this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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nonoNoNoNO
Not voting is voting. No politician is going to agree with you on everything and some are much much worse than others.
This is the hill I die on.
Of course it is. It's the "I don't care enough to even choose the lesser evil, so I'm ok with whatever result gets out of the ballot" vote.
Its the hill we all die on, since it affects so many. Even those who cant vote in those elections.
"why do they vote for lizards? cause if they didn't then a worse lizard might get in"
I could never down vote Douglas Adams.
Having said that, when was the last time you had two candidates with exactly the same policies. Keeping literal Nazis out is a start, then you can participate in primaries, local politics or whatever for faster change. If you don't participate then you are allowing the dickheads to choose.
PS by you I don't mean you personally
the establishment dems ran republican endorsements at the DNC...keeping nazi's out isnt on their platform
Finance fascism.
Then I hope you enjoy the system you have because it will never change.
And not voting changes the system how, exactly?
Not voting makes election fraud much easier and therefore getting people you definitively don't want in power.
You are not happy who you get to vote for in general election? Why not take part in elections that influence it. Local elections, midterms.
Why not volunteering in campaigns for candidates that you actually support? Maybe even running yourself?
Ajay promote ranked choice voting.
We recently had victories for multiple candidates that establishment didn't want to win.
And some are almost exactly the same but painted with two different colors of evil. Strategic voting forces you to choose one. If you think strategic voting is the answer, then that certainly is the hill you are going to die on because the false dichotomy of Kang and Kodos is absolutely going to kill you.
Strategic voting at least staves off the worst for a while. It's not the solution, but it is part of a solution.
There's no one single thing that will fix everything. Not protesting, not violent action, not voting. They are all part of a whole that is necessary to affecting lasting and positive change. Advocating that people not do one and only do the other lessens all action.
Absolutely agreed, my only point is that people treat it like it's a victory and celebrate like they've won the superbowl, when it's just death by a thousand cuts. People need to understand that strategic voting is not a victory even when it's successful, it's a "we haven't lost yet". The fighting doesn't stop there. There is so much more work to do and the people you voted into office are not going to do it no matter what party they are. The corruption is on both sides of the aisle. The corruption doesn't care what your personal politics are.
Sometimes "we haven't lost yet" is better than "we've already lost."
Nothing is a victory by that metric. Nothing is ever perfect, and criticizing the methods instead of the negativity is completely counterproductive.
If you want to make the argument that people shouldn't count their eggs before they're hatched, make that argument. Don't make a different argument then chastise people for not getting what you "mean" instead of what youre actually saying.
What are you suggesting? Because nothing short of nationwide militant revolution is going to change the facts for any country. "Both sides are the same" is the kind of rhetoric that got the US in the shit it's in now, for example. Yes, the system needs to be completely overhauled but that's not going to happen overnight. Nobody's saying strategic voting is the answer, it's making the best of a bad situation. Sometimes you need to make incremental progress by choosing the least bad option, because the alternative is worse. No, Kamala would not have been the best pick to be US president, but if you are honestly saying she'd have been the same as Trump you either haven't been paying attention for the last decade or are actively trying to disenfranchise voters. Either way, keep that shit to yourself.
That's nonsense, you need to keep your militant revolution shit to yourself. Protests and civil disobedience are extremely powerful motivators that can affect real change, yes, but they are not a militant revolution, and there are grassroots and progressive options for democratic change. No, the US may never lose the two-party system, but voting is not just something you do for a president, and it does not always mean simply walking into a voting booth, casting your vote and going home and shrugging if the result isn't the one you voted for.
Desegregation and women's suffrage were both accomplished with great effort by accepting neither party's position on the issues and actively forcing a third option onto the table. This was not accomplished by simply "voting for the democratic party a bunch of times".
I'm not suggesting violence, I'm saying that's the only thing that would change things overnight. Lasting change takes time. Desegregation and women's sufferage didn't magically spawn a third party, they were both accomplished by years of hard work forcing the two existing parties to acknowledge them as genuine issues. Throwing your hands up and saying "they're all the same anyway" does nothing but make way for the people working very hard to make things worse.
Try telling that to Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Good point, I'll vote for the biggest anti-ICE candidate in the next general election.
As you should.
Even if they don't promise to abolish the police, "Defund ICE" should be a winning proposal.