Not voting is a sure fire way to have your voice ignored.
"You want change but you're not going to vote towards making it happen because it doesn't happen already? Why the fuck do you think things aren't changing for the better‽"
Voting is so fuckin important, especially in local elections. Local politics bleeds into county politics, which bleeds into state politics which bleeds into country politics.
It all starts locally.
You want bike lanes in your city? Vote.
You want better funding in your schools? Vote.
You want more affordable housing in your area? Vote.
The election will pan out how it'll pan out. I'm voting for Biden so I can give my friends the best chance we can get them.
I am not just voting, though, and you shouldn't stop at voting either.
Start working towards unionizing your workplace if you can. Join the IWW for training and networking (literally any worker can join).
Join and support any kind of solidarity network in your town you can (tenant unions, volunteer security details, food distributors, etc.) Hell, start one with your friends if there isn't one.
Participate in protests and public shows of solidarity. Don't back down.
Help the homeless. They've completely lost their voices and are constantly under attack by NIMBYs and cops, and it's likely that many people you know right now will be in their position in the future, especially if Trump's Elected.
Right now, 'the revolution' would never come. US citizens are atomized and divided, by highways, suburban sprawl, parking lots, hostile architecture, and the constant crushing weight of capitalist responsibilities. We've got to rebuilt the networks of solidarity we had during the union wars. That's the best way forward to a better US. Unionize, uplift your fellow workers, and keep pushing against the oppressors.
I really shouldn't even have to go over this- we LIVED it already.
No, that's not true. In fact, that's incredible, delusional cope. What we lived already was nothing compared to what a term-limited Trump with nothing to lose backed by a fully-formed Project 2025 administration would be like.
If Biden compromised with progressives it would guarantee a victory over trump...
"Moderates":
Fuck you fascist, you're worse than trump!
Yet when Biden gives Republicans everything they want like with the border, suddenly it's justified because some Republican voter somewhere has a 1% chance of voting D for the first time in their life.
It's crazy to me that voting is the only political involvement for so many people.
We're in the middle of a cycle, this is the time to be really loud about what you'd like to see reflected in your party's policy, but instead everyone has skipped to the end, having relieved themselves of all the hard work of political engagement.
Brazil might have a lot of problems, but one thing I think our law gets right is treating voting not as a right, but as a duty, you don't get to choose not to vote.
Does anyone have any statistics on how many people are likely to vote for Joe because he keeps moving to the right? Like, how many people are ACTUALLY on the fence between Biden and Trump? Compare that to how many people won't vote or will vote 3rd party BECAUSE Biden keeps moving right.
Seriously, if they'd just come out and say "look, we've run the numbers, moving right gets us 10mil center right votes while losing us 1mil progressive votes, but moving left would only get us 5mil progressive votes while losing us 4mil center right votes" I'd get it and support the math. Gotta do it in good faith though... Assume progressives are not supporting Genocide Joe unless he moves left, not that they can be bullied into changing their minds.
To all the Biden defenders: I get it. You're scared of another Trump term. I'm living in Europe and I'm not a fan of project 2025 myself. I have this seemingly simple question: what happens after the election?
If Biden wins, what do you expect to happen with all the MAGAs? How would you prevent another Jan 6th? What if it succeeded this time? How will you keep Biden accountable? Will you keep avoiding a fascist dictatorship every 4 years until the end of time?
And if Trump wins? Will you give up without a fight? Will you let them turn the US into a fascist theocracy?
Don't expect that your liberal democracy will sort itself out. There's too much on the line to hope for the correct election results and everythingsorting itself out afterwards. Have a plan that doesn't rely on elections and take the safety of your community into your own hands.
It's still June, it's still months till the election. People still are entitled to voice their opinion about Bidens policies and demand he takes more steps to the left leveraging the only power they have, their vote. If people can't demand better policies now, when there is so much time left for Bidens team to course change, when are they allowed? It's crazy to see these types of posts since the democratic primaries.
As many people in this thread have already pointed out, Joe Biden can enact right wing policy after right wing policy, damaging the support of his core voter base for the slight chance that some Trump fanatic votes for him. But you can't expect him to try to convince left wing people by enacting progressive stuff, even though none of the candidates currently campaign for them?
It's insane that in the US, people on the left at the same time have the power to lose Biden the election by not voting for him and have not enough power to get any attention from him. I believe if Trump wins again, it is entirely on Biden and the DNC that they chose this candidate and this course, not having learned anything in 2016.
This next national election is simple: do you want 4 more years of Trump or not?
No: Vote for Joe Biden.
Yes: Vote for Trump, vote third party, or abstain.
The republicans are a minority now and are trying everything to win the electoral college despite their minority status. They will LOVE you to not vote because of Biden’s stance on __________.
Revolution will either come, killing most of us, or the train of rampant capitalistic destruction will continue on, killing all of us. We're not close enough to immediate death for most of us to view revolution as an acceptable answer yet, but I have no doubt that in a few decades, when the young adults of that time look back on the current times and think "they had it so easy," the risk associated with an uprising will seem much less daunting when compared to the risk of simply living within whatever jumbled-together scraps of a system we'll have left by then.
Revolution isn't a solution that any sane person gets excited for; it all but guarantees a short life full of suffering for the vast majority of people, but it's a solution that is chosen when the alternative is guaranteed suffering for everyone outside of the upper class. It's the last resort used when the best hope you have for the future is to fight for the chance that a few people make it to peaceful times, because you don't see any other way for anyone to get there by working within the system.
Voting is important, yes; we get the best chance to make it to a revolution by voting blue, slowing down capitalism's destruction of the world, but so long as each election is populated by 2 candidates proudly bought out by corporations who don't give a shit about the world, there will be no viable option within the system to actually stop its destruction. That requires actually changing the system through uprising.
An interesting fact about not voting: you not voting for Biden because "his stance on Isreal is bad" is indistinguishable from your grandma not voting because "Trump will win her county". Is that the message you want to send?
Vote for Biden, then have your revolution. Then please stop with your weird imperialism, close pinegap and please tell us what actually happened to Gough.
Y'all act like that doofus wasn't a president before. Did he fuck up a lot of shit? Yes. Is that the reason why he was voted out of the office? Also yes.
Looks like he needs to fuck up even more shit to get people to get out and vote in their own interest.