Not voting is a vote for whoever won. That's not like a complicated concept. Ambivalence means you're cool with either result, and you've contributed to the end result by not contributing at all.
The problem is when people want to not vote and then complain about a result they don't like. If you really don't see a difference between Trump and Harris, but you're not happy about the pedophilia, the rape, the military garrison enacting martial law, the higher taxes, lower wages, losing healthcare, kidnappings, and paving the rose garden, then you should have voted for something else.
But the moral prohibition on siding with any administration that endorses genocide will force a different flavor of the exact same logic that centrist liberalism has depended on for so long: hold your nose and align with the least worst thing. Only the least worst thing will no longer be the mild, ethics-agnostic emptiness of modern Western liberalism, nor will it be the multitude of barbaric authoritarians and their secret prisons. It will be communal solidarity, or else nothing, a walking away from all of this. Countless otherwise pragmatic people who would in any other circumstance choose liberalism by default will instead decide none of this is worth the damage to one’s soul. They will instead support no one, vote for no one, wash their hands of any ordering of the world that results in choices no better than this. And the obvious centrist refrain—But do you want the deranged right wing to win?—should, after even a moment of self-reflection, yield to a far more important question: How empty does your message have to be for a deranged right wing to even have a chance of winning? Of all the epitaphs that may one day be written on the gravestone of Western liberalism, the most damning is this: Faced off against a nihilistic, endlessly cruel manifestation of conservatism, and somehow managed to make it close.
— Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Chapter 7, Lesser Evils; italic emphases his, bold emphasis mine.
Wait, I threw in the Rose Garden because it's a stupid example of a pointlessly shitty decision by the current president. Is that the one you want to defend? In that list? That's the paved hill you want to die on? Or are you just picking that one because you don't want to admit you're on board with the rest?
Or should we just skip all that and jump to the part where you explain why you think it isn't accurate?
It's as if they are obstinately refusing to learn from their mistakes. Personally, I think their incompetence is feined, just like pro wrestling. It's one big club, and you ain't in it.
True. But the sad reality is that the American version of "democracy" is one where unless you vote for (or cheer-lead for) the Democrats, you're gonna be accused of anything from being a Russian spy to a secret MAGA supporter. It's absolutely psychotic behavior from them. The whole point of a democracy imo is that you get to vote according to your own conscience, not forced to compromise yourself into voting against your preferred candidate and for arming a foreign genocide, for example. The Dems seem perfectly happy to make those compromises so long as their own lives aren't too negatively impacted. That's why they lost a lot of left votes, that and the fact they were too busy courting conservative voters to make a single concession to the left.
You don’t get to say that in a system with first past the post. You seem to misunderstand the situation here. @themeatbridge has it correct. If you don’t vote then you’re voting for the person that won, you’re not voting against the person that lost. In FPTP that’s the only outcome. Your “conscience” might not let you choose to vote for a Democrat because you think that it’s just going to perpetuate the same genocide, but then when the genocide gets much much worse under a Republican you are directly to blame. You don’t get to dodge the issue anymore. This is the same for any issue, especially if the candidate actually campaigned on it.
Maybe in an ideal world. But I think the logic of lesser evil voting is pretty unassailable in the US electoral system. It’s not true political autonomy but it can keep fascists out of office.
I think everyone on the left (from a US perspective, including democrats) needs to take a deep breath and realize we need to work together right now to defeat fascism, despite our strong disagreements.
in the US you have to first assess the situation. if the worst candidate may win, you should vote the lesser evil. if the lesser evil will likely win without your vote, it's time to support a third party that's even better.
they still reflexively feel like they need to verbally punish whoever is within reach whenever The Shit Goblin does another fuck up. the movement is cooked
Not voting is a vote for whoever won. That's not like a complicated concept. Ambivalence means you're cool with either result, and you've contributed to the end result by not contributing at all.
The problem is when people want to not vote and then complain about a result they don't like. If you really don't see a difference between Trump and Harris, but you're not happy about the pedophilia, the rape, the military garrison enacting martial law, the higher taxes, lower wages, losing healthcare, kidnappings, and paving the rose garden, then you should have voted for something else.
— Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Chapter 7, Lesser Evils; italic emphases his, bold emphasis mine.
Oh no, not the rose garden!
No, it's a completely inaccurate one though.
Rose garden is equal to mass murder of brown people to liberals.
Wait, I threw in the Rose Garden because it's a stupid example of a pointlessly shitty decision by the current president. Is that the one you want to defend? In that list? That's the paved hill you want to die on? Or are you just picking that one because you don't want to admit you're on board with the rest?
Or should we just skip all that and jump to the part where you explain why you think it isn't accurate?