There is literally 0 chance the area I live in will be blue. Does me going out and voting actually do anything besides add to the popular vote tally?
just under 50% of people voted in Ohio in the 2020 election.
Trump won by 8%.
If just 9% of the people who felt like you (whatβs the point of voting) had showed up to vote for Biden, that would have flipped the state.
No single raindrop believes it can make any difference. But together, all those insignificant raindrops can change the course of a river in a single day.
I wish I could nominate your comment to be pinned to the top of responses. Alas, all I have is a single upvote; but you have it.
Each of us upvoted, making this the top comment in the thread. I voted to make a difference.
Vote anyway. Voter apathy is largely how things got so bad.
Iβm in a similarly red state. I know my vote probably isnβt going to matter (thanks, Obama Electoral College), but Iβm going to do it anyway. And Iβm trying to get as many people around me out to vote as well.
You should go vote if for no other reason than to keep Sherrod Brown in his seat.
And honestly nobody knows whatβs actually going to happen in this election. Ohio is βredβ (god I hate that terminology) only by a few points. Itβs flippable in the right circumstances. Like if people remember that MAGA wants to force 10 year old rape victims to have their attackerβs baby.
This is a numbers and momentum game. If you vote AND some of your fellow closeted Midwestern Democrats (or at least pro small-d democracy) vote and convince some people who want to have a chance to fix American democracy to vote for the Democratic nominee, Ohio could flip.
They all could. If there were justice in the world, all 50 states would be βblueβ on November 5th because of who Trump is, what heβs done in the past, and what heβs telling us heβll do in the future.
Vote!
I know my vote probably isnβt going to matter (thanks, Obama Electoral College)
Unironically we can assign some blame to Obamaβ¦
In 08 he had the opportunity to βsaveβ the DNC. Instead he viewed the entire concept as outdated and ignored the party, instead handling everything internally on his team
If Obama (or more recently Biden) had worked on the DNC and tried to build it up after Hillaryβs people burnt it all down (once in 08, again in 16) we wouldnt have had to suffer thru trump and would be seeing the end of a.progressive presidents second term right now.
If heβd have done that and lived up to 08 campaign promises, then there probably wouldnβt be any βred statesβ left by now.
Obama didnβt break the party, but he had a chance to fix an already broken party and instead just ignored it. Weβre still paying for it
Holy mental backflips to change talk about the electoral college to talk about the DNC and act as if theyβre the same.
Are you not aware of how since 2016 the DNC has used βvictory fundsβ that βshareβ donations with state parties and that has lead to Republicans solidifying power in red states and using that power to maintain it thru things like gerrymandering and voter suppression? And that those things exacerbate existing issues with electoral college?
But during the three-month period when the DNC was working to spin the situation, state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement β validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies and Bernie Sanders supporters.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191
That program is still around. Today itβs known as the Biden Victory Fund.
But there is about a million going to each state and 90 to Joe so far. So it is a little betterβ¦
This post is kind of like when somebody who doesnβt know anything about cars starts throwing out words like carburator, transmission, and alternator because they know those are car things, but they have no idea how to use them in the context of how they are actually relevant.
Itβs hard to begin to know how to tackle correcting anything because the amount of effort it would take to unweave and reconstruct the kernels of truth is like trying to extract an egg out of a fully baked cake.
This is probably overly harsh considering the slant of the post is absolutely in the right spirit, the analysis is just completely broken.
Remember that the president isnβt the only thing on the ballot.
Donβt give up on fighting fascism from your school board up to your state reps. If you organize/join existing groups, you can make your voice heard.
Your vote is sending a signal to future elections. If Ohio has a 20-point red margin, itβs unlikely to get any attention from blue candidates. If it has a 5% margin, that changes, and suddenly the next campaign considers spending time & money to try and move the needle.
Remember the old Roman adage: βyouβre not defeated until you admit defeatβ. If you donβt vote: youβve lost. If you vote, you might still lose that election but thereβs a better chance to win in the future.
Always vote. Progressives lose elections because 30% of any population votes for the conservative at every single election, no matter what, like itβs a religion. Progressives need a culture that says: ALWAYS VOTE. It doesnβt fucking matter if it doesnβt fucking matter. Vote anyway. Let your kids see you voting like itβs actually important. Make it important.
