Decisions are made by those who show up. It’s as simple as that. It really is the very least you SHOULD do as a functional adult.
I get how not everyone wants to be active on campaigns, can donate, etc. But voting itself should definitely be a given. Same goes for small elections; if you don’t vote, someone else will decide for you. And you might not like what they decide.
Show the fuck up and vote.
I prefer “Pokemon Go To The Polls”, myself.
Either way, I’m not sure where OP’s “40 Million Registered Democrats” are coming from. Obama set a high water mark for Dem turnout in 2008 with 69M votes and still managed to carry out a win four years later with 65.9M votes. Hillary pulled in 65.8M votes four years after that. She just racked them in the wrong states this time around and lost to a guy who hit his own GOP high watermark of 62.9M.
Then, in 2020, the country implemented a temporary state of national mail-in voting. Turnout surged enormously. Republicans brought in 74M votes! Enough to win in a landslide in virtually any other year. But still not enough to beat the Dem 81M vote haul. An absolutely historic turnout by either party, all thanks to a change in the mechanism used to submit ballots.
But even using these very temporary figures, I have no idea where you’re finding a full 105.8M Democrats to vote for your candidate, relative to 2016. Set aside how much our antiquated and archaic machine-voting system suppresses turnout. Set aside the deliberate disenfranchisement by determined State Secretaries in democracy-hostile states and districts. Set aside voter disenfranchisement and intimidation, misinformation and scammy robocalls. Tell me which rock these 40M Democrats are hiding under.
And when you do, make sure there’s not another 40M Republicans hiding right alongside them. Because we played this game in Texas for nearly a decade. And what we discovered was a large surplus of lackadaisical conservatives, who came out to swamp the state in 2022. So much for simply being a “non-voting” state.
Never even fucking mind all the “Obama to Trump” voters who showed up in 2016 absolutely revolted by the ghoul Democrats put up as Obama’s replacement.
I’ve shown up every year since 2000 and other people keep making the decisions anyway because the people I vote for lose so goddamn always.
Vote in every election, not just once every 4 years.
Gee it’s almost like I did that because it’s exactly what I said.
Have you tried voting harder?
No, but thanks to mail in ballots I’ve tried voting without pants on. Doesn’t seem to be more effective but it’s much more comfortable.
I voted so hard.
Should we vote: yes. Will voting for establishment politicians prompted by the DNC/RNC fix America’s problems: no. Both parties have a status quo that they want to adhere to, which is why we will never see more progressive policies like Medicare-for-all.
My friends and a lot of my coworkers I were Bernie supporters in 2016 – donated, attended events, etc. I made sure I was registered to vote and strongly encouraged my friends to as well. Talking to them after the primary was depressing as fuck … most of them didn’t vote, and had the lamest excuses you could imagine. It was eye opening.
Alright: whatever. Great work guys, now we get to vote for Hillary, since it was going to be either her or Trump as president. Shockingly almost none of the aforementioned friends/coworkers voted for her, and several that admitted they couldn’t get off their asses to vote for him in the primary complained about how it was “stolen” from Bernie.
It was hard not slapping the shit out of them.
I can definitely understand the disillusionment of the Bernie Bros at that time. I was reaaaaally hoping he’d win the nomination.
Even as a European that whole situation really irked me. Especially the rhetoric of it being ‘Hillary’s turn’. Yes, she had a lot of political experience, but this is not an ‘it’s my turn!’ type of position. And Bernie getting shoved aside unceremoniously because it was ‘her turn’ didn’t do the Democrats any favors in the actual voting.
A lot of Bernie supporters had a post-Bernie hangover and got frustrated enough to check out of the political process. It sucks, but I understand. Let’s hope they’ll at least vote this time.
More Bernie voters voted for Clinton in 2016 than Clinton voters voted for Obama in 2008. They had a whole group called PUMA:
We [were] protesting the 2008 Presidential election because we refuse to support a nominee who was selected by the leadership rather than elected by the voters.
I get people who voted for him in the primary being upset.
It’s the people that didn’t out of sheer laziness or willful incompetence complaining I have no compassion or patience for – the number of those I knew of was shocking to me. Calling them “morons” is being charitable.
Man that’s a powerful drink they downed that it caused enough of a hangover for them to not even show up to the primary that was supposedly stolen from him.
Did you live in a state that was closely decided for Trump over Hillary? Because, if not, the apathy of your friends likely made no difference.
If only 5% more of TX registered voters went to the polls and voted Hillary, she would have won TX.
Voter apathy is a big deal.
So, you need a situation where you need 1 million more people to show up to vote, and to vote for Hillary, and to make sure nobody shows up and votes for Trump? That’s not very close.
800,000 votes is pretty close when there were 15.1 million registered voters. People just need to stop making excuses and go vote!
If the apathy wasn’t there, it would be easier to get people to the polls that are open for 2 weeks, the second of which polls are required to be open at least 12 hours.
I’m afraid that we might get Trump and Cruz again with this election, given the similar apathy this year.
Those people are still crooning about how counting the ballots is stealing the election and ignoring the will of the people to this day.
You have to drag these people by the hair to the ballot box even for the candidate they themselves support and they wonder why everyone else doesn’t just do the revolution for them.
Tell that to republicans in California lmao. I agree with the overall message because more overall voters is better for democrats, but let’s not pretend everything is so simple. We haven’t even mentioned the electoral college in this thread.
Good thing the party learn d their lesson and stopped running uncharismatic elderly moderates with terrible approval ratings…
Right?
How the fuck did they go from Obama to Hillary to this?
They didn’t, they TRIED to run Hillary in 2008. Obama was the party outsider who won by a tiny margin.
And then the Clinton supporters lost their shit and protested it, using the same sort of rhetoric Bernie supporters used eight years later.
The only people who dont vote for the least bad option are the people who have the luxary not to.
We gotta get us some Approval Voting so people can vote for their true favorite without worrying if it’ll accidentally give them a worse election result.
I agree, until that happens though, all of us are required to choose the least bad option.
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well if you don’t vote now, you no longer have to worry about that, as chances are there will be no more elections that the democrats could even try to win.
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What else are they going to do? Just run anyway with no support and torpedo the chances anyone beats the Cheeto king?
Have you considered… Pragmatism?
Not trying to win elections? They are in office right now, having won an election.
What are you even talking about?
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Claiming that the democrats are throwing the election to the fascists seems more like an excuse to justify your doing the same thing.
For sure, for sure.
Is this ever gonna happen, though? I see it like guaranteed under every single social media post that complains about how we don’t have a functional system and while I agree that fptp as a system is bad and horrible, it almost feels like a red herring at this point because it has such a low chance of ever being changed as each party in power, and any party that theoretically ever able to take power, would not stand to benefit from alternative voting. It’s like prison reform or free healthcare or making weed legal or any number of other things that has high levels of voter approval but conveniently never happen because it’s not in the best interest of the party, except this one is possibly more niche and easier to spread misinformation about.
Like I dunno, what’s the M.O. on getting this done? Get it approved in a couple local elections and then just hope it bubbles up from there? I know in oregon there’s supposed to be some referendum on it, but I kind of doubt it’s going to pass even though I’m gonna vote for it. I seriously don’t see it happening, at least on a federal level, without some extremely serious reform that basically completely reworks how the government currently functions.
Ranked choice voting has already been adopted for state elections in multiple states.
You’re thinking of a different voting method, but the answer is that you have to be an organizing member of the change you want to see. When Fargo switched to approval it was because a single person decided “fuck it, I’m gonna make this happen.” They built a team of volunteers and forced through a referendum, and ran a campaign to advertise and support it.
We’re advocating to take away power from those who have it. They will never allow it voluntarily, you have to make it happen.
And are selfish fucks
Edit: blaming others for not showing up to your uninterested non beneficial vote when no one is a hedgemony least of all voters. And refusing to try different tactics cause what if effort has to be applied and it feels pointless or you lose despite trying.
What a nice excuse for losing.
How is that an excuse?
Blaming people for not wanting to pick a lesser bad option. Blaming it on the people who aren’t paying as much attention and don’t see it as a “good” option to take the time to go fight against a system that doesn’t want people to vote at all.
That excuse where you pass the buck to other people despite there being action that can be done on the party side to inspire voters instead of just blame them for shortcomings.
If you play chess but only move a piece every 3rd turn and refuse to accept the opponent is now playing boxing chess instead of playing back or pushing back on the rules you are just making excuses.
I’m not blaming them for not voting, I am pointing out the only people who don’t are the ones who have the luxary to not, the ones who believe whatever outcome won’t actually affect them.
If you feel my statement applies to you, than perhaps it does, but if complaining that you get called a fair-weathered believer in democracy is your biggest issue, it kind of proves my point, does it not?
You aren’t like us.
The only people who dont vote for the least bad option are the people who have the luxary not to.
the only people who don’t are the ones who have the luxary to not
Yeah people have other reasons to not vote. You are coming from a really
differententitled place if you think that’s the only reason people don’t vote.You are making broad sweeping assumptions that put blame on others only. That’s fucked up. It’s not about me or you but everyone in the room.
Give me a reason somebody would choose to not vote against fascism not rooted in luxary.
If your want people to vote for you give them someone they can stomach. Clinton is a piece of shit and Biden is a zionist with dementia.
If somebody prefers the same genocide under Trump over Biden, there is nothing anybody can to say to them that will change their mind.
If somebody prefers a genocide against trans people in America, and the imprisonment and forced labor of poor people in America, over Biden, that is between them and their God.
But please, keep pretending you are fighting for Palestine when you aren’t even fighting for your own home.
It’s “luxury”
You still understood the point being made, that’s incredible!
It is kind of incredible, I normally don’t take people seriously who can’t spell.
And I don’t take people seriously if they are incapable of disagreeing with a point made.
I’m not addressing your point, just your typo. What an odd thing to say.
You joined a conversation to bring nothing of value then? I was right to not take you seriously.
No no no, you don’t understand, you can only ever be critical of one thing at a time, so either you don’t care about people not voting or you think every candidate and campaign the Democratic party has ever run was flawless, you have to pick one or the other /s
That’s not even counting unaffiliated and registered independent citizens that abstained.
“Hillary is the best choice, she’s guaranteed to win!” - the democratic party in 2016.
She was never the best choice of the Democrats available, but you must admit we had no idea how goddamned stupid people were back then. She should have won. Turns out, yeah, russia was listening.
I don’t know who down voted you? They have proven several times that Trump’s inner circle was with Russian businesses that controlled advertising on Facebook. It’s not that far of a stretch.
They probably worked harder than they had to. She really is an unlikable piece of shit.
Ridiculously qualified, intelligent, experienced, liberal as we could hope for at the time.
Just so unlikable. And shrill!! Oh, and not even a man. Pfft.
She lost the most winnable election she could hope for. Must be the Russians.
She wasn’t running against Woodrow Wilson. That’s literally the most winnable race as long as Taft doesn’t spoil the vote.
The russians helped a lot.
One thing not being mentioned here is that people were tired of establishment politicians who don’t change anything. So many people voted for Obama hoping for change, but then said “fuck it” and voted for Trump.
Yes. Very stupid, very gullible people. We have a lot of them. Because of reasons.
Hilary Clinton is an extremely condescending political elite that seems to have about as much humanity as a lizard.
She’s a perfect representation of the DNC.
Disagree. She’s spent the vast majority of her life in politics to do some good. As a woman, she broke a lot of rules and is still to this day mercilessly attacked for it.
Was she so perfect even the shitheaded communist idiots loved every single thing she did? Astoundingly, unbelievably, Nope. Was she the best choice for president of all the candidates on the ballot in 2016? Yes. Without a doubt
Is she forever going to be shit on for not being perfect in every way to all people? No. Just until the current living generations are dead.
Whatever. People need to shit on her, go for it. Shit yourselves a bust of Hillary you can shit on. You can meet all sorts of wonderful Limbaugh fans in there.
Lol I don’t think it’s a good thing if it takes everyone dying for your reputation to improve. That is a pretty wild argument.
Also, you’re just calling everyone that supports communism a shit headed idiot? For real?
And she was a terrible, weak candidate that brought nothing progressive to the table. That’s why she lost to Donald Trump.
It was painfully obvious that Bernie was the better candidate. He energized people. He would have stomped on Trump.
But instead the DNC had to give Hilary “her turn” and now we’re in this mess.
Being an angry Hilary supporter is ridiculous and honestly kind of funny.
Did we forget Bernie existed and got shafted that election?
Bernie lost. Even accounting for the shafting. I wish he didn’t. But it happens.
*establishment democrat, not liberal
FUCK. Goddamn fucking liberal is not liberal is bad is left is bougie is FUCK.
Talking with a hallucinating AI in the form of a lemmy community. Is anyone here over 25 and a registered American voter? Anyone? Couple of people, okay. Just a couple huh. Well, makes sense.
Um… ok. You have a problem, bud.
Al Gore should have won too, but here we are.
“Well, she may not be the best choice, but it’s her turn.” – insiders.
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Republicans haven’t won a popular vote in over 30 years or so. We all know its bullshit, democrats just have a vested interest in keeping up the illusion.
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This is a fatal flaw of forgetting that your vote affects state politics which, arguably, is more impactful on your day to day matters than federal issues.
Also if you push your state more to the left, the greater odds of the NPVIC being triggered which automatically enables a national popular vote.
Also if you push your state more to the left, the greater odds of the NPVIC being triggered which automatically enables a national popular vote.
Which would get promptly shut down by our corrupt as fuck SCOTUS.
Nope. Electoral delegation is completely in control of the states. That why some can partition them (think ME and NE).
SCOTUS can do literally anything it wants, they’re not constrained by any actual rules or laws or anything.
Oh, that’s just hyperbolic defeatism. That type of thinking is really not good for you.
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Uhmmm… That’s why you vote in primaries as well.
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Republicans haven’t won a popular vote in over 30 years or so.
George W. Bush won the popular vote in 2004.
And it only took checks notes 9/11.
1/3 is still a bad track record.
Republicans win the popular vote in the past 30 years except for that one time America was super bloodthirsty and wanted a hawk in the white house
The rest of the world has it figured out that when the USA talks about democracy, it’s fucking lying. Americans still have yet to figure that out.
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Hillary Clinton is our best candidate let’s convince the whole primary field to drop out because the democrat donors want Hillary and it’s her turn. Said the democratic party.
Also my vote in Delaware didn’t lose her the election. We have popular vote on a state by state basis. Can’t blame 95% of the democrats or independents that didn’t vote for her. They should be polling in the areas that will decide the election. I think the stat was 20,000 or so votes in the middle of the country decided it.
True but what’s the 95% democrats number mean?
You can’t blame 95% of the democrats or independents that didn’t vote for Hillary because their vote didn’t decide the election.
Pennsylvania was lost by 46,765 votes Michigan was lost by 10,704 votes Wisconsin was lost by 22,748 votesThese states are what lost the election a total of 2.18% 80,217 votes out of 14,630,990 votes in these 3 states. 6.32% of the people in America decided that election as there was 231,556,662 eligible voters and 138,884,643 voted.
Wouldn’t they be required for the states she did win?
Let me phrase it the opposite way…she won the electoral votes in other states despite the democrats and independents in other states who didn’t vote for her. You didn’t lose delaware when I voted green party for president in 2016. I am talking about the 95% of people who didn’t vote her did nothing wrong only the 2-3% in these 3 states got Trump the win.
I hear ya. But everyone who can vote, should vote. That’s all. It’s a duty as well as an honor.
How many of those were in the 5-6 states where their vote actually matters? Cuz I’m in a state thats been hard blue since like, Reagan.
We don’t have a true popular vote. If we did we’d never have a Republican president again.
I live in Utah. The difference in numbers in Utah is crazy. If everyone registered as other than Republican voted for Biden and just registered Republicans voted for Trump, Trump would still win by around 10%. Registered Democrats are outnumbered 2:1 by unaffiliated and 4:1 by Republicans.
In fact, “Unaffiliated” is the second largest group of active voters in Utah.
Yeah, you have a theocracy telling everyone how to vote. You think the populace will go against that when it means a fiery damnation for eternity?
Exactly. Mormonism is just as much a threat to the US (and any country they’re in) as the Evangelicals and fascists.
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/03/15/byu-will-require-incoming-students/
Or maybe, ANY Religion or “Registered Religious Practice” Organization will only get tax exemption status if they refrain from political activities like funding or sponsoring or advocating or supporting any said political group(s).
If any Scientology, Roman Catholic, Evangelical Organization, others are found to be supporting or funding or organizing for political parties including PAC donations or
briberylobbying efforts, they will immediately receive a 100% tax status at 100% tax with 100 year prison for every participating Religious person/member/leader who did the deed.
populace
I’m proud I didn’t vote Blue in 2016 and 2020. I’m not from the USA so it would be a voter fraud if I did.
That being said, dems are completely incompetent when it comes to elections, deliberately picking such terrible candidates like Hillary and Biden. I don’t believe there are actual people that voted Blue because of seeded candidate and not despite it.
Not to excuse the Democratic Party, but I would argue that it’s inevitable that they choose shit candidates for the presidency when we consider how much indoctrination Americans get over their capitalism/corporatism and how they justify and normalize the shit America did and the status quo, while omitting a lot of the important progressive historical events or (in the case of figures like MLK and Gandhi, or context behind Iran/Latin America/Israel&Palestine) don’t tell the full story. Like most Americans aren’t going to learn that the US denied millions of Jews, Roma, and other groups being displaced entry into the country right before the holocaust, leading to the deaths of millions. You also won’t learn that the US installed multiple fascist dictators, monarchs, etc. in countries after overthrowing democratic governments to serve corporate intrests or over their fear of leftist leaders. At best you might briefly touch on the wars with Iraq in government class or something.
Then you’re basically indoctrinated by history classes and society that anything left of American corporatism is communism. To the point that modern conservatives genuinely think FDR policies are extreme socialist/communist policies.
With our current voting system, an actually social democratic president would not get elected. FDR, Truman, Johnson, and Carter were the closest we could get in that regard, but those days are long gone.
That being said, I do think a lot of people genuinely voted for Hillary because of her and not solely because of Trump. Especially women and LGBTQ who wanted like… more gender equality. I think more accurately would be that there are very few white guys who voted for Hillary for any reason other than Trump being worse.
I agree with most of your points except with one about socialists being unelectable - I believe that Bernie would have moped the floor with Trump in 2016, and even more so in 2020. First woman president had a nice ring to it, but Hillary performed terribly, and with her being basicially an aristocrat of the establishment, lots of people hated her from the get go. They shanked Bernie so their corporate overlord donors wouldn’t get pissy, and voters treated that as betrayal. After very solid 8 years of Obama it get like Dems had this victory in their pocket regardless of what they do, and they commited to proving that hunch wrong. That’s at least the vibes I got from watching the elections from Europe, I did hear that Obama wasn’t as popular as he seemed to be.
And even still, considering the alternative, not voting was worse. And it continues to be worse.
I will never take a single vote for granted considering how many elections in very recent history were literally decided by a single vote.
It’s even important to vote in states and districts that are deep red/blue where the minority party is statistically unlikely to win, because if you don’t show up the numbers will never reflect the true demographic of people who want a change. Not to mention the arguably more important down ballot races for local elections. Change on a macro scale might be difficult, but change on a local level is very possible.
The way I look at it is yeah your one vote doesn’t count for much, but consider this; if you can convince 5 friends to join you in voting for the same candidate, that’s 6 more votes that the opposition will also need to scrounge up just to win by the same margin as if you did not vote at all. That’s not insignificant. Using your right to vote can swing the social dialogue more towards compromise in future elections if enough people turn out.
if you don’t show up the numbers will never reflect the true demographic of people who want a change
If Republicans actually gave a shit about this sort of thing you’d have a point. But they win by one vote and act like they’ve got a mandate.
if you can convince 5 friends to join you
This assumes I have 5 friends. Or any friends, really.
People forget downballot races end in single and double digit gaps way too often.
I’ve been saying: “Come on, don’t you want to say you were part of the last democratic election in American history?!”
Bit of a tangential point: Every vote counts but not every vote counts the same. Voters in California get less of a say than voters in Maine.
Depending on the accent, that’s a pretty good little poem.
The difference is quite big too. A Wyoming vote is apparently currently worth 2.87 times the average American’s vote. So probably like 5 times the most worthless vote…
Yup. More Dems and Lib Voters should move to the middle of nowhere. Just to ensure that swing votes do matter.
How many of the 40 million votes were in locked-in blue states?
Edit: this was an honest question, not some kind of gotcha
There’s more than just president up for election.
I would wonder this too. Also is there even a point of voting in a blue locked state beside the chance that there’s a huge surge in Republican voters? Like is there a difference between an area winning with 72% of the vote compared to 75% of the vote? Genuinely asking as I am a moron.
Illinois has Mary Miller and she’s not that far away from Champaign county which is where UIUC is located.
Not that many. Guess why they’re locked-in blue states.
Do you have a source? California is locked in blue, but also just has a huge population.
I’m sure at least one of them was like “Ah shit, fuck, that was today??? I thought it was Tuesday today, god fucking damnit”
But election day is always Tuesday… Haha
It’s only Hillary, said the DNC in 2016.
If you vote for her SHE’LL WIN 😡
Apparently there are “9” comments here, but I only see three.
I’m good with that.
The other six would be from instances you’re not federated with, but they are with you.
Or posted by trolls that have been effectively blocked
I never knew thats what that meant. Im on world but id there one that generally accepts all?
Trust me, there’s a reason those are defederated.
