• xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        By not voting you’re helping to elect whoever you prefer less. Voting for a realistic candidate is one of those shitty adult responsibilities.

        • balancedchaos@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It is a narcissistic childish presupposition that there is assumed opportunity cost for my vote.

          “Of COURSE you would have voted Democrat! Why WOULDN’T you?”

          I make a fair bit of money. Like them or not, Republicans are kinder to my income level.

          Don’t just assume I’d vote Democrat.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            I don’t always clearly word it because lemmy is dem leaning but I hope you vote for whichever major party better represents you - if you’re a republican and vote third party you’re still voting against your interests. Please just participate in a meaningful way - even if I disagree with you.

        • Sybil@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          By not voting you’re helping to elect whoever you prefer less.

          only votes for a candidate help elect that candidate.

          • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Demonstrably untrue, splitting the vote always helps the other party despite casting no additional votes for their candidate.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              splitting the vote

              the narrative of vote splitting presumes i would ever vote for your candidate. i wouldn’t. if any splitting is happening, it’s that you won’t vote for my candidate, and when i phrase it like that you will see how silly it is.

              only a vote for a candidate helps that candidate. a vote for any candidate is a vote against all other candidates.

              • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                a vote for any candidate is a vote against all other candidates.

                That is simply not the political reality we find ourselves in.

          • Starbuck@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Yes. Yes indeed. People doing not voting out of disdain for Hillary is what got Trump elected in the first place. You cannot sit back and assume that one candidate or another is strong enough to win without your vote.

            Besides, you should be voting in your local elections anyways.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          3 months ago

          Removed, Rule 3:

          Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!

            • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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              3 months ago

              Removed, rule 3:

              Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!

            • balancedchaos@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Hmm. And yet we agree that orange man bad. And underneath your pedantic dig here, you know that Biden isn’t a great leader… you’re just passively accepting it like a bleating sheep because DEMOCRATS GOOD PUBLICANS BAD.

              Sounds very mature of you.

              • Xhieron@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Biden’s an awesome leader. I’m going to show up and vote for him even though my state will almost certainly go red in November, because I’m a patriot and Joe Biden has actually tried to improve my life, which is more than I can say for Trump, Obama, Bush, or most other presidents in my lifetime, and it’s certainly more than I can say for every third party candidate with the sole exception of Ralph Nader (thanks for making my car safer, Ralph).

                Joe Biden tried to forgive my student debt, he tried (and partially succeeded) to improve the company’s crumbling infrastructure, he revived antitrust and labor, and he’s been fighting to keep Russia from taking over Eastern Europe. Donald Trump told me to drink bleach. You don’t have to like either of them, but pretending they’re equally bad is either trolling, being willfully uninformed, or doing the propaganda work of a foreign adversary (knowingly or not).

                You vote your conscience; it might not matter much, depending on where you live, or it might matter a whole lot. But reality should show you, like it does the rest of us, that the only possible outcomes of this presidential election are a second Biden presidency or a second Trump presidency. Anything you do will make one of those things more likely to happen, and you don’t get to opt out by staying home or setting your ballot on fire in protest.

          • ickplant@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            i’M nOt PArT oF tHe HiVeMiNd

            He says as he falls prey to Russian propaganda 🤡

          • spongebue@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Sorry kids, I know we kinda ruined that whole democracy thing which also lead to further erosion of the planet for ya, but there was a hivemind! I couldn’t allow that!

          • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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            3 months ago

            Removed, Rule 3:

            Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!

      • Starbuck@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Not voting or voting third party isn’t sticking it to the man and saying you don’t like either candidate. It’s saying you like them both equally well and you are indifferent to who wins.

        • Sybil@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It’s saying you like them both equally well and you are indifferent to who wins.

          no, voting for someone else is saying i want someone else.

          • frazw@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            No, in a system that has been gerrymandered and uses the electoral college system to favour a party (Republicans) that wins power while losing the popular vote, voting outside the two parties favours that party.

            Real fascism is what you’ll likely get by allowing Trump back in.

            • balancedchaos@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I’m not allowing anything. I’m just voting with my conscience. These two ineffective octogenarians are not suitable leaders, and the two parties simply MUST know that.

              • frazw@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Last reply because I sense you either don’t see the threat, don’t want to see it, or trust in the system to self correct.

                If it were a truly equal system, you would be right. I completely agree that tactical voting should not be needed and I wish your ideological standpoint was effective in sending messages to these guys.

                Fact is they do not care how many people vote outside the top two if they still win. You might be trying to send a message but they won’t hear it. Unless you can convince 60 million people to follow you of course.

                The Republicans particularly know that the protest votes are typically subtracted from the democrat tally.

                PR is the only solution that provides the type of government you want but you don’t have it yet and if you want it, what you plan to do is probably reducing the likelihood you’ll ever get it .

                It is a sad fact that a vote for anyone but the two biggest parties (in almost every country) is essentially wasted.

                When you have PR vote your conscience all the way. With it you may even have more choice because there would be less pressure for candidates like to firm an alliance with a large party. Until then the very real threat to democracy is far more pressing. Donald Trump tried to take the white house by force 3 years ago. This proved he cares more about his own power than the will of the people. He expended a lot of energy trying to use the system against itself to overturn the results when the capitol riots failed. For decades, the Republicans have repeatedly gerrymandered and tried to prevent certain groups from voting, typically minorities. Lately some Republicans at CPAC called for the end of democracy.

                I’m not saying the Democrats are saints that can do no wrong, but at least they are not openly trying to rig the system.

                If Trump is legitimately elected this time, your protest vote may mean even less next time than it does this time, because democracy in the United States might look more like Russian “elections”. 87% going one way. No politician is that popular. Side note , I’m surprised those guys don’t choose more realistic numbers to make their “election” more credible, but their ego won’t let them.

                But, you do you, just don’t complain about the outcome when one of those octogenarian politicians is in power. “I didn’t vote for him” won’t do you much good when it hurts your wallet, or worse your freedoms.

                • frazw@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  PS the point of giant douche vs. Turd sandwich was that no candidate will be perfect. We always have to choose based on who aligns best with our viewpoint even if that choice is far from ideal. From the outside I see two very different candidates. Both are to the right of my politics, but only one wanted to take the people’s choice away altogether.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  It is a sad fact that a vote for anyone but the two biggest parties (in almost every country) is essentially wasted.

                  soundl like voter suppression tactics.

                  • frazw@lemmy.world
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                    3 months ago

                    Hardly. Voter suppression is creating an atmosphere of fear around polling stations. Creating voter registration laws. Setting up fake ballot boxes. Etc. In only asking you to really think about what happens when you vote for each of them. Compare those futures. Then decide. I’m not stopping you voting however you want. There’s no real pressure from a random person in another country on the Internet. I.e. Me.
                    If Trump takes away your vote because your face doesn’t fit and starts getting 80% of the vote, saying “it’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him” will do you no good. If he does do those things, and it’s not like he hasn’t been signalling it for years, you may never have a real vote again. But if you want to dismiss me as trying to suppress your vote or as a fascist, don’t say I didn’t warn you, and all I asked you to do was think.