Okay? The point I'm making, which you have totally ignored, is that votes are the only leverage that we have. By throwing my vote away the Democrats can't have it, and if enough people do that they lose. Supposedly they want to win, so they need to convince me to note vote for Aaron Bushnell this November. By deciding to enslave yourself to the Democrats and slavishly give them your support no matter what they have no reason to not get even worse. By next year they'll have moved even farther to the right and it will be your fault because you refused to use the only leverage you have to move them to the left.
Every election cycle the Democrats just become the Republicans from the last election cycle. Biden is doing genocide, violating international law by limiting asylum seekers, and marching us towards WW3. How much worse will they get if they aren't stopped?
And not voting for a major party will fix that how?
Even if a significant portion of the population goes third party (and assuming they all agree on the same party), splitting the vote has only ever helped the opposition.
And if Democrats are just Republicans from the last election cycle, which is an absolutely unhinged notion but I'll humor you anyway, voting for Democrats is still in my best interest since Republicans are even further right
You've legitimately lost your mind in a purity test if you can't see that.
Would you vote for that just because the other guy might be worse?
Yes, are you retarded? Like you've gotta be actually fucking stupid to be queer and think letting republicans win to punish dems is better for you, or Palestine. American politics is harm reduction, and the choice for less harm is clear.
It's not like Biden has done fucking anything about Republicans attacking our rights in the State legislatures. When my red state decides to make it illegal to use the bathroom he won't do anything about it.
I'd still vote for him if he'd stop doing genocide, of course, but until then 🤷♀️
I never did, that's the least destructive way to let your displeasure be known, as long as you still vote for, and encourage others to vote for, the least bad candidates in the general elections (spoilers, the least bad candidates will pretty much universally be blue)
All this that does is ensure this election's Democrat is the same as last election's Republican, they constantly move as far to the right as you let them because they know they can count on your vote no matter what. You are making things worse. Maybe you, specifically, didn't speak out against uncommitted. The whole .world instance definitely did, though. We remember.
All this that does is ensure this election’s Democrat is the same as last election’s Republican
Even if this is true and we're in a metaphorical political nosedive, that's still harm reduction, it's 4 more years to be politically active in a functioning democracy, vote in every primary and general you can from your local school board up to the presidential election, and hopefully pull up hard enough that we don't actually smash into the ground
If you think our democracy is already too far gone and completely unsalvageable, you shouldn't be advocating for other people not to vote, you should instead be advocating for people to join/form a local militia and start training to defend it because clearly it's already time to break out the 4th box
If voting matters, if this is a democracy, then non-votes matter too.
So which is it? Is this a functioning democracy, where refusing to vote unless certain demands are met can be used as leverage? Or is this a kleptocracy where you must vote for the fascism lite party if you don't want the fascism delux party to win?
Non-votes literally do not matter, mathematically it's the same as if you had two votes and you gave one each to both candidates. Parties cannot appeal to you as a non-voter because they have no idea what you want, the only way they can is if you vote in primaries for your candidates of choice so they can see the sorts of things their constituents value. Only don't vote if you truly don't care whether we have "fascism or fascism-lite", because if you would prefer one then not voting only helps the other win.
Again, general elections are about harm reduction, sometimes you have to be an adult, grit your teeth, and choose between two bad choices because one is clearly the better option. We'll have to eliminate FPTP first if we want anything different.
By refusing to vote unless my demands are met I can exert pressure on Democrats. You, by voting blue no matter who and no matter what, literally have no impact on Democrats. How else do you think we push them left?
Also, genocide isn't harm reduction.
You're an enabler. This genocide is on your head, blue no matter who's have made it impossible to convince Biden to stop.
Don't forget that he's also made more progress on building the southern border wall and killing the asylum process than trump did in his 4 years. But he wears a blue tie (Good Guys) and that's all that really matters.