No. Consumer framing is precisely the wrong framing for this. It’s not buying a box of corn flakes.
The franchise exists as a civic right, but moreover, as a responsibility to pick the best leadership for your country. You owe your country that. You owe your fellow citizens that. When you fail to deliver, you’re surrendering that responsibility to those who deserve it least.
People really need to learn to separate the responsibilities of democracy from the invisible hand of the market. They’re not the same, and the misunderstanding leads to, well, Trump.
You know what? I don’t need to count these people to judge them. A wrong, selfish choice is a wrong, selfish choice. Did it swing the last election? Maybe, maybe not, but regardless, this has to be called what it is.
I didn’t use consumer framing. You’ve just chosen to interpret my remarks that way as a jumping off point.
In terms of responsibility to pick the best leadership, some people might see that as spanning multiple elections. That ticking a box on the basis of “not as bad as the other guys” could be strategically worse than giving that party a lower majority, or even a loss, if it means next time they actually campaign on the issues you care about.
I’ll say again, because I know what the responses are likely to be: I told everyone I could to vote democrat. But I understand the reasons why some sat it out.
Or maybe the party will write you off as a non-voter and ignore you.
Think about it - some people don’t vote because they care about issues; other people don’t vote because they’re lazy fucks. How can political parties know which group you belong to?
I’ve already documented that leftist supporters of the Republican Party make up an electorally relevant share. See above discussion of Green Party voting.
Pew says the 4% of the country are members of the progressive left. We’ve already documented that 0.25% - 2.9% of the country supports Republicans by voting Green. On either end, that’s a decent chunk of that 4%. The Left tends to have high voting turnout. But 14% of them didn’t vote in 2020. So add those to the group being pitted in the OP.
.14*.04= 0.56%, not electorally trivial. So pit them!
I’ve pitted Green voters here in the past. There’s at least one former Green voter who is still active here. But he doesn’t need the pitting as he is responsible and intelligent. And let’s not dismiss the topicality of screaming into the void.
More seriously, during my 2024 GOTV activity I encountered a handful of potential leftie nonvoters, but while memorable they were few in number. But 2024 was hardly a landslide, so every tenth of a percentage point counts.
It’s not fair, but yes. If you don’t vote, next time they’ll look for votes in the center, which is bigger and easier to win over. If you do vote, maybe they’ll try not to lose you.
The two parties are not the same. Republican extremists can pull their party to the right, but the best progressives can do is delay the Democrats’ slide to the center. You can’t do that by not voting.
Jesus. Here, I’ll put in the years to help you: …creating the ACA marketplace and extending dependent coverage to 26 (2010), creating Medicare drug price negotiation (2022), adding insulin caps for seniors (2022), expanding the ACA subsidies (2021), adding a child tax credit that reduced poverty by a huge chunk (before the GOP gutted it) (2021), and expanding broadband to rural areas (2021).
