Voting is the bare minimum. You want real change do MORE, not LESS. What a shit take. “it isnt working so lets give up”
And gtfo with your “what we need is a revolution” shit, if that’s how you feel go start one, or accept that you not voting is you giving up, because what real concrete steps are you taking besides not voting, and shitposting about it.
Voting is the bare minimum. You want real change do MORE, not LESS. What a shit take. “it isnt working so lets give up”
In other words: “We refuse to represent you, but now it’s your fault.”
Sort of, yes. It is our fault for not being more active in politics. But its not like its directly our doing, its more that our inaction simply makes it worse, and acting like the people who are actually trying to improve things are big dumb idiots while doing even less than they are is a pretty shit take.
I will say politics is a corrupt mess. Voting doesn’t do a lot, but acting like doing nothing is better is just stupid.
Voting doesn’t do a lot, but acting like doing nothing is better is just stupid.
Blaming voters when the people they elect don’t do what they were elected to do just lets the politicians off the hook.
How do you plan on holding them accountable? Not voting at all does nothing. Voting for somebody else might help, voting in primaries even more so, as does being otherwise involved in politics.
Not voting isn’t anything, its nothing, its doing nothing, its accomplishing nothing.
Definitely do other stuff too, protest, email your reps, plan your revolution, whatever, but voting is an easy entry point, and ignoring it is a mistake. Vote vermin supreme for all I care just go vote.
I’m already voting. But every time I express disappointment at the results, people who ar happy with the results act like I’m not doing enough, and that the worthlessness of the available choices is my fault.
Well you’re allowed to feel like the choices are shit, they def are. I don’t think I’d lay the blame for a broken system at the feet of somebody already doing what they reasonably can, which you are. Imo its a systemic problem that I think will require voting reform to fix, that’s fundamentally driven by the 2 party duopoly.
I’m not frustrated with you, I’m more upset with the OP for acting like the best option is to give up. Its definitely a shit show but unless we’re ready to go full revolution we have to contribute in whatever way we can. The simplest being to vote. Obviously more is better, but doing anything at all is better than like a third of Americans, and I’d argue better than halfish the rest of the 2/3rds but that’s my own political opinions.
Change on the national level will never occur through voting. If their is a study or research that shows that voting makes an impact, I’m all for it.
My point was to create awareness that just voting isn’t enough.
2 words- Electoral College
Edit: direct action : action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most immediately effective means (such as a boycott or strike)
Two words and no thought.
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On the contrary, you’ve made me think about this more than I would have. Thanks, I learned that there is 1 in 60 million chance that your vote matters. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning- twice.
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Incorrect
Our results suggest that voters may struggle to truly hold government coalitions accountable, as objective performance metrics appear to be largely out of the immediate control of political coalitions.
The science says otherwise.
The literal first line of this paper is “Retrospective voting is vital for democracy.” You do not understand what the study examines or concludes.
Oh, I don’t,
In the American Political Science Review (the premier journal in political science), Adam Dynes and John Holbein carefully and rigorously measure how parties affect economic, education, crime, family, social, environmental and health outcomes. They find zero difference between Republican and Democratic state governments. Source
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were going by the interpretation of the prestigious USA Today, a well known science organization, and definitely not a shitty news outlet with a vested interest in misconstruing studies if it will grab the attention of uncritical thinkers who will then arrogantly repeat these stupid ideas on the Internet.
Then I refer you back to the study Noisy Retrospection: The Effect of Party Control on Policy Outcomes referenced in the prestigious USA Today.
Then I will again refer you to the very first sentence in that study. Wow, your combination of arrogance and lack of understanding is remarkable.
That means, in the authors’ view, that “retrospective voting” can’t really work: If the point of voting is for voters to punish parties for making their lives worse or reward parties for making their lives better, and party control doesn’t affect their near-term lives at all, then that kind of punishment and reward is going to be largely arbitrary, not driven by real changes in well-being. Source: I am that dense
Nah, voting at least does something. A very tiny bit of something, the smallest possible amount in fact, but it’s more than nothing, which makes it preferable to praying. Don’t stop voting if you’re able to, that’s exactly what republicans want, hence all their attempts to make voting as hard and inaccessible as possible. Or if you’re not gonna vote, at the very very least do some form of direct action, like protests or mutual aid or something
While voting does not, and has not historically brought about significant, necessary change, it might get you a small victory before the moderates claim total victory (see the American civil rights movement).
Being anti-electoral without advocating other options for political action in a climate that emphasizes voting as the method of political action has a political nihilism to it thats kinda shitty. I don’t think the answer to good political mobilization is screaming from the hilltops that voting is pacification and therefore you should toss out voting as political action, even if you are right about voting having a pacifying effect, and even if the impacts of voting are frequently minimal.
Even if the impact is insignificant, you should still vote. Having a diverse set of tools is one of the things that have gotten big successes in the past.
Ultimately, direct action gets the goods. The big victories of the civil rights movement came directly from political action, not voting. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote.
By all means vote. Especially for local issues. But, like you said, change on the national level only occurs through direct action. People should be aware that voting isn’t enough. You need to join an organization, a movement.
I agree with you, I just think this meme is sending the wrong message
Nice try.
voting alone doesn’t change shit and I think people miss that point heavily. voting blue doesn’t fix the country, no shit no one is saying that, but it does make it a whole lot easier to make change when the president is just a regular POS and not a despotic dictator
I’m sure the people that agree with this aren’t up voting the post, or down voting comments they disagree with, like hypocrites.
isn’t the impotence of Lemmy voting there purest expression of voting?
Yeah I didn’t vote while living in battle ground state in 2016, and nothing of consequence occurred because of the inaction from people like me.
Similarly, I voted third party and our state is no longer purple. It’s just a sea of loud fascists and we can’t have anything good.
