#voteposting

[cutebrini]

the most endearing thing about vote to MOI is how absolutely stoked he probably is to have his bestie play for the sharks AND thee macklin celebrini. it’s so full circle for him i hope he tells wsh he manifested it. you only met your boybestfriendsoulmate because of ME! :)

like! im sorry but you kinda have to mention vote when you talk abt wm's red string of fate

[cutebrini]

Will vote is like the most npc person ever to me

well obviously but ive decided that in order to rpf abt will and consequently wm you have to be willing to open your third eye to him

[onionjulius]

In an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday with host Dana Bash, Sanders, who won reelection on Tuesday night, spoke about several issues that he believes the Democratic party should have focused on more, including healthcare, raising minimum wage, union rights, expanding social security, etc." All of these issues are not Bernie Sanders ideas, these are all without exception popular ideas that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents support. Now the people who don't support it is the billionaire class," Sanders said. However, Bash pushed back stating, "But what the voters supported is a man who would never do any of what you just said. I mean, not even close." In response Sanders explained what Trump did do stating, "Right. But what that man named Donald Trump did do is he said, 'I feel your pain. I know that you are hurting and I have an explanation,' adding that "the cause of the problem right now is to have a small number of people on top who have enormous economic and political power."

"We tried hard to do this—to have this campaign focus or emphasize an economic agenda that speaks to the need of the working class in this country," the senator said. "The status quo is working very, very well for the people on top but it's not working well for working people, and the Democratic Party has become far too much a defender of the status quo...You have to acknowledge the pain and the reality of people's lives, or people will say, 'Screw you.'" While Sanders praised Harris for her messages on abortion rights, democracy and Trump's perceived unfitness for office, he—and other progressive critics—said the campaign fell short on bold, economic policy plans that they believe would have appealed to more working-class voters.

- Newsweek, "Bernie Sanders Explains What Donald Trump Did That Worked With Voters" (Nov 10, 2024 at 12:41 PM EST)

[as-if-and-only-if]

anyway if you lean even a little left don’t buy into voter apathy and instead go out and vote democrat. conservatives are doing all they can to get people voting, and it’ll work.

at stake is possibly a couple extra degrees celsius in global warming, abortion and reproductive rights, infrastructure, and funding for government programs that people depend on, which in some cases runs out if it’s not renewed yearly—and good luck getting republicans to pass those budgets without steep cuts, which will cause people to suffer and die in the short term.

anyway vote and get your friends to vote. let them know it’s literally nothing more than a practical tool to influence outcomes, and that disengaging is impossible—not voting is just handing the influence over to others, and actively helps conservatives win.

btw, given the turnouts, us relatively younger people voting is the only route to having a government less terrible than one run by hardcore conservatives.

so let me do a little to address the left-leaning inclination to not vote which I see occasionally:

democrats are slowly getting more progressive—but it’s transactional and incremental, meaning that if they don’t get more votes by moving a little further left, they’ll stop moving in that direction. they’re not listening to people who are withholding their vote for them not moving far enough, or telling them that they haven’t earned their vote.

on the party level it’s about rewarding incremental change in the right direction; otherwise they’ll move in the other direction to try to soak up more centrist voters.

is that suboptimal and kind of stupid? yes. but it’s also the reality of the situation. not voting might promise a fuck-you, but only delivers a cementing of power—in the opposite direction to the one you want. right now the democrats are testing being a tiny bit more progressive than in the past, and if it doesn’t get them more votes, they won’t keep doing it. this is maybe the only “long term” effect of voting, but if you think you’re doing something by withholding a vote, I can see the rationale—but unfortunately they don’t. it doesn’t work that way.

but to me the stakes of all that reasoning pales in comparison to the real, immediate impact on people who will suffer more or less depending on who controls each chamber. voting is a practical tool for choosing between a restricted set of outcomes, and even if the best of that restricted set isn’t great, the margin of suffering between the best and the worst is huge. I don’t think it makes sense to choose “more suffering now” on a gamble that it will one day make the democrats more progressive. there are real people affected in the meantime, and that reasoning can’t account for them.

so, choose the option that creates less suffering. it’s of paramount importance to the people who will suffer more as a result of republican gridlock. the immediate material impact of voting or not voting is, ultimately, a practical choice between that and not that.

[as-if-and-only-if]

I hope people realize that if either the house or the senate goes republican, then republicans will dig their heels in and not pass budgets that fund essential programs, and people will suffer and in some cases die as a result

voting is only about choosing between that outcome and not that outcome—and nothing else

[as-if-and-only-if]

so currently 538 only gives dems an 18% chance of keeping both chambers of congress, right? and if that doesn’t happen—if either chamber goes republican—there’s not going to be any legislation passed in the next two years that will be even remotely left-of-center. (and the US’s “center” is pretty far right.)

there will also likely be a government shutdown or two. budgets for essential programs will run out when republicans dig their heels in and refuse to pass the relevant bills.

don’t just vote—actively get the people in your circle to vote. the senate is a dead heat and the probability they give for the house to go to republicans is 81%—regional elections matter most.

[as-if-and-only-if]

if you’re in the US and lean left even a bit, and can vote in midterms but are simply choosing not to, I think you should read some republican policy proposals—proposals that are voted against by dems, btw—and then say to yourself “yeah, I’m ok with this coming to pass. no problem with it at all. this is alright by me. no concern for the people affected by it, either” and then re-evaluate how you reason about things.

because voting is about outcomes, and nothing else. and no one on the right is feeling any sort of apathy towards voting. they’re out in full force. so: try to sway the outcome you want for the legislature towards the least bad one out of the limited and imperfect ones available. because if you don’t, the absolute worst ones will come to pass. these choices are not equivalent.

don’t talk yourself into helping republicans harm people through government power—if you can vote, you can help stop that. and with how close these races are, whether we vote really does count.