The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old with a net approval rating at minus 16 points
The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old with a net approval rating at minus 16 points
In failing to look past Joe Biden, Democrats have shown cowardice and complacency
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I have never approved of the person I voted for president
Voting isn't a valentine. It's a chess move. —Rebecca Solnit
Except the chess piece doesn’t honestly care what you think and a couple thousand people in flyover country can put you in checkmate regardless of how you move.
Voting is more like beating your head against a wall. If enough people join you then you might just move the building. But don’t expect it to feel good afterwards.
I fundamentally disagree. If this was at all true, Republicans wouldn't still be working so hard to make it difficult to vote in red states.
The point isn't for your vote to feel good; if that's your end goal, you are naive. The point is that it's strategic to an end, something the Fascists understand quite well.
The fascists vote entirely on feeling, it’s why Trump and MAGA have taken over the GOP who’s “strategy” lost them their party.
Like I said: it works if enough people also beat their head against the wall. And the building will shift about a sixteenth of an inch. And we’ll all celebrate the power of democracy and how awesome it is we do this ever four years.
Oh, and for the preceding year there’s bullhorns playing at all hours and if you don’t listen to them you’re not and informed head-basher
And the building will shift about a sixteenth of an inch. And we’ll all celebrate the power of democracy and how awesome it is we do this ever four years.
Yes. A little progress is progress nonetheless. You can wish for it to be different, but this is how democracy works, because not everyone thinks like you or has the same priorities as you. Even ignoring the loud authoritarians, there's still a wide variety of people with different backgrounds and paradigms deciding what they find most important when they vote.
Sorry! Next year the people bashing their heads against the wall moved it half an inch and now your kid’s trapped under it.
Clown government.
Probably because someone was telling people that voting didn't matter, so they never showed up to oppose that.
I didn’t say it didn’t matter. Just that it feels like smashing your head into a wall.
So... you're saying it does matter, it's just not doing anything? Seems a little contradictory.
If only there were elections more than once every four years...
Oh wait!
I was exaggerating. Smaller building, same bead bashing. Fewer bullhorns.
Oddly enough, if you move buildings a sixteenth of an inch at a time... but over thousands of times, it moves significantly!
Except we need to move the building quickly and the building moving system is so ineffective e the people who don’t want to move it have most of the power.
Mostly because the people with the "right idea" about moving the building have given up and just don't participate anymore.
And, oddly enough, you can do multiple things! Voting is one aspect of change, not the only one. It's a relatively simple thing you do maybe every six months at most.
But sure, no point in doing it, right? Cause why would we bother doing something unless we can see our names in big flashing lights saying "You did the thing, congrats!"
That’s my secret: I’ve given up and still vote. Haven’t stopped. Every time it’s beating my head against a wall. I hate it. Nothing makes me feel less American than an election.
Maybe we should stop trying to move a building by beating our heads against it?
Forfeiting is a chess move, yes.
but the people who say this keep losing, so it doesn't work in reality
Untrue. Look at the midterms, where we were supposed to have a "red wave," which wound up with places like Michigan having a Dem majority in all three chambers and Republicans getting only a very thin majority in the US House, or all the people who voted for "not-Trump."
Strategic voting absolutely works.
that's not a presidential race
That's not a sufficient rebuttal.