I call it least worst politics. We really really need to stop doing that.
It’s why in the US, voting is the minimum we should be doing. Hence why I mentioned crabby letters and protests. More, up to and including general strikes and civil war once the discontent is severe enough and much of the population has little left to lose.
Which can be done via elections if their mechanisms are improved, such as proportional representation or ranked choice. But this system was made to keep the system stable while slavers were in power.
It’s going to take more than mere elections to change that.
Hence, crabby letters and protests. General strikes if you can organize them. Civil war likely once the ownership class turns to massacres to preserve their wealth and power.
Or someone who will have you arrested vs merely ignore you.
I don’t understand people who would lay down their vote in some kind of “protest”. It’s like saying “It’ll be cloudy with a high probability of rain. Welp, I’m bringing only my swimsuit made of paper.” Actively not participating and thus allowing further harm. Such bullshit.
Or kill your friends in a death camp
It’s one of the things that I really don’t understand about the way Americans experience their elections.
Navigating a FPTP system necessitates a large measure of strategizing. You’ll almost never get to vote for the candidate you really want. But, instead of that half of them are like “THIS PARTY IS MY ENTIRE POLITICAL IDENTITY NOW”. And the other half is like “I’M NOT GOING TO VOTE FOR THE LESSER EVIL”.
And, dear listeners, the sum total of those two attitudes is that a lot of otherwise politically engaged people just effectively don’t participate in the political process at all, either through virtuous abstention or through abdication to the party leadership.
Of course, that’s all moot now since you’re effectively a fascist dictatorship.
This practice already exists; it’s called Tactical Voting and it’s the reaso why winner-take-all systems tend towards two parties in the first place
its hilarious how libs preach lesser evilism when it comes to voting but then dunk on “campists” when it comes to geopolitics
That’s how the system is built, and intentionally so. It’s going to take pressure to change the system so that it isn’t two-party.
We have to suffer the consequences of these elections whether or not we voted in them, or for whom.
And the biggest pushes by campaign propaganda machines in 2016, 2020 and 2024 have been to pressure people not to vote.
I am BEGGING people, to please, vote for the damn democrat before the GOP starts publicly executing transpeople.
the dems have not proven to be a valid counter weight. they’re financed by the same billionaire cabal, so they won’t enact real change as is. there is some movement, but the people holding on to power are still fighting for their power (and mostly nothing else but money)
The only reason not to vote is, if you literally have zero clue about politics and life. Better not to vote, then voting misinformed.
