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.

  • Clam_Cathedral
    5·
    8 months ago

    The US is in this weird place where voters still hold nearly all the power in elections, but nobody feels like their vote matters because they never get what they want. This is by design, the general election is designed to be about compromise and getting the closest representation of the will of all the country that one person can possibly hope to be. Biden and Trump are who the averaged (Voting) American thinks should run the country whether you like it or not.

    Primaries are for making statements to the candidates and the country then general elections are where, in a democratic system with a one person branch of government and multiple parties, you will almost certainly have to compromise at least a little because somewhere in the process your perfect ideals were overruled.

    Not voting when able is throwing away any right to complain, if you didn’t exercise your right to representation in the primary, then you voluntarily waived any standing to complain about the general election candidates, but should still choose one as this is the only step in the presidential election process where one candidate is guaranteed to lead the country and not voting is again throwing away your most accessible tool for representation.

    This doesn’t mean you aren’t able to take other actions to influence policy after an election like protest, demonstrations, or even seeking some level of office yourself.

    This needs to be more known, Not voting isn’t protesting a candidate, it’s only hurting those who agree with you most.

    Third party is only slightly less useless with our current election system, at least it exercises ones representation, but is counter intuitive as it also makes whichever of the larger two parties that more closely aligns with you less likely to win. And this becomes more and more true the larger the 3rd party becomes and skews the whole point about the president being the averaged choice away from the center. Currently it’s better to influence one of the major parties instead similar to what we’ve seen with the democratic party and unions and the republican party and authoritarianism.

    • anticolonialist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      voters still hold nearly all the power in elections

      Studies have shown that is a lie. Voters have zero impact on politicians or policies, only money has that power.

    • aldalire@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      Not voting when able is throwing away any right to complain, if you didn’t exercise your right to representation in the primary, then you voluntarily waived any standing to complain about the general election candidates, but should still choose one as this is the only step in the presidential election process where one candidate is guaranteed to lead the country and not voting is again throwing away your most accessible tool for representation.

      That makes sense actually. I’ll grant you that the primaries are important. But seeing as it’s now a Biden vs Trump, voting is pointless. Also, I don’t vibe with the rationale for not voting third party. If everybody just votes for whomever they please and most align with, without having to please a political argument saying that a third-party vote is a waste of a vote, then yeah maybe a third party might win.

      But in America there’s this weird mind worm of “oh, the two party system is broken! Let’s vote into it because voting third party is a waste of a vote.” Suddenly everyone becomes a game theory expert come election day >_<

    • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
      1·
      8 months ago

      >Not voting when able is throwing away any right to complain

      no, it’s not. i can (and will) complain (loundly) whether i vote or not (i always do anyway).

      but i don’t vote for cops so i don’t vote for da, ag, sheriff, or constable. i can still say “they are bad people, i won’t be voting for them in the future, and you shouldn’t either”.

      and this is just as true about primaries as general elections. i am not responsible for fixing the democrats or republicans or any other party. i’m not responsible for their corrupt intra party politics. and i will notbe complicit in pushing them into power with my vote, no matter what happens in the primary.

      i have every right to complain.