Exactly. I’ve pretty much lost faith in people. If we made voting a requirement, I’m afraid we would just get more stupid voters.
I understand, and I did urge many people to come out and vote for Kamala.
But if someone were to tell me they’ve had relatives die in Gaza and felt the administration was both ignoring them and supplying weapons to the IDF…I just don’t think “Well the other party is even worse” is a great case for voting. I would understand someone feeling they have no good option.
I accept that this is a complex topic though, maybe a bit too weighty for a tangent.
Thank you.
After the election, my friend made a post saying ‘I am not happy that Trump won. But since I didn’t vote, I am not responsible.’ As I told him before election day, ‘It doesn’t even matter if your vote changes anything. What matters is that you saw evil, had the chance to do something to stop it, and chose to do nothing.’
I don’t know if I can forgive him.
I hope it ends with me singing Bella Ciao somewhere in the streets lol
I understand that, however, (and not aimed at you but at the voters in question) to not vote for Harris because Biden never waved his magic wand to make the whole Gaza episode miraculously end angers the shit out of me. IMHO none of this was Harris’ (or Biden’s) fault; it was the fault of people who are too lazy, insufficiently objective, too short-sighted, too selfish, and incapable of any level of critical thought. These people were too lazy to recall that Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the Muslim travel bans, and possibly much more that I don’t recall at the moment.
Because of these fucks, and others like them, the whole west is in peril now.
And that ‘I didn’t vote for either of them, I bear no responsibility for what’s happening’ is working out so well for them!
“Waved his magic wand”? Come on now.
There’s a big difference between not miraculously ending the conflict, versus supplying aid and weapons to the people doing the bombardment, blocking any international condemnation, and just simply not letting people air their grievances. Zero speakers for Palestine at the DNC.
I get the political calculus – that Biden, bizarrely, was being painted as being anti-Israel, so they bent over backwards to avoid that image. But that’s not much comfort for those people for whom this was a primary and moral issue.
Firstly, can we at least agree that some proportion of anger should go to the people who ran the campaign? I don’t think they had to do that much to get the pro-palestine vote out, but they basically just thumbed their nose at those people. Complacency at best.
Secondly, this is “bernie bros” all over again. Always having to blame people on the left for insufficient loyalty, that’s not how elections work. (plus in both cases it’s debatable whether we’re even talking sufficient numbers)
I can’t help but think that the reason was something like “she’s a woman” or “she’s not white”. Or “I’m voting for Trump but don’t want to admit it”.
If someone refuses to give a reason then it’s probably one they know would be poorly received.
Basically, it is saying I voted for Trump because he is evil.
From this non-merkin position, the support for 45/47 equals those who voted for min plus those who didn’t care that he might get exhumed.
But if voting was nearly totality of eligibles and negated the “not my responsibility” thinkers that might be some sort of consolation and longer term benefit.
I looked it up on Wilipedia (for what that’s worth as a source): 31% of eligible voters voted Trump, 30% Harris, 39% 3rd party or no vote.
God fucking damn it.
There’s going to be something like the Reichstag Fire, and Trump will declare Martial Law and try to crush all non-Maga elements of the Government, Military, The Press, etc.
What will ultimately be decisive is how the Pentagon will react.
These are my feelings.
Would’ve been nice if one of them were able to dislodge Bibi’s hand and arm up their butt long enough to at LEAST acknowledge that group of people, instead of ignoring them completely. I’m mad at the voters, as well… but I could foresee this happening, despite how “unfair” some may find it.
As mentioned before everybody is responsible for the consequences of their actions. Not voting is an action too. You cannot not act. He chose not to vote and therefore he is as responsible for the election result as millions of other non voters. If you stand next to somebody bleeding to death and choose to do nothing you are coresponsible for the person’s death.
Living in a democracy requires to be informed about the political process and to take part in it. What democracy can offer - freedom of speech, liberty, rule of law etc. - is not a given. It has to be earned all the time. Those freeriders who want the advantages of democracy but don’t care to do anything for it to continue will now feel the consequences of their action: democracy is about to die. And it will take a long time for it to come back to life again, if at all.
I can have some respect for people who realize, “These issues are too complicated for me to understand, so I’ll just let everyone else figure it out.” I know there are issues like that that I, personally, have tried to figure out, but the level of discourse on both sides has gotten to the point where I legitimately can’t figure out who is right or wrong, or at least, more right than wrong. If we were to vote on such issues, I’d recuse myself.
But when 39% of the voting population can’t look at someone like Trump, and figure out if he’s bad or not? I know there’s a lot of stupid and ignorant people in the world, but if they make up 39% of the population, we’re so screwed no matter what we do.
With your “bleeding to death” example, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect most adults to have a basic grasp of the “ABC” model of first aid: Airways, Breathing, Circulation. Check those three things in that order, and take what action you can to address them. But at some point, the injuries can be so severe that ABC just won’t cut it.
But Trump shouldn’t even get to the “B” stage of that analysis.
I think that’s it in a nutshell, though: the majority of Americans don’t believe that. They are so toxically individualist that they don’t see any collective responsibility at all, or very little. They’d rather give to charity than pay taxes, in part because that act can be made to be about THEM, the individual giver.
I’m more individualist than collectivist myself, due to my American upbringing, but a lot of Americans don’t seem to see that they have any responsibility to the broader society that isn’t transactional.
Fair point, indeed, and voting is never entirely objective. Few things we do are.
At the risk of beating the Hitler/Nazi reference to death, the Nazis came to power in 1932 after winning just 37% of the actual vote in a multi-party election. It doesn’t take a majority to destroy a democracy; it only takes a majority not giving a fuck one way or the other.
I should add too, that I get it. A month or two ago I would also have criticized anyone that sat out the election, as there was very clearly a far worse evil in just about every way.
But then I heard Mehdi Hasan make a very strong case, including stories of people who had lost family members and how they were coming to terms with this election. That people can have such a strong grievance with an administration’s actions that even if the other side is worse they can’t bring themselves to endorse them in any way.
And though I think it is largely based on anger, I think it is possible to defend it rationally. e.g. that this election is Hobson’s choice, but maybe seeing this vote slip away, one side will give a good option to those who support Palestine next time.