i don't think not voting creates enough awareness at such scale. HK was a great example of protest abstention, but the main difference IMO is the dimensions: HK being somewhat geographically small compared to a whole country allows for efficient grassroots protests. coordinating such an effort at state level is incredibly ambitious to me, and as long as US folks keep bowing to their state i find it unthinkable that they could organize so properly and so swiftly to make not voting an efficient political action. thus i think defensive voting is better than not voting at all. i'll be more prone to protest abstention once either the US starts burning stuff for real (france is a good example) or the US empire fragments enough to be "local". rolling over and letting things be just allows the state to consolidate power, only strengthening the empire