Reminder that voting does work, because you can set your watch to the fascists voting, and they’re getting exactly what they want.
Voting had never worked for me. I’ve always lived in places with large majorities.
Let’s take an extreme example.
Does a Democrat vote in Wyoming or West Virginia really make a difference?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy
If no one votes because they don’t think they can win, they’re right. Vote anyway, you never know, you might unseat a local candidate and begin making incremental progress. And to be honest, the local level is always going to be more impactful on your day to day life anyway.
But if you don’t cast the vote, you’re going to be in the minority forever, along with everyone else who agrees with you and does the same.
Counter opinion.
Win, lose, it doesn’t matter.
Voting is a pressure release valve that allows the status quo to exist.
It tricks the population into thinking it has an ounce of control over a country that serves it corporations
Voting is misdirection of the masses. It’s the wrong answer to the wrong question.
While you are directing your anger at the citizen voters on the other team, or the people not voting, the lobbyists are the people with the real greenbacked votes that actually count.
Yeah this is bullshit and I question the sincerity of anyone saying this. We know empirically that areas that tend to vote left-wing have a harder experience in voting compared to areas that don’t. If voting didn’t matter there wouldn’t be a targeted effort since 1865 to make it more difficult for some groups over other groups.
People have quite literally risked getting into sent to federal, rape in the shower, prison for decades to prevent black people from voting. You don’t do that if you think voting doesn’t matter.
Democracy is not perfect but it’s the system you have and voting is how you participate.
So what’s your solution? Do nothing and let the fascists take over? Start a revolution that will (at best) get put down quickly and nothing changes?
The only way to really show force is to do a general strike, but no one has the community support networks to outlast the capital class to get shit done. So for now, we either vote to keep shit from spiralling or we give in and accept the boot.
Win, lose, it doesn’t matter.
Spoken from a place of privilege, where the consequences of your choice don’t affect those around you. It matters to me who wins and loses, because one person winning means the rest of us lose and may not have a chance again. I have people I love who may not have rights in a year or two depending on how things play out.
But hey, I guess that part doesn’t matter to you.
Looking at how fucked the right has been in many elections they were expected to come out on top in, I wouldn’t be very surprised if the Republicans lose in some areas both sides are assuming they’ll win in and typically do this time around. Need every vote though.
In swing states you certainly have a point.
In a state that is deeply one colour or the other, you don’t need every vote.
What I’m saying is that the set of swing states might be different this year than it has typically been in the past. There’s some very good reasons for people who usually vote Republican to vote otherwise this election. There’s a vocal subset of the party and the mass media seems to be trying to push a narrative that Trump has a good chance, but they might not have support from the usual voters who are mostly staying quiet because they know as well as everyone else that there’s no benefit from trying to reason with them.
There’s a chance that they might discover during this election just why the quiet parts were previously kept quiet. And saying them on platforms that won’t try to shut them up with lots of simps eating it up doesn’t mean society has accepted that worldview.
The more of them that give up, the more the Republicans take over the smaller, less significant roles and then you end up with Republicans doing the districting, deciding the cases in the lower courts, twisting the law to suit their agenda. There are definitely blue states that went red this way. The population stayed blue, but didn’t vote enough in the little things and the reds took over the decision making and now you have a red state.
