Decisions are made by those who show up. It’s as simple as that. It really is the very least you SHOULD do as a functional adult.
I get how not everyone wants to be active on campaigns, can donate, etc. But voting itself should definitely be a given. Same goes for small elections; if you don’t vote, someone else will decide for you. And you might not like what they decide.
Show the fuck up and vote.
I prefer "Pokemon Go To The Polls", myself.
Either way, I'm not sure where OP's "40 Million Registered Democrats" are coming from. Obama set a high water mark for Dem turnout in 2008 with 69M votes and still managed to carry out a win four years later with 65.9M votes. Hillary pulled in 65.8M votes four years after that. She just racked them in the wrong states this time around and lost to a guy who hit his own GOP high watermark of 62.9M.
Then, in 2020, the country implemented a temporary state of national mail-in voting. Turnout surged enormously. Republicans brought in 74M votes! Enough to win in a landslide in virtually any other year. But still not enough to beat the Dem 81M vote haul. An absolutely historic turnout by either party, all thanks to a change in the mechanism used to submit ballots.
But even using these very temporary figures, I have no idea where you're finding a full 105.8M Democrats to vote for your candidate, relative to 2016. Set aside how much our antiquated and archaic machine-voting system suppresses turnout. Set aside the deliberate disenfranchisement by determined State Secretaries in democracy-hostile states and districts. Set aside voter disenfranchisement and intimidation, misinformation and scammy robocalls. Tell me which rock these 40M Democrats are hiding under.
And when you do, make sure there's not another 40M Republicans hiding right alongside them. Because we played this game in Texas for nearly a decade. And what we discovered was a large surplus of lackadaisical conservatives, who came out to swamp the state in 2022. So much for simply being a "non-voting" state.
Never even fucking mind all the "Obama to Trump" voters who showed up in 2016 absolutely revolted by the ghoul Democrats put up as Obama's replacement.
My friends and a lot of my coworkers I were Bernie supporters in 2016 -- donated, attended events, etc. I made sure I was registered to vote and strongly encouraged my friends to as well. Talking to them after the primary was depressing as fuck ... most of them didn't vote, and had the lamest excuses you could imagine. It was eye opening.
Alright: whatever. Great work guys, now we get to vote for Hillary, since it was going to be either her or Trump as president. Shockingly almost none of the aforementioned friends/coworkers voted for her, and several that admitted they couldn't get off their asses to vote for him in the primary complained about how it was "stolen" from Bernie.
It was hard not slapping the shit out of them.
I can definitely understand the disillusionment of the Bernie Bros at that time. I was reaaaaally hoping he’d win the nomination.
Even as a European that whole situation really irked me. Especially the rhetoric of it being ‘Hillary’s turn’. Yes, she had a lot of political experience, but this is not an ‘it’s my turn!’ type of position. And Bernie getting shoved aside unceremoniously because it was ‘her turn’ didn’t do the Democrats any favors in the actual voting.
A lot of Bernie supporters had a post-Bernie hangover and got frustrated enough to check out of the political process. It sucks, but I understand. Let’s hope they’ll at least vote this time.
Those people are still crooning about how counting the ballots is stealing the election and ignoring the will of the people to this day.
You have to drag these people by the hair to the ballot box even for the candidate they themselves support and they wonder why everyone else doesn't just do the revolution for them.
Tell that to republicans in California lmao. I agree with the overall message because more overall voters is better for democrats, but let's not pretend everything is so simple. We haven't even mentioned the electoral college in this thread.
Good thing the party learn d their lesson and stopped running uncharismatic elderly moderates with terrible approval ratings...
Right?
How the fuck did they go from Obama to Hillary to this?
They didn't, they TRIED to run Hillary in 2008. Obama was the party outsider who won by a tiny margin.
The only people who dont vote for the least bad option are the people who have the luxary not to.
We gotta get us some Approval Voting so people can vote for their true favorite without worrying if it'll accidentally give them a worse election result.
And are selfish fucks
No no no, you don't understand, you can only ever be critical of one thing at a time, so either you don't care about people not voting or you think every candidate and campaign the Democratic party has ever run was flawless, you have to pick one or the other /s
That’s not even counting unaffiliated and registered independent citizens that abstained.
"Hillary is the best choice, she's guaranteed to win!" - the democratic party in 2016.
She was never the best choice of the Democrats available, but you must admit we had no idea how goddamned stupid people were back then. She should have won. Turns out, yeah, russia was listening.
"Well, she may not be the best choice, but it's her turn." -- insiders.
Hillary Clinton is our best candidate let's convince the whole primary field to drop out because the democrat donors want Hillary and it's her turn. Said the democratic party.
Also my vote in Delaware didn't lose her the election. We have popular vote on a state by state basis. Can't blame 95% of the democrats or independents that didn't vote for her. They should be polling in the areas that will decide the election. I think the stat was 20,000 or so votes in the middle of the country decided it.
True but what’s the 95% democrats number mean?
You can't blame 95% of the democrats or independents that didn't vote for Hillary because their vote didn't decide the election.
Pennsylvania was lost by 46,765 votes Michigan was lost by 10,704 votes Wisconsin was lost by 22,748 votesThese states are what lost the election a total of 2.18% 80,217 votes out of 14,630,990 votes in these 3 states. 6.32% of the people in America decided that election as there was 231,556,662 eligible voters and 138,884,643 voted.
How many of those were in the 5-6 states where their vote actually matters? Cuz I'm in a state thats been hard blue since like, Reagan.
We don't have a true popular vote. If we did we'd never have a Republican president again.
I live in Utah. The difference in numbers in Utah is crazy. If everyone registered as other than Republican voted for Biden and just registered Republicans voted for Trump, Trump would still win by around 10%. Registered Democrats are outnumbered 2:1 by unaffiliated and 4:1 by Republicans.
In fact, "Unaffiliated" is the second largest group of active voters in Utah.
I'm proud I didn't vote Blue in 2016 and 2020. I'm not from the USA so it would be a voter fraud if I did.
That being said, dems are completely incompetent when it comes to elections, deliberately picking such terrible candidates like Hillary and Biden. I don't believe there are actual people that voted Blue because of seeded candidate and not despite it.
Not to excuse the Democratic Party, but I would argue that it's inevitable that they choose shit candidates for the presidency when we consider how much indoctrination Americans get over their capitalism/corporatism and how they justify and normalize the shit America did and the status quo, while omitting a lot of the important progressive historical events or (in the case of figures like MLK and Gandhi, or context behind Iran/Latin America/Israel&Palestine) don't tell the full story. Like most Americans aren't going to learn that the US denied millions of Jews, Roma, and other groups being displaced entry into the country right before the holocaust, leading to the deaths of millions. You also won't learn that the US installed multiple fascist dictators, monarchs, etc. in countries after overthrowing democratic governments to serve corporate intrests or over their fear of leftist leaders. At best you might briefly touch on the wars with Iraq in government class or something.
Then you're basically indoctrinated by history classes and society that anything left of American corporatism is communism. To the point that modern conservatives genuinely think FDR policies are extreme socialist/communist policies.
With our current voting system, an actually social democratic president would not get elected. FDR, Truman, Johnson, and Carter were the closest we could get in that regard, but those days are long gone.
That being said, I do think a lot of people genuinely voted for Hillary because of her and not solely because of Trump. Especially women and LGBTQ who wanted like... more gender equality. I think more accurately would be that there are very few white guys who voted for Hillary for any reason other than Trump being worse.
I agree with most of your points except with one about socialists being unelectable - I believe that Bernie would have moped the floor with Trump in 2016, and even more so in 2020. First woman president had a nice ring to it, but Hillary performed terribly, and with her being basicially an aristocrat of the establishment, lots of people hated her from the get go. They shanked Bernie so their corporate overlord donors wouldn't get pissy, and voters treated that as betrayal. After very solid 8 years of Obama it get like Dems had this victory in their pocket regardless of what they do, and they commited to proving that hunch wrong. That's at least the vibes I got from watching the elections from Europe, I did hear that Obama wasn't as popular as he seemed to be.
And even still, considering the alternative, not voting was worse. And it continues to be worse.
Bit of a tangential point: Every vote counts but not every vote counts the same. Voters in California get less of a say than voters in Maine.
Depending on the accent, that's a pretty good little poem.
The difference is quite big too. A Wyoming vote is apparently currently worth 2.87 times the average American's vote. So probably like 5 times the most worthless vote...
Yup. More Dems and Lib Voters should move to the middle of nowhere. Just to ensure that swing votes do matter.
People forget downballot races end in single and double digit gaps way too often.
I've been saying: "Come on, don't you want to say you were part of the last democratic election in American history?!"
I will never take a single vote for granted considering how many elections in very recent history were literally decided by a single vote.
It's even important to vote in states and districts that are deep red/blue where the minority party is statistically unlikely to win, because if you don't show up the numbers will never reflect the true demographic of people who want a change. Not to mention the arguably more important down ballot races for local elections. Change on a macro scale might be difficult, but change on a local level is very possible.
The way I look at it is yeah your one vote doesn't count for much, but consider this; if you can convince 5 friends to join you in voting for the same candidate, that's 6 more votes that the opposition will also need to scrounge up just to win by the same margin as if you did not vote at all. That's not insignificant. Using your right to vote can swing the social dialogue more towards compromise in future elections if enough people turn out.
if you don’t show up the numbers will never reflect the true demographic of people who want a change
If Republicans actually gave a shit about this sort of thing you'd have a point. But they win by one vote and act like they've got a mandate.
if you can convince 5 friends to join you
This assumes I have 5 friends. Or any friends, really.
I'm sure at least one of them was like "Ah shit, fuck, that was today???? I thought it was Tuesday today, god fucking damnit"
But election day is always Tuesday.... Haha
How many of the 40 million votes were in locked-in blue states?
Edit: this was an honest question, not some kind of gotcha
There's more than just president up for election.
I would wonder this too. Also is there even a point of voting in a blue locked state beside the chance that there's a huge surge in Republican voters? Like is there a difference between an area winning with 72% of the vote compared to 75% of the vote? Genuinely asking as I am a moron.
Illinois has Mary Miller and she's not that far away from Champaign county which is where UIUC is located.
Not that many. Guess why they’re locked-in blue states.
Do you have a source? California is locked in blue, but also just has a huge population.
It's only Hillary, said the DNC in 2016.
If you vote for her SHE’LL WIN 😡
Apparently there are “9” comments here, but I only see three.
I’m good with that.
How many of them were in counties that mattered?
Enough for it to matter.
You know those people who live in counties that don’t matter? Okay, not them. Obvs.
I was wrong to feel that way. Harris 2024
Kamala Harris is the reason I'm voting this year. I would have strongly considered Biden before if he would have been talking about Supreme Court reform before now. I have issues with Kamala Harris' record, but it's leagues above Biden's and light years above Trump. It just doesn't feel hopeless anymore to me.
Brilliantly said!
Hillary was and remains terrible. They should have given me someone who wasn't repellant. I voted Dem in every election up until that one and then I stayed home. I will not apologize for them fucking up.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself. It’d be great if you’d help us not succumb to religious fascism as run by a sociopathic rapist, sir. Please, sir.
You should switch from vote to freedomvote where 1 freedomvote is worth 100 votes.
Sure but does my vote in a blue county in a blue state really matter? If elections were actually chosen by who won the popular vote, maybe people wouldn't be so jaded about voting.
I don't give a single solitary fuck how jaded some motherfuckers are - People died so we could vote! Fucking DO IT.
So many goddamn toddlers out here like “weaaah why can’t everything work like magic! Waahh i don’t like the politics! I know everything about government and I pronounce it a dumb stupid thing because i dont like it!” Christ in a bucket we got nazis walking up the goddamn driveway and shitheads in here are all “ewww biden might lose, i demand offers for my partici-“ VOTE you assholes! ffs
It's possible your vote might not ultimately be the deciding vote and that your preferred candidates win easily. But many solidly one colored states have flipped, and the first time it happens it's always close. Why risk it? Most places have a means by which to vote which is easy and accessible - vote by mail and early voting are an option in most places, especially blue states. Generally early voting takes a matter of minutes. Your vote is your voice in politics, don't you want it to be heard?
I live in a pretty red state and typically vote very blue. I vote every single election I am able to, because local elections matter too, and when it comes to president, my voice is going to be counted, even if my state sends their electoral votes elsewhere.
There's usually quite a lot of people on the ballot, most of them are running for sometime other than president.
But where did they live? Only the ones that lived in a few states actually mattered.
D O W N B A L L O T
True, true.
And because of that we got a better president than the one we have currently. Did you know that historically high voter turnout precedes bad times.
The answer isn't to increase the democrat voter turnout. It's to decrease republican voter turnout. The fewer people vote the more the voters are composed only of high information voters and the more politicians have to talk to the public like we are actual fucking adults. That's good for the public no matter which party wins.
We are basically guaranteed to have about a 50:50 mix of republican and democrat control over time. The question is do you want them to be shit-tier democrats and republicans or high quality democrats and republicans?
I'm so done with the Democrats. I'm not voting for Biden. I've voted for these guys for 10 years and at this point I feel like they do nothing with the power they are given when they do have it.
Oh okay so you'd rather let the country and all LGBT people be killed instead
In their logic, they'll learn their lesson and do better next time but sadly they won't get a chance to reap their lesson next time.
Da, above commenter is correct in refusing votes for the Biden. America must have strong leader, maybe not as strong as Putin, but very strong to crush enemies with might.
Many people are saying this things about Democratic, and I too agree it is been long enough, almost ten years to fix all problems. They have had chance. Is time for new powerful leader like Trump again to make important decisions of country.
I also have been voting the Democrat, but no longer. As are many of my instafriends who are also women of color and our many progressive comrades. These are the end of Democratic tirannys.
You forgot to post this in r/Walkaway first to make sure the grammar matched with English grammar.
I'm not going to vote tbh. I cannot support this system.
No, actually I remember you. I support your decision. Probably best for you
At least vote locally. I understand the nihilism towards presidents, but voting locally has the potential for actual felt change, at least for you and your neighbors.
What do you support and how would we get there under a fascist government?
is it possible to vote nothing in the usa?
Yes. We don't have mandatory voting here. Only 66% of American adults voted in the 2020 election, and it had the highest voter turnout in 120 years!
"The 2020 presidential election had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century, with 66.8% of citizens 18 years and older voting in the election, according to new voting and registration tables released today by the U.S. Census Bureau."
Then you’ll be part of what continues to enable it.
How many of those registered Democrats were in a state that was +10% for either of the candidates?
Local and state races are also important and you should vote in them even if your state is a lock, but if you know for a fact your vote for president won't matter why cast it? To give the Democrats an even greater sense of smugness at winning the popular vote despite losing the election?
I mean ignoring the fact that you already mentioned about local and state races being immensely important, unbelievably important, there is something to be said of the notion of a president's winning an election despite an overwhelming majority voting against him. That's not nothing. If only for the moral message to the people of what a corrupt system we have. But also the Practical effects of it. The pressure that puts on politicians the pressure that puts on the parties the pressure that puts on legislation, the pressure that puts on future campaigning and financing, it all matters. In politics everything is connected.
If only for the moral message to the people of what a corrupt system we have.
I would think that would make people even less likely to vote, since they think it doesn't do anything.
The pressure that puts on politicians the pressure that puts on the parties the pressure that puts on legislation, the pressure that puts on future campaigning and financing, it all matters.
I don't believe this. Both Bush II and Trump acted like they had some kind of massive mandate despite losing the popular vote. Maybe if the shoe was on the other foot and it was Democrats winning without getting the most votes they'd be introspective enough to change tactics, but Republicans don't give a fuck.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president
The difference in the 2020 election was about 7 million votes. Even with the electoral college, another 40 million votes not impacting the 2024 election would be statistically improbable. Biden would win in an unprecedented landslide.
We know what states have been swing states before. We don't know which states will be swing states in 2024 with 100% accuracy. If enough people didn't vote, any state would become a swing state. If everyone who has said "your vote for president won't matter" or equivalent voted we would see radically different results in US elections.
If all those votes were in already blue states it wouldn't have changed anything.
But I'm making the mistake of assuming voters are acting rationally and understand the rules of the game, which they don't. They're not going to, like I did, not vote for the presidential candidate because I keep an eye on the polls and know that it's going 2:1 to someone but continue to vote down ballot. They're just not voting because reasons.
We'd all be well-served to stop thinking of voters as rational people.
I'm independent but I can't vote for a vegetable. Do better. I'm hoping some third party options appear. Doubtful. We're locked into a two party shitshow. Don't pretend Biden is a good option.
Biden has shown he can do a lot of good. More importantly, we have a literal timestamp in history books of what bad Trump and the GOP is able to do. So then I have a very simple question for you:
Maintain the status quo and work to fix it
or
Don't vote for Biden or whatever candidate is put forth in his place?
Yes, that is the ultimatum.
You're not voting for the vegetable. You're voting for the massive administration the vegetable comes with.
Well-put. The admin is one of the most important things that the president does.
I'd rather have a vegetable than a fat racist fuckhead
You're not independent, you're a fascist. Blocked.
Biden is a shit option. Most of us are not voting for him we are once again voting against the dictator on day one in Chief, Trump.
I too wish that a younger candidate would replace him. Lord knows that him picking JD Vance will get some of the young folks to vote for him.
Cool, so you directly or indirectly help the fascist get elected. Smart.
That's my problem with other liberals/independents. Everyone has to pass their bullshit purity test (candidates, friends, family, etc). That's why Republicans win. They stick together no matter what.
The third party options that are likely to appear on the ballot in most states are RFK Jr., Chase Oliver, and Jill Stein. RFK Jr. isn't my cup of tea, but he's been polling the best of the three-- double digits last I checked, which wasn't recently. They can't accuse you of "stealing" a vote from the DNC if you weren't going to vote in the first place.
(Just kidding; they will accuse you. This is Lemmy. You're basically a fascist™ now.)
Better option than fascism.
You say “do better.”
What have you done the past four years to get a better candidate? Biden has done plenty. I suggest you look it up.
Do better.
