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Decisions are made by those who show up, it’s as simple as that.
You may hate it, but the Republicans are definitely better at getting people in line, both literally and figuratively. They turn up and vote even if they don’t like the candidate because… that’s their party. And it’s the only one that they feel represents them.
Meanwhile a lot of Democrats stay home because the candidate isn’t the one they wanted, doesn’t support everything they want, is too old/young, etc. There’s this attitude of ‘if I can’t have my perfect candidate, I’m staying home out of protest.’
I get it. Every voter wants a perfect candidate. But perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes.
I always look at it like this: if I vote, I might not always get the outcome that I want, but at the very least I’m nullifying the vote of a person on the other side.
If the other guy shows up and you don’t? That’s how you lose rights.
Be someone who shows the fuck up.
Republicans are definitely better at getting people in line
That's also really really strongly due to their efforts at voter suppression for the dems. It's so much easier to show up to vote if you can just hop over to the local polling station, go right in, stand in line for like 5 minutes and leave while many urban voters in blue or especially black areas have to stand in line for hours and might still get turned away because their names have recently been purged from the voter rolls.
I show up every time and it feels like people still make decisions for me.
What keeps me voting is realizing that real life is disappointing and I’ll never be happy.
I know it's tough, but try not to give in to pessimism. A better life is possible. It seems far and out of reach now, but it can be done. When people get too pessimistic, that's when they don't do anything.
I disagree. Voting with no expectation of it doing anything stops me from being disappointed when it doesn't do anything. Back when I thought it would help I considered giving up because it wasn't doing anything.
Then again, I have doubts that I'm actually a human so maybe for real humans it doesn't work that way.
Every voter wants a perfect candidate.
I'm so tired of this line, as if progressives don't like the Democratic Party because of a 5% difference in policy opinions.
Our options for President for the past 30-40 years have been fascist capitalist or capitalist willing to compromise with fascists. To those who actually care about worker's rights or the environment of the planet we live on, it's a difference between a candidate who agrees with you on 0%, or one who agrees with you on 2%, but only the policies that don't hurt capitalism.
It's not a case of letting perfect be the enemy of the good, it's a case of the lesser evil IS STILL FUCKING EVIL. Fascism now and fascism in 4-8 years still results in fascism; how are we supposed to be excited to vote when those are the only options we are ever allowed to pick between?
Jesus Christ. Do you know how the Republicans have turned America into a right-wing hellscape?
Incrementally.
They inched the Overton Window right every time they won. Every time some egg said "If nobody's offering universal healthcare I'm not voting" they get to set the terms.
They've been doing it for decades now.
Time to start inching it back.
The Democrats have helped incrementally, too, by not winding back their policies and generally giving in to their rhetoric. It's insane that there's no way to vote against genocide in this election, that they just removed the death penalty from their platform, that she is no longer for the Green New Deal or M4A, that they signed the crime bill, etc. The Democrats have been complicit in this ratchet effect as well.
I get it; the entire system sucks. Even here in the Netherlands with a dozen political parties, you rarely get the government you want. But there's still things you can do even if you really don't want to vote in this particular election.
You can support groups that promote voting reform, like ranked choice voting. You can and should vote in all local elections. You can even RUN in many local elections, since candidates frequently run unopposed. You can help inform others about the voting process and get poorly represented groups to vote. If all else fails, there's always the option of shooting your least favorite politician or doing an Oklahoma City. But try those other things first, OK?
Hyperbole at its finest. Don't vote or vote for Trump and see how things turn out.
Yes, let's reward the Cheney DNC so we can see how far right they'll go and how many war crimes they can do! Remember, they can't take away your rights if there's a (D) next to the name!