2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.

My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.

    • davefischer@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      I think leftists ranting about not voting for Biden in the general election at the moment are just blowing off steam, and when election day comes, everyone on the left will remember 2016 and vote blue.

      • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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        8 months ago

        I absolutely will not. Vote blue no matter who is why we have the situation we have. 2016 did not give us trump. Generations of shitty corporate politicians on both sides of the aisle gave us Donald Trump. Populists win because they’re popular, and trump got popular by pointing out the factual information that the house, the Senate, and the oval office are filled with corporate skills and corrupt puppets. Sadly, it was the fascist who got popular pointing it out, but it doesn’t make that part of what he says untrue.

        I live in a red state where my vote for federal office does not count. So I will cast my pointless protest vote for the green party in the hopes that one day they’ll get their 5%, and maybe something can change. Down ballot I’ll hold my nose and vote for the Democrat in most offices, and if I ever move to a competitive state, I’ll do the same for federal, because I’m being held hostage by the corporate shills, and I’d rather my family not die in concentration camps that are inevitably coming if/when the fascists fully take power.

        But no. Fuck blue no matter who. Who. Fucking. Matters. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Have some standards.

        • criitz@reddthat.com
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          8 months ago

          But what are we supposed to do? We can vote for Trump instead or no-one instead. How does that make anything better? We agree there needs to be change, but we still have no real option here.

          • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election had supported Trump in the primaries because she thought noone would vote for that idiot. The Democrat Party apparatus will support worse than Trump in the future if they think it will help their chances of winning. You don’t want to wait another 4 years for change 🤷‍♂️

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        I remember what the “blue team” did in 2016 by forcing an unelectable shit candidate upon us. So I will never vote for them again.

  • Kwakigra@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    Not in a state where my vote counts so it doesn’t matter much. My political plans are trying to avoid getting thrown in jail per the popular bipartisan SB 686 for being too outspoken about opposing the genocide of Palestinians.

    Since the 2010 Citizens United decision when the supreme court legalized bribery, the best I’ve been able to hope for is a managed and slow as possible decline into a feudal-like state with a heritable and defined noble and peasant class. Hopefully nuclear war will prevent the worst possible consequences of climate change so I can have a little hope while I’m being vaporized.

    • Thisfox@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      Being from an “every vote counts” country with compulsory voting, this seems like such an alien response to me.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Does your country use First Past The Post elections? Because that’s how we do things in North America, and all it does is boil all of politics down to 2 parties.

        • Thisfox@sopuli.xyz
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          8 months ago

          I don’t even have a clue what it means. Sounds like a horse race or a running race, except yank elections never have any politicians fit enough to swim in a race, let alone run in it.

          No, we all vote (unless we are rich enough to pay the non-voting fine, many well-off people choose not to vote and pay the fine) and the votes are all counted. I assume you mean they only count USian votes until one team has “enough”? Seems very corrupt, but it doesn’t mean your vote isn’t important.

          North America has a lot of countries in it, you don’t seem to realise that?

  • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    It’s not a question of policy. Republicans literally killed people last election trying to overthrow democracy.

    Not that I even like democrats, but anyone who votes red after Jan 6th is fundamentally an enemy of democracy.

      • lukini@beehaw.org
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        8 months ago

        Ok, so what’s your solution? Vote third party? Don’t vote? Both of those help the republicans.

        Protest or something similar? Sure, but the election is still happening.

  • shiveyarbles@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    A lot of trolling about voting green party, not voting, not voting Biden. Any of these positions is pro Trump, and that’s the simple truth.

    So admit that at least, you WANT a dictatorship.

    • lemillionsocks@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      Eh I understand the long term apathy and eventual giving up.

      They cant keep winning votes by just not being republicans. They will always not be republicans and eventually people are going to want more out of them.

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        8 months ago

        I don’t understand accepting tyranny. The two party system kind of sucks and we can work on it, but once you accept the tyranny of an authoritarian, you’re fucked. Oh boohoo Biden is old and centrist, the option is a dumpster fire that is infinitely worse.

          • Rudith@beehaw.org
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            8 months ago

            Unfortunately he’s still the better choice. There is a sum to this comparison. Do we think Trump would not be genocidal in the ways you’re referencing?

            • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              Let’s assume you’re right. Why would anyone vote for anyone committing genocide? Voting third party or abstaining would be your only moral option in this scenario, otherwise you’re complicit. At this point the number of dead Palestinian children is conservatively 4000. If you contribute to reelecting a leader enabling that, their blood is on your hands.

  • angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com
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    8 months ago

    I’ll vote for a non-Zionist candidate in the primaries with no real expectation of them winning. But I will vote blue no matter who for national and state politics, and Working Families Party for local if any run.

    Is “Genocide Joe” an accurate nickname? Yeah. But fuck that, it’s not like Trump will be any less zionist and third parties/independents don’t work in FPTP. I’m mixed race, I’m bisexual, I’m worried about worst case scenarios with a second Trump presidency (which is basically “what Trump is saying out loud” at this point,) and I am willing to vote in enlightened self-interest.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      Joe Biden is no more pro-Israel than any president before him. In fact, he’s publicly asked Netanyahu for humanitarian pauses so they can actually get Palestinian people out of the line of fire. Small gesture yes, but no one else has even mentioned Palestinian survival before.

      • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        “asked”

        Yep, found your problem right there. It’s your argument, full of holes, it is.

        You don’t ask a genocidal power that you’re supplying to stop commiting genocide. You tell them they’ll stop or best case scenario (for them) they’re on their own. Worst case scenario (for them), you stop them yourself.

  • marxistsynths19@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    I’ll be voting for a socialist candidate. Vote for a president who tells us it’s okay to stand by a genocide or vote for trump who will tell you the genocide is good. Neither for me thanks. If trump had just served his 8 years we wouldn’t be here again.

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    8 months ago

    It does not matter who I vote for for federal office. My state is never close to competitive and my house district is gerrymandered.

    If fascists win my districts for state office, it will not affect the balance of power in the state assemblies.

    So I told all of the Democrats running for state and local office that if there is not a primary for the presidential election, then I will not vote for any Democrats in the general elections in 2024, for any office. Maybe they can put pressure on the DNC.

    This is the only way I can potentially have any input.

    The only way this works is if Democrats would shift left if they started losing elections because people refused to vote for old white male conservative Democrats.

    But I fear they would actually shift right. The Democratic Party is not a big tent that holds both the neoliberal corporate shills and the progressives. It is a hostage situation where the neoliberal corporate shills demand our support, otherwise the fascists will kill us.

    • physcx@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      I just want to say that your vote for the federal office does matter even if you live in a non-competitive state. Some states allocate a percentage of their electoral votes rather than all or nothing but even if yours does not, voting still adds a data point that says I support this person instead of that person. There have been several times where a candidate has won the presidency without winning the most votes but it was always very close to 50%. If everybody that had a preference voted and the outcome was 55% this guy / 45% the other guy and the other guy won… that could be a real driver for change to the electoral college system.

      • eksb@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        My state is winner take all.

        If my vote does not affect outcome put only expresses support, I am voting for somebody actually good (often from the Green Party).

        Even if it was 55/45, nothing would change. The Senate would be very close, if not in favor of the candidate who got 45%. The House would probably also be close, because the legislatures of the states that voted for the 45% candidate would still gerrymander. The only change could come from the states that voted for the 55%. If they gave all of their votes to whoever won the national popular vote, nothing would change. If they did proportional allocation, then it would get even worse.

        My vote does not matter.

  • TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    It can be easy to feel like a drop of water in a large ocean when it comes to national elections. But you should also vote in your county and state elections; you can probably make more of a difference there.

    I’m not saying “don’t vote in the national election”, but just know that there are other elections to vote in, and thry are just as important as the nationals.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Unless you’re in a big big city, mayoral and council races can actually have a lot of diversity in terms of political outlooks. Never forget that a town elected a dog as mayor. Nobody that pure would ever make it to federal office.

        • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          You understand that “voting for a dog” for mayor is just Conservatism right? You know make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub, Reagan etc?

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    8 months ago

    Fuck everyone in the US Government except Rashida Motherfucking Tlaib.

    I’m going to write in Rashida Tlaib. It’s all bullshit. What is happening right now proves it. Even fucking Bernie Sanders sounds like a Warhawk right now.

    Ps. You’re all a bunch of lesser evil voting shitlibs. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

    What did your harm reduction get us when we put Biden in office:

    • genocide with our tax money
    • cop city
    • stoking the Cold War and enthusiastically sending our tax money to interfere in another country’s business BECAUSE IT’S WHITE PEOPLE to enrich the Military Industrial Complex rather than helping US citizens
    • overturned Roe vs. Wade
    • no marijuana legalization (mark my words: until the primaries or GE next year when it will help Biden in the election)
    • Medicare for those who can afford it
    • austerity
    • austerity
    • more austerity
    • Yondoza@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      I understand your frustration, but unless the voting system is modified to approval or ranked choice you are probably not acting in your best interest voting for a third party. I hate that fact as much as you and I want to see it changed, but that’s the reality of the system we’re in.

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        8 months ago

        Literally ranked choice voting will never ever happen. We will always have First Past the Post and it will never change. This country is a sham democracy and I refuse to participate.

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      8 months ago

      The first time he was elected I could probably forgive but knowing what that man did, you do not have an excuse now.

      • Night Monkey@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        I have no regrets or…excuses? I think he was a great president. But I don’t think the gop will even let him run at this point. I’d really like to see Vivek get the nomination.