My favorite analogy is: You don't have to choose what's for dinner, but you're going to be forced to eat whatever was chosen.
Ever since I was old enough, I've voted in every single election I was eligible for. I don't care what people say or how unlikely it was for my candidate to win, I would still get out and vote.
To all the burn it down and rebuild leftists (by protesting and not voting for the lesser of 2 evils) tell me how well that went for the Communists in Germany and Italy the last time mask off fascism rose to power there....
Edit: Not one of these "Self-righteous leftists" have addressed my question about what happened to leftists in Germany or Italy when fascist took power there. Its almost like they dont give a shit about the Prolitariat and would rather engage in purity politics rather than support the working class or marginalized communities. Absolutely pathetic astroturfing, or simply a complete disregard for the Materical Conditions on the ground in America.
Vote for the system least likely to break you and you allies while you work to dismantle it.
Not voting for the lesser of two evils is the most childish shit. People like to bring up that Geralt quote, as if the situation in that story wasn't made a hell of a lot worse by his decision not to choose.
If you're not gonna vote blue all the way down, then you need to put your money where your mouth is and start burning it down so you can rebuild it. Otherwise you aren't protesting, you're just being lazy.
Looks at the 2016 US election...
I legitimately regret not voting for Hilary....
I get exactly how you feel. "Fuck the establishment, this'll be the year that a third party wins!" To be young and optimistic again...
The amount of people I knew who were like, "There's no way Hillary could lose so I don't need to vote," or, "Bernie got fucked so I'm not voting out of spite," were too damn high
The "best" part was seeing how low the voter turnout was in our district that typically leans blue, well in 2016 the turnout was hella low and it went hella red for the first time in a long time
Looking at raw numbers the red was pretty consistent from election to election but that year so many people who would vote blue didn't vote that it swung the election
Felt bad but now those people I know haven't missed a single election
Voting is like paying taxes: It sucks, you don’t get anything you want, but not voting leads to problems.
I mainly vote to prove it doesn’t help and I haven’t been proven wrong since 2000
Your presidential elections are like the last step in the process. If you want to make real change, you need to start from the bottom up. You can't just say (not saying you do this) "oh shit there's a presidential election this year? And I dislike the Democrats candidate? Time to vote for a third party candidate to show them!"
It's kind of like baking a cake I guess. If you just jump in at the end and taste the cake, well you're stuck with what it is. "Oh I wish this was a chocolate cake instead of vanilla. I'm not going to eat this cake. I'm going to eat this other cake ", well you should have gotten involved earlier and who knows what's in that other cake, it could have those disgusting flavored jelly beans in it.
I do agree that not voting leads to problems.
I agree, which is why I've been voting in local and primary elections since 2000. And it doesn't work because the system of government we have is shitty, old, and broken.
It might not look like it helped but who knows what would have happened if you and several others didn't go.
I guess the entire world going straight to hell at 300 mph is better than at 400 mph. Still going to hell, though.
I find a lot of people arguing that one shouldn't vote because although easy, it is the least effective form of political engagement.
I'd argue that you should vote because it is the easiest form of political engagment and, if possible considering your material conditions, you should also try to participate in other forms of engagement.
Yep, I think that's uncontroversial...
Slaps table THANK YOU!
Especially since those people refuse to actually provide an alternative form of political engagement besides vague references to a revolution, which has absolutely zero chance of coming out in the Prolitariat's favor in Americas current political climate, because there is nowhere near enough class conciousness for that to happen.
Even when the Proletariat does win, they often still install a dictatorship. Because those are the kinds of people who lead revolutions.
Yes, voting is the baseline. It's the least you can do.
I'm sure that there are anarchists out there who refuse to vote out of principle, but they still do activist work such as participating in mutual aid groups and so on. They're wrong, but at least they're still helping society in some way. I think the vast majority of people who don't vote are just lazy, though.
I consider voting to be the minimum buy-in to ask something of your representative. You may not get that thing, especially if your ask is far outside the mainstream. That's part of a democracy. The next part of democracy is protecting its status as a liberal democracy, where the people's freedoms are protected from the government so there is remove for improvement.
And then there's the marxist-leninists who saw the government ban black people and women from voting, see the Republicans trying to make it harder for black people to vote, and then said "when minorities vote it helps fascists", because they're clowns.
Voting is important, but only an organized revolution is capable of breaking the system that fucks us up
No, I won't get out and vote.
I will stay in and vote by mail.
I live in Oregon, which has had all-mail elections since the 1990's. It's so great being able to sit down with my husband, some endorsements, the voter's guide, and a computer to make my decision. So much better than scratching my head over half the ballot (well at least the title sounds good) and voting straight for the other half (vote blue no matter who).
On one hand, I wish I could do that in my country. On the other hand, voting already takes me less than 10 minutes including "commute" (walking down a single block), so it'd probably be a bigger hassle.
Not every state or county is having an election, you can check to see if you can/should participate here https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar
THANK you. There's been so much negative trolling on lemmy, really getting me down. Seeing your post actually reminded me I need to re-register.
Liberals, please acknowledge that if there is a possibility every election that fascism will win, fascism will eventually win unless you take political action outside of electoralism
This is why it's important to build strong democratic institutions to resist fascism, populism, and the like. They won't last forever, but they can take a few election cycles of abuse. Part of the problem with many countries that have truly fallen to fascism or fascist-like movements is that they started out with weak or non-existent institutions. Contrast that with the US, where even the election of Donald Trump of the "Lock Her Up" slogan (very fascist) got basically nowhere with both prosecuting Hillary Clinton and overturning the 2020 election.
This attitude is why Americans have two shitty right-wing parties
No, it isn't.
It's the fact that the two shitty right-wing parties are essentially all powerful that we have two shitty right-wing parties.
I can't get out and vote.
I can though in about two weeks. And the election will probably be just as significant.
I read that electron and I was so confused. I should go put on my glasses.