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If So Many Americans Care About Climate, Why Don’t They Vote Like It? 11.2 million. That’s the number of Americans who rank climate as a their top priority but didn’t vote in the 2024 US elections (coveringclimatenow.org)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] 25 points 2 weeks ago (38 children)

if clearly motivated people don’t want to vote for you, it’s not an indication that they should lower their standards, it’s an indication that you should have standards to begin with

it’s cute how liberals here are so resilient to reality. people don’t care for slow, steady, painfully incremental progress (if even that) when every summer is so much hotter than the last one.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    There hasn't even been slow progress for anything but shifting right. We have been losing everything from the new deal.

    It's literally their equivalent of trickle down economics. SOMEDAY IT WILL HAPPEN DESPITE ALL EVIDENCE SHOWING OTHERWISE

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (25 children)

    Incremental progress is better than actively working to make things worse, but y'know, stick to your guns and help make SURE things get worse. Good job!

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

    i think you misunderstand

    i’m not saying people shouldn’t vote (truthfully, i don’t care). i’m saying parties who want votes should have policies worth voting for.

    y’all keep talking about how the "let’s not vote for the lesser evil because it’s still evil" voter strategy has lead to terrible results. why not talk about how the "let’s be the lesser evil instead of doing anything good that people would want to support" party strategy has lead to the same terrible results?

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  • [–] -2 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

    The time to make that change is before the general election.

    Anytime you're presented with two choices, take the less bad option. But if that's the only time you bother to act, or even worse, if you don't even act THEN to pick the lesser bad option, then you are one less vote against the worse, and therefore by your actions support it. But you already supported it if you weren't fighting for better options.

    "Well, I didn't pick which restaurant to visit very well, and this restaurant only has moldy fruit or sandwiches made literally from shit. I don't like either option, so I'm just gonna eat whatever they bring me". Sure, it's not a great analogy in the sense that picking a different restaurant is not so easy in the context of politics, but I think it makes the point - always choose the lesser bad option. I'd rather eat the moldy fruit (we're assuming that we must eat something in this metaphor) than the literal shit. And then work harder to try and prevent us from going to this restaurant next time. But if you are presented with the two bad options and one is worse, not picking an option is fucking stupid.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 weeks ago* (7 children)

    It blows my mind that these people just won’t even try to understand such a simple concept. Their entitlement, alongside their little purity test cost us not only our democracy, but is RAPIDLY forwarding the environmental damage they pretend to stand against.

    It’s mind-numbing dumbassery.

    Your point was well said, but it will sadly fall on deaf ears. They don’t want to be told the right way to do things, they want to be told the conveinient way to do things. The way that makes them look good. The way that doesn’t require an effort-

    ….the way that doesn’t involve sacrifice.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    Their entitlement, alongside their little purity test cost us not only our democracy

    so, people who aren't content with atrocious (when, don't they know that it could be cataclysmic???) are a sizeable enough population that they can sway elections... yet, seemingly, it's not worth it for democrats to cater to them by not being atrocious? which is it?

    you talk of effort and sacrifice. for what? voting? calling people dumbasses on the internet because they checks notes express empathy for those who refuse to settle for eternal mediocrity?

    "is it so hard to understand that trump is worse" is it so hard to understand that people who see other people being bombed, forests burning, rights taken away, and their lives getting steadily worse, under liberals and conservatives alike, are not gonna fucking bother at some point? people are not game theory machines, "your life gets worse" vs "your life gets worser", despite having an obviously correct answer, is not a motivating choice, what a surprise

    if you believe in saving democracy so much, demand more out of your elected officials instead of demanding less of people who are tired of suffocating under the boot. but, maybe that requires too much effort, and involves too much sacrifice, idk

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  • [+] -8 points 2 weeks ago* (4 children)

    Yeah, as a rule, I don’t read the propaganda you people believe in. Your job is to spread your bullshit and move on, my job is to calm it out.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (3 children)

    "my job is to calm it out"

    Is that your bot programming? That's your job?

    Progressives or others that are critical of the establishment democrats have given you ESSAYS of evidence all throughout here and you just say, "nope, you're all dumb if you don't vote for my party"

    But I guess that could be indictive a being a bot OR just being an actual establishment democrat

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Is everyone a the disagrees with you a Bot?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

    It seems like you actually believe anyone who thought Harris was a bad candidate voted for Rump?
    That's so simple

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  • [–] -4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Your inability to make the bare minimum effort necessary to stand in front of fascism seems to have also allowed you to not know or care what the outcome was-

    Since you seem to like simplicity so much,..

    How about you stop pretending any of this matters to you since you have proven via your conscience choice you made to not bother yourself with it.

    Simple as…..

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    What choice did I make?
    What minimum effort did I not do?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Voting for the candidate that does less harm to the environment.

    Maybe not you, but plenty others did. And that is why we got trump.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    I think you answered my second question? I'm going to assume you did.

    Of course that's why we got Rump. He got more votes. Harris ran against a convicted felon, fraudster, and rapist. It should have been a cake walk to beat him. It was the Dems campaign to loose. She lost anyway, because she was a bad cantate, and the Dems fucked up massively. You can't blame the reff (the voters) when one team played so obviously badly.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    It's a two party system and you have three choices.

    Vote A

    Vote B

    Don't vote.

    Not voting is still an action. It means either option is fine, otherwise you would have voted for a specific candidate

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    But what if they voted for Harris, while thinking she was a terrible candidate? Did that possibly not occur to you?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Then they liked her more than the other options.

    I know we're talking about Americans, but this is a simple enough concept. Even for them.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

    Yah I kind of thought that was simple enough that nobody would think it was what I was asking about.

    The whole idea I apparently need to directly explain is, someone can believe that she was and is a bad candidate, while also voting for her. That we can call out her terrible campaign, and how bad the Democrats are at this game; Wanting and hoping for them to be better. You can support your team, while complaining about how much they suck. Too many here seem to think any criticism of any Democrat is support for Republicans. But that kind of simplistic black and white thinking is what Republicans do. I'd want more for us.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    This has been the case since the 1990s, when does it deliver, can you show us?

    What have working class people GAINED while settling for the "lesser of two evils"?

    Where are the incremental steps to the left that you proclaim exist?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

    I think you may have responded to the wrong comment.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    No I didn't. I am going against the mythi that we are going to incrementally go left. You seem to think we are and I was going against that.

    Everything else you said I agree with.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    I never mentioned going left, incrementally or otherwise. We aren't and haven't been. Since Bill Clinton said "The days of big government are over" That ship sailed. Both parties embraced neoliberal economics. Or what some like to call Late Stage Capitalism, but it's more akin to a new corpo-fudalism, than capitalism.

    Democrats are still socially left. They've decided people should all equally suffer economically. While the Republicans think certain groups should suffer more. To sum up, Dems suck, but Reps are a disaster. So yah I vote for the tourniquet, while screaming for surgery.

    I do have some hope though. The Democratic Socialists seem to be making ground, and getting votes. Perhaps Rump has mad a big enough mess, fast enough for people to support actual economic progressives, that could turn this ship around. This mid term next month will be telling. In 30 years it might be seen as a turning point. I don't know.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    What’s not cute, is how there are people fucking stupid enough to not understand the simple concept that when your opponent is a anti-environmental fascist-

    YOU VOTE AGAINST THE ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL FASCIST.

    It can’t get any easier, yet you people STILL don’t seem to understand it. Let me put it another way:

    When you have cancer- YOU TAKE THE CHEMO. You live to fight anther day. You don’t say,

    “Yeah, no. Chemo sucks. I don’t want to get sick, so, let the cancer take me.” This is PURE ignorance.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago

    Well, if the supposed opposition is anti-environmental fascist-supporters, then they aren't going to get people out to vote.

    Your analogy is severly flawed. The Democrats are less like chemo, and more like alcohol. It makes you feel like the pain is going away, but in the end, it's only helping the cancer.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago*

    Exactly. If they aren't a Fetterman, then vote for them no matter what.

    The only way voting will be ever be effective again is if we shift the Overton window back. The only way to do that (in regards to voting) is to vote for leftists at the local and state level. The ones that actually win are running under the Democrat banner.

    That's pretty much the only way we get out of this mess democratically speaking. That said, we do need to be doing more than just voting to have any actual chance.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    Non voters aren't motivated to vote, they're non voters, why would anyone cater to a group that intentionally throws away any influence they could have?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    Thanks, I'll go on and implement a policy to destroy the ability to vote for as many people as possible in as many ways as I can come up with, that way they become non-voters and I don't have to listen to them. Oh wait, that policy is already what's happening.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Because progressives don't fucking vote and give power to Republicans by doing so. If you refuse to participate in the system then you don't get to be upset when the system disregards you.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Over several decades, progressives are told to vote for the lesser evil, they do, and then the lesser evil helps the greater evil silence progressive voices, so that progressives eventually find out they can't vote anymore.

    You don't know what you're talking about.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    If progressives voted in every election over the last several decades we'd have a progressive democratic party, but progressives mostly don't vote. You sound like a republican.

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