Pleasant Politics

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Politics without the jerks.

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auk

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Dislike both candidates? Thinking of sitting this election out? Consider this... (www.lgbtqnation.com)

submitted 1 month ago by auk to c/pleasantpolitics

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I sat out the 1972 election between Nixon and Humphrey. Many sat out 2000 and 2016 elections. Here are the consequences.

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[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works -5 points 1 month ago (15 children)

I'd rather we stage a revolution and do away with the current electoral system in favor of one that allows more than two viable parties.

But, yeah, if you actually care about the outcome, but can't find someone to vote for, there's still a point in voting against the worst case.

Also, I believe that not caring about the outcome is a valid stance. If you genuinely don't have any interest in it, don't have a firm opinion about the candidates, or whatever, it's fine to not vote. You'd essentially be flipping a coin anyway, so let the folks that care have their say instead.

It's also fine to abstain as protest if you really want to, though I'd still say that voting against the candidates least aligned with your conscience would be a better overall move towards the outcome you'd actually prefer. Incremental change is still change, no matter how small the increments.

[–] auk 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’d rather we stage a revolution and do away with the current electoral system in favor of one that allows more than two viable parties.

These are in no way incompatible. Not electing Trump will do a huge amount to protect the people who are working on revolution doing away with the current system.

Also, I believe that not caring about the outcome is a valid stance. If you genuinely don’t have any interest in it, don’t have a firm opinion about the candidates, or whatever, it’s fine to not vote. You’d essentially be flipping a coin anyway, so let the folks that care have their say instead.

If you don't care about the outcome of Harris versus Trump, then you're either not aware of what's going on, or in a position of extreme privilege. You're not a Haitian, or a Hispanic, or God help you an undocumented immigrant, or a left-wing person living in a Trump-supporting area, or anyone who's near the poverty line, or any other number of categories of people that Trump is going to do incredible levels of harm to.

You also don't live on Earth, or else you're going to die with no descendants before the most serious impacts of climate change start to come to fruition.

If you want to improve the current system, "abstaining as a protest" is selling a huge number of helpless and vulnerable people to suffer or die, for no particular benefit to anybody. That's the point of this article.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I said that incremental change is still an important thing, even if someone isn't actually supporting democrats. They might not achieve their goals in that election, but you get a chain of increasingly aligned presidents and senators, it achieves the same goal eventually. Or did my comment not post right? I'll check and make sure, then edit this if it didn't.

As far as someone that doesn't care being privileged, sure, whatever, that's one possibility. But, as I said in response to another comment, if they're in that state of privilege, why would we want them to vote? Are you assuming they'll vote the way you and I prefer? I'm not. Again, I'm repeating myself, but there are people that voted for trump the first time because they thought it was funny.

Humans are not exactly the smartest thing in the universe. We're prone to narcissism, apathy, and outright malice. If someone that's like that wants to stay home, I'm glad. I don't want some chowderhead twit voting for the laugh of it. I don't want people voting by flipping a coin. I don't want people deciding to vote against sanity just because they're contrarian jerks they get tired of being told they have to vote, and have to vote one particular way.

And you can't guarantee protest voters would vote the way you want. I know too many of them, I can promise you that just because they're left wing doesn't mean they'd vote democrat. Judge that as you will, but I'll be glad if they stay home.

I may be voting for what I see as the lesser evil, but I'm also going to be voting sane, and effectively.

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