• undercrust@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Sitting on the sidelines while the world burns around you and complaining about it is highly effective. Withholding a protest vote (for either side) and supporting voter apathy is lame as hell.

    At least when the capitalists are fucking you, regardless of who wins, you can smugly yell “I didn’t consent”.

    • thoro@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Withholding a protest vote (for either side) and supporting voter apathy is lame as hell.

      What are you talking about? You know there are more than two candidates running, right? I’m literally saying I will be voting third party in a presidential election as I always have, and me voting third party has literally never mattered because the electoral college. Who’s withholding their vote? Although, that doesn’t mean I think voting in a bourgeois democracy is actually a meaningful expression of political power and organization.

      You’re all hand winging about people on the left who just don’t want to vote Democrat, again even in states where the result is already known. You can’t even dare to criticize Democrats or send any message even in safe states like CA, WA, or NY. Because the handful of conscientious leftists are definitely gonna flip CA red or could definitely flip MS blue if they sucked it up and went for Kamala.

      When the capitalists continue to fuck us , you’ll have done fuck all to push socialism because you spend all your time, again, running defense for one of the two most powerful capitalist institutions in the world.

      • zeekaran
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        2 months ago

        In a fptp system, only the two main candidates matter once the primaries are done.

        • thoro@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          We know this.

          In an electoral college system, only swing states matter.

          But parties will pay attention if votes are siphoned from them. If you’re not in a swing state, a third party vote has basically no negative effect but may have a positive effect of influencing a major party.

          I think it’s more than arguable that voting for Kamala in Louisiana or Mississippi or even potentially California is a bigger waste of a vote than voting third party.