If we can't be bothered to vote in the primaries, wjy would anyone believe us that a progressive candidate would somehow lure millions more to vote?

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[–] 143 points 8 months ago* (99 children)

Progressive here. I vote in every primary and try to rally support for the most progressive in my coalition. Come November, I vote against fascists which means voting for Democrats because they're obviously better in every way.

If you don't vote or vote third party, congratulations, it means you were duped by right-wing propaganda or don't understand how our election system works and the inevitable binary outcome that comes with FPTP and whole you didn't give fascists +2, you gave them +1.

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  • [–] 21 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I agree with this strategy but I think you have to also concede that anti-electoralists have some good arguments too. Since voting is relatively low investment, my personal view is that it's best to pursue a variety of strategies. But for the vast majority of Americans for whom voting is their only political activity, I would challenge them to figure out what the next step is in becoming a more effective political actor. Frankly, there are a variety of actions a person can take that are way more impactful than voting. And this moment demands more from us than passive participation.

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  • [+] 15 points 8 months ago (5 children)
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  • [+] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Oh its not new? Tell me, when was the last time that enough of you voted independent /3rd party to win the elections? Oh, it never happened? An independent winning seems like a new thing to me then, for once. "Oh but it's not realistic for independents to win, there will be never enough people voting for them", well then how the fuck do you expect them to win if you do not vote for them, because no one will vote for them. Do you not see this infinite loop that only seem to work out for Democrats and Republicans? Do you not see how they both want to keep things this way and therefore will never change anything meaningful?

    You also seem to forget that a 3rd party DID BEAT a US major party before, coming 2nd place. Maybe not good enough for a win, but apparently its possible to beat a major party, when enough people vote for you. Funny how that works out.

    You guys keep calling people traitors for voting differently than you, you keep putting not voting and voting for independents in the same bucket. You keep calling people naive and idealist, you keep belittling people's convictions pretending to be a progressive. You say its not realistic to vote outside of Democrats (or Republicans) while ignoring the fact that our reality fucking us all anyways. Go keep being complicit in the system that allowed all this to happen if that's whats going to keep your conscience clean. Or maybe you are just happy as long as the republicans don't win, but then just accept the fact that you are just trying to do the bidding of your democrat daddies instead of pretending to not be happy with them either. I guarantee you will have more success trying to convince people.

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  • [+] 47 points 8 months ago (58 children)
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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    This is the most insane argument I've ever heard. Write them down!

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    What kind of ballot are you using that is just photos and voices?

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (11 children)

    It's an open-book test. You don't have to memorize anything. Everyone else has this figured out.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago* (10 children)

    You're giving excuses that make no sense. No one is saying to vote a straight party ticket. Do your research, take notes on the candidates, go vote. Why are you inventing this memorization nonsense?

    You'll find that, while each candidate can have positions that you agree with and that you don't, but you probably have a pretty good idea which issues matter most to you, so you can focus on those issues. If they say things you agree with about things you care about, and they don't seem like liars, vote for them. You'll probably find one party's platform aligns with your preferences, and you only need to keep track of the ones not in that party if you really want to memorize the candidates. Or, find an organization you agree with and start from their recommendations.

    But just bring your notes to vote, if you're allowed. My state is 100% mail-in voting, so I can fill out the ballot as I research. How many candidates are in your elections that is causing you to panic like this?

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    There should be a free voters guide that gets mailed to all registered voters, and is available at the library.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    Looks like a double dash -- to me, not M

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    There are (rare though they may be) people like me who actually know the ALT code for em-dash by heart and have used it for years long before AI. Thanks to people now just assuming I've switched to double-dashes mostly.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    The compose key exists, too (and wincompose for Windows users) — makes it easy to use. And all sorts of other symbols like ¿Por qué no los dos? and I can uſe the old long-'s' character eaſily… (and that's a real ellipsis)

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Holy shit... I had no clue that wincompose exists. For years, I've wanted exactly this. I'm so glad that someone had the same idea, skill, and time to create this. Thank you for sharing!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    <3 <3 <3 The only symbol I've wanted that apparently doesn't have a sequence is for pi. And I know you can add sequences in Linux, but haven't been bothered to figure out if/how with wincompose. heh.

    Have fun! Oh, and one bit that took me a long time to find but I use all the time; ① - numbers in circles, a rare three-character sequence - parentheses surrounding a number i.e. (1) :) (numbers ① through ㊿ exist)

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (24 children)

    You should try arguments next time

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (16 children)

    All you really need to know is every red candidate is objectively a worse person and worse for America and the world than any blue candidate. That's not to say that the blues are particularly good, but if you have the choice of getting punch in the mouth or shot in the face, you choose to live another day.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    A choice to not participate is a choice to get shot in the face and to get others shot in the face as well. If you're okay with that, then that's on you and really tells what you stand for. It's not just a self choice, it's a selfish choice that directly hurts others.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    Not at all, I never said anything about any violence being justified. I'm saying that not participating hurts others, not just you. I don't want anyone hurt, but there are two choices in the US general election, and one is always worse than the other for everyone but the wealthy.

    Getting shot or punched was a metaphor. The point being that red is bad, blue is less bad, and choosing neither directly benefits the red. So long as there are racists, bigots, and other people that just hate demographics for no reason, the world won't be a place of peace. In all of history it never has been. We can get closer to peace by voting for people that aren't pedophiles and war mongers. Not participating in that effort is a choice you can make, you're and adult, and you have enough of the facts to make a semi informed choice. Nobody can make you, we can just help educate you on the pros and cons of these choices.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Do you know what a metaphor is?

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    And that's great. Ideally there would be more people with that mindset of helping others. As I mentioned this isn't blind color voting. You either support gay and trans rights, or you support Republicans. You support teachers and the poor, or you support Republicans. Take color out if the equation and take voting at its merits like it should be. It just so happens that all of the worst shit is Republican, so it's easy to know who to vote for if you have good ideals, which it sounds like you do.

    If you want to help the most people possible, then it behooves you to vote blue, or do some spot research right before heading to the polls, which will ultimate lead you to the same conclusion.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Getting metaphorically punched in the mouth or metaphorically getting shot in the face. Neither are actual events, they are metaphors used to illustrate that one side is clearly worse than the other. I never said anyone deserves to get shot in the face. What I said that you quoted is that if you do nothing, you are choosing to support the worst option.

    This isn't a colored sides thing. It's bad vs less bad. There is no third choice. If you choose nothing in means you've chosen bad because of the way a two party FPtP voting system works.

    Most of us want peace. One way that you can help is voting for the least bad option, because either the bad or least bad is going to take power. There are obviously many other things you can do to help others like volunteering and donating. The most significant act though is helping prevent awful from being in power, because their actions will outweigh any individual efforts you are capable of.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Trouble is, sometimes voting for either of the two major parties hands a vote to people whom you don't want winning, and you know it will lead to a bad outcome: The march toward some flavor of authoritarianism has been obvious for decades. One major party welcomes it, and the other major party doesn't not welcome it. While the system isn't fair, neither is life, and sometimes the system itself is so flawed that it falls apart even if you play by its unfair rules.

    So what was the plan? Democrats win every election forever and ever, amen? The party was cooperating with the Republicans, actively or passively, to put the pieces of an authoritarian system into place. Was that supposed to be fine because Democrats would always be in control of the machinery of repression? Despite the long history of U.S. voters ping-ponging between parties?

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    And how does non-participation in any way fix the system?

    You absolutely can participate in the broken system to prevent the greater evil AND at the same time do your utmost to change and fix it, in order to create better choices.

    Not participating means you can try your utmost to change the system, in order to create better choices. But in the meantime you throw vulnerable people under the bus of the greater evil for your protest. Congratulations.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (21 children)

    I've gotten more down votes saying exactly this.

    In 2020 Biden won with 81.3 million votes. In 2024 Trump won with 77.3 million votes. All we had to do to avoid the mess we are in is turn out with the same "enthusiasm" we had for Biden in 2020.

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago (19 children)

    It's the job of a politician to generate that enthusiasm.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    We simply know that people are more likely to vote when they are enthusiastic. You can either keep telling people "do better" and keep losing, or you can accept human nature and use it to your advantage by running a candidate that people actually want.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    No, it simply shows that the Dem strategy of "putting up a turd that doesn't stink quite as bad as the other one" isn't enough to actually win when it matters.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Ah, I see, we are back to absolving Democrats of any agency or responsibility.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Let's not act like the Democratic primary process has been going well for the last elections - look how they treated Bernie, and there wasn't even a primary for Harris - after she was quite unpopular in the previous primaries!

    That's not to mention that the Biden campaign before 2020 gave many signals that he'd be a one-term president. They said "we have to rally to defeat Trump", and then just didn't care to build up an alternative to Biden since they knew people would have to rally behind whoever they put up, since anyone would be better than Trump!

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Yes, but they do that only when they want you to vote. Imagine making it compulsory to vote, and then also suppressing your ability to vote... Then the fine is just a new tax and you still don't get to vote.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    I fucking loathe this mindset. I mean I hate it with such a passion. Cuz all you're saying is you don't care if you lose. You don't care if the worst happens to all of us you'd rather not change your ways. Cause guess what? You're wrong.

    You can say that until the cows come home but people turn out to vote when they're spoken to and engaged. Thinking anything else means you're okay with losing. And I resent the fuck out of my life being put in jeopardy because some of you are okay with losing.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Sorry, but that logic just doesn't work at the population level.

    A large group of people isn't going to change if you keep telling them "do better". You have to work with their natural interests and responses. If a politician manages to motivate people, people will vote for them. If they don't, people won't.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    This. And if one of the lesser progressive or AIPAC funded candidates get the nomination, I will speak out against their problematic policy positions and try to get them to move away from these views right up until election day (at which time I will go into the voting booth, hold my nose, suppress my gag reflex, and vote for whoever the D choice is (who will always be better than the R choice, at least at the state and national level).

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