The fundamental tenet of a working democracy is voting. Everyone should have a vote and everyone should exercise their right to vote. To that end we have been seeing posts attempting to shame/mock or otherwise influence people not to vote. While this is a meme community, the idea that people shouldn’t vote goes against the fundamentals of a democracy by the people and for the people. To that end, we are adding a new rule that disallows posts that discourage or shame people from voting. This doesn’t mean that you can’t address how people vote, but even those who don’t agree with you and your political views should still vote. We all should. Everyone. Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal. Posts discouraging people from voting are essentially propaganda and will be removed.
PoliticalMemes is a community for having fun at the expense of our political hellscape we find ourselves in. People not voting is a big part of why.
We are taking feedback on this change, please let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments and why.
Banning memes that “discourage voting” seems open ended enough to easily be “memes that make my preference look bad” are banned.
Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal
No, the reason for the mess is a system deliberately designed to benefit a handful of people at the expense of the rest. Blaming those who don’t participate in the system for the system is an absurd little act of mental gymnastics (as well as a service to the aforementioned handful of people, by buying in to the division they sow for the sake of distracting us from them, who are actually responsible).
Should people vote? If they want to. Will it change anything? No. Because the choice is an illusion, as is “democracy”.
Perhaps if you actually let people have the conversation instead of shutting it down because confronting the actual depth of the problem makes you too uncomfortable, we might reach a point where we can be rid of this rigged system and build one that is actually “by the people, for the people”, because that sure as fuck isn’t the case at the moment. Maybe the real issue here is for you to consider with yourself why you’re so invested in defending the status quo…
https://libcom.org/article/capitalist-democracy-illusion-choice
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
E: having seen the example you’ve given, I’m outa here anyway, new rule or not, would love to know if you mod any other communities so that I can block those too. 👍
The rule isn’t in place yet. That’s why this post was made to generate feedback, and attempt to engage with the community instead of rule with an iron fist, but you don’t seem to understand that.
Bye.
Oh look at that, they’re also the mod of like a third of lemmy.world including news and world news. Such unbias, very discussion.
Not voting is a vote of no confidence.
similar deliberative body indicate that they no longer support a leader, government,etc.
Voting is a choice. Not voting is a choice. If you take away the choice of not voting, while only allowing two candidates that a vast majority of Americans don’t want, then can you really call it a democracy?
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself. That is the purpose of social forums, to discuss ideas.
A forum is a public meeting place for open discussions. This rule is the policing of thought, and the antithesis of a forum.
Oh yes, of course! Its why antifazcist groups should welcome fascist speakers to engage in open, honest debate.
Got this account tagged as “russian shill”
Its incredible how often this one turns up whenever voting comes up to let us all know its uselss and not to do it. Almost like itd benefit them if you didnt.
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself.
…It would be kind of interesting if the amount of people voting plummeted so much so that it removed almost any sense of considering the results legitimate and representative of the populace whatsoever. So far as I’m aware I don’t know of any democracies that have a sort of minimal threshold explicitly set to account for and address such a situation…They all seem to presume sufficient civic participation and confidence in their institutions that their citizens wouldn’t simply not participate/vote en masse.
I think part of the reasoning for that being that if things have gotten that bad, surely the citizenry wouldn’t simply not vote, they’d actively be overthrowing the institutions they had lost confidence in.
The fact people are in this thread discussing the merits of voting should indicate to the mods why this is an ill-conceived rule.
Good. Apathy is a tool of the oppressors utilized on those who think they’re being ‘rebellious’.
Centrist Democrats love to interpret any dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party as encouragement to not vote at best and overt support for Trump at worst.
I have every expectation that this will be the standard by which this rule is implemented.
This rule will result in a slippery slope where any post critical of Biden will be be removed, resulting in an echo chamber of like-minded individuals with little engagement and discourse. It has the potential to stifle and eventually kill the community.
Seriously any criticism of Biden and the clowns come out to tell me I should fear Trump is gonna accomplish everything he wants on day one, but Biden can’t do most of what he promised because? You ask for a third party and get accused of dissuading voters from voting. I see Biden “supporters” calling him Hitler lite, and asking well if not Biden then who? Like believing the DNC tale is exactly how these clowns can make someone as unpalatable as Biden seem decent. And the best part is they will always say its no competition and I should be happy for the crumbs of the promises Biden kept because in contrast you better believe Trump is gonna keep all his promises 🙄🤣🤣🤣
You can criticize and make jokes about 46 without discouraging voter turnout. They are just alot harder than making em about 45 who jokes write themselves.
Of course I can. That doesn’t stop centrist Democrats from making accusations in bad faith because they want to silence criticism.
Funny, i see much more bitching about nonexistent centrist dems than actual centrist dems on here. What i do see a lot of is apologists expaining why discussing the merits of not voting is actually for the best and not playing directly into the kremlins plans.
