The 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 election is the most important election of our lives. Democracy is at stake and we need to hold our noses and vote for the lesser evil.
If [current challenger or incumbent] gets elected you’ll never vote again.
Isn’t it a bit different when one candidate/party has outright said they plan to take steps to end democracy, and has previously participated in an attempted coup?
Pretending like our elections are currently normal as usual is absurd, we literally had a coup attempt for the 2020 election.
Yes, the 2024 election has democracy on the ballot and it isn’t even a controversial statement to say so.
2000 - Gore decides to concede during a close recount
2020 - The big lie, an attack on our Capitol, fake elector plot, phone call to Georgia pressuring it to flip, dominion lawsuit, and more.
They do not compare, simple as that.
How many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote FOR something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
-Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
not a single election in U.S. history has EVER had “democracy on the ballot.” We don’t have a fucking democracy. When’s the last time anyone has picked a candidate? Year after year, everyone I talk to irl and online despises both candidates. Try to tell someone making minimum wage to go wait in line at the polls to vote, missing those work hours would be literally detrimental. Even if all of those things were disregarded, the popular vote has been fucking ignored in several elections for a convoluted system that was founded by fucking slave owners. even if donald shart “removed democracy” what would change? because Trump’s policy is slightly worse than joe brandons? both of them will uphold the status quo, fund the zionist settler colony, lock up latinx immigrants in concentration camps, build a border wall, prolong the proxy war, expand the military industrial complex, continue a fierce grip on the imperial periphery, i could fucking go on. the dems had a presidency and a majority in Congress when roe was overturned and what did they do to try and stop it? NOTHING. no matter who wins, democracy will never be at stake because THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY. so try and tell me democracy is on the ballot again. fucking do it.
even if donald shart “removed democracy” what would change?
Nothing really, the real reason why most liberals hate Trump is because he doesn’t hide the fact that the USA is not a real democracy and is a fascistic state. Usually the democrats try to hide it better than the republicans, so their voters can sleep well without thinking about all the people the US kills outside and inside their country.
Not sure why the lol, I totally agree with this. US democracy has flaws that should be addressed, big ones being gerrymandering, electoral college (which will eventually go away due to NPVIC), and our judicial system.
Recent events have highlighted on a national stage weaknesses that must be fixed. Let’s get to work instead of throwing in the towel and allowing fascism to rise.
Votes aren’t cast against candidates.
While there are two dominant political parties in the United States, every presidential election I’ve participated in has had more than two candidates to choose from. I’d appreciate it if you’d expand upon your point.
Face it: there are only two candidates who realistically have a chance at winning the general election. It’s been that way for every US election we’ve seen.
If you vote for someone who doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning, that’s about the same as just not voting at all.
So you really have 3 choices: candidate A, candidate B, or indifference.
And there are two possible outcomes: candidate A or candidate B.
If one of those outcomes is at all preferable to the other, (e.g. either A is “better” or B is “worse”), it’s strategically best to vote for the main candidate you prefer, since that increases the chance of getting your preference of the two outcomes.
How many presidential elections have you participated in where more than two parties received any electoral votes at all?
Sorry, i don’t vote for genociders.
Not voting for Biden and there is quite literally nothing anyone can say to persuade me to vote for him.
To expand on my point even further, in any future presidential election I will never vote for any president regardless of what anyone says.
If anyone can figure out why, I’ll make them an theoretical honorary mod of one of the channels I’m on.
I’ll throw out an unexpected guess— are you in a state where the electoral college means your vote doesn’t matter?
It almost did. Jan 6th was a coup attempt.
On the campaign trail a day or two ago he literally said, “…we’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy.”
But go on and insist it is “both sides” to up your edgelord cred. You’re never going to find any politician that agrees with you on every issue. Unless you get off your ass and run, which we know is too much effort for you.
You’ll never vote again.
I’ve never voted for any president you baby-brained jackass. You might as well worship the ground I step on because me not voting apparently helped Biden and Obama win, by your twisted logic
If that simple observation set you off, go check your diaper. You DID ask us.
Well in 1/3 of US provisional elections in the 21st century, the candidate with the most votes has lost the election thanks to the electoral college. So even if they did go vote, there is a 1 in 3 chance that the candidate with the most votes loses the election.
Which is really weird because the US brands itself as the bastion of freedom and democracy internationally, yet they do not follow two of the most important principles of democracy itself. Those being one man equals one vote, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Lots of people in the USA effectively do not have a vote for president with how the electoral college is structured.
None of the people Biden killed through war profiteering, supporting genocide, and policy failure will vote again either.
Glad to hear your proud to support all that death though. Good on you for owning up to supporting the atrocities
Lmao not voting for Genocide Joe no matter how much the wine cave warriors will shame anyone. This sort of meme is fucking gross to all the people suffering from Biden continuing all Trumps worst policies and liberals doing zero to fight against more fascist policies and support for genocide in Palestine.
They can earn our vote by literally doing ANYTHING that actually materially benefits marginalized people or workers. So far they have nothing.
They can earn our vote by literally doing ANYTHING that actually materially benefits marginalized people or workers.
You mean like gun safety legislation (biggest in 30 years which unfortunately doesn’t say much), inflation reduction and infrastructure measures, repealing DOMA, or taking steps against systemic racism?
I agree, none of it is enough, and honestly he probably does too. You can guess that based on other things he’s tried to do and been stopped, like student loan relief. That’s a great example because while it was blocked by Republicans, he’s been taking other avenues to get some out there at least. That demonstrates it’s not just demonstrative efforts, which is a popular argument when that kinda thing happens.
But I get it. I’m no big fan of Biden myself. Then again, you didn’t say he’s not doing enough. You said “literally ANYTHING”. It’s right there in your comment and quoted at the top of this one.
Now since we’ve demonstrated he’s done more than literally anything, were you uninformed and will now change your stance, or were you a liar? If you were a liar did you already know that he’d done those things, or are you just not willing to stick to the criteria you yourself established?
Anything of material consequence this is the difference between liberals and communists. You think bourgeois politicians act in good faith or have your actual material interests at heart. You have a purely aesthetics understanding of politics.
Even if he actually did any of that in the way you think he did and I somehow benefitted from those things, I still wouldn’t vote for him because you can’t buy my vote with all the material appeals in the world if it means being complicit with genocide in return for table scraps. Fuck you and everyone like you. Wake the fuck up.
@Doug@midwest.social Answer me you fucking coward.
Anything of material consequence
Which he’s done. Ask one of the people who were pardoned from their federal possession charges, or received student loan relief. If those aren’t material consequence you’ll need to more clearly define what you mean by the term.
this is the difference between liberals and communists.
So you understand neither term
You think bourgeois politicians act in good faith or have your actual material interests at heart.
Where did I say that? I said he has backed up his intent for student loan relief with action even when meeting resistance.
You have a purely aesthetics understanding of politics.
Says the guy who has one comment and knows my outlook on all political matters
Even if he actually did any of that in the way you think he did and I somehow benefitted from those things, I still wouldn’t vote for him
So you’re a liar. I had need of a lawyer once and he told me it was fine if I didn’t remember something and said so. It wasn’t ok if I said something happened one way and it didn’t because then I was a liar and he couldn’t help anymore. You devalue your own words. You’d do well to think on that beyond any assumptions about my feelings on our legal system.
with all the material appeals in the world if it means being complicit with genocide in return for table scraps.
Then don’t claim that it can be done. I’m also interested in what your viable suggestions for better with the tools we have are. That appears to be the difference between you and I. I’m interested in what change can actually happen to improve people’s lives. It looks a whole lot like you want to move immediately into “no bad things”. Letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Fuck you and everyone like you
And that’s a big reason you’ll get exactly nowhere. Name me a person who has enacted major change for their people without working with someone who they disagreed with and I’ll reconsider.
Wake the fuck up.
Likewise
So look, I’m all for a complete revamp of this trash electoral system and the shitty “government” it allegedly controls, but until we have a unified movement of hundreds of millions of people behind that, it isn’t happening without years of instability and many failed attempts.
So yes, I’ll vote for the lesser of two evils.
I’m gonna spend about 3 hours researching the local positions where my vote counts and leave everything where my vote has already been decided for me blank. Then, I’ll use all the extra time I saved from not pouring my brain down the drain watching endless election coverage to instead do some mutual aid, which has already saved several lives this winter. Fuck Donald Trump and fuck Joe Biden.
Keeping Trump out of the oval office is extremely important if I want to be allowed to vote again in my lifetime.
