Despite everything, if you're in the US, you should still vote
Despite everything, if you're in the US, you should still vote
When given a choice between a millitary industrial neoliberal with a rainbow voting base and a fascist who is one elon musk golf session away from banning HRT, the best option is certainly not to refuse to play out of protest
The best way I've seen anyone put it is that by the time the election arrives, you are exclusively in damage control mode. If you want actual change, you have to have it done by getting your personal choice voted in during the primaries.
And I'd add - get active the other 364 days of the year.
If we want better options we first need ranked choice voting and we need to get money out of politics. And none of that is going to happen if our only political action each year is voting.
At local level. Organize school board, dog catcher, judges, city council, planing commission, library board, community college board, do what the right wing does
do what the right wing does
Maybe with just a little less cross burning, lynching, and religious extremism.
This is really key, though the state level is probably most important. If your voting activism doesn't go beyond the presidential election, it's performative at most. A third party candidate without members of their party is state houses and Congress is going to be fairly ineffective even if they somehow did do the impossible and get elected.
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Honestly we just had an election where I live where the options were (not to this extreme at all) but pretty similar in the "not great" vs "fucking awful" choices. Of course we had an actual third party with good policies but they had no chance. The race was so close here that in some areas the difference in votes was in the hundreds for the top two choices. They're still doing recounts and I guess we'll see, but every single fucking vote has counted on this.
I honestly don't believe that not voting is ever going to work. If we want change we need an actual fucking revolution. Not voting, in American's case, would just allow for the literal militants to take over and then you really won't even have the choice to protest anything in the future.
We need to focus on prefigurative politics, I.e, build the world we want to see with direct action, unionizing, and mutual aid, since voting and governments are never going to do it for us.
However, who is in charge of your country will make those prefigurative politics more or less hard, or even impossible (can't imagine much of the above going on in Nazi Germany...)
I think it goes without saying that it will be less hard under Harris.
the last thing Mitch McConnell sees before his ping hits 8000
Ted Stevens.
"The internet... isn't a dump truck. It's a series of tubes."
for those, like me, who can't remember where they've seen the original image before, it is the necrons from Warhammer 40k :)
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Necrons#Necrons_in_the_41st_Millennium
So the neocons of the 2000s are the C'tan, providing neoliberals with unending life by running against fascists and also necrosteel bodies but at the cost of their souls. One day we will overthrow the gods and place their shards into our doomsday weapons.
Obamna prisom
Pictured: Newly-unveiled biologically-engineered troops of the National Guard enforcing the new State Ideology of Obamunism in Mar-a-Lago (2009, colorized)
this is my American Dream™
This is what’s in Alex Jones’ dreams
And remember to vote for whoever you want. Just because you vote third party doesn't mean your vote is wasted or to vote for somebody else because who knows who you would have voted for if it wasn't for third party. Those people that say that shit can fuck off.
Edit: y'all are just as bad as maga losers. If I don't vote for your guy, it's a wasted vote. Just go out and vote, period, for whoever you want. Ignore all these people trying to get you to vote for their person. Vote for whomever YOU like. Nothing wrong with endorsing a candidate but trying to make someone look stupid or evil for voting is really pathetic.
Either Harris or Trump are going to win the election. Not voting for Harris is voting for Trump. Yes, it fucking sucks, but especially if you're a woman or a queer person, really think about whether you actually think it doesn't matter which one wins.
Voting is not an endorsement of a candidate. It's a tool. Don't let them take away your rights while you're waiting for the perfect candidate that will never come.
Charitable read: I think they're talking in general, not just for the president. voting third party is actually pretty viable in certain areas of the country for certain state positions
yes but also if you're in a swing state maybe don't vote third party for the executive office. Rn the thrid party persidential candidates aren't super strong, and the bulk of political momentum is bipartisan. Local and state gov is a totally different situation depending on your state.
Good point. A candidate from a party that doesn't really have a presence in any level of government and especially zero seats in congress will probably never have a realistic chance of winning the presidential election, barring some exceptional circumstances. If you like a third party, trying to make it viable at the local level and moving up from there seems to be the only realistic option to me.
I'm down for leaving people to vote for who they want, as long as they allow their protest votes to weigh heavily on their consciences when January comes around and we suddenly live in the fourth reich
Except it is wasted because there is literally zero chance a 3rd party candidate will win the presidency. If we’re talking lower offices, then maybe, but if you’re not voting Harris then you are directly assisting Trump.
Remember: the only people who say this want to see Trump win. You can vote with your conscience all you want, but it's only mathematically possible for only one of two parties to get elected.
If third parties or independents actually wanted a shot, they'd put in the work outside of elections, building coalitions and locally from the ground up.
any vote not for Harris is a vote for trump.
any vote not for Harris is a vote for trump.
That's not how tallying responses works at all. If you can put a tick in "Apples" or "Pears" on a list that collects the nominal data for fruit choice, you writing in "Sausages" is neither a vote for Apples nor for Pears.
Trump actually gets votes through 1) electoral fraud of various kinds, some of them still legal because the status quo is shit, and 2) appealing to bigots by being a huge bigot. Voting third party, or not voting at all, is not actually the problem. Focus on removing people from society who want bigots in power, and also focus on making electoral fraud impossible.
For those wondering about Obama's last name: Here is a mathematical proof
Obama stone
Simple game theory
Harris: +1. Because she actually is a good person. The only people saying anything else are Republicans really . Don't forget she used to fight for sexual assault victims and such (look at her past actions). Walz is just as good as a person
Trump: -1: no explanation needed
Anyone else: 0 points
It's only logical to vote for Harris/Walz. Unless you actually believe trump . But, if you use the arguments Trump has used against Biden and Harris, you'll see all of them work equally well on him. He is sleepy, he is old, and he is a criminal
Amend that, it’s also -1 points to anyone else in a swing state because any possible vote not for the Dems is one that helps the Repubs get closer to the day one dictatorship.
Those swing states include Texas, Virginia, NC, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, PA, Ohio, New Hampshire, Michigan, Maine, Alaska, Iowa, Indiana, FloridA, and Arizona.
Some are unlikely (Indiana, Texas) but all are possible (maybe Senate only for TX). The repubs are losing strength, maim ‘em so better progressive policies can grow. If you’re in CA or NY or CO or MN its still not exactly 0, you should vote local; you may be able to get 3rd party in in places or resist a local house Republican.
I vote Jagmeet Singh
Honestly I've got a lot of hopes that overseas citizens will mail in so as to upset the polls.
It’s so easy to fuck our registration, I wouldn’t bet on it.
still don't wanna vote? vote 3rd party!
Um, no. A 3rd party vote is basically just a vote for Drumpf💀
if you were gonna vote for trump but you vote for 3rd party, that's a Harris vote , 9 day old account.
If you keep voting for the lesser evil rather than destroying this fucked system, eventually your choices will be between a fascist and a fascist. Y'all would rather waste time delaying the inevitable, rather than working to disempower and destroy these exploitative and oppressive systems.
Of course! And the way we do that is let the fascists win! It all makes sense now! We just have to let enough of our trans homies die and let Trump use the military to round up millions of people and put them in camps first! It's the blood sacrifice we need in order to usher in the (insert political system most Americans don't understand in the slightest and have negative views toward that will totally improve if we are instrumental in letting Hitler 2.0 win) revolution! It's just a good thing I am privileged enough to not have to be one of those rounded up in camps or lynched in the streets or die during the civil war / revolution! Why doesn't anyone else see it? We just have to deliberately let enough people die first in order for the politics-fairies to grant me the exact system I imagine!
/S
I'd love to see what your suggestion is for "working to disempower and destroy" the systems exactly while letting fascists take power. It's not like we could ever do both, right? We could never vote to keep things from actively getting worse and also advocate for a better world, right? It's not like the Dems would move right if they lost this time like they have done every single time before, right?
I'm saying this one more time, so all you libshit assholes understand. I am not unaffected by the election results. I work through direct action to help others. I work to build systems of cooperation and disempower state and capitalist systems at a grassroots level. You can do things without the state and I wont let democrats and the government hold me and the people I care about hostage. My rights and others rights will not be a carrot on a stick for politicians to dangle in front of my face. If any of you actually cared about stopping fascism and protecting people you would be on the ground feeding and defending the homeless, building radical unions, doing community defense, and more. You all forget that voting never stopped fascism before, and it won't now. You are no better than the conservatives and fascists as you both threaten and abuse those that don't want to follow your regime.
Don't forget he has bars
