I don’t like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.
Not voting isn’t going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews and he’s publicly told Israel to “finish up their war”. He’ll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn’t a straight cisgender male back here at home.
A vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of them or their policies, it’s a statement that you like their policies more than the other guy’s, and “sticking it to liberals” and “refusing to support genocide” (that’s not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way – a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.
How incredibly privileged do you have to be to see an entire national election as what will happen in the Middle East and ignore Trump’s campaign promises to wipe transgender Americans off the map, and further, to not realize that the same thing will happen in the Middle East regardless of which candidate wins?
I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I’ll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there’s a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
What will? What shall we do, O enlightened leftist, to effect real change in this country, that you think supersedes our duty to vote?
Find the mutual aid networks in your community and join / support them.
Just generally be in community with those around you.
Join or form local weekly protests for a permanent ceasefire.
Join a union and encourage others to. Help ensure that your union has enough resources to provide support for more vulnerable members when they need to strike.
Run for local office.
My guy it’s not a duty, it’s a choice. As for effecting real change, dude i don’t fucking know i’m just an unemployed slightly depressed gen z dude. But we gotta be honest with ourselves that voting ain’t it in terms of changing things. The democrats had the same rhetoric last election and oh no now we’re in a genocide
Yeah but we should still vote. Voting and doing nothing is better than not voting and doing nothing. We can at least stop things from getting worse.
I agree with you for the first time. Maybe we should do something. I just personally think that the two-party elections are a farce, a way to trick people into thinking they’re free when in reality their country is as undemocratic as North Korea but with suits and champagne.
So yeah, maybe i’ll vote third party if i can get off my ass lmao
The spoiler effect is real, amigo.
U get Status Quo Joe, or u get the russian nazi. Under biden our abilities to organize and pursue whatever courses of action are not under threat. Thats not true the other way around. If it was, youd be seeing leftists actually doing something in russia or china, but it doesnt happen. Bc they get the boot. Like how the communist party that still exists in russia is only some 30yrs old bc it was the one that was hand picked to exist as controlled opposition.
I dont blame u for being depressed and disaffected, but i assure u, this country has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom. Meanwhile, I would prefer it if Poland and Lithuania werent next on Putins chopping block bc donnie twatkins and his maga cult decided fuck it, Ukraine dont deserve arms. This whole movement ive been seeing, first on reddit now here, saying voting is childish or that third party is the way to go… its all foreign sourced. If voting didnt matter, the right in this country wouldnt go to the lengths it does to suppress it. Low turn out benefits trump. Trump benefits countries that are hostile towards us. Those countries have a vested interest in ur vote.
Pre api changes on reddit, leftist spaces on reddit didnt ban ppl, they didnt remove comments, and they prided themselves on encouraging independent thinking. Suddenly after, i started picking up bans even from places like rightcantmeme bc id call out russian talking points or the fact that making fun of “vooting” wasnt praxis, just a cheap slogan to wave around the way magats wave theirs. And ghen new spaces, like ultraleft, started popping up. These new spaces outright were based around the new culture, and here something interesting started happening. Ppl (or trolls, idk) would pop in and ask, “whats the ancom (or whichever other subgroup) stance on ____?” And of course they got a bunch of cookie cutter opinions to plug in their brains and be able to turn off their critical thinking.
There was a time when the leftists there would put down such notions, telling everyone to think for themselves and that u fit where u fit. Theyd ask for the persons beliefs that they already held and ask them to debate those. All in the name of conversation. It was never about telling ppl what to think.
But here today, fuck man… im writing all this out to u bc u sound real. This shit here, all the talk of not voting or voting third party… its all the same. Its all sourced from the same, and half these accounts that spout this bs turn really vile when u suggest that damage control voting even if u suggest direct action and mutual aid in the very same comment.
Note that the Spanish anarchists still participate in their democracy. Bc they state one of their goals as making life more tenable under the current regime for everyone. If u want change, u need to still work within the system alongside whatever else u believe in. As said, if u didnt, the dictatorships u see around the world would be positively teeming with lefitst action and thought. But they aint. Bc thats not how things ever go.