Voting 3rd party or not voting at all helps the person you want the least to be in office.
The issue is the 2 party system that is designed this way. Change the system if you want more choices (ideally by pressuring your party to do it while they are in power)
Edit: to be clear 2 parties is a mathematical certainty under first past the post voting. There are countless other voting systems that don’t suffer from the spoiler effect.
The issue is the 2 party system that is designed this way. Change the system if you want more choices (ideally by pressuring your party to do it while they are in power)
And before anyone comes in and says “THE DUOPOLY WOULD NEVER LET IT HAPPEN”, consider treating political parties more like alliances of like-minded politicians who will absolutely screw each other over for one more term in office rather than some united monolith which acts only in its own interests.
The duopoly makes things harder. It does not make things impossible. Fucking vote. It’s literally the least you can do.
Voting 3rd party or not voting at all helps the person you want the least to be in office.
The way I say it: voting 3rd party for progressivism is the biggest self own in history.
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After the rise of fascism in Europe, many wondered how such collective madness was possible. Each country had its own motivations, but they all shared the lack of opportunities to prosper materially (that lack of opportunities could be real or perceived, it doesn’t matter), that led to desperation and made it easier to buy into the discourse of “someone else is to blame for your ills, attack him and prosperity will return.” That’s why things like public healthcare were established throughout Europe after the war.
When fascism rises, blaming the people solves nothing, blaming a system that doesn’t care enough for them usually gives better results
So I just want to toss another layer on that onion…the working class doesn’t always have the time or energy to dig into political nuance. People don’t vote for fascism; people vote for relatable promise of additional opportunity.
I feel olde grimy in my bones tho
Yeah. Nonvoting has a lot of factors, and this meme is just kvetching about one of them.
I can’t tell if these people are real or just trying to justify their laziness. Don’t respond to people who call you a radical. Think about every issue and make the choice for yourself. We had two candidates. Vote TODAY, protest tomorrow. I HATE that we’re picking our poison, but we’re all on the same ship. For some reason, 50% of the country wants to sink that ship, but what do I know?
They’re real. Some of them try a utilitarian argument of a long-term “The Dems will never understand if you just keep GIVING them your vote!” which ignores the realities on the ground of what message politicians get from non-voting, and also the difference between the importance of a message and the importance of preventing a literal fascist. Like, this isn’t 2008 or 2012. It’s not even 2000 or 2004, gruesome and murderous as Bush was. This will significantly hinder our ability to influence the polity going forward - assuming we don’t end up in camps or graves.
Others are just viewing voting as they’ve been taught to by American society, which does not place especially emphasis on civic duty - they view it as a spiritual exercise, a kind of personal prayer to democracy, something that is an expression of their soul rather than an attempt to use the political power generations fought and died over to achieve what you can in, and against, other political coalitions. For them, if there is something offensive to their morality in the practical choices, that’s enough to not vote.
If they don’t vote, they tell themselves, they aren’t responsible. And I’d agree that they aren’t responsible, but in a different meaning of the phrase.
Harris got more votes than Biden in most of the swing states, the ones that actually matter.
Unfortunately, those states still did not go to Harris, and large numbers of people in those states sat out the election because they didn’t see fascism as enough of a threat to take seriously.
I know they still didn’t go to Harris but my point is that the story being told that people didn’t turn out for Harris just kinda doesn’t add up when you look at the only states that actually matter. Popular vote doesn’t mean shit. It’s just that people turned out more for Trump.
If you have some kind of study that shows every eligible voter in the swing states (or any state, frankly) that didn’t vote, would have voted for Harris and not Trump, I’d be happy to see it.
The dull, sad reality is that America, as a whole, wanted this.
If you have some kind of study that shows every eligible voter in the swing states (or any state, frankly) that didn’t vote, would have voted for Harris and not Trump, I’d be happy to see it.
Wouldn’t need to be every one. If Dems were more disillusioned at a rate of 4-3 (ie for every 4 more [non]votes Harris gets, Trump gets 3 more votes), only 10% more of the electorate turning out would’ve been enough to shift Pennsylvania. Considering the extensive efforts at demoralizing left-leaning voters, I don’t think a 4-3 ratio is absurd.
But nothing is entirely clear. You are correct that if you’re looking for facts, we’re still waiting for others to compile and analyze the data. God help us all.
Well the replicants gained 500000 ish votes and the dems lost 10 million compared to the last election.
As I said, the popular vote doesn’t matter. Harris got more votes than Biden in many of the key swing states. The votes that Dems “lost” were almost entirely exclusive to states that don’t matter. As in, Harris could have had all those same Dem votes and still lost the electoral college.
I don’t think that this is the correct usage of this meme format given that Frank Grimes (in the case of the meme, I presume he’s representing the Democrat voters) was making a point that Homer (in the case of the meme, the "protest non-voters) is able to live a cushy and easy life despite, being lazy, constantly making stupid and careless mistakes, and being inconsiderate of others (in the case of the meme, that would be the “protest non-voters”, well, not voting and having a good life despite it). Frank goes crazy and ends up electrocuting himself, in the exact scene that the meme is showing, when he has a meltdown and starts impersonating homer, but the message that the meme is trying to convey, that the “protest non-voters” will “get what’s coming to them” doesn’t fit, as it shows the people that voted Democrat getting shafted, by the project 2025 logo being on the cables where Frank gets electrocuted, rather than the people that didn’t vote. The meme just twists the intended message around, imo.
Exactly. This scene is literally Grimes having a meltdown over Homer essentially never having to feel the consequences of his actions and failing his way to success and a cushy lifestyle.
If this were a meme about Israel, it would at least make more sense, as certain non-voters would have an excuse to be frustrated - but with it being about Project 2025 it just doesn’t fit at all, as voters are the frustrated ones here.
Man the finger pointing is getting really old.
A week has passed since voters decided fascism Wasn’t That Bad and gave the keys to one of the most powerful countries in the world over to an outright, unashamed fascist and his cronies. Sorry for still being concerned with the issue of who the fuck thought this was a good idea.
I’m concerned about it but I have to wonder if the 100th meme on this topic is in any way helpful.
It helps me vent, at the very least.
More broadly I’d say that reminding people that not voting is not a moral option is important going forward, since a not-inconsiderable number of people seem to think that it was.
Hard disagree. Not only has it barely begun, it couldn’t possibly be more fair
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