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- cross-posted to:
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I don’t like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.
Not voting isn’t going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews and he’s publicly told Israel to “finish up their war”. He’ll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn’t a straight cisgender male back here at home.
A vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of them or their policies, it’s a statement that you like their policies more than the other guy’s, and “sticking it to liberals” and “refusing to support genocide” (that’s not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way – a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.
How incredibly privileged do you have to be to see an entire national election as what will happen in the Middle East and ignore Trump’s campaign promises to wipe transgender Americans off the map, and further, to not realize that the same thing will happen in the Middle East regardless of which candidate wins?
I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I’ll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there’s a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
why on earth would any party listen to what you have to say if you preface everything you’re campaigning for with “by the way, i’m still going to vote for you”
your vote is all they want in this scenario
it would be like opening a negotiation with “by the way, i’m absolutely going to pay whatever price you think is fair at the end of this, but i’d like you to consider giving me a discount anyway”
There are other elections, primaries, donations, and general social pressure. The sad part is you’re right, committing to vote for the lesser evil every time does reduce pressure and influence. However, it’s not a flaw in the voting strategy, it’s a flaw in the voting system.
The alternative is to abstain or vote for someone with no chance, in which case you end up with the greater evil in office who has four years to inflict permanent damage on people and further corrupt the system. You may show the less-evil party that you don’t agree with them and that they need to rethink some policies, but the point is moot if they aren’t in power and now the greater evil can do things like appoint three SCOTUS justices, irreversibly damage the environment, and pass voting “reform” to lessen the impact of your future votes. Your message is sent, yes, but the overall impact is bad for everyone and reduces your future influence.
In a FPTP system, that’s the sad reality we are given. There really is no better choice than to vote for the lesser evil in the presidential election. That’s why ranked choice voting would be such a game changer, then you truly can vote for your favorite without helping your least favorite gain office.
You have more influence the smaller the election is, which is partly why it’s so important to vote in every election, especially your local elections. Local elections also more directly impact your community and broad elections are impacted by them too! Nearly all higher-up politicians start local, and the larger parties look to local elections to see what gets people out to vote. Plus, if you hate all of your options in a local election, it’s much more possible to run yourself and actually have a change at winning. You aren’t just voting for candidates either, there’s almost always projects, new laws, and funding allocations to vote for locally.
but those are both votes
ideally, yeah, if you wanted to exercise pressure on the biden administration, you wouldn’t withhold your vote in this specific election, but those “other elections” have already passed
you could vote differently for the house and senate, but arguably that might actually lead to a worse outcome
if you’re very rich, then maybe, but most people aren’t
general social pressure means very little without votes to back it up
sanders has a tidal wave of social pressure behind him, but then lost the primary, so nothing changed
it’s why every time a politician tries to campaign for young voters, they crash and burn, because while young voters often inflict the most social pressure, they never actually go and vote
the point isn’t to vote for the person to get them into office
the point is to vote for the person whose policies you prefer, so that you shift the other candidates closer to that position
yeah, 4 years of a very bad candidate is worse than 4 years of a meh candidate, but if you vote that way forever your candidate will never be anything more than meh
if you think this outweighs the benefit of improving the democrat position going forward, and that’s a perfectly reasonable position to have, then sure vote for them
but don’t act like you never had any choice in the matter, or that voting for somebody else would be meaningless