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.
They won’t change it unless citizens make them change it.
They’ll send a fucking SWAT team to the house of any citizen tries to change it.
Honestly I’m kind of losing hope that it’s even possible at this point.
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 vote against the guy you don’t like.
What if I don’t like any of them?
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.
I would simply not participate in a system that sounds this miserable and tedious. I would play a game that’s more productive and enjoyable.
Oh, and their votes count for more, so they can win even if there’s fewer of them.
But it doesn’t matter, because casting a vote for Ralph Nader from my bright red state of Texas is still the reason Al Gore lost Florida in a 5-4 SCOTUS decision.
What if I don’t like any of them?
Join the club.
I would play a game that’s more productive and enjoyable.
That’s not possible. We voted on what game we’re playing and we glued the cartridge into the console. Much to my disappointment we don’t get to change the game, or not play, or even ignore it.
It’s a stupid world and we all live in it.
But it doesn’t matter, because casting a vote for Ralph Nader from my bright red state of Texas is still the reason Al Gore lost Florida in a 5-4 SCOTUS decision.
Exactly: The system is built to let them win as much as possible. You’re not going to ever beat it. It’s like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy except even more frustrating and without the pleasant voiceovers.
That’s not possible.
That’s very possible. It’s just not what Americans are used to doing.
We voted on what game we’re playing
That’s a naive perspective, as it misses the historical, financial, and sociological roots of the game. You can’t play a game of basketball if the other team picks up the ball and walks off the court.
This is Lockean Theory 101, and its the entire basis of democracy. We use democratic tools to divine popular intent. But when the democracy is subverted and political leadership is divorced from public sentiment, the institutions fail. But if institutions aren’t failing because people are too afraid to withdraw their support from them, the system is implicitly endorsed and corrupt officials get to continue abusing their social mandates.
It’s a stupid world and we all live in it.
Its only as stupid as we make it. Atm, we’ve got a country that’s invested an enormous amount of time, energy, and labor hours in infesting our senior population with brain worms. That needs to change and simply voting isn’t going to be the thing that does it.
Yeah, but sometimes that really is enough
Not enough for voters who are undecided about whether to vote or not.
Democrats win when turnout is high. It’s not enough to be better than the opponent, to win they must beat apathy.
The two current candidates are so far apart the people who claim to be undecided are ignorant or stupid, willingly or otherwise. I’d understand riding the fence between Biden and Bernie, even if I’ve made my choice between them, but between Trump and Biden?
That’s the kind of person who is undecided if they want to drive to work or walk down the middle of i-95
I think you are perhaps uninformed about the economic state of the poor and working class. Biden hasn’t done a whole lot about people’s grocery bills doubling and tripling, or the soaring increases in rent while the housing supply has remained artificially low, but he’s made sure that blank checks for war appear out of thin air at every turn.
Can’t expect to win an election like this when people can’t afford to miss a day of work.
Yeahhhh, no.
Like the original commenter said, you are either ignorant or stupid.
Anyone who actively lived during Trump’s awful years in office has all the info we need to NOT vote for that fucking orange idiot, and instead CLAMBER to anyone with ANY semblance of sanity.
If you honestly think that Biden losing will help anyone in any way whatsoever (besides Trump and his little rich bastards who are as evil as he is), you, and anyone else who feels that way, are a lost cause.
Anyone who is eligible to vote actively lived through the trump years. And a third of those voters disagree with you. Calling them stupid is not an effective way to help them change their minds or voting decisions.
Day to day economic realities matter to the average voter.
The entire premise is BS because Biden has a list of accomplishments from infrastructure to debt forgiveness, progressive drug guidance, progress in gender/race equality, departments like the ftc and irs being competently run again with actual resources, to judge appointments. Hmm I wonder to who’s benefit it is to ignore all that and label him “not Trump”?
Care to offer an actual list? Every time someone tries to offer an actual list it turns out to be meaningless victory laps. With the possible exception of the NLRB Cemex decision. But that’s getting it’s stress test right now so it’s a bit early to celebrate.
cough supporting a genocide cough
Until then he was doing great yeah. Bit of a big one though.
And before you hit me with the usual I know Trump would be worse for Gaza but it doesn’t change what Biden has done
He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.
And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.
Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by…-checks notes-…giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.
“Well, that’s not a very enticing platform! Who is your opponent?”
“Donald Trump.”
“You have my vote.”
