. By implying that voting is a moral obligation, it elevates voting higher than political activism and organization:

He was equally alert to the problem of voter fetishism: voters mistakenly thinking the vote is an exercise of power, when in fact power in a capitalist society is collective, social and located largely outside the parliamentary realm. source

If voting is the end of political participation, the people will always lose.

By holding grudges against Trump voters who regret their vote, we limit our ability to effectively organize against the incoming fascism. I would gladly march alongside anyone who opposes Trump, and I hope you would too.

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