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you realize this is talking about not voting in a PRIMARY, for a nomination he can’t lose, right? tlaib is not suggesting that they don’t vote in the general for biden. she is saying write uncommitted in the PRIMARY. personally I don’t think that will pressure them enough. a large number of people denying biden a vote in the general might make them get the picture though.
Yeah, it’s absolutely ridiculous how easily people just accepted that primaries are just a joke, that the DNC can hold them when they want to and just decide on their own when they don’t. Telling people to vote for Biden now, when he is not yet by any stretch an official candidate, is to forfeit a democratic right. They openly say they’re ready to rubber-stamp a decision of party oligarchs.
The DNC definitely heavily sways the outcome of the primaries. They use their superdelegates as a cudgel to fool people into thinking any other candidate has no chance of winning, then they use the media to repeatedly report how far ahead their chosen candidate is (including supers). Idk why most people are afraid to vote for someone who’s behind in the polls during a primary, but they are. Apparently the average person wants very badly to be on the winning team. I saw this first hand when I was a delegate for Sanders in 2016.
“People” don’t even have a basic understanding of how our elections or government works. Anyone that refuses to vote in the primaries has absolutely no right to bitch about what candidates are “picked”.
The comments after the 2016 Democratic party primary was equally hilarious and depressing. Hearing “the election was stolen from Bernie!!!11111” from people that didn’t vote in the primary was obnoxious, and the dumb-asses expected me to agree with them. “No, you moron: he lost the primary. He lost because lazy fucks like you couldn’t take 30 minutes out of your day to go vote for him.”
Of the dozen Sanders supporters I knew at the time 3 of us actually went out and cast a ballot for him.
I caucused for him in 2016 and it was pretty depressing how many people wouldn’t vote for him “because he’s so far behind”. First, who gives a fuck? It’s a primary, vote for the candidate you actually want. Second, he wasn’t really behind. He was behind when including the superdelegates who have only gone against the popular vote one time in all of history. Had Bernie had the popular vote at the end of the polling period, all of the supers would have cast votes for Sanders. But you can’t explain this to people. Sure, you can tell them, but they aren’t going to actually listen, hear, and comprehend what you’re saying. All they know is they want to vote for the winning candidate, because of course primaries are a sporting event and only being on the winning team matters. I lost a lot of faith in people in 2016, and I haven’t really regained any of it since. Matter of fact, I’ve lost considerably more faith since.
I can sort of understand their reasoning – I’m with you in that I don’t agree with it and think it’s self defeating, but I can see how they could arrive at that conclusion.
What really killed me is how many of my friends and colleagues that hard-core loved Bernie Sanders didn’t vote because they either “forgot” to, didn’t register to vote after being slammed with reminders to, didn’t bother to look up when/where to vote, or just couldn’t be fucked to make the effort. Even after countless hours talking about how great he is, posting on social media, and even donating to his campaign.
That is devastating. It’ll be a real tragedy if democracy dies to apathy, after so many people literally died to give it to us.
lmao anyone would be so much better than biden in the dem seat
Yeah, in the last primaries he was the least inspired, least charismatic candidate. He had effectively no platform beyond keeping the status quo. He wasn’t the worst candidate only because the DNC, against its own rules, gave platform to an actual Republican billionaire.
It’s wild for me that people defend him before he even is a candidate.
its north korean style adherence to the “great leader”
Make n"none of the above" a valid candidate. If it gets more thanx%, remove everyone, hold a new election. Rince and repeat until you get a clear winner.
Very few people would use this making it the exact same as refusing to vote.
If that were gonna work, third party candidates would get way more than they do, since that’s effectively what voting for them is.
No. Cause if they win they actually win and I’m really not sure I actually want Russian friend, or Kennedy but not really.
A “none of the above” option that sends it back to primary or at least a debate and then new election would be vastly different.
The real solution is a multi-candidate system and then proportional representation. The radicals would never get in then because there isn’t actually that many people who support them, but when there’s only two options (or effectively only two options such as in the UK) you have to pick one or the other, or not vote. So normal people end up voting for insane mad man who shouldn’t be in charge of a light switch, simply because there’s no better option.
Every user who makes one of these “vote for the guy you warned me 4 years ago would make trump 2 inevitable” posts is getting a block.
It takes an unfathomable brass neck to see muslims resist genocide joe for years only for white liberals to swoop in every election year chanting “well the other guy wants to kill you faster” as if that makes your guy any better.
Get a fucking spine or go back to reddit.
I live in LA and there is an electoral system that hands this city to the Democrats in single party rule, even if they believe in Republican policies. I watched the person who got the most votes for president lose twice in my life since I’ve been voting age.
Yep.
The only true way to waste your vote is to not use it.
If you want to protest, spoil your ballot.
These all feel like freakout beatings in attempt to get the voters back from the bad polling numbers of Biden.
I’m not sure they will have the impact desired.
Ever heard of consent?
If you hate both candidates then vote third party.
Got it, should riot instead.
You should.
You won’t though.
A riot on your own is just a tantrum. There’s no point of you’re not organised.
Well that’s the left fucked then.
I’m convinced that the CIA is somehow causing the American left to be unable to organize, because with organization comes power, and the left having power would mean a shift away from corporate rule.
The CIA killed socialist politician in my country.
And I’m not some banana south-american dictature, I’m in western europe.
Closest they seemed to get was the Black Panthers. So it was the FBI rather than the CIA that busted that in.
Like by infiltrating, arresting, and executing them? It’s the FBI. You know about COINTELPRO, right? There are tons of FBI documents talking about how they did exactly that. Or like… The drug war?
This shit is recent and still going on. I have a friend who’s an organizer. The FBI comes and knocks on his door every April just to tell him they’re watching him. This happens to every visible organizer in the Seattle area. I mean, fucking Durkan and Robert Child’s.
The US apparatus of state violence primarily targets the left. We live under a continuous counterinsurgency program and it’s mostly targeted and keeping the left from organizing. Go read Life During Wartime and watch Trouble episode 6.
There’s huge and well documented paper trail. The CIA prevents democracy aborad, the FBI prevents it at home.
Who’s the one that tried to get MLK Jr. to off himself due to him getting a bit too socialist? FBI? Whoever it was was probably also involved in his shooting.
That would be the FBI.
Spoil your ballot. Sends the message that they’re all wankers and you get to draw a cock on the paper!
I don’t think they count the cocks on the ballots either
“That’s Republican, we count those!”
-Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
“That’s a solid burn.”
~ Liz Lemon, also 30 Rock.
A vote for the dick is a vote for trmp
You mean “give Trump less competition”. Trump voters will not be spoiling their ballots.
You must like the ass blaster 5000 more than the whips because you scream less.
Instructions unclear. Do I fill in “Fuck You” as a candidate write-in?
I’ll start voting if they get rid of party primaries.
That logic is pretty shaky, you can say something roughly the same about voting. How can you distinguish a reluctant tactical vote from an endorsement of the current democratic model? I’m not even making that argument, I think voting is probably sensible. But this is a pretty bad argument.
Whilst I’m not in US with it’s Power Duopoly system, were I’ve lived I’ve always made a point of voting and if none of the options appeals to me, I just vote blank.
Abstention out of principle does get mixed with abstention out of laziness, out of disconnect from politics or simply because of not being able to go vote, but a blank vote is a statement of “I did go to the trouble of going to vote just to register my dissatisfaction with all available options”.
I’ve also been on the other side (manning a voting place) and I don’t recommend spoiling your vote (if voting with a paper ballot) as whilst the people talling the votes will indeed see your beautiful artistic depiction of male genitalia or read your strongly worded message of disgust with the selection of candidates available, it won’t go beyond them as in the tally it just gets mixed with people that incorrectly filled-in the ballot (such as multiple marks, marks significantly outside the box or, in the US, hanging chads).
