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Seriously. I get feeling like you don't have much of a choice, but not voting is just giving up. Like, you're actively removing the little choice you have and handing democracy over to an overt fascist.
Literally
Literally, indeed. (An up vote wasn't enough)
Third party candidates still exist and are legitimate options to vote for despite what everyone wants you to believe.
3rd party is a lost vote. Parties need to start small and build. Everyone knows this.
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Maybe for some local elections. But you really need heavy support, otherwise you're dividing the vote which can lead to more harm. Some places have rank based voting now though which makes it possible to vote for 3rd parties without dividing the vote. Hopefully that becomes more common.
I get where you're coming from. I'm definitely in favour of a ranked choice voting approach cause it does a lot more to get rid of the spoiler or dividing vote fallacy.
The entire spoiler or dividing vote hoax is based on this false assumption that the voters carry the responsibility for not voting for a "lesser evil" candidate when that burden of responsibility should instead be on the nominee for not doing enough in their power to win over votes.
With the current election, Biden is being a complete dumbass and is hemorrhaging support from Arab Americans and young people because of his refusal to stop giving weapons and aid to Israel and properly withholding those until a full and permanent ceasefire is reached. He's also losing support from Hispanics, though the reasons there are more to do with how he hasn't been doing enough to better the lives of working-class people.
Arab Americans and young people aren't going to turn around and vote for Trump, or in the off chance he receives a conviction before November, whoever else the Republican nominee will be. They're more likely to vote third-party or independent or not vote at all, and unfortunately with the latter, that's when the burden of responsibility becomes shared.
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In the realities of the US electoral system, a vote for a third party is akin to a vote for Trump. Twist and spin all you want, but that’s reality.
Anyone who argues this is either naive, or a disinformation Russian asset.
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100% agree with this. All of it.
I'm deeply dissatisfied with Biden. I'm angry with him for not pressuring Israel, and I was already angry at him even before that. And I will likely end up voting against him in the primary because of it. But realistically:
(1) He will be the Democratic nominee for President
(2) He is an infinitely better choice than the fascist who already attempted a coup once
(3) Either he or Trump will be the next president
There really is only one way to go in the general. Especially if you're here on Blahaj, which means you're either LGBTQ+ or at least friendly to us.
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Americans: do what you want in the primaries. Vote for Biden in the general, because he will be the nominee. I am not stoked about that, but that’s the choice our system gives us.
Non-Americans: please, please do a bit of research on how weird and fucked up and fractious our electoral system is before going off on someone for voting “undecided” in the primaries, which is how I voted myself. Compared to the nationally-organized stuff you guys seem to mostly rely on, ours could charitably be described as “intentionally byzantine”.
it's almost like the US is running a software written in the 1700s and that stopped receiving regular updates around the 1960s
That’s… actually not a bad way to describe it.
Also note that we stopped updating our BIOS in 1929, which is the direct cause of this.
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Doing anything other than voting for Biden is essentially a vote for Trump.
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And don't act like voting is a blood oath. You're not pledging undying loyalty to a candidate - you're saying you'd prefer them over the other plausible options. Nobody gives a shit if they're your special favorite. You think we love these people? No. They're just the best we could do, arguing with thousands of other assholes.
If that's "the lesser evil," sure, why the fuck would you want more evil? It's not like staying home means nobody gets to be president.
Even Geralt of Rivia eventually had to admit the the path of 'choosing none of the evils' Just Does Not Work.
Yeah, a moral dilemma doesn't just go away if you ignore it. An outcome will happen. You are invited to influence it. Have an opinion, dammit.
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And I don't think I should have to remind y'all that while neither candidate has a good outlook on Palestine... at least one won't end democracy in the US.
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On the other hand, not voting or voting uncommitted in the presidential primary is completely fine. Literally no issue with that
unexpected commentary to come from a mod.
based tho. https://www.vote.org/
With some of the rhetoric I was seeing I felt like it was my responsibility to say something.
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I stand with Palestine, and I'll be voting in the US. Yes, I'm voting for Biden as the lesser of two evils, but I'm also voting for a whole lot of other really good people who are going up against some truly evil people. I've got people attacking my schools and libraries at the local level. Not voting to spite Biden will hurt my town a whole lot more than it would hurt Biden.
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This is objectively correct and based.
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Oh, I'll be voting.
For Claudia De La Cruz.
EDIT: People hard mad about this lmao
So basically you won't be voting.
You will make no measurable impact on the outcome of the election. The election where one of two specific people will take power. And one of them already tried to end American democracy.
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Okay I mean this is marginally better, at least you're voting, but still until some sort of change happens a vote third party is a vote thrown away
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I'll proceed to describe in this post the gigantic amount of political change and sweeping reforms we will achieve when we valiantly protest against the system by not voting up until we get the turnout to 10%:
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Whats the point? To chose between disney fascist and a consevative fascist?
BoTh SiDes ArE ThE SaMe
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Tell that to women and trans people. If Trump wasn't elected we'd still have roe v Wade and federal judges that would strike down a lot of the anti trans laws being put out, plus those states wouldn't have been empowered to do so in the first place.
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Yes! It has and always will be about voting for the person you dislike the least. You need to grow up if you think otherwise
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In the UK you can spoil your ballot if you're unhappy with the options and is a recorded vote. Perhaps there's something like that.
It's not a good tool if one party is likely, but not guaranteed, to win without your vote, but is much worse than the other. You should only spoil your ballot if your constituency is has a large enough majority that your vote won't matter at all, or none of the parties are less bad than the others.
If you're voting on the single issue of Palestine in the US presidential elections (not the primaries), then no state has a large enough majority to justify as spoiled ballots, and one party wants to support a genocide while the other wants to discourage it (even if they're doing a crap job of it), so there is a least bad option to vote for.
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this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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