Via Berkeley Mews
this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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Stop thinking that you vote "for" someone in a FPTP system. You don't. You vote against the guy you don't like.
It sucks, and I hate it, but don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise. We're playing a badly-designed game with a shitty controller and we're only allowed to press a button once a year at best.
Think Twitch Plays Pokemon, but with a lot more trolls and no moderation. There will be a constant stream of people voting to do something stupid and destructive, so you spend all of your time voting against them.
Oh, and their votes count for more, so they can win even if there's fewer of them. All we can ever hope to do is try to stop them and hope they don't fuck everything up and give themselves even more power before the next time we're allowed to pick a move.
Yay America. Greatest democracy in the world right there.
Both Democrats and Republicans have a vested interest in keeping the system as it is. They won't change it unless citizens make them change it.
Honestly I'm kind of losing hope that it's even possible at this point.
Positive change in the American system usually comes from the bottom up. If you're interested in fixing the system, the first step is to switch your local elections to Approval Voting, probably through a referendum. There's a whole bunch of reasons, and lots of second and third steps, but that's the first one.
Whenever people come up with these solutions I'm reminded that it took Jon Stewart over a decade to get money for 9/11 first responders.
If it takes that long to do something so universally desired, it's going to take a thousand years to change our voting system.
But it's nice to dream.
Things never seem to change, until they do. And then you're amazed they were ever the old way at all. As someone who remembers walking through an airport pre-9/11, in a state that put Ann Richards in the governor's office, its funny to think about what was "normal" 30 years ago. Hell, its funny to think about what was normal 20 years ago, under Bush. Or 10 years ago, under Obama.
I'm old enough to remember when a black President was telling the country he could settle race tensions between a Harvard Professor and a city cop by having a beer with them.
Maybe I'm just cynical. I still vote every chance I get, even for local stuff. I'm a big supporter of approval voting, but I'm not hopeful that it'll become the norm in the US.
I mean, you can't just hope it'll happen, you have to decide to be the person that switches your local elections. I would have done mine already but I'm too disabled to do work, so this is one of the ways that I try to help instead.
I'm still mad that the ballot initiative to move away from FPTP failed in Massachusetts 😢
It is impossible. Most people don't see a problem with this. Especially the trolls who have more power than they should.
The only time things have even marginally changed in the US there's been violence. Civil rights, suffrage, the labor movement, ending slavery: All of them required thugs cracking skulls before they could happen.
So unless we have about 10% of the population willing to put themselves in harm's way we're stuck like this.
Do you really believe that nothing has changed over the decades? That seems like a very privileged stance.
Well yeah, plenty has changed. I'm talking about fixing our voting system. That would give lasting change, where we don't have to worry so much about losing all that progress that people before us fought so hard for.
In regards to America's voting system, nothing has changed for nearly a century. We're just now starting to see support for ranked choice, but it will take a few decades of people pushing it constantly for it to go anywhere, and all of that time will have to be under a Democrat.
Sort of. On one side, they already benefit when the system is more fair, while the other side does everything in their power to rig the system in their favor, trying to lock their opponents out of ever having a chance.
Look at what Texas is trying to do. They're trying to lock statewide office behind the barrier of number of counties voting for them instead of population. That way Democrats will never again have a statewide office as all the tiny counties with almost no population are Republican-leaning.
So while one side is happy with the status quo, the other side is fighting tooth and nail to make the rules less fair.
They'll send a fucking SWAT team to the house of any citizen tries to change it.
At some point, "we just need to vote for the most right-wing Democrat and then blame the leftists any time we lose" is not a productive long term strategy.
You need to study the two parties closely, from honest and reliable news resources. The parties are worlds apart. You will find corruption in any system unfortunately.
No you really don't. It's pretty fucking obvious that Republicans are awful. They'll come right out and say it.
The problem is that Democrats also get me further from my political goals, and will continue all of the bullshit that I hate because they either don't see a problem with it or they're hamstrung by the structure of government.
There isn't an option to vote for better. Only less worse.
Better almost always routes through less worse.
Well Better should hurry the fuck up because it's been getting more or less worse my entire life.
Voting is for harm reduction, action is for positive change. You need both.
That's exactly my philosophy: You don't vote for better. You vote for less worse.
If you want better you gotta work for it. And probably get your skull cracked in.
Except, as far as I can tell, the system is designed such that citizens can't make them change it-- what are you going to do, vote for nobody and force the government to fix it's shit before electing a new president? I mean, you could revolt but I think we all know how quickly the government would act to squash any meaningful attempt to. And if Project 2025 is allowed to play out, then military can be dispatched to handle simple protests instead of the police, so good luck pressuring the government to do anything at that point.
They already put snipers on rooftops at every University for the Palestine protests. Supposedly this was for public safety as there was intel that things would turn violent, but who really knows the truthfulness of such intel or where the order came down from? When the military becomes your police, this act would pale in comparison.
Remember this when you go to the polls, or when you are considering not to.
Need to stop looking at the big picture first. There's more than just the presidential or senatorial or even Congressional elections. There are local elections that have a much bigger impact on how your life goes than you realize. Do you know who your mayor is? Do you know who your state senator or alderman is? Most people know who their governor is but do you know who your lieutenant Governor is? Who is your state's attorney general? Generally speaking the Secretary of State administers your electoral process in your state, do you know who your secretary of state is? Did you vote for your secretary of state? Did you bother to find out who was running against them in the primary election?
These are the questions most people don't ask don't even think to ask, and these are the questions that have the largest impact on how our country is actually run. In the long run the presidential election doesn't matter as much as these because these are what determine how the president ends up actually getting elected. I almost lament the 17th amendment changing the way senators are chosen. Because when senators were chosen by the legislatures in the state people had to pay more attention to what their state legislature looked like.
The military, among both officers and enlisted, is actually pretty split politically, and a good number can and will refuse to obey an order they perceive to be unconstitutional, or outright commit mutiny. For all that the military warns about insider threats, it is also woefully unprepared to deal with them as well. Military servicemembers are also significantly stricter with the use of deadly force than police from my experience, although that may simply be due to my having served in the SSBN force.
Sure. I agree it won't change unless citizens push for a change. But choosing to not participate is not pushing for a change. That's just capitulation. Choosing to not vote is not a signal of protest. It's a signal of someone who doesn't care what the outcome is.
Voting is the first and most basic step in pushing for change. Doing more is good, but you definitely can't skip that step.
We live in a society…. yaaawn….. zzzz
there are a few l33t moves like voting in primaries and local elections and judicial. It does not make it great but every little bit counts. Its sucks. Your not voting on if you are sodomized or not but if there is going to be lube or not. Not voting means no lube.
I've been voting consistently in every election since I turned 18 in the year 2000.
There isn't any lube if you lose. And you lose constantly. Depending where you are you lose literally every time. I never voted for Scott Perry but that asshole is still my rep.
And even if you win some court somewhere, or a couple hundred idiots in another state, or lobbyists can decide you don't get lube.
Don't expect lube.
It reminds me a lot (the voting situation) with articles on how people don't like obamacare. Yeah people are not wild about it but they really don't like the situation before it. Its half a loaf and I don't want to go back to no loaf but yes indeed I would like a universal health care full loaf.
If you want a great democracy you must devote time and money to develop good candidate from the ground up, and who besides the rich oligarchs who can hire surrogates has the time or money?
Technically we get to press the button twice because there's primaries (and, to a lesser degree, caucuses), but people need to be engaged in the process a lot earlier than the September/October/November period in which most people actually are paying attention.
Except not really because everyone said they won't run they'll just let Biden have it
Stop focusing so much on the president. There are other positions in the party, ones who influence how our elections are handled, who are actually more important in the long run.
Why can't we just have a good candidate?
Why can't we just have a good reality?
Because Brandon is the worst and the DNC doesn't care if they win
Right, because he's the only reason reality isn't all perfect sunshine and rainbows.
My point is that nothing's perfect. You often have to settle for what's real.
Plus, there's at least one person I can think of that's worse than Brandon. Do you need a hint?
Why can't the DNC run a better candidate?
Sure vote for the 81 year old husk but why defend him? If trump wins its his fault for running such a miserable option for the "not trump" side
If trump is really so bad that we cannot let him get elected, why not just run an easy win with a competent nobody candidate with Brandon's moderate nothing platform
What other candidate has won a presidency already?
And why can't the GOP run a better candidate? One who's younger and isn't a convicted felon?
There's a difference between defending him and disputing you. If he was anyone else and you were still saying the same argument, I'd still be disputing your point.
No, this is equivalent to victim blaming. If Trump wins, it's because of Trump and the people who voted for him.
And this is the part that lets me know you're acting in bad faith. I wouldn't expect another reply from me if I were you. Have fun under that bridge.
Wrong. You vote for the person you want your states delegates to go to.
To win a person has to get to 270
Logically this means you really only have 2 choices if you want to pick a winner. In a dichotomy you're voting for someone just as much as against someone, really.
I have never voted for the person I want my state's delegates to go to, because that person lost the primary.