claim 1: “voting doesn’t change anything”

Never forget the recent case of Kris Mayes, who refuses to uphold the Arizona supreme court’s sweeping ban of abortion.

Kris Mayes only won her 2022 election by 280 votes. Voting changes things.

claim 2: “but genocide joe”

Yep. Hold that fucker’s feet to the fire. He has blood on his hands

But trump has promised to be indisputably worse.

I won’t tell you how to vote. I just encourage you to vote. You’re not radical for ditching the only miniscule right the state has granted you to do some small aid for your neighbors.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 months ago

    if people on the left refuse to vote because both candidates are terrible, and people on the right are going to come out in droves for God King Trump

    You don’t even need that much. With the proper electoral split, Trump could win with an little as 42% of the popular vote.

    But that’s a structural problem. And it’s a proven perpetuated by those centrist voters happy to see elections break whichever way they lean.

    Convincing someone who isn’t going to vote to vote for you is 1 vote, convincing someone who would have voted for your opponent to vote for you is 2 votes.

    Not by the math of the electoral college.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
      1·
      6 months ago

      None of that changes the fact that convincing someone voting for your opponent to vote for you instead is more valuable than convincing someone who isn’t voting to vote for you.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        convincing someone voting for your opponent to vote for you instead is more valuable

        You do not add any value by convincing an Alabama Republican to vote for a Democrat, unless that Alabama Republican is part of the electoral college slate.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
          2·
          6 months ago

          That’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand of “is not voting effective?”

          In places where Democrats are going to chase votes: if shifting right will get them 50 votes from people who would have voted Republican, and shifting left would get them 99 votes from people who wouldn’t have voted, they’re going to shift right. Not voting makes your voice less important.

          In places where Democrats aren’t chasing votes (such as Alabama), not voting doesn’t get you more say in politics. In fact, it very much can get you less when Democrats ignore that state. In 2020 Trump won 60% of the vote in Alabama, but only 40% of eligible voters voted for him. How many Democrats didn’t vote because “it doesn’t matter anyway” sending the message to both Democrats and Republicans that their opinion doesn’t matter because they aren’t going to vote anyway?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 months ago

            In places where Democrats are going to chase votes

            In 2018, Democrats spent north of $250M in Tennessee and South Carolina to lose Senate seats by double digits.

            Nevermind the billions Hillary vaporized by going all in on Iowa.