It's a really childish view of what voting is supposed to be. No, Biden isn't everything you want, but Trump is a DUMPSTER FIRE who will actively make your life WORSE.
Ok, and? What's your plan to get people that are barely removed from actually being children to vote more? It's easy to come up with a reason why each segment of non-voters is making a dumb and self-destructive choice by not doing their patriotic duty to elect the better leader, but like, we still need them to vote. Elections are won on turning out unreliable voters.
The only real plan, unfortunately, is experience. They failed to learn the lesson from 4 years of Trump, if the country survives another 4 years maybe they'll think better next time.
"Oh, shit, I totally should have voted!"
Yeah, ya think?
The best things we can do now are too late for '24:
Push for universal vote by mail in ALL states. It eliminates the barriers to voting and increases participation.
Get ranked choice balloting in ALL states. Alaska is embarrassing the rest of us.
Just getting those two things would go a long way to permanently remove Republicans from power... which is why they won't do them voluntarily.
Chosing not to vote is choosing to intensify violence.
I. AM. GOING. TO. VOTE. FOR. BIDEN.
Holy fuck, centrists just love to assume that anyone who doesn't love genocide as much as they do must be voting for Trump or not voting. Why the fuck would I do something that would cause Trump to win? I have enough problems with YOUR pro-genocide turd. Why in gods name would I vote in a way that would cause someone even worse to win?
Go ahead. Ignore it again. Centrists only ever listen to Republicans anyway.
We vote against the guy we hate the most here, not for someone we like.
I've already said I'm voting for the pro-genocide candidate you prefer. I am not abstaining, nor voting for the other pro-genocide candidate.
I am saying that if Biden does not cease his support for genocide, he will lose. You will blame me for his loss anyway because you don't care how anyone votes, you just want performative unquestioning fealty to your guy.
That doesn't make anything the person you responded to, wrong. Not participating is the same as not voting which the consequences were outlined above. Anyone that doesn't vote for Biden because he's not catering to them as some sort of "fuck you" to the system, is a fucking idiot. The thought that somehow the alternative is a better option is asinine. Life's not fair, and sometimes no. Preferred decisions have to be made. In this particular case, there's only one right decision. Every other choice aligns with Trump, Russia, and fascism, and is therefore, the wrong decision.
Well, no, if the Democratic party is only going to listen to their "moderate" neo-liberal swing voters then the only way of waking that demographic of people up is letting them experience the consequences until they "get it".
Take RvW for example, it didn't matter how loudly progressives warned people of the imminent failure of Dems to protect bodily autonomy, your average woman needed to go through the experience of losing RvW before they started to understand and give it a shit. And even now, idiots hail Ginsberg as some kind of hero feminist icon, they still don't grasp the depth of the problems we're facing as a nation.
From the responses here it sounds like we unfortunately need to learn more painful lessons before people understand that neoliberalism isn't just the lesser of two evils, but is an abject failure unequipped to fight the war that needs to be fought. It needs to go yesterday.
You're wrong, but ok. In a FPtP system, you have two options. Learning these lessons as you put it, is like throwing people under a runaway bus to slow it down. The consequences are far worse when you side with fascism, which is exactly what you're promoting.
Neoliberals aren't going to compromise, they only compromise with facists. Not voting doesn't spark change, it just intensifies the suffering of those vulnerable people. If you want change you have to riot. But you can do that and still vote so long as you avoid a felony conviction.
If those people that already are in a bad place think that voting for the worst candidate, which will for sure make things worse for them, will some how send a message and spark change, those people are idiots. That's not how reality works. Vote for Biden and live to fight another day, or give up and vote fascist. Two options as it has always been.
If trump getting elected isn't going to teach them anything. It's just going to let fascists break the system further, and reduce the chance that things can get better in the future.
Trump means an intensification of the genocide in Palestine. It will also kill a lot of vulnerable people in the US. It will also help push the right forward elsewhere in the world, since the US is an enormous, hegemonic force.
And you are putting your mark of approval on "lol, I don't give a shit"
Genocide will happen regardless. Israel is going to do it no matter what and it will be worse for the actual people dying if finish the job trump is reelected. But hey who cares because you want more people to suffer to teach democrats a lesson.
Too much naivete to address in this post but I'd certainly omit the word "wise". Not liking the options is one thing, refusing to vote for the better one when the other is credibly accused of espionage is fucking dumb. Young people can vote or not vote but if someone lectures me about not taking part in a broken system they're going to get an earful about how they let assholes ruin their lives through inaction. No one's going to get what they want by doing nothing and you will never get a candidate that fits you 100% (and if you do, you're in a cult).
If a candidate goes out of their way to not represent you, derides and ignores your needs, why would you vote for them?
The recasting of voting as some sort of loyalty or allegiance or like a parasocial relationship you're supposed to have with the candidate is weird and not how it works.
You would vote for them because it'll produce a better outcome.
If you want to get the bums out of the Democratic party, so that we can vote for even better outcomes than the ones currently on the table, fuckin' tell me how, because I'm starting to agree with you that it would be super important. But withholding votes for the better guy over the worse guy in the meantime is like refusing to look for a job until the rates of pay that you're seeing on Indeed start to get higher. Simply not how it works and counterproductive to what you're trying to accomplish.
Local elections. If no one is far left enough locally for you, there's another option there. Run for office yourself. City counselors and school board positions get you in the system, to really fight it.
Local elections are where your vote matters the most, every time. Get your local friends to vote also and suddenly you're a few percentage points.
"Hey, if that guy wins, he's going to rob everyone then set fire to their grandmother. That means we can simply do nothing and it's a shoe-in!"
"Au contraire, mon frere. That means so long as we don't set fire to people's grandmothers, not only do we get to rob everyone, but they'll thank us for doing it, and we will own them."
Yeah no. We'll take the L just to see you get robbed too, and the smoke from your burning grandmothers will be as incense in our nostrils.
If the motherfucker thinks people will give him a pass on genocide as tribute for saving the country from trump, he's going to get a brutal fucking lesson in petty spite.
"I didn't kill anyone, I just gave the homicidal maniac a better gun. And then after he had already killed a lot of people, I went above and beyond to get him more ammo."
How do you feel about moral responsibility for people who fund terrorists? No harm, no foul as long as they're not personally planting bombs?