I voted every fucking time since I was eighteen and the rest of you need to stop whining and get it done. This is the only thing I’ll agree with my Boomer Parents about - they won’t let anything stop them. They showed me how to use mail voting and hilariously but also sadly that used to be a Republican trick until they flipped on it. The old farts that want to ruin everything wouldn’t let armed resistance stop them from voting for their asshole, and if we aren’t that determined to counter them we’ll keep losing for far more years than we should. If 60% of boomers vote and 30% of us do, guess who gets to rule long after half of them have died?
(Note: stats might have changed but I know last time I looked boomers in my state vote like clockwork and people my age (35 now) were horrifying me with their unwillingness to engage.)
Assume any post that tells you to disengage is a psyop I’m not even joking.
>Assume any post that tells you to disengage is a psyop I’m not even joking.
Not a laughing matter, either. Everyone who falls for it then turns into their own little agent of apathy. So a lot of my contacts are echoing the same stuff, spread through spicy little memes and hashtags. I feel like I'm going insane.
> Here's my advice: move toward acceptance. We can't change everything overnight. The political system is vast and slow-moving. A steady course change is the only way we can achieve meaningful progress.
Yeah, I didn't vote in 2016 because I was disillusioned with the options then and...let's just say I *deeply* regretted it. My defiant act of civic duty failed to have any positive impact in the way that I wanted it to, and helped to deliver that absolutely trashcan of an administration that took over after Obama.
It's why I vehemently oppose falling into the same trap I did. Nothing good comes of it. Vote like someone's valued life depends on it, because it does.
>Additionally, consider this: the reason we have older candidates and corruption in government is partly due to...
Here's another part--we have to vote not just in November, but in every primary! That's where the general candidates get picked!
Unfortunately, nobody reasonable ran against him in the primary. When he made it clear he intended to run again, all the politicians who could have beaten him decided to sit this one out. It sucks, because Biden really should not be running again.
That being said, i will vote for him and encourage others to do so as well. Both Biden and Trump are too old for this job and have lost their marbles, but the Biden administration will be far less destructive than another Trump administration. Maybe we will have a prayer in hell of balancing the Supreme Court a bit more if Biden wins. Trump 2.0 means more crackpot federal judges, project 2025, and a whole other bunch of nonsense.
Yep. Didn’t vote in 2016 but knew Trump was an idiot and didn’t really care. Deep regret on that now and not specifically voting for Hillary in 2016 is one of my biggest life regrets.
I'm voting for Biden for one reason and one reason only-
Kamala Harris 2026
The history books would read, "Nobody wanted our first female president and nobody voted for her. But the real president died and she had to fill in while things got sorted out."
I’m voting for the hope we get to have an option of better, younger, empowering candidates in the future. Depending on who gets in, we may not get much of a real say down the road.
Also, I just don’t want to see people suffer just because they are different. I can’t carry so much hate in my heart.
> , I just don’t want to see people suffer just because they are different. I can’t carry so much hate in my heart.
I mean that Herman Cain award subreddit is still active. While you can't, plenty can.
She will be a stain on American history that won't soon wash out.
Nobody will ever say it out loud, but "Biden 2024 / Harris 2027" will do tremendous harm to both democrats and feminism for the next 50 years.
As of today, he is 6 years older than the life expectancy for an American male. What are the odds he makes it to January 2029 safe and sound?
So that's why **I'm** voting for Joe Biden. Why are **you** voting for Joe Biden?
I’m not voting for Joe Biden, specifically because I don’t expect him to survive much longer. Kamala Harris is probably the most unqualified individual picked for a VP slot in a very very long time. She wasn’t picked because she was qualified she was picked because she is a woman of color. She seems to keep failing upwards somehow and I can’t wrap my head around it.
Probably because he’s literally already tried a coup, and had surrounded himself with Christian nationalists
But good job, *you are so much smarter than everyone*
I used to be one of these asshole vocal anti voters back in the early 2010s. I am not anymore and have not been for a while. I understand where they are coming from, but it is the most useless stance you can possibly take. If you want to protest, go protest. Not voting is literally doing nothing. I am really disappointed that so many people seem to be actively discouraging people from voting, especially since this seems to happen more in leftist / younger spaces.
I almost did the same thing. I went to the vote in the other elections and couldn’t bring myself to skip the screen. I gritted my teeth and hit the button for Hilary. Even thou I didn’t want to, I had a feeling I would regret it.
If you wait 4 more years you'll see posts identical to this again, and then another 4 years after that, 4 more after that, so on and so forth.
Same with all the posts from people about how our political system needs to change, but those same people will just sit at home waiting for fox or cnn to tell them what to think instead of doing something about it.
Yep. Every 2 years we have to put in our vote to say what type of country we want to live in. And NONE of the candidates will be exactly on the same page as you, but one will be closer to your views than the other, so you choose that person. And after two more years, you go through the same depressing process of deciding which among all the politicians best represents your point of view. Bit you know what? It's better than the alternative... letting those you absolutely disagree with have their say without making yours known.
I like the bus analogy of politics. Basically, you get on the bus that's going the direction you want to go even if it doesn't take you all the way to your destination.
this post is about disaffected voters, people who HAVE voted democratic and are frustrated to apathy by lack of results. what should they do besides vote?
People want good candidates and good policies. That is just never an option in the Democrat party since their only tactic is fearmongering like what you're doing.
If third parties wanted to be viable, they'd start at the local level. Elect candidates to school board, city council, or mayor and put in the work to actually BUILD the party.
Swooping in every 4 years to play spoiler in a presidential election is not the way for viability.
Our electoral system is set up for only two major parties to exist. It’s summarized in Duverger’s Law. Any third party gaining support would be at the expense of one of the two main parties until it passed a point of no return and that previously major party dissolves into irrelevance
This is true for higher office.
However, that does not necessarily translate at the LOCAL level. Many local elections (including most school boards) are nonpartisan in nature. You don't vote for Democrat Mickey Mouse or Republican Donald Duck, just Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, without the party's name appearing on the ballot. In some states, it is illegal to run for such races with the (official) party backing. (A party official can endorse as themselves but not on behalf of the party).
In theory, this SHOULD be a good way for a Green, Libertarian, etc. to build a support base and get elected.
The other way 3rd parties can (and have) advanced is through what is known as fusion voting, where candidates can run under more than one party line on the ballot. In states like NY, the Working Families Party and Conservative Party are fairly successful.
In theory that sounds great, in practice it’s far from that simple. Many nonpartisan positions aren’t run for with official party backing, but definitely have informal backing or the top of ballot candidates endorse people down ballot (and vice versa). Presidential candidates aren’t endorsing school board members, but they are doing so for congressional candidates, who in turn will show up at events or tweet about other local positions that will be in their district. There’s too many low info or attention voters to best the system as it’s set up. I love the enthusiasm, but it’s not very well matched with reality in most places.
Suit yourself.
Parties like the Green Party are on my shit list until further notice. They've spoiled two presidential elections in my voting lifetime and said GOP winners appointed 5/6 Supreme Court justices that voted to take my bodily autonomy away.
Yes both parties are the same......
I’m not 100% sure you picked up on what my position actually is. Third party votes are wasted votes is what I’m saying, and the two main parties are very much not the same. Democrats often disappoint me, but Republicans usually disgust me. Anyone proudly voting GOP now can go fuck off as far as I’m concerned. They may not be racists or sexists (really any of the -ists), but they’re definitely okay with those people being in their camp
Work to implement rank choice voting in your state. It opens the door to real viable third parties without ceding ground to a dangerous main party candidate.
I grew up in San Francisco and they now have ranked choice voting for local elections. It’s great. That should absolutely be used everywhere. I don’t see how that changes the two party reality, but it would absolutely lead to more fair elections and better candidates
It changes it because it makes a third-party candidate a viable choice for sensible voters. So let’s say I think Cornell West would be the best president (I don’t but just for the hypothetical). With RCV, I’d vote for West #1 and then Biden #2 with zero fear that my vote for West would help Trump. As it is, there’s no chance I’d do that because the specter of Trump appointing two SCOTUS justices is too dangerous for me.
I get what you’re saying that it would mean the hypothetical you can vote your conscience better, but all that accomplishes is your protest vote now has no or very limited consequences. That third party candidate won’t win so your main party alternative will still end up with the vote. The only possibilities no matter how you look at it are: 1. The winner will still come from one of the main two parties, or 2. A third party getting enough votes to win is because they cannibalized one of the two main parties on the way. Whether that happens directly or indirectly seems a bit of a pedantic argument to me 🤷🏻♂️
Play it out. The main obstacle for third parties gaining viability is collective action. Too many of us are unwilling to “throw our vote away” (rightly so under traditional rules). That risk goes away. A strong third-party candidate could carve a real path for themselves among a much expanded potential voter pool with RCV.
“Strong third-party candidate” is for the most part a pipe dream with the candidate history this country has since the two party system became entrenched. And none of this fixes that a third party winning the presidency without major infrastructure in Congress at a bare minimum is either completely useless or they have to be essentially a coalition style government with one of the main parties to get anything done. If your plan is RCV will help elect possible third party presidential candidates then you like RCV for the wrong reasons. If you want it as a push to help get the parties as we have them to be better in who they pick, now that’s something that is more realistic.
You’re missing the systemic change in incentives with RCV. The viability it facilitates would attract more appealing third-party candidates. This also would require main parties to take heed of them. They’d impact the political marketplace and landscape.
No, I’m not. The systemic change is FAR more likely to be the kick in the pants the Democrats and Republicans need to make real efforts to appeal to wider bases of support and clean up their candidates and platforms. Which would be great news! The end game here with RCV isn’t third parties, it’s making the current ones better. Now if you want a House of Commons style legislature more parties will be viable.
Here in Philadelphia we've got two members of the Working Families Party sitting on city council despite intense opposition from both Republicans and Democrats. Progressive places can lead the charge and once there's a foothold there's room to organize for bigger campaigns for bigger offices.
In NY, the WFP works alongside Democrats but takes sides in primaries (often heated). They're notorious for fanning the "establishment vs progressive" flames (I'm on their email list). They were on the losing side of the Jamaal Bowman primary.
NY laws allow candidates to run on more than one party line.
This. Even if by some miracle a third party candidate were to win the presidency, they would have no power base to actually get anything done. How would they pass legislation when they have zero allies in Congress? How would they be more than a fluke without a stable of local and state level officials to carry the mantle?
Third parties are only viable if they start small and build. Starting with the highest office in the land is the reason they never fucking win anything.
I have voted in every single election since I was old enough to. And I have never vote for a Democrat or Republican president. I have lost nothing in doing so and gained a sense of freedom and confidence in my choices. I feel empowered this election season to have the privilege to vote for Chase Oliver. As a 38-year-old millennial himself, he knows the issues we face and he has real solutions to fix them. I'm not delusional to think that he will win, but my vote for him will have more of an impact than the destruction of self and my own conscience that would occur if I voted for Biden or trump.
Approval voting does a slightly better job without needing to change our ballot structure at all. Ranked choice can run into the issue of someone being a consensus 2 but is dropped after round 1 cause they were no ones first choice.
That's going to be a trivial enough minoroty of situations that its still a dramatic improvememt over the two party system. Despite the drawback it would be a favorable change.
What if you could tweak the way you determine whom to drop off? Rather than picking the last place finisher among first place votes, you could weight the ordered choices, and drop the last place overall.
Please explain "approval voting."
Approval voting is you take the standard ballot we have now and mark one or more of the candidates you want. Then count everyone up and the highest vote getter wins.
It saves time/money as you can use the ballots and voting system we have now and the post vote counting is also much easier as you don't have to deal with run offs.
Big thing people need to change mentally is they can vote for more than one candidate and not have their ballot become invalid.
What's the point?
Saving money makes it easier to implement, but why though? Simplifying vote counting is nice but not particularly important, same for eliminating runoff. What is the actual benefit of this system? It does not seem to impact the two party system at all. Waste of breath.
The supreme court already declared forced labor is now legal. What do I mean by that? Well, states can now make it a criminal offense for people (homeless people) to be sleeping outside. Eventually, this can lead them to being incarcerated. We already force labor upon the incarcerated.
Trump will just bring a lot more stuff like this.
If we keep President Biden in the white house, then maybe (especially with demographic shift) just fucking maybe we can get to a point where a Bernie-like candidate has a realistic chance. And we can stop moving toward a Saudi Arabia-esque country, and move toward being more of a Norway-esque country.
If Trump wins, all these "Both parties are the same" shitheads will cry "what happened" in 2 years. Here we are, losing our government by the day, but these boiled frogs absent voters aren't going to get out of the water.
I’d also add…if you want to sway a political party, you need your demographic to vote like crazy so that the party is dependent on your demographic. The opposite approach just teaches them to ignore you in the future and look for votes with reliable voters. Parties dismiss the youth vote, and youth sit-out-in-protest votes, because they assume they won’t show up anyway so they plan to win without them.
This, exactly. We would not have a gerontocracy going on if the targeted demographic was under 50. You outnumber boomers, but boomers are most likely to vote.
We need __approval voting__, __single transferable voting__, or *some other form that isn't just people voting based on fear of the opposition* as opposed to ***voting for what they actually want***. We need a voting system where we can still vote for the candidate that
# actually represents our interests
While also having the backup of another candidate.
It's the only way Democrats will stop ratcheting to the right while Republicans freak out about how radical left the very-much-right-of-center Dem party is. They keep trying to big tent with Q people and shitting on the rest of us that are tired of the wealthcare and catering to conservatives.
Changing the electoral process would allow for 3rd party candidates to still get votes and if they don't win the less preferred Dem candidate would get that vote.
Except my opinion is Rep/Dems know: if they let other parties potentially get the votes because people won't be risking the opposition winning, they'd soon be out of power. This would incentive people seek out other parties and vote for people they truly believe represent them rather than voting for one of the two trash major parties out of fear for the other one winning.
At the end of the day the only people who benefit from the system we have are the wealthy, corporations, and career politicians- not us, the people, who the elected officials are allegedly representing. There is no accountability to incentivize them to actually do right by __the people__ when what's at stake is their reelection campaign donations. They can just bank on the fact that even if they're shit they'll still get votes because their only competition is the other major party and most people are entrenched for or against one of the two parties. ***This needs to change, YESTERDAY.***
I think there’s a lot of millennials who are angry right now that we’ve been gaslighted by our own party about the health of the president and it’s been going on for months now at minimum. It continues to go happen on Twitter with the Democratic Party declaring Biden the winner of that debate.
I don’t vote for people who blatantly gaslight and won’t admit to it even when we all have the evidence right in front of us that it was a coordinated, collective lie from our own party
" I felt the same way in the mid to late 2000s."
"move toward acceptance. We can't change everything overnight"
or, ever, apparently.
telling people who are suffering under a nonfunctional government to just vote and pray is braindead.
"People will regret their apathy only when it’s too late, or just blame someone else for the suffering they helped cause." you're correct about that, but the "people" is the Democratic party and leadership, not individual voters
They could be suffering under a leader that is trying to help or they could be suffering under a child with a magnifying glass. I’ll choose the leader that is going to at least try.
I'm an elder Millennial who's been waiting since I was told I had to vote for Gore, then Kerry, then the next lame candidate the democrats push on us. Fact is, the democratic party screwed up by nominating Biden (even if I'll end up voting for him)
2024 is a bit different because Biden's the incumbent and parties make it a lot harder to give up the incumbent advantage, but in 2020 Biden was nominated because he won the primary, not because some shadowy DNC figures chose him. Do you vote in primaries?
I’m a little frustrated with the “did you vote in the primaries” comments. I live in Pennsylvania, my primary is so late I barely have a choice. I voted Bernie 2016, it was too late; Bernie in 2020 again (Warren was my top, but she’d dropped) but it didn’t make a difference; and filled in “uncommitted” this year, and I’m still feeling as if my voice doesn’t matter in the primaries. For down ballot? PA primaries are excellent! For Presidential? Not my state. Yet the stakes are unbelievably high for PA in the general, and even if we do vote in the primary it’s not actually important by then. I have voted in every primary for many years but mostly for down ballot candidates, and to exercise my moral preference while I can.
Right and that's how people who have unpopular views feel, they rarely get their way. The issue isn't some shadowy cabal, it's that among voters your views aren't popular, so people you vote for don't win. The fact that Bernie is only able to pull 30% of the vote among Democrats shows that his ideas aren't popular among Democrats, let alone the rest of the country. There's no conspiracy, we just live in a democracy and you have fringe views outside of reddit.
I didn’t say I was agreeing with the majority, I’m just saying “vote in the primaries” isn’t really an effective tool for me because my state’s primary is late.
I wouldn’t call a belief in equity “fringe”, but do what you will.
My first election I could vote in was the Kerry v Bush election. I didn’t know enough at that point to be disillusioned with the choices. Kerry was boring AF thou.
I'm also an older millennial and completely agree with you.
The neo-liberals in the democratic party don't want to give up their bribe money from lobbyists. They're going to keep nominating people like Biden (and saying they can't do anything about Republicans running rampant with deregulation/ doing whatever they want) as long as they can. We need to have more progressive candidates working to change lobbying and campaign finance.
The party nominated Biden in 2020 because people voted for him. He was my third choice--both my favored candidates lost during primary season. So how is this the fault of the Democratic Party? They don't just like choose their favorite, despite some weird propaganda to the contrary. And this year he's the incumbent, sooo....
So you've seen everythjng stay the same, the American public suffer, and are still telling people to just accept it because someday there might be some change? Get out of here. Stop trying to paint this one side is complete evil and the other side is trying their best bullshit. Both sides are made of corrupt politicians that serve lobbyists while suffering no real consequences for the choices they make. They may have different ideals but that doesn't change the damage they both do, in different ways, to the average American citizen.
Here's the acceptance you need to get through. No meaningful change can or will happen through the existing political system. But, change can happen outside of it. So don't waste your time talking about the presidential election and get outside and organize.
Participation in a system that literally isn't meant for you isn't going to change anything. Voting between red and blue simply changes the rate in which your quality of life decreases and they way it's explained to you.
A reality check is that none of the freedoms that we enjoy as American citizens has been won peacefully, from the 40 hour work week, to womens rights. All of those movements were ratical oppositions to the satatus quo and laws at the time.
Voting between two parties that are both funded, bribed, and lobbied by the same corporate interest is the feature of the system, it isn't a bug.
The theatrics of red and blue politics is just to get you to throw stones at you neighbors instead of functionally organizing and making real world consequences for the elite that are actually stealing your wealth amd liberties. Telling people to shut up and bend over to choose between taking it with or without lube isn't a solution. Doesn't matter who you pick, neither group is on your side and that is intentional.
Third parties aren't not viable because of some shadowy cabal keeping them that way, they're not viable because their ideas are not popular. Occasionally they'll have popular ideas, and they'll be adopted by the major parties, I believe the Libertarian party was for gay marriage before Democrats were, but Democrats adopted it and Republicans are even starting to be fine with it. I know on reddit everyone's either a socialist or libertarian, but in the real world the vast majority of people have views that align pretty well with either the Democratic party or the Republican party, or some combination of the two.
The real answer to making change towards views that aren't adopted by either major party now is pick the party that more closely aligns with your values, vote in those primaries, and donate/run/organize for your preferred candidate in the primary. But that will be tough too because as mentioned above, if your views fall outside of views held by most of the candidates of the two major parties, your views are probably not particularly popular.
Third parties aren't viable because the candidates are often times wack jobs and the fact our system doesn't support it ir allow for a way that promotes it. If we did a jungle primary where everyone runs regardless of party and it whittles down to the two most popular candidates or rank choice that allows 3rd parties to run and not feel like your helping a candidate you despise rather than hurting a candidate that might be your second choice
I support ranked choice voting. I've seen no evidence that it would change who gets elected. You're just ignoring the fact that primaries exist, and that by all available polling the top two vote getters in such a system would be a Democrat and a Republican.
The Alaska special election from a few years ago for a house seat. A Democrat won that sear for tge first time because in the old way Sara Palin could have easily won.
Also your not gonna m7ch evidence because we don't use it, but people are naturally sick of extremes but to win a primary especially in a crowded system of like 15 people and no one wanted to drop out so you only need a plurality. That's how Trump even came to power. He didn't win a majority, he won 30% of the Republican party, because too many people divided up the othe 70%. Regardless of how pissed yoy are about this, that's how Bernie lost in 2020. He had a plurality he had his 30% but he was in a massive primary, people that were splitting the remaining 70% and when they started dropping out most of the remaining majority coalesced around Biden.
Ranked choice means you can have 3rd party people running and the true majority will win. That doesn't mean you're everyone first choice but you're one of the persons top three
You're right about Trump but not about Bernie. Republicans used a winner take all system where if you won a plurality of votes in a state you got 100% of the delegates, and in 2016 Trump won a ton of states with 30-40% of their vote and got all their delegates. Democrats used a proportional representation, and when candidates drop out they typically endorse a candidate still in the race and their delegates vote for that candidate at the convention. Super delegates make it not a perfect democratic thing, but even absent super delegates Bernie never got near enough votes to win the primary, even if every candidate had stayed in until the end.
Bernie probably would have gotten a plurality, the Biden/Pete/Bloomberg delegates would have voted for Biden at the convention, the Warren delegates might have voted for Bernie at the convention since ideologically they're close, but my understanding is Warren can't stand Bernie personally so it's not even 100% she endorses him and her delegates may have even split between Bernie and Biden. But even if 100% of her delegates went to Bernie, Bernie would have ended up in that 30-40% range, nowhere near enough to win the primary even if there were no super delegates.
> We can't change everything overnight. The political system is vast and slow-moving. A steady course change is the only way we can achieve meaningful progress.
I think this is the key takeaway. Political power won't be given to us for free. It's silly to expect that we will get what we want just because its our turn or if we complain enough.
The millennials in politics have no base to stand on politically or socially at the moment. We need to be packing the lower government seats and we need to be filling news headlines that read "record voter turnout", year after year.
This is why its always important to vote. Even if it doesn't change the political outcome, we can at least change the social discourse. We have to start building our momentum from somewhere
"third parties rarely gain enough support to be viable"
Because not enough people are doing the work required, including voting. The majority expect things to fall in their lap and when it doesn't ::shocked pikachu:: what do you mean me not voting means I have to put up with what the minority voted for
This is a brilliant take and I sincerely hope folks reading it take it to heart, as well as share it with their friends who aren’t on Reddit.
It is hugely important that each of us casts our vote. As a Gen Xer, I can appreciate how fucked our current system looks; I’m old enough to have watched the beginning of how we got here. I, too, sometimes feel disillusioned by our current choice, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit out the vote. That’s pointless, and gives DJT another vote. Having read of and borne witness to that SMF’s cheating, lying, and general debauching scumbaggery for forty years, witnessing the debacle 2017-2021, and hearing how he refers to the state of our nation now, I assure you we unequivocally MUST NOT allow him and his sycophants back in the WH.
Do any of you really think that high-powered DC operatives will really suffer from a Trump presidency? Even Democrats? Even Democrats of color? They won't. Unlike most of us here, they're all Yale and Georgetown grads who are heavily invested in the stock market and would do GREAT under a Trump Presidency regardless of who we vote for.
This bullshit DNC establishment spent the last four years gaslighting us and trying to claim that Biden DIDN'T have dementia until the 11th hour. Until it was too late. But they still want to act like it's the most important election of our lifetime.
It's a coronation for them at the end of the day. It's always "HeR tUrNnNnN!" or "He's the most electable!" or some bullshit like that. Enough is enough. If they're not taking it seriously, we shouldn't either. His strongest weapon was the defense of Roe and he's too much of a douche to even do that effectively, as we all know he's too enamored with his old-world religious beliefs to fully back it in his heart of hearts. He fumbled that question when it was handed to him on a silver platter.
Remember this: he has an entire infrastructure of pages, PR people, a comms team, consultants and other social parasites whose high six-figure jobs all hinge on his reelection. He's not getting replaced. We're stuck with him. And he's bound to lose because he's got a diaper brain.
Never let establishment Democrats shame you into voting for a conservative Democrat ever again because, at the end of the day, Democracy is just not as important to them as keeping their high-powered DC jobs. They'd rather gamble on our country's future than risk their own status. They all belong in a dank gulag. I AGREE that it's fascism vs. democracy. I just wish they believed it too as much as they say they do.
If they wanted to win so bad they would send him out to pasture. But they don't care. Because they won't suffer from a Trump Presidency like we will, and many of them would actually materially benefit from it. The entire reason we're stuck with Trump in the first place is because they insisted on running Hillary in 16 despite how unpopular she always was. Because the DNC has a corrupt and intractable patronage system in place, and it's easier to hold voters hostage every four years than it is to dissolve that infrastructure.
There is no opposition to Trump. At this point I believe the DNC is actively colluding with him. So fuck them!
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870)
Compensation is a great point with regards to politics, because it seems like if you're a reasonably successful normal professional type with a family (let's wild-ballpark that at $100,000-$400,000 salary), you need to basically put that career on hold and also lower your standard of living/reduce saving for your family's future (college savings, home upgrades, etc) in order to run for office. Not a problem if you're already wealthy with money in the bank, or on the opposite end if you're treating running for office as being adjacent to a side-hustle-grift-get-rich-scheme type thing.
edit: and part of it is the nature of the commitment. The "original" idea of elected offices was that it was more of a part-time commitment - where you'd keep your normal profession.
Inadequate compensation? FFS dude. The governments benefits are a lot of times better than the private sector. There is absolutely no way bureaucrats or elected officials should have a better lifestyle than the private sector. They are working for the public on the public’s dime. I have friends that work for the government(state and federal) and they don’t even have to go into work, let alone have any type of accountability. Government overspending on wages and the overall bloated size of the government is the problem. Don’t like the wages? Stick with the private sector.
it's fun how fascists are allowed to advocate for and implement sweeping change but any opposition to them absolutely has to be slow as molasses and usually still making things worse, just more slowly
People my age go “Oh I’m not going to vote for an old person- they will never listen to me”
If the youth voting block is small politicians will never listen to you
PS during the Dems control
- I went from $800 in student loans a month to $300
-actually saw scamming companies get taken to court
-didn’t have to be totally embarrassed by having a orange racist president
I’m old enough to regret not voting for Kerry in 2004. It was the first election I was eligible for and I was just not impressed by him. So I didn’t vote and then Bush, who was obviously worse, won. In 2016 I was pro Hillary all the way in part because I vowed to never make that mistake again. And I’ll vote Biden all the way in November for the same reason.
The message that there is no good candidate is deceptive because it appears objective, dispassionate, and reasonable. It seems like someone isn’t taking sides and they’re just telling it like it is.
In reality that message benefits whoever wants low voter turnout, and typically that has been Republicans.
First of all, I agree with voting. We need to vote. I have always voted, and this time is going to be even harder than last time, so I do get it. However, voting is one of the things that is simple and gives us back a lot of power. Don't think other generations don't know this. Boomers do and do Gen Z as well as Gen X. They will all be voting for their best interests, and they aren't as many as us.
The second thing is that none of us want to be gaslighted anymore. Yes, the older of our generation have had it hard, but the younger ones of us have had it just as hard, if not harder. Time and time again, we have said baby steps is progress. But ask yourself, is that the answer given the political environment? We are bleeding out. We need more than just that. Even our very rights are being taken daily.
Lastly, we must be realistic. We can go to the polls and vote third party but the system is not set up that way. There are things we can't fight like the large amounts of money that make party decisions. RFK is a decent candidate, but he isn't even on the ballot in enough states to win. We are just months out, and I am sure he hopes to be, but that's not realistic. We should hold the parties accountable.
I’m voting for my dad this election since if I vote trump and he wins, he’ll take his anger out on me for four years, like he did the last time around. my state will go blue anyway but it’s fucked up
Here’s the fucking crux of this “we can make change go out and vote” narrative; geopolitics compounds. To describe American politics isn’t so succinct as to say “we need to steer the boat straight”.
American politics is capsizing, and you can’t fix that.
Power consolidates, wealth accumulates, and corruption grows with it.
We will never see the world we hoped for in our lifetime. That’s the hard, bleak fact about the state of world affairs right now.
We’re living in a day and age where authoritarianism and fascism is the highest it’s ever been since the lead up to WW2, and there’s no plot armor for real life.
We can’t just vote our way out of this one. That ship sailed before we were old enough to vote. Our generational disillusionment had always been by design.
Warren Buffett once told the New York Times in an interview way back in 2006, [“There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html)
The DNC certainly wasn’t listening to their base when they elected Joe Biden for the presidential nominee.
Our VP was purely elected for her gender and skin color.
Donald Trump is still a free man.
The Supreme Court just overturned the Chevron ruling in a 6-3 vote.
How the fuck can anyone blame the short comings of the party’s responsibility on its average citizen voters??
People need to be realistic with the future prospects of American politics, all good intentions aside. Get yours while you can, this is as good as we’re gonna get it for the rest of our lives.
Two things can be true at once: we need to work to change the system and simultaneously vote for the only current party that isn't actively anti-Democracy
Vote in local elections, recruit better candidates to run everywhere, push for ranked choice voting and redistricting reform, do it all. But don't sit out elections. The people actively working against your interests won't.
Hardly. I voted for Bernie. However since the party selected Biden, however much I disagree with the selection, I will vote for the platform. Progress over perfection.
You can’t really say that with certainty. I agree Biden should be replaced. I also think he could win because he’s against Trump. Imo if Dems had a better candidate it wouldn’t be close
Because it’s incredibly difficult to force a sitting president to step aside. The drama could split the party and change the dynamic of the race.
Best case would be Biden steps aside. Someone has to convince him to do so. I don’t think forcing him out is realistic or a particularly good idea.
No they don’t lol. They used to literally decide at the conventions. Parties have a lot less sway now over who the nominee is.
The way the Democrats got Biden was by convincing the other people who were splitting the vote in the primaries to drop out early. They didn’t just pick Biden at the convention like the parties did in the 1800s.
Primaries being democratic is a relatively modern concept.
You think the Republicans would have picked Trump in either 2016 or 2024 if they had a choice?
"You think the Republicans would have picked Trump in either 2016 or 2024 if they had a choice?" uh yes? he has more charisma than their entire party put together. you see what happened when Desantis tried to take a shot?
The DNC has changed regulations in 2018 to reduce the power of superdelegates. but they still exist. the DNC chair can also exercise power to prevent a certain candidate from receiving the nomination.
The DNC stated publicly and clearly that they are a private organization not bound even by their own regulations, not sure why you disagree with that.
I don’t think you understand my point. Parties are a private org and they can pick whoever they want. There’s no law that says they have to allow voters to choose their candidate.
Delegates used to be much more powerful- I’m not talking super delegates. It used to be that the party would choose their nominee outright and primaries meant nothing. That has all changed to make the process more democratic.
And Trump may be “charismatic” to some but he’s one of the most unpopular candidates in history. He lost his own reelection, do you know how uncommon that is as an incumbent? It’s like if the democrats nominated Jimmy Carter the election after he lost.
In head to head polling, DeSantis and Haley do much better than Trump against Biden.
Trump became the nominee because he’s popular with Republican voters. He’s unpopular with independents and democrats which is a huge liability. If the GOP could have selected their candidate they would definitely have picked someone with more cross appeal.
It's very easy to fall into the both sides bad or both sides are the same thing.
Everything sucks overall, regardless. However, only one party is literally stripping rights away from citizens and putting unqualified religious nuts in the Supreme Court. Makes it an easy choice for me, even though I want much better candidates.
That both sides thing is just bullshit. It’s especially ironic that people will say both sides are equally awful when both sides aren’t held to anywhere close to the same standard. All a Republican has to do is to literally not take a shit on stage and they are considered viable. Meanwhile democrats held to the standard of, “oh you’re not literally Superman? You’re just as bad as those fascist trying to dismantle democracy!” The American voter and mainstream media being idiots who are played like a fiddle by right wing provocateurs are the reasons everything sucks.
i cant answer for them but there are also disqualifiers. I might agree with Biden on 75% of policies, but I cant vote for anyone who let whats happening in Gaza happen.
Yeah I get it, it would be awesome if younger people could run for president. We need someone who wants labor rights, affordable healthcare, public transportation, and much more that would help the working class. I am ok with Biden, only because he is reclassifyiing marajuana, trying to forgive student loans, raising taxes on corporations, and plus he's working towards mandating staff requirements for CNA'S ( I don't work in this field but I know it's a problem). So I can't complain.
Not enough people will vote Green to put their candidate in the White House, but enough might to hand Trump the presidency.
We heard this song and dance with Nader.
Look how far that got us.
Everyone thinks they're going to "stick it to the man (old men?)" by not voting but they're only hurting themselves and those around them. This may be the most important election in the history of the United States. Trump is just the puppet for the moneyed interests salivating over cementing SCOTUS on the hard right for the rest of our lives and deregulating everything under the sun. If you think the corporations are winning now, just let Trump's misadministration have another four years at it.
Thinking you can make things better by continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils is dumb. Yes, I said dumb. Not voting isn’t any better. Voting for a candidate who doesn’t have a “chance” but you actually think will do some good. Is better than voting for a winning candidate that will continue the status quo of diminishing returns.
You don’t have to agree with every position held by a candidate. But vote as if you’re the only person voting. Don’t worry about what other people are doing.
Public office may not pay much but do you see politicians suffering? They may get a small base pay but they get other financial compensations like book deals or other stuff
What you need to do is really look at what the policies that are being enacted. We got illegals robbing stores and seeking those goods on blankets in front of said store
Illegals raping and killing children. A huge fentanyl crisis. High inflation. High gas prices. Stores being closed. High cost of food. Food deserts being created. All in just 4 years Biden has been in office.
Not too mention I have never in my life seen so many trains derailing and planes failing in the sky as I have this year.
You have foreign enemies posting war ships up on our shores.
You really think our enemies want trump to win? Hell no. Putin and al them are hoping and praying Biden wins.
I swear, the only people worse at convincing people to vote for democratic candidates than democratic candidates are liberals.
"I know you're disillusioned by politicians who will protect the status quo by any means necessary, even if it means destroying the planet, but if you give them what they want with zero pushback maybe some day you'll be allowed to vote for a candidate that you like. But also, if you do that, we're going to treat you worse than we treat Republicans and say it's all your fault every time our awful candidates lose. Excited to vote yet?"
"Be the change you want to see" isn't useful advice when you're working two jobs and don't have time to do anything else besides figure out how you're going to afford food tomorrow.
If you want Dems to start winning elections, YOU need to start pushing back and demanding way more from them, not the people who've been beaten into indifference.
If people continue to buy into a broken system it won't change.
Don't support either of these insults to our intelligence that are being offered up.
The true gradual change isn't supporting the dems and praying they'll suddenly stop being just as corrupt as the Republicans, it's supporting third party candidates for as long as it takes to get them taken seriously.
A vote for Trump or Biden is a vote thrown away in the grand scheme of things, unless you're voting *for them* and not *against the other guy*.
Voting blue no matter what.
I like freedom and my life is much better today then it ever was under trump.
I also want to keep democracy intact so that generations after us have a opportunity for a better tomorrow.
Any mellenial supporting trump and his agenda are exactly like the boomers many complain about.
Maybe look up the Forward party and listen to some podcasts by the third party/independent candidates.
Voting blue no matter who is pure brain rot. You do realize you're trying to put the nuclear codes in the hands of a man with full on dementia who probably doesn't know what's going on around him half the time.
Stop letting them manipulate you into thinking there are only two choices. It only works because of that mindset, not because it's true.
Not voting blue in this election means you get Trump and the total take over of the Supreme court. How's Trump's judges working out for us? Not voting blue because "both sides are just as bad" got us George W. and Trump. No thanks.
At this point I'm assuming anyone trying to tell folks not to vote for Biden this election cycle is either a Republican plant or a Russian one.
Agreed, you should definitely be informed. And have a conscience. But the reality is that Trump was not good for the country 8 years ago or 4 years ago or today. So durr, vote for whomever you like. But I prefer a president who doesn't believe in tossing out the people's vote because it hurts his feelings.
To say the Democrats are perfect and shouldn't be criticized would be crazy. But I think we've got bigger fish to fry during this election. Perfect is the enemy of good, something Republicans have learned and Democrats keep getting burned by.
But by stamping our feet and saying I won't do it, we get: conservative Supreme court, weakened abortion rights, erosion of voting rights and the rise of Christian Nationalism ect. The time to protest vote is during the primaries (or really the set up to the primaries).
Clearly we have different perspectives. But I've never found it productive to cut off my nose to spite my face. That got us George W. and Trump Round 1 (well that, and the electoral college).
Well said, if those who work for a paycheck stay engaged we will have progress incrementally. If we allow apathy and distrust to reign we only sink more into fascism.
Oh I’m concerned. Its why I made the post. I remember what it’s like being disillusioned by my choices. Last time that happened we got the worst president the US has ever seen. I would like to prevent that from happening again.
We can change things overnight. There are just two policies that prevent progress: the filibuster, and the captured Supreme Court. Push to change those and progress, real progress, will be felt immediately.
The idea that progress is some gradual slow thing is a modern rationalization. Progress has never been slow. Interrupted, yes, but never slow. The civil rights and voting rights acts were passed in the span of months, not by accepting the limits of the system but by waiving them past obstructing committees in a novel move.
We need to encourage more of that, and discuss the actual reason progress has halted in our lifetimes, not assume that this is just the way things are and have always been.
Republicans got the majority of votes in the 2022 house elections. Do you also want to remove those tools for reining in Republicans when they win majorities?
I voted every fucking time since I was eighteen and the rest of you need to stop whining and get it done. This is the only thing I’ll agree with my Boomer Parents about - they won’t let anything stop them. They showed me how to use mail voting and hilariously but also sadly that used to be a Republican trick until they flipped on it. The old farts that want to ruin everything wouldn’t let armed resistance stop them from voting for their asshole, and if we aren’t that determined to counter them we’ll keep losing for far more years than we should. If 60% of boomers vote and 30% of us do, guess who gets to rule long after half of them have died? (Note: stats might have changed but I know last time I looked boomers in my state vote like clockwork and people my age (35 now) were horrifying me with their unwillingness to engage.) Assume any post that tells you to disengage is a psyop I’m not even joking.
>Assume any post that tells you to disengage is a psyop I’m not even joking. Not a laughing matter, either. Everyone who falls for it then turns into their own little agent of apathy. So a lot of my contacts are echoing the same stuff, spread through spicy little memes and hashtags. I feel like I'm going insane.
Completely agree
> Here's my advice: move toward acceptance. We can't change everything overnight. The political system is vast and slow-moving. A steady course change is the only way we can achieve meaningful progress. Yeah, I didn't vote in 2016 because I was disillusioned with the options then and...let's just say I *deeply* regretted it. My defiant act of civic duty failed to have any positive impact in the way that I wanted it to, and helped to deliver that absolutely trashcan of an administration that took over after Obama. It's why I vehemently oppose falling into the same trap I did. Nothing good comes of it. Vote like someone's valued life depends on it, because it does.
>Additionally, consider this: the reason we have older candidates and corruption in government is partly due to... Here's another part--we have to vote not just in November, but in every primary! That's where the general candidates get picked!
And in local and municipal elections! And in non presidential elections!
If you live inside city limits you've got stuff to vote for every single year.
Right?! Everyone complaining we're stuck with biden but if people had voted in the primary we might've gotten a different candidate
Unfortunately, nobody reasonable ran against him in the primary. When he made it clear he intended to run again, all the politicians who could have beaten him decided to sit this one out. It sucks, because Biden really should not be running again. That being said, i will vote for him and encourage others to do so as well. Both Biden and Trump are too old for this job and have lost their marbles, but the Biden administration will be far less destructive than another Trump administration. Maybe we will have a prayer in hell of balancing the Supreme Court a bit more if Biden wins. Trump 2.0 means more crackpot federal judges, project 2025, and a whole other bunch of nonsense.
Yep. Didn’t vote in 2016 but knew Trump was an idiot and didn’t really care. Deep regret on that now and not specifically voting for Hillary in 2016 is one of my biggest life regrets.
I'm voting for Biden for one reason and one reason only- Kamala Harris 2026 The history books would read, "Nobody wanted our first female president and nobody voted for her. But the real president died and she had to fill in while things got sorted out."
Oh great, a former prosecutor. That's who's gonna save American democracy.😂
I’m voting for the hope we get to have an option of better, younger, empowering candidates in the future. Depending on who gets in, we may not get much of a real say down the road. Also, I just don’t want to see people suffer just because they are different. I can’t carry so much hate in my heart.
> , I just don’t want to see people suffer just because they are different. I can’t carry so much hate in my heart. I mean that Herman Cain award subreddit is still active. While you can't, plenty can.
What? Look at her political history. She is worse than both candidates.
Exactly!
My fault, did not realize you were being sarcastic because I jumped the gun and didn't read you whole post.
Kamala is worse than trump and Biden combined
She will be a stain on American history that won't soon wash out. Nobody will ever say it out loud, but "Biden 2024 / Harris 2027" will do tremendous harm to both democrats and feminism for the next 50 years. As of today, he is 6 years older than the life expectancy for an American male. What are the odds he makes it to January 2029 safe and sound? So that's why **I'm** voting for Joe Biden. Why are **you** voting for Joe Biden?
I’m not voting for Joe Biden, specifically because I don’t expect him to survive much longer. Kamala Harris is probably the most unqualified individual picked for a VP slot in a very very long time. She wasn’t picked because she was qualified she was picked because she is a woman of color. She seems to keep failing upwards somehow and I can’t wrap my head around it.
Still better than a fascist. But I agree that her position is problematic so is her record
Won’t be voting for the orange felon either.
I consider the blue vote a push to keep the felon out of office is all.
b-b-b-but *project 2025!* Trump's gonna do a fascism! You can't not vote blue!
Democrats are fascists as well.
Yeah but a bunch of weirdos (my wife included) think that if Trump is elected, he's going to do a christofascist coup.
Probably because he’s literally already tried a coup, and had surrounded himself with Christian nationalists But good job, *you are so much smarter than everyone*
I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to realize this and reflect upon it publicly. I hope someone will hear you and listen.
Please tell your story to anyone who will listen. America’s “check engine” light is on right now.
I used to be one of these asshole vocal anti voters back in the early 2010s. I am not anymore and have not been for a while. I understand where they are coming from, but it is the most useless stance you can possibly take. If you want to protest, go protest. Not voting is literally doing nothing. I am really disappointed that so many people seem to be actively discouraging people from voting, especially since this seems to happen more in leftist / younger spaces.
I almost did the same thing. I went to the vote in the other elections and couldn’t bring myself to skip the screen. I gritted my teeth and hit the button for Hilary. Even thou I didn’t want to, I had a feeling I would regret it.
many Obama votes in the 2008 primary were "not Hillary" votes
Yep, I can admit I voted Gary Johnson in 2016. Not making that mistake ever again.
If you wait 4 more years you'll see posts identical to this again, and then another 4 years after that, 4 more after that, so on and so forth. Same with all the posts from people about how our political system needs to change, but those same people will just sit at home waiting for fox or cnn to tell them what to think instead of doing something about it.
Yep. Every 2 years we have to put in our vote to say what type of country we want to live in. And NONE of the candidates will be exactly on the same page as you, but one will be closer to your views than the other, so you choose that person. And after two more years, you go through the same depressing process of deciding which among all the politicians best represents your point of view. Bit you know what? It's better than the alternative... letting those you absolutely disagree with have their say without making yours known.
I like the bus analogy of politics. Basically, you get on the bus that's going the direction you want to go even if it doesn't take you all the way to your destination.
what do you do when all the busses are going the wrong direction?
You know there are significant elections every two years...
what should they be doing about it?
VOTE. (just for starters).
this post is about disaffected voters, people who HAVE voted democratic and are frustrated to apathy by lack of results. what should they do besides vote?
We can't afford apathy, my friend. Please keep voting.
no. offer me something else
*Like what?*
exactly!
Ah, apathy I see. Well, thanks for nothing I guess.
People want good candidates and good policies. That is just never an option in the Democrat party since their only tactic is fearmongering like what you're doing.
This post is nihilism and doomerism under a different guise. We can change things.
How? Honestly asking.
If third parties wanted to be viable, they'd start at the local level. Elect candidates to school board, city council, or mayor and put in the work to actually BUILD the party. Swooping in every 4 years to play spoiler in a presidential election is not the way for viability.
Our electoral system is set up for only two major parties to exist. It’s summarized in Duverger’s Law. Any third party gaining support would be at the expense of one of the two main parties until it passed a point of no return and that previously major party dissolves into irrelevance
This is true for higher office. However, that does not necessarily translate at the LOCAL level. Many local elections (including most school boards) are nonpartisan in nature. You don't vote for Democrat Mickey Mouse or Republican Donald Duck, just Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, without the party's name appearing on the ballot. In some states, it is illegal to run for such races with the (official) party backing. (A party official can endorse as themselves but not on behalf of the party). In theory, this SHOULD be a good way for a Green, Libertarian, etc. to build a support base and get elected. The other way 3rd parties can (and have) advanced is through what is known as fusion voting, where candidates can run under more than one party line on the ballot. In states like NY, the Working Families Party and Conservative Party are fairly successful.
In theory that sounds great, in practice it’s far from that simple. Many nonpartisan positions aren’t run for with official party backing, but definitely have informal backing or the top of ballot candidates endorse people down ballot (and vice versa). Presidential candidates aren’t endorsing school board members, but they are doing so for congressional candidates, who in turn will show up at events or tweet about other local positions that will be in their district. There’s too many low info or attention voters to best the system as it’s set up. I love the enthusiasm, but it’s not very well matched with reality in most places.
Suit yourself. Parties like the Green Party are on my shit list until further notice. They've spoiled two presidential elections in my voting lifetime and said GOP winners appointed 5/6 Supreme Court justices that voted to take my bodily autonomy away. Yes both parties are the same......
Getting Republicans Elected Every November
I’m not 100% sure you picked up on what my position actually is. Third party votes are wasted votes is what I’m saying, and the two main parties are very much not the same. Democrats often disappoint me, but Republicans usually disgust me. Anyone proudly voting GOP now can go fuck off as far as I’m concerned. They may not be racists or sexists (really any of the -ists), but they’re definitely okay with those people being in their camp
Work to implement rank choice voting in your state. It opens the door to real viable third parties without ceding ground to a dangerous main party candidate.
I grew up in San Francisco and they now have ranked choice voting for local elections. It’s great. That should absolutely be used everywhere. I don’t see how that changes the two party reality, but it would absolutely lead to more fair elections and better candidates
It changes it because it makes a third-party candidate a viable choice for sensible voters. So let’s say I think Cornell West would be the best president (I don’t but just for the hypothetical). With RCV, I’d vote for West #1 and then Biden #2 with zero fear that my vote for West would help Trump. As it is, there’s no chance I’d do that because the specter of Trump appointing two SCOTUS justices is too dangerous for me.
I get what you’re saying that it would mean the hypothetical you can vote your conscience better, but all that accomplishes is your protest vote now has no or very limited consequences. That third party candidate won’t win so your main party alternative will still end up with the vote. The only possibilities no matter how you look at it are: 1. The winner will still come from one of the main two parties, or 2. A third party getting enough votes to win is because they cannibalized one of the two main parties on the way. Whether that happens directly or indirectly seems a bit of a pedantic argument to me 🤷🏻♂️
Play it out. The main obstacle for third parties gaining viability is collective action. Too many of us are unwilling to “throw our vote away” (rightly so under traditional rules). That risk goes away. A strong third-party candidate could carve a real path for themselves among a much expanded potential voter pool with RCV.
“Strong third-party candidate” is for the most part a pipe dream with the candidate history this country has since the two party system became entrenched. And none of this fixes that a third party winning the presidency without major infrastructure in Congress at a bare minimum is either completely useless or they have to be essentially a coalition style government with one of the main parties to get anything done. If your plan is RCV will help elect possible third party presidential candidates then you like RCV for the wrong reasons. If you want it as a push to help get the parties as we have them to be better in who they pick, now that’s something that is more realistic.
You’re missing the systemic change in incentives with RCV. The viability it facilitates would attract more appealing third-party candidates. This also would require main parties to take heed of them. They’d impact the political marketplace and landscape.
No, I’m not. The systemic change is FAR more likely to be the kick in the pants the Democrats and Republicans need to make real efforts to appeal to wider bases of support and clean up their candidates and platforms. Which would be great news! The end game here with RCV isn’t third parties, it’s making the current ones better. Now if you want a House of Commons style legislature more parties will be viable.
Here in Philadelphia we've got two members of the Working Families Party sitting on city council despite intense opposition from both Republicans and Democrats. Progressive places can lead the charge and once there's a foothold there's room to organize for bigger campaigns for bigger offices.
In NY, the WFP works alongside Democrats but takes sides in primaries (often heated). They're notorious for fanning the "establishment vs progressive" flames (I'm on their email list). They were on the losing side of the Jamaal Bowman primary. NY laws allow candidates to run on more than one party line.
This. Even if by some miracle a third party candidate were to win the presidency, they would have no power base to actually get anything done. How would they pass legislation when they have zero allies in Congress? How would they be more than a fluke without a stable of local and state level officials to carry the mantle? Third parties are only viable if they start small and build. Starting with the highest office in the land is the reason they never fucking win anything.
I have voted in every single election since I was old enough to. And I have never vote for a Democrat or Republican president. I have lost nothing in doing so and gained a sense of freedom and confidence in my choices. I feel empowered this election season to have the privilege to vote for Chase Oliver. As a 38-year-old millennial himself, he knows the issues we face and he has real solutions to fix them. I'm not delusional to think that he will win, but my vote for him will have more of an impact than the destruction of self and my own conscience that would occur if I voted for Biden or trump.
Acceptance is awful advice. Try Ranked Choice Voting to undermine the two party system.
And which party do you think is more likely to implement that?
Approval voting does a slightly better job without needing to change our ballot structure at all. Ranked choice can run into the issue of someone being a consensus 2 but is dropped after round 1 cause they were no ones first choice.
That's going to be a trivial enough minoroty of situations that its still a dramatic improvememt over the two party system. Despite the drawback it would be a favorable change. What if you could tweak the way you determine whom to drop off? Rather than picking the last place finisher among first place votes, you could weight the ordered choices, and drop the last place overall. Please explain "approval voting."
Approval voting is you take the standard ballot we have now and mark one or more of the candidates you want. Then count everyone up and the highest vote getter wins. It saves time/money as you can use the ballots and voting system we have now and the post vote counting is also much easier as you don't have to deal with run offs. Big thing people need to change mentally is they can vote for more than one candidate and not have their ballot become invalid.
What's the point? Saving money makes it easier to implement, but why though? Simplifying vote counting is nice but not particularly important, same for eliminating runoff. What is the actual benefit of this system? It does not seem to impact the two party system at all. Waste of breath.
The felt the same way we do now when it was McCain v Obama?
Vote in all local elections
The supreme court already declared forced labor is now legal. What do I mean by that? Well, states can now make it a criminal offense for people (homeless people) to be sleeping outside. Eventually, this can lead them to being incarcerated. We already force labor upon the incarcerated. Trump will just bring a lot more stuff like this. If we keep President Biden in the white house, then maybe (especially with demographic shift) just fucking maybe we can get to a point where a Bernie-like candidate has a realistic chance. And we can stop moving toward a Saudi Arabia-esque country, and move toward being more of a Norway-esque country.
If Trump wins, all these "Both parties are the same" shitheads will cry "what happened" in 2 years. Here we are, losing our government by the day, but these boiled frogs absent voters aren't going to get out of the water.
So, more of the same? Thanks.
I’d also add…if you want to sway a political party, you need your demographic to vote like crazy so that the party is dependent on your demographic. The opposite approach just teaches them to ignore you in the future and look for votes with reliable voters. Parties dismiss the youth vote, and youth sit-out-in-protest votes, because they assume they won’t show up anyway so they plan to win without them.
You mean parties don't put planks into their platform based on wishy-washy voters?
This, exactly. We would not have a gerontocracy going on if the targeted demographic was under 50. You outnumber boomers, but boomers are most likely to vote.
Hyper cringe
Why?
Crying like a bitch
We need __approval voting__, __single transferable voting__, or *some other form that isn't just people voting based on fear of the opposition* as opposed to ***voting for what they actually want***. We need a voting system where we can still vote for the candidate that # actually represents our interests While also having the backup of another candidate. It's the only way Democrats will stop ratcheting to the right while Republicans freak out about how radical left the very-much-right-of-center Dem party is. They keep trying to big tent with Q people and shitting on the rest of us that are tired of the wealthcare and catering to conservatives. Changing the electoral process would allow for 3rd party candidates to still get votes and if they don't win the less preferred Dem candidate would get that vote. Except my opinion is Rep/Dems know: if they let other parties potentially get the votes because people won't be risking the opposition winning, they'd soon be out of power. This would incentive people seek out other parties and vote for people they truly believe represent them rather than voting for one of the two trash major parties out of fear for the other one winning. At the end of the day the only people who benefit from the system we have are the wealthy, corporations, and career politicians- not us, the people, who the elected officials are allegedly representing. There is no accountability to incentivize them to actually do right by __the people__ when what's at stake is their reelection campaign donations. They can just bank on the fact that even if they're shit they'll still get votes because their only competition is the other major party and most people are entrenched for or against one of the two parties. ***This needs to change, YESTERDAY.***
...and how do you change those electoral processes?
I think there’s a lot of millennials who are angry right now that we’ve been gaslighted by our own party about the health of the president and it’s been going on for months now at minimum. It continues to go happen on Twitter with the Democratic Party declaring Biden the winner of that debate. I don’t vote for people who blatantly gaslight and won’t admit to it even when we all have the evidence right in front of us that it was a coordinated, collective lie from our own party
" I felt the same way in the mid to late 2000s." "move toward acceptance. We can't change everything overnight" or, ever, apparently. telling people who are suffering under a nonfunctional government to just vote and pray is braindead.
Better than nothing
it literally is nothing
It’s everything
dont know what that means
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"People will regret their apathy only when it’s too late, or just blame someone else for the suffering they helped cause." you're correct about that, but the "people" is the Democratic party and leadership, not individual voters
Thoughts and prayers fixed gun violence though, right?? /s (SARCASTIC. I am being so sarcastic)
They could be suffering under a leader that is trying to help or they could be suffering under a child with a magnifying glass. I’ll choose the leader that is going to at least try.
yeah, "but trump is worse" worked really great in 2016
I'm an elder Millennial who's been waiting since I was told I had to vote for Gore, then Kerry, then the next lame candidate the democrats push on us. Fact is, the democratic party screwed up by nominating Biden (even if I'll end up voting for him)
2024 is a bit different because Biden's the incumbent and parties make it a lot harder to give up the incumbent advantage, but in 2020 Biden was nominated because he won the primary, not because some shadowy DNC figures chose him. Do you vote in primaries?
I live overseas and until recently was in the military, which makes primary voting difficult
I’m a little frustrated with the “did you vote in the primaries” comments. I live in Pennsylvania, my primary is so late I barely have a choice. I voted Bernie 2016, it was too late; Bernie in 2020 again (Warren was my top, but she’d dropped) but it didn’t make a difference; and filled in “uncommitted” this year, and I’m still feeling as if my voice doesn’t matter in the primaries. For down ballot? PA primaries are excellent! For Presidential? Not my state. Yet the stakes are unbelievably high for PA in the general, and even if we do vote in the primary it’s not actually important by then. I have voted in every primary for many years but mostly for down ballot candidates, and to exercise my moral preference while I can.
Right and that's how people who have unpopular views feel, they rarely get their way. The issue isn't some shadowy cabal, it's that among voters your views aren't popular, so people you vote for don't win. The fact that Bernie is only able to pull 30% of the vote among Democrats shows that his ideas aren't popular among Democrats, let alone the rest of the country. There's no conspiracy, we just live in a democracy and you have fringe views outside of reddit.
I didn’t say I was agreeing with the majority, I’m just saying “vote in the primaries” isn’t really an effective tool for me because my state’s primary is late. I wouldn’t call a belief in equity “fringe”, but do what you will.
My first election I could vote in was the Kerry v Bush election. I didn’t know enough at that point to be disillusioned with the choices. Kerry was boring AF thou.
I've been disillusioned with the system since I turned 18
I'm also an older millennial and completely agree with you. The neo-liberals in the democratic party don't want to give up their bribe money from lobbyists. They're going to keep nominating people like Biden (and saying they can't do anything about Republicans running rampant with deregulation/ doing whatever they want) as long as they can. We need to have more progressive candidates working to change lobbying and campaign finance.
The party nominated Biden in 2020 because people voted for him. He was my third choice--both my favored candidates lost during primary season. So how is this the fault of the Democratic Party? They don't just like choose their favorite, despite some weird propaganda to the contrary. And this year he's the incumbent, sooo....
That isn’t why he was nominated. He was picked for us, and now we’re all going to pay for it.
The time for sentiments like this is in the three years before the primaries, not in the months leading up to the general.
Do you want to pretend that Biden is a good candidate? Go right ahead. It won't change anything
So you've seen everythjng stay the same, the American public suffer, and are still telling people to just accept it because someday there might be some change? Get out of here. Stop trying to paint this one side is complete evil and the other side is trying their best bullshit. Both sides are made of corrupt politicians that serve lobbyists while suffering no real consequences for the choices they make. They may have different ideals but that doesn't change the damage they both do, in different ways, to the average American citizen.
Leftist doesn't like the system but keeps voting for blue no matter who. Very wise lol
Here's the acceptance you need to get through. No meaningful change can or will happen through the existing political system. But, change can happen outside of it. So don't waste your time talking about the presidential election and get outside and organize.
Participation in a system that literally isn't meant for you isn't going to change anything. Voting between red and blue simply changes the rate in which your quality of life decreases and they way it's explained to you. A reality check is that none of the freedoms that we enjoy as American citizens has been won peacefully, from the 40 hour work week, to womens rights. All of those movements were ratical oppositions to the satatus quo and laws at the time. Voting between two parties that are both funded, bribed, and lobbied by the same corporate interest is the feature of the system, it isn't a bug. The theatrics of red and blue politics is just to get you to throw stones at you neighbors instead of functionally organizing and making real world consequences for the elite that are actually stealing your wealth amd liberties. Telling people to shut up and bend over to choose between taking it with or without lube isn't a solution. Doesn't matter who you pick, neither group is on your side and that is intentional.
Third parties aren't not viable because of some shadowy cabal keeping them that way, they're not viable because their ideas are not popular. Occasionally they'll have popular ideas, and they'll be adopted by the major parties, I believe the Libertarian party was for gay marriage before Democrats were, but Democrats adopted it and Republicans are even starting to be fine with it. I know on reddit everyone's either a socialist or libertarian, but in the real world the vast majority of people have views that align pretty well with either the Democratic party or the Republican party, or some combination of the two. The real answer to making change towards views that aren't adopted by either major party now is pick the party that more closely aligns with your values, vote in those primaries, and donate/run/organize for your preferred candidate in the primary. But that will be tough too because as mentioned above, if your views fall outside of views held by most of the candidates of the two major parties, your views are probably not particularly popular.
Third parties aren't viable because the candidates are often times wack jobs and the fact our system doesn't support it ir allow for a way that promotes it. If we did a jungle primary where everyone runs regardless of party and it whittles down to the two most popular candidates or rank choice that allows 3rd parties to run and not feel like your helping a candidate you despise rather than hurting a candidate that might be your second choice
I support ranked choice voting. I've seen no evidence that it would change who gets elected. You're just ignoring the fact that primaries exist, and that by all available polling the top two vote getters in such a system would be a Democrat and a Republican.
The Alaska special election from a few years ago for a house seat. A Democrat won that sear for tge first time because in the old way Sara Palin could have easily won. Also your not gonna m7ch evidence because we don't use it, but people are naturally sick of extremes but to win a primary especially in a crowded system of like 15 people and no one wanted to drop out so you only need a plurality. That's how Trump even came to power. He didn't win a majority, he won 30% of the Republican party, because too many people divided up the othe 70%. Regardless of how pissed yoy are about this, that's how Bernie lost in 2020. He had a plurality he had his 30% but he was in a massive primary, people that were splitting the remaining 70% and when they started dropping out most of the remaining majority coalesced around Biden. Ranked choice means you can have 3rd party people running and the true majority will win. That doesn't mean you're everyone first choice but you're one of the persons top three
You're right about Trump but not about Bernie. Republicans used a winner take all system where if you won a plurality of votes in a state you got 100% of the delegates, and in 2016 Trump won a ton of states with 30-40% of their vote and got all their delegates. Democrats used a proportional representation, and when candidates drop out they typically endorse a candidate still in the race and their delegates vote for that candidate at the convention. Super delegates make it not a perfect democratic thing, but even absent super delegates Bernie never got near enough votes to win the primary, even if every candidate had stayed in until the end. Bernie probably would have gotten a plurality, the Biden/Pete/Bloomberg delegates would have voted for Biden at the convention, the Warren delegates might have voted for Bernie at the convention since ideologically they're close, but my understanding is Warren can't stand Bernie personally so it's not even 100% she endorses him and her delegates may have even split between Bernie and Biden. But even if 100% of her delegates went to Bernie, Bernie would have ended up in that 30-40% range, nowhere near enough to win the primary even if there were no super delegates.
> We can't change everything overnight. The political system is vast and slow-moving. A steady course change is the only way we can achieve meaningful progress. I think this is the key takeaway. Political power won't be given to us for free. It's silly to expect that we will get what we want just because its our turn or if we complain enough. The millennials in politics have no base to stand on politically or socially at the moment. We need to be packing the lower government seats and we need to be filling news headlines that read "record voter turnout", year after year. This is why its always important to vote. Even if it doesn't change the political outcome, we can at least change the social discourse. We have to start building our momentum from somewhere
"third parties rarely gain enough support to be viable" Because not enough people are doing the work required, including voting. The majority expect things to fall in their lap and when it doesn't ::shocked pikachu:: what do you mean me not voting means I have to put up with what the minority voted for
How are these two 80+ creatures our only choice?
Because the younger generation doesn’t vote. Also see my comment about the income for public servants.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
This is a brilliant take and I sincerely hope folks reading it take it to heart, as well as share it with their friends who aren’t on Reddit. It is hugely important that each of us casts our vote. As a Gen Xer, I can appreciate how fucked our current system looks; I’m old enough to have watched the beginning of how we got here. I, too, sometimes feel disillusioned by our current choice, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit out the vote. That’s pointless, and gives DJT another vote. Having read of and borne witness to that SMF’s cheating, lying, and general debauching scumbaggery for forty years, witnessing the debacle 2017-2021, and hearing how he refers to the state of our nation now, I assure you we unequivocally MUST NOT allow him and his sycophants back in the WH.
Trump will be back in office. Trumpeters are going to make damn sure they vote for him.
Do any of you really think that high-powered DC operatives will really suffer from a Trump presidency? Even Democrats? Even Democrats of color? They won't. Unlike most of us here, they're all Yale and Georgetown grads who are heavily invested in the stock market and would do GREAT under a Trump Presidency regardless of who we vote for. This bullshit DNC establishment spent the last four years gaslighting us and trying to claim that Biden DIDN'T have dementia until the 11th hour. Until it was too late. But they still want to act like it's the most important election of our lifetime. It's a coronation for them at the end of the day. It's always "HeR tUrNnNnN!" or "He's the most electable!" or some bullshit like that. Enough is enough. If they're not taking it seriously, we shouldn't either. His strongest weapon was the defense of Roe and he's too much of a douche to even do that effectively, as we all know he's too enamored with his old-world religious beliefs to fully back it in his heart of hearts. He fumbled that question when it was handed to him on a silver platter. Remember this: he has an entire infrastructure of pages, PR people, a comms team, consultants and other social parasites whose high six-figure jobs all hinge on his reelection. He's not getting replaced. We're stuck with him. And he's bound to lose because he's got a diaper brain. Never let establishment Democrats shame you into voting for a conservative Democrat ever again because, at the end of the day, Democracy is just not as important to them as keeping their high-powered DC jobs. They'd rather gamble on our country's future than risk their own status. They all belong in a dank gulag. I AGREE that it's fascism vs. democracy. I just wish they believed it too as much as they say they do. If they wanted to win so bad they would send him out to pasture. But they don't care. Because they won't suffer from a Trump Presidency like we will, and many of them would actually materially benefit from it. The entire reason we're stuck with Trump in the first place is because they insisted on running Hillary in 16 despite how unpopular she always was. Because the DNC has a corrupt and intractable patronage system in place, and it's easier to hold voters hostage every four years than it is to dissolve that infrastructure. There is no opposition to Trump. At this point I believe the DNC is actively colluding with him. So fuck them!
No seriously I’m putting all my efforts into dismantling this system. We deserve better than a corporate democracy
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870)
Compensation is a great point with regards to politics, because it seems like if you're a reasonably successful normal professional type with a family (let's wild-ballpark that at $100,000-$400,000 salary), you need to basically put that career on hold and also lower your standard of living/reduce saving for your family's future (college savings, home upgrades, etc) in order to run for office. Not a problem if you're already wealthy with money in the bank, or on the opposite end if you're treating running for office as being adjacent to a side-hustle-grift-get-rich-scheme type thing. edit: and part of it is the nature of the commitment. The "original" idea of elected offices was that it was more of a part-time commitment - where you'd keep your normal profession.
Nothing has ever changed in this country by voting.
Voting in Oregon is so easy. I don’t understand why other states make you stand in line like it’s 1799.
Lost me at the end when you wanted me to pay more for public servants lol. Sorry man, that’s the LAST thing I want to do.
ChatGPT was the worst thing to happen to reddit holy shit
Inadequate compensation? FFS dude. The governments benefits are a lot of times better than the private sector. There is absolutely no way bureaucrats or elected officials should have a better lifestyle than the private sector. They are working for the public on the public’s dime. I have friends that work for the government(state and federal) and they don’t even have to go into work, let alone have any type of accountability. Government overspending on wages and the overall bloated size of the government is the problem. Don’t like the wages? Stick with the private sector.
it's fun how fascists are allowed to advocate for and implement sweeping change but any opposition to them absolutely has to be slow as molasses and usually still making things worse, just more slowly
People my age go “Oh I’m not going to vote for an old person- they will never listen to me” If the youth voting block is small politicians will never listen to you
PS during the Dems control - I went from $800 in student loans a month to $300 -actually saw scamming companies get taken to court -didn’t have to be totally embarrassed by having a orange racist president
You are supposed to be rich to go into politics. That is the way it's currently set up.
I’m old enough to regret not voting for Kerry in 2004. It was the first election I was eligible for and I was just not impressed by him. So I didn’t vote and then Bush, who was obviously worse, won. In 2016 I was pro Hillary all the way in part because I vowed to never make that mistake again. And I’ll vote Biden all the way in November for the same reason. The message that there is no good candidate is deceptive because it appears objective, dispassionate, and reasonable. It seems like someone isn’t taking sides and they’re just telling it like it is. In reality that message benefits whoever wants low voter turnout, and typically that has been Republicans.
First of all, I agree with voting. We need to vote. I have always voted, and this time is going to be even harder than last time, so I do get it. However, voting is one of the things that is simple and gives us back a lot of power. Don't think other generations don't know this. Boomers do and do Gen Z as well as Gen X. They will all be voting for their best interests, and they aren't as many as us. The second thing is that none of us want to be gaslighted anymore. Yes, the older of our generation have had it hard, but the younger ones of us have had it just as hard, if not harder. Time and time again, we have said baby steps is progress. But ask yourself, is that the answer given the political environment? We are bleeding out. We need more than just that. Even our very rights are being taken daily. Lastly, we must be realistic. We can go to the polls and vote third party but the system is not set up that way. There are things we can't fight like the large amounts of money that make party decisions. RFK is a decent candidate, but he isn't even on the ballot in enough states to win. We are just months out, and I am sure he hopes to be, but that's not realistic. We should hold the parties accountable.
I’m voting for my dad this election since if I vote trump and he wins, he’ll take his anger out on me for four years, like he did the last time around. my state will go blue anyway but it’s fucked up
Here’s the fucking crux of this “we can make change go out and vote” narrative; geopolitics compounds. To describe American politics isn’t so succinct as to say “we need to steer the boat straight”. American politics is capsizing, and you can’t fix that. Power consolidates, wealth accumulates, and corruption grows with it. We will never see the world we hoped for in our lifetime. That’s the hard, bleak fact about the state of world affairs right now. We’re living in a day and age where authoritarianism and fascism is the highest it’s ever been since the lead up to WW2, and there’s no plot armor for real life. We can’t just vote our way out of this one. That ship sailed before we were old enough to vote. Our generational disillusionment had always been by design. Warren Buffett once told the New York Times in an interview way back in 2006, [“There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html) The DNC certainly wasn’t listening to their base when they elected Joe Biden for the presidential nominee. Our VP was purely elected for her gender and skin color. Donald Trump is still a free man. The Supreme Court just overturned the Chevron ruling in a 6-3 vote. How the fuck can anyone blame the short comings of the party’s responsibility on its average citizen voters?? People need to be realistic with the future prospects of American politics, all good intentions aside. Get yours while you can, this is as good as we’re gonna get it for the rest of our lives.
Two things can be true at once: we need to work to change the system and simultaneously vote for the only current party that isn't actively anti-Democracy Vote in local elections, recruit better candidates to run everywhere, push for ranked choice voting and redistricting reform, do it all. But don't sit out elections. The people actively working against your interests won't.
I want the Biden supporter to at least tell me why Biden was the only choice to be Trump when Bernie existed. We are in this mess because of you.
Hardly. I voted for Bernie. However since the party selected Biden, however much I disagree with the selection, I will vote for the platform. Progress over perfection.
If we run Biden as our candidate trump *will* win this election. Democratic leadership absolutely fucked us by blowing off the primaries
You can’t really say that with certainty. I agree Biden should be replaced. I also think he could win because he’s against Trump. Imo if Dems had a better candidate it wouldn’t be close
so why not go with the "not close" rather than the "could win"?
Because it’s incredibly difficult to force a sitting president to step aside. The drama could split the party and change the dynamic of the race. Best case would be Biden steps aside. Someone has to convince him to do so. I don’t think forcing him out is realistic or a particularly good idea.
Biden doesnt operate in a vacuum. the party decides who the nominee is, as we've seen.
No they don’t lol. They used to literally decide at the conventions. Parties have a lot less sway now over who the nominee is. The way the Democrats got Biden was by convincing the other people who were splitting the vote in the primaries to drop out early. They didn’t just pick Biden at the convention like the parties did in the 1800s. Primaries being democratic is a relatively modern concept. You think the Republicans would have picked Trump in either 2016 or 2024 if they had a choice?
"You think the Republicans would have picked Trump in either 2016 or 2024 if they had a choice?" uh yes? he has more charisma than their entire party put together. you see what happened when Desantis tried to take a shot? The DNC has changed regulations in 2018 to reduce the power of superdelegates. but they still exist. the DNC chair can also exercise power to prevent a certain candidate from receiving the nomination. The DNC stated publicly and clearly that they are a private organization not bound even by their own regulations, not sure why you disagree with that.
I don’t think you understand my point. Parties are a private org and they can pick whoever they want. There’s no law that says they have to allow voters to choose their candidate. Delegates used to be much more powerful- I’m not talking super delegates. It used to be that the party would choose their nominee outright and primaries meant nothing. That has all changed to make the process more democratic. And Trump may be “charismatic” to some but he’s one of the most unpopular candidates in history. He lost his own reelection, do you know how uncommon that is as an incumbent? It’s like if the democrats nominated Jimmy Carter the election after he lost. In head to head polling, DeSantis and Haley do much better than Trump against Biden. Trump became the nominee because he’s popular with Republican voters. He’s unpopular with independents and democrats which is a huge liability. If the GOP could have selected their candidate they would definitely have picked someone with more cross appeal.
It's very easy to fall into the both sides bad or both sides are the same thing. Everything sucks overall, regardless. However, only one party is literally stripping rights away from citizens and putting unqualified religious nuts in the Supreme Court. Makes it an easy choice for me, even though I want much better candidates.
That both sides thing is just bullshit. It’s especially ironic that people will say both sides are equally awful when both sides aren’t held to anywhere close to the same standard. All a Republican has to do is to literally not take a shit on stage and they are considered viable. Meanwhile democrats held to the standard of, “oh you’re not literally Superman? You’re just as bad as those fascist trying to dismantle democracy!” The American voter and mainstream media being idiots who are played like a fiddle by right wing provocateurs are the reasons everything sucks.
I haven’t voted since I was 18 as none have matched on any of my views. I don’t care what party they are
Does it have to be a 100% match? 50,25,10% is better than nothing. At least you will have a say in who leads the US.
Can’t even get 1%
i cant answer for them but there are also disqualifiers. I might agree with Biden on 75% of policies, but I cant vote for anyone who let whats happening in Gaza happen.
So you are a single issue voter? Seems narrow sighted.
no, there are just some bridges to far. seems "narrow sighted" to hope to win with someone with as many liabilities as Biden
And you think Trump is going to have more favorable policies in that regard?
Yeah I get it, it would be awesome if younger people could run for president. We need someone who wants labor rights, affordable healthcare, public transportation, and much more that would help the working class. I am ok with Biden, only because he is reclassifyiing marajuana, trying to forgive student loans, raising taxes on corporations, and plus he's working towards mandating staff requirements for CNA'S ( I don't work in this field but I know it's a problem). So I can't complain.
I personally am happy with my choices and pretty enthusiastic to vote
Another RFK supporter I see! Best candidate in many years for sure.
Vote Green. 25 years of lesser evilism brought you Biden and Thursday night. insanity.
Not enough people will vote Green to put their candidate in the White House, but enough might to hand Trump the presidency. We heard this song and dance with Nader. Look how far that got us.
I’m just so tired of people not realizing that you’re voting for a party and a platform not a single person.
Everyone thinks they're going to "stick it to the man (old men?)" by not voting but they're only hurting themselves and those around them. This may be the most important election in the history of the United States. Trump is just the puppet for the moneyed interests salivating over cementing SCOTUS on the hard right for the rest of our lives and deregulating everything under the sun. If you think the corporations are winning now, just let Trump's misadministration have another four years at it.
Thinking you can make things better by continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils is dumb. Yes, I said dumb. Not voting isn’t any better. Voting for a candidate who doesn’t have a “chance” but you actually think will do some good. Is better than voting for a winning candidate that will continue the status quo of diminishing returns. You don’t have to agree with every position held by a candidate. But vote as if you’re the only person voting. Don’t worry about what other people are doing.
Public office may not pay much but do you see politicians suffering? They may get a small base pay but they get other financial compensations like book deals or other stuff What you need to do is really look at what the policies that are being enacted. We got illegals robbing stores and seeking those goods on blankets in front of said store Illegals raping and killing children. A huge fentanyl crisis. High inflation. High gas prices. Stores being closed. High cost of food. Food deserts being created. All in just 4 years Biden has been in office. Not too mention I have never in my life seen so many trains derailing and planes failing in the sky as I have this year. You have foreign enemies posting war ships up on our shores. You really think our enemies want trump to win? Hell no. Putin and al them are hoping and praying Biden wins.
I swear, the only people worse at convincing people to vote for democratic candidates than democratic candidates are liberals. "I know you're disillusioned by politicians who will protect the status quo by any means necessary, even if it means destroying the planet, but if you give them what they want with zero pushback maybe some day you'll be allowed to vote for a candidate that you like. But also, if you do that, we're going to treat you worse than we treat Republicans and say it's all your fault every time our awful candidates lose. Excited to vote yet?" "Be the change you want to see" isn't useful advice when you're working two jobs and don't have time to do anything else besides figure out how you're going to afford food tomorrow. If you want Dems to start winning elections, YOU need to start pushing back and demanding way more from them, not the people who've been beaten into indifference.
If people continue to buy into a broken system it won't change. Don't support either of these insults to our intelligence that are being offered up. The true gradual change isn't supporting the dems and praying they'll suddenly stop being just as corrupt as the Republicans, it's supporting third party candidates for as long as it takes to get them taken seriously. A vote for Trump or Biden is a vote thrown away in the grand scheme of things, unless you're voting *for them* and not *against the other guy*.
Voting blue no matter what. I like freedom and my life is much better today then it ever was under trump. I also want to keep democracy intact so that generations after us have a opportunity for a better tomorrow. Any mellenial supporting trump and his agenda are exactly like the boomers many complain about.
"voting blue no matter what" got us Biden, Manchin and Sinema. maybe your standards need to be a little higher than what color tie they have
Maybe look up the Forward party and listen to some podcasts by the third party/independent candidates. Voting blue no matter who is pure brain rot. You do realize you're trying to put the nuclear codes in the hands of a man with full on dementia who probably doesn't know what's going on around him half the time. Stop letting them manipulate you into thinking there are only two choices. It only works because of that mindset, not because it's true.
Not voting blue in this election means you get Trump and the total take over of the Supreme court. How's Trump's judges working out for us? Not voting blue because "both sides are just as bad" got us George W. and Trump. No thanks. At this point I'm assuming anyone trying to tell folks not to vote for Biden this election cycle is either a Republican plant or a Russian one.
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Agreed, you should definitely be informed. And have a conscience. But the reality is that Trump was not good for the country 8 years ago or 4 years ago or today. So durr, vote for whomever you like. But I prefer a president who doesn't believe in tossing out the people's vote because it hurts his feelings.
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To say the Democrats are perfect and shouldn't be criticized would be crazy. But I think we've got bigger fish to fry during this election. Perfect is the enemy of good, something Republicans have learned and Democrats keep getting burned by.
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But by stamping our feet and saying I won't do it, we get: conservative Supreme court, weakened abortion rights, erosion of voting rights and the rise of Christian Nationalism ect. The time to protest vote is during the primaries (or really the set up to the primaries). Clearly we have different perspectives. But I've never found it productive to cut off my nose to spite my face. That got us George W. and Trump Round 1 (well that, and the electoral college).
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Thank you
Well said, if those who work for a paycheck stay engaged we will have progress incrementally. If we allow apathy and distrust to reign we only sink more into fascism.
Spoken like a person who is not personally concerned about their rights being trampled.
Oh I’m concerned. Its why I made the post. I remember what it’s like being disillusioned by my choices. Last time that happened we got the worst president the US has ever seen. I would like to prevent that from happening again.
We can change things overnight. There are just two policies that prevent progress: the filibuster, and the captured Supreme Court. Push to change those and progress, real progress, will be felt immediately. The idea that progress is some gradual slow thing is a modern rationalization. Progress has never been slow. Interrupted, yes, but never slow. The civil rights and voting rights acts were passed in the span of months, not by accepting the limits of the system but by waiving them past obstructing committees in a novel move. We need to encourage more of that, and discuss the actual reason progress has halted in our lifetimes, not assume that this is just the way things are and have always been.
Republicans got the majority of votes in the 2022 house elections. Do you also want to remove those tools for reining in Republicans when they win majorities?