American leftists do you vote? Why or why not? And if yes, for who and why?

I vote and even canvas sometimes in local elections because you can actually make a difference there, but federally? Of course not. Who am I gonna vote for federally? The guy who sells bombs and supports genocide and does literally nothing of relevant systemic value for the global working class, or the guy who sells bombs and supports genocide and does literally nothing of relevant systemic value for the global working class? Voting at anything other than the ultra local level is a placebo. It's like homeopathy for college grads with a poli sci degree. Sure, you can list all of Biden's "accomplishments", and then anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together can point to a massively struggling working class in America and say "so what, how did that help them?" It didn't. You can list all of Obama's healtchare accomplishments and then go find literally millions of people who still can't afford even the most basic healthcare needs like insulin and inhalers. You could also go vote for the lady who was proud to vote against a federal minimum wage increase or the lady who has made an entire political career out of insider trading I guess. Or you can go vote for the dude who caused a huge train accident poisoning an entire Ohio town. Or any list of irrelevant boomers on any level who literally don't care one iota about any of you. Fat lot of good that does the vast majority of the working class. Even talking about it is a waste of everyone's goddamn time.

State level can matter when it comes to direct democracy things like referendums...I mean Ohio just got abortion legalization into their constitution, so that's pretty cool, and any leftist should have gone out and voted for that because direct democracy actually is kinda useful. But corporate owned representative democracy is a complete waste of everyone's time, and anyone who defends it should go think about who those representatives are actually representing, because unless you're a multinational CEO or board member, it's not you.

Local level can matter a lot depending on where you are, so I do still believe at least somewhat in local elections. You can actually knock on doors and talk to people about their neighborhood and get people to care and find people to support that will make a difference. I've also seen many times now that at the local level, money doesn't buy votes as easily. In my district a few years ago we had a local organizer who only had local organizations in her corner run against a fucking state government assistant who had the entire backing of the democratic party behind her. We got mailers every single day and pimply faced poli sci nerds from out of town showing up at our door every single day trying to talk about how she is going to fix crime and clean up the neighborhood. Meanwhile I canvased for the local organizer. She barely had mailers, certainly nothing fancy, she just had an army of people who care about the neighborhood and went out talking to neighbors about it. The organizer won like 60% of the votes. It was a goddamn blowout, because all she had to do was get people who live here to go talk to others who live here about what actually matters to people who live here. And she's not perfect of course, but she IS actually advocating for us and making meaningful systemic changes in the neighborhood. So that kind of shit actually does sort of matter and if you have a way to participate in that sort of democracy you should.

Anyway fuck voting, fuck electoralism without organizing, and fuck America.

Sometimes I read the word "vote" and my eyes glaze over from all the posts I've seen. I will not be supporting any federal candidates this year, was an embarrassment for the international working class.

I have voted to legalize dank bud and to increase the minimum wage. These ballot measures passed, even in a state as red as mine.

the gloomy lesson I learned from watching liberals is that bourgeois elections in some way defile the voter, and in the course of time, deform her conscience

Ive been voting since 2002 and I always make sure to vote for Hilary Clinton, even when shes not on the ballot we owe it to her to vote her in as a write-in. You're a Drumph loving misogynist if you disagree.

i vote in my local shit every time. i live in a little state nobody cares to visit in a small city. i generally focus on preventing monsters from getting on the school board/city council/judge bench and sometimes, when the monster is disgusting enough, help block them from the governor's office. i vote for 3rd party weirdos and commies for president, because i'm usually already there voting to allow kids to keep reading books or whatever other wack shit is trying to sneak through on the ballot that time. something is up with the GOP, because while they totally seem to have this place on lockdown (and the dems disorganized)... the republicans keep somehow overplaying their hand and bricking it for exec offices. one time we had a guy sneak onto the Lib ticket who was like off the rails "Abolish the CIA!" wild. libs were so mad that he won their primary, i loved voting for that guy (he lost in a landslide lol).

i live in a honky part of town so my lines are short and ever since covid, they let us do early voting and all that shit, so it takes no time. i have never had a line during my near decade of living here, and the polling place is like a 6 minute walk from my house that i have to go by to get anywhere.

i don't wear my sticker or allow signs in my yard or anything. that stuff can eat me and i'm not trying to flag myself to whatever heavily armed Q-brain received his Gladio Activation Code today. but for the amount of effort i have to put in to do it, i can't justify not doing it. all i can think is, "if voting was complete bullshit, they wouldn't work so hard to stop black people from doing it."

I vote, since I'm usually living in a blue state I vote green or PSL to build momentum outside of the uniparty. Probably pretty controversial, but if I were in a swing state I'd probably vote blue, in my mind Israel and Ukraine would probably look fairly similar under Trump, Israel would probably be a bit worse and Ukraine might be a bit better. Taiwan would likely be a fair bit worse under Trump. (1, 2 articles are kinda libbed up but contain an accurate cataloging of events).

To me, both of them, their cabinets, and their families all would get [redacted] in the town square under any just political system, but foreign policy between them is a wash and project 2025 sounds a little worse than not project 2025, so I'll take the five minutes a year* it takes to bubble in free damage control and use the rest of my political energy on building the left. (*I live in a state with absentee ballots allowed, if I had to go vote in person I'd probably still do it if I could vote early and avoid waiting in line for several hours)

As for local, hell yeah , we had a police abolitionist win a city council seat by less than 500 votes against a chud. They are now in charge of a several million dollar city budget. Sign me the fuck up for as much of that as possible.

Never again after 2020. Pointless waste of time.

I like direct democracy in the form of ballot measures so I vote for any of those which increase taxes, fund services, or represent biocentrism.

Local officials have a lot of impact so I vote for things on a city and state level. I don't vote in any single-candidate elections and wrote in my dog for mayor this year. He lost.

For the federal government and in general, I don't believe in vOtE bLuE nO mAtTeR wHo. After seeing Obama's presidency, a candidate earns my vote through specific policies and ideological leanings or they don't. I wrote in Bernie in 2016 and voted PSL in 2020. If the democrats give me a generic liberal, I'm not wasting ink on a judas goat. In 2020 Bernie's capitulation to Biden was such a moral insult that I'm no longer tolerating the milquetoast progressive option either. They need org endorsement from at least the DSA or a professional history and background that represents working class interests. Any compromise candidate will just be tomorrow's Kirsten Sinema or John Fetterman so I don't want blood on my hands for endorsing them.

I think it is the duty of us American leftists to vote for Biden in 2024 as many times as we can

I spend like 20 minutes each election looking up all the candidates, voting for the least terrible one, and dropping off a ballot. Voting for the lesser evil isn't great, but it's more than I'm going to accomplish in 20 minutes otherwise, especially when voting for things like the DA.

I wouldn't bother with the nationals if they weren't bundled with my local elections. But they are bundled with my local elections, and it's not like abstaining is going to accomplish anything - nobody's even looking at the count of those.

The time people spend debating electoral politics and following the horse race is a massive waste. A vote's worth the 20 minutes. It's not worth an entire year of attention.

In my state we get mail ballots so if there's anyone worth voting for I'll do it.

But there usually isn't. Often enough the only tolerable thing is to leave half the ballot blank. I've spent enough time in the consent factory for one lifetime.

if you have 10 minutes then you don’t have any reason not to vote.

I voted recently to support an anti-capitalist ballot measure but I refuse to vote for Democrats, Republicans, or third party cranks at any level of government. People here think that local, county, or state democrats are somehow different from the ones at the national level, but I’ve been involved in local politics and know some of these people personally. They’re basically minor league versions of Nancy Pelosi.

Yeah, I vote in every election. North Carolina is perpetually on a razor's edge, and all of the state-wide stuff is basically a hedge against Republicans making it statistically impossible to vote them out for a generation

Local elections are where it's at, you can get some stuff done there. Bonus if they happen in odd years

Vote if you want to and have the opportunity and inclination. If you have the time off work it costs you nothing. Note: voting at the federal level is gonna change shit all anyway. I will vote in locals & ballot measures, though 99.9% of local politicians are ghouls here too.

Personally I refused to vote for the actual OG segregationist crime bill architect demon Genocide Joe last time, and he sure as shit doesn’t deserve my vote now. I can’t see a world where I vote for the Democratic party again.

I did the last presidential but not the midterm, some people say vote in local shit since you get candidates who aren't ghouls and while I'm sure that's true somewhere it sure isn't the case for me. I voted psl Gloria La Riva, was initially gonna do green party but thought if I'm doing 3rd party might as well do the one that actually aligns with my beliefs since there's no shot they win anyways. I've moved now so seems kinda pointless to register just to do 3rd party so I won't unless there's a ballot measure worth voting for.

i get mail ballots so its no trouble to vote against the stupid plebiscites, the good referenda never pass or get cancelled by the courts afterward lol

I haven't voted since 2018 except in primaries. I will never again vote for a Democrat that will not explicitly denounce the state of Israel and call for a one state (Palestine) solution. I don't think I'll be voting for a Democrat again.

historically I have. Going forward idk, probably still will for local stuff. IMO it doesn't necessarily hurt to do it but I don't lose sleep over it either. Mostly for succdems or socialists if they're on the ballot.

Didn't vote for genocide joe because duh fuck that, voted for gloria la riva cause I thought it was cool she was on the ballot at all. Did vote for killary but I was a complete lib back then (tho I did vote for bernie in that primary)

Honestly my participation in elections is mostly like, a pascal's wager situation. I lose nothing by voting even for shitlibs, and occasionally I might gain something small, like a bike lane or better transit. But I don't spend unnecessary time on it, or advocating for the candidates because it doesn't fundamentally change anything. The exception is people I just can't stomach voting for at all, like Biden.

Yeah I vote. I grew up in a blue state where my vote didn't really matter except on a local level and even then libs are gonna lib. I currently live in a red state where the same is true but now my vote doesn't matter because hogs are gonna hog. Voting doesn't matter but since it doesn't matter I do it anyways.

I vote for the Working Families party when they are on the ballot for local office. I will probably leave everything else blank

I used to buy into Chomsky's whole "voting is self defense against the state" thing but have increasingly abandoned that position. Since moving from an almost-swing state to a solid blue state i don't bother cuz it doesn't matter. If I lived in a swing state? Still probably wouldn't.

If I were to make one argument for it: I was a lot of Libs-flirting-with-leftism suddenly embrace the DNC whole hog when Trump was elected, and only now that Biden has been in for 3 years are they drifting left again. Seems like if you have a cartoonishly bad head of state everyone just blamed everything on them and believes electing them out will fix most of their problem. Watching things get actively worse under the "responsible candidate" makes people question the system more. So maybe vote for who the Libs tell you to so you can "I told you so" them later.

absolutely not, the democrats continue western imperialism all the same (even if there are one or two holdouts)

I'm an American citizen abroad, and the only time I voted was in 2020. This was literally just a few months after I determined "communism good actually???", so I was just a baby anarchist with zero theory. I voted Democrat, straight-ticket, the whole "shiniest of two turds, our democracy is in danger, beware the spoiler effect" deal, you know.

I didn't vote in the midterms, and I probably won't vote in 2024. The main reasons being that voting abroad is just kinda tedious, and I'm a lot more electorally lethargic than I was in 2020. If I actually lived in the occupied Dakota homeland, then maybe I would vote, maybe Green. It's hard to say. Right now I feel like voting is basically just a glorified opinion poll used by the government to determine how much it can get away with at any given time.

Proud to say I've voted for Trump 5 times. 2016 + 2020 general and primary, and 2000 reform party primary

In all past elections I’ve either not voted or voted third party. I’ve only ever voted for a Democrat (who wasn’t Bernie) in one election which was for local office, the guy was actually pretty solid.

I’ve since decided that I’ll probably be voting dem in 2024. I sort of feel like not voting or voting third party is part of a lingering faith in electoralism that most leftists (myself included) have. Having a dem or a republican in office is an inevitability, and there’s no changing that. Voting third party or not voting materially does nothing since the outcome will be the same. Both parties’ solution to third party voters or non-voters is to just castigate them and then not change their platform except to maybe promise some crumbs that they abandon once in office. Third party votes are hardly even reported on (all grouped together as “other”) and I’ve never seen low voter turnout reported on.

So you could vote major party, vote third party, not vote, we’re all getting the same thing and thats a dem or a republican. To me I’ve come to the conclusion it’s much more useful to choose between two things that actually have a chance of happening and then spend the rest of the time doing actually useful organizing work than to take an action that makes myself feel better but doesn’t affect anything. And as bad as the dems are, I don’t believe it can be argued that they’re worse than the gop. Maybe wrt Ukraine/Russia, but I think all the other horribleness of the gop cancels that out. So gonna probably swallow my pride and vote dem.

Tldr: voting third party or not voting is part of a lingering faith in electoralism, it will change nothing except a bunch of dems will castigate you for it. Choose between the two inevitabilities and spend the rest of your time doing useful work. If you believe in a third party it’d be a better use of your time building up that party and building enough energy around that party that it can actually challenge the dems and gop. At this point there’s no party that can do that. The most energy a third party candidate has had in this country since 2000 was fucking Gary Johnson, and he got like 3% of the vote.

I vote because it's easy (by mail) and I pretty much follow local DSA guides. I campaigned in the Bernie 2020 campaign and some other minor ones, but I'm essentially disillusioned with the electoral process. But voting for local candidates and ballot measures can have some meaningful impact on my life. Congress or president is bunk. I've never voted for a Democratic president and I never will.

Yeah since I want my state to receive federal funding . Also my state has a lot of ballot measures

I dont vote, it feels gross to do really anything associated with american civic virtue

I vote for actual leftists like PSL, Greens, etc. if they're on the ballot, otherwise no. I'm done with "damage reduction" and voting for milquetoast "progressives" that aren't actually progressive in the slightest. This country can reap what it has sown.

Will prob write in whoever I feel for the general since I'm not in a swing state, then down ballot as progressive as I can plus whatever referenda are good

Just feels like a "might as well" thing, you know

Yes, I vote for actual progressives (this year we had a fake so I just wrote in Soleimani, but we also had a vocal supporter of Palestine) and judges cause those are elected here. Oh and this hasn't been an issue in any of my ballots, but there's this attempted fascist takeover of school boards, so theoretically I'd vote in those races if it was an issue in my district.