Voting matters; except for when it doesn't?

[Muzjhath]

well yeah, because that's not what i'm asking about.
this isn't complicated, i cannot fathom why all you folks persist in posting in reply to me when you don't get what i'm saying.

"people who didn't vote in 2016 are responsible for electing donald trump and need to accept that" - that is the statement that endus made.
i find that the assertion endus made is factually inaccurate. and all the details of my county are just supporting context, it's not the *point* it's just there to provide the background for why i think it's inaccurate.

the question i've been asking is "what chain of logical reasoning connects what endus said to the situation that i'm in so that his assertion can be made to be logically and consistently applicable to me"

the question isn't "durr hurr why vote" - i said in the opening god damn post of this thread that voting matters and that voter participation in contested areas is important.
the question is "if you live in a state that assigns its electoral votes based on the outcome of the county votes, and you live in a county where the voting polls for the last 30 years show a pattern that conclusively indicates that every single person who didn't vote (but could have) in the county is an insufficient number of people to change the outcome of the vote from your county being for biden, by what logical reasoning are you as a non-voter responsible for trump being elected"

can i possibly make this any clearer?

Even in such places you can affect the outcome else where through activation if you're privileged enough so you can travel or talk with people online. Not everyone can ofc!

As for the latter, esp the "even if everyone who didn't vote voted it wouldn't change!" Isn't what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is "Work to change what you get!" There's a big lean to Democrats, ok. Are there better options to pick from within those Democrats? If you want a more left voice, would it be possible to outflank them on the left for local stuff?

Democracy is a process, voting is a fairly minor part of it.

[Malkiah]

Your OP is literally an assertion that you living in a heavily Democratic district means you don't share the same culpability for poor electoral outcomes stemming from non-voters in other districts.

nope! wrong again!
the OP is literally an assertion that my living in a heavily democratic district is part of the broad strokes of a logical framework that concludes that the accusation that i am responsible for electing donald trump lacks any sound foundation.

an accusation that people living in contestable areas not voting could mean they have some moral culpability in donald trump being elected has some merit, but that isn't the issue here.
the fact that political engagement is philosophically important in terms of social science is true but also isn't the issue here.

when it is mathematically impossible for the non-voters in my geopolitical sphere to be able to change the outcome of the vote to being overwhelmingly democratic if they voted, how is it their fault if trump gets elected. that's the issue.

it's not a me problem that you don't have an answer for that.

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Even in such places you can affect the outcome else where through activation if you're privileged enough so you can travel or talk with people online. Not everyone can ofc!

once again: true, but irrelevant and not the point.
this isn't about the social sciences theory of political engagement, and if it was we're on the same page.
this is about a very specific set of criteria contained in an assertion that was made, and whether or not that assertion holds up to logical scrutiny.

As for the latter, esp the "even if everyone who didn't vote voted it wouldn't change!" Isn't what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is "Work to change what you get!" There's a big lean to Democrats, ok. Are there better options to pick from within those Democrats? If you want a more left voice, would it be possible to outflank them on the left for local stuff?

i mean... sure? and if i want my clothes to smell freshly laundered, all i have to do is launder them... that doesn't provide a logical reasoning for an assertion that seems incorrect on its face.

[unfilteredJW]

People who don’t feel guilty and did the right thing don’t spend pages and pages on a forum trying to convince strangers it’s true.

Certainly is telling.

[Nymrohd]

nope! wrong again!
the OP is literally an assertion that my living in a heavily democratic district means that the accusation that i am responsible for electing donald trump lacks any logical foundation.

See from a deontological viewpoint, you do share fault because you performed a faulty behaviour. If we accept that all things being equal a certain behaviour is good and its negation bares blame, it then applies regardless of outcome. This is a difference between perspectives of morality; a difference between deontology (morality based on action) and teleology (morality based on outcomes).
You are right that from a teleological perspective you not voting did not affect this singular outcome, and thus did not affect aggregate utility gained or lost relative to this outcome from which you argue that there is no fault with you not voting. But not everyone judges rights or wrong by results and not everyone judges morality with exception-based ruling.
But even going back to your side of the argument, there are some logical tools to use there. If we accept your behaviour to be without fault, then everyone in your district should behave so. Yet if they did, the results would evidently be different. You are thus making a choice by prejudging the choice of others which is not how logic works; you cannot guarantee the desired outcome when if you apply your behaviour as a rule you get a different outcome.
You could go into deeper analysis of the utility in this scenario by investigating the utility possibly gained by not voting. Did you face restrictions to your voting? What would it cost you to vote that makes the gamble of a different outcome worthwhile?

[Elegiac]

nope! wrong again!
the OP is literally an assertion that my living in a heavily democratic district means that the accusation that i am responsible for electing donald trump lacks any logical foundation.

Which is... exactly what I said. Unless you're insinuating that Donald Trump being elected isn't a poor political outcome.

And you accuse others of having poor reading comprehension.

when it is mathematically impossible for the non-voters in my geopolitical sphere to be able to change the outcome of the vote to being overwhelmingly democratic if they voted, how is it their fault if trump gets elected. that's the issue.

it's not a me problem that you don't have an answer for that.

This has been answered several times.

On a basic ethical level, there's the Kantian argument of you being able to vote irresponsibly in a given district is entirely contingent on an expectation that others will vote responsibly. You choosing to exercise the privilege of abstention in a zero-sum system means you share in culpability for a poor outcome.

On a more systemic level, it's implicitly supportive of the notion that if you perceive your vote not to matter, nonvoting is acceptable - it legitimizes a atmosphere of electoral apathy, and while it might not have impacts in your immediate district it absolutely does have impacts elsewhere. An analogy would be not being directly involved in the economic exploitation of developing countries, but still indirectly enabling that exploitation by legitimizing the ideological basis for doing so; you still share in culpability for it, even if your hands are 'clean' in a direct sense.

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See from a deontological viewpoint, you do share fault because you performed a faulty behaviour. If we accept that all things being equal a certain behaviour is good and its negation bares blame, it then applies regardless of outcome. This is a difference between perspectives of morality; a difference between deontology (morality based on action) and teleology (morality based on outcomes).
You are right that from a teleological perspective you not voting did not affect this singular outcome, and thus did not affect aggregate utility gained or lost relative to this outcome from which you argue that there is no fault with you not voting. But not everyone judges rights or wrong by results and not everyone judges morality with exception-based ruling.
But even going back to your side of the argument, there are some logical tools to use there. If we accept your behaviour to be without fault, then everyone in your district should behave so. Yet if they did, the results would evidently be different. You are thus making a choice by prejudging the choice of others which is not how logic works; you cannot guarantee the desired outcome when if you apply your behaviour as a rule you get a different outcome.
You could go into deeper analysis of the utility in this scenario by investigating the utility possibly gained by not voting. Did you face restrictions to your voting? What would it cost you to vote that makes the gamble of a different outcome worthwhile?

This is such a lovely and well worded explanation, tho. Kudos.

[Malkiah]

See from a deontological viewpoint, you do share fault because you performed a faulty behaviour. If we accept that all things being equal a certain behaviour is good and its negation bares blame, it then applies regardless of outcome. This is a difference between perspectives of morality; a difference between deontology (morality based on action) and teleology (morality based on outcomes).

alright, i'm with you.

You are right that from a teleological perspective you not voting did not affect this singular outcome, and thus did not affect aggregate utility gained or lost relative to this outcome from which you argue that there is no fault with you not voting. But not everyone judges rights or wrong by results and not everyone judges morality with exception-based ruling.

true and fair, i agree with this assessment.

But even going back to your side of the argument, there are some logical tools to use there. If we accept your behaviour to be without fault, then everyone in your district should behave so. Yet if they did, the results would evidently be different. You are thus making a choice by prejudging the choice of others which is not how logic works; you cannot guarantee the desired outcome when if you apply your behaviour as a rule you get a different outcome.

true, but that only works IF the result is actually different.
this line of reasoning is predicated on the idea that everyone who doesn't vote would uniformly vote a certain way if they voted.
if everyone in my district declined to vote, my state could have gone to trump.
if everyone in the country declined to vote, trump could not have been elected.

i agree that there is a teleological aspect here, but the logical extension of the argument in *either direction* doesn't serve to illuminate the issue.
specifically: not everyone shares the attitude that i do, and not everyone makes the choices that i do - thus, what would happen IF they did cannot be used to make any valid conclusions about the current state of the world.

You could go into deeper analysis of the utility in this scenario by investigating the utility possibly gained by not voting. Did you face restrictions to your voting? What would it cost you to vote that makes the gamble of a different outcome worthwhile?

and that's why i've limited the scope of my analysis to my specific case, because there is a lack of extraneous factors.
there isn't gerrymandering or suppression at play (at least as far as i know) - voting in denver county is functionally effortless and without burden or restrictive access.
i'm not referring to the broad ideals about voting as a concept, merely to the direct relationship between a positive claim about moral culpability within the context of a small action that cannot change the outcome of a larger action.

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Which is... exactly what I said.

it isn't though - it's a small difference, but that's why the word 'nuance' exists.

On a basic ethical level, there's the Kantian argument of you being able to vote irresponsibly in a given district is entirely contingent on an expectation that others will vote responsibly. You choosing to exercise the privilege of abstention in a zero-sum system means you share in culpability for a poor outcome.

i'll accept that on a broad level, sure. but that's also taking it as read that we're agreeing on a Kantian proposition of ethics being applicable to voting, which isn't a take i necessarily stand by.
also though i'd point out that if we're using Kant as our baseline that the doctrine of "good will" states that even if it doesn't achieve its intended outcome it is ethical to act on a good will principle.

i haven't mentioned this because i don't think it matters, and it's a distraction, and it's not relevant to the larger point, and it's self indulgent to bother saying this to strangers on the internet who don't give a shit about mr or my opinions... but it seems uniquely relevant to this specific point:
i don't not vote because i'm lazy, or apathetic, or don't think voting matters: i don't vote because the entire foundational premise of US culture and politics morally disgusts me on every conceivable level.
i consider voting to be a tacit endorsement of an entire social system that i grievously and fundamentally find repellent.
taking action to further the operation of the system is de facto approval of the existence of the system, and as much as i agree with the importance of civic engagement i cannot overcome the moral repugnance of actively supporting the entirety of it.
my declining to vote isn't something i slid into by accident, it's a considered moral choice that i make. i don't necessarily like that choice, but it's the one that is required for me to live according to my moral principles.
*edit to add: i really need to emphasize i am NOT saying this to excuse all non-voters, or to excuse myself from a civic duty to vote - this is not intended as an argument about voting as a concept, nor is it a rationalization intended to apply to other people.
this is just my personal beliefs and the actions that i feel compelled to take in order to responsibly adhere to those beliefs, and i only said this because it seems relevant to kant's distinguishing between "good will" ethical frameworks and "duty" ethical frameworks.

you seem to be referring more to the code of duty, which is applicable here but IMO philosophically limited in a way that makes it less useful to the discussion.

On a more systemic level, it's implicitly supportive of the notion that if you perceive your vote not to matter, nonvoting is acceptable - it legitimizes a atmosphere of electoral apathy, and while it might not have impacts in your immediate district it absolutely does have impacts elsewhere. An analogy would be not being directly involved in the economic exploitation of developing countries, but still indirectly enabling that exploitation by legitimizing the ideological basis for doing so; you still share in culpability for it, even if your hands are 'clean' in a direct sense.

fair - though as a minor quibble, i don't think my vote doesn't matter, so that entire line of thinking doesn't work in relation to my perspective on the issue.

i find all of this well and good on the broad strokes of voting as a concept, and i hear the argument regarding participation as analogous to "if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?" i just find that line of reasoning sadly lacking in consideration for the details of the real world, at least insofar as how it's applicable to the specific accusation that lead to me starting this thread in the first place.

i must confess that when it comes to ethics i tend to be far more on the utilitarian side of things and less on the kantian side at least when it comes to broad social issues (less so on personal matters, but wow that is a whole other conversation) - so while i do find the kantian argument of duty fair, i don't find it terribly compelling.

but hey, props to you - that IS actually an answer to the question.
it's not one i find convincing in a purely deontological sense, but i do recognize the effort.

[Nymrohd]

true, but that only works IF the result is actually different.

See here is the thing. We do not make teleological moral judgments based on the results. We judge them at the moment of choice based on the perceived results. You cannot guarantee the desired outcome when you are not voting. You simply cannot, it is a mathematically impossibility; if everyone agreed to your behaviour and repeated it, no one votes. Thus the choice you make to not vote is NOT logically tied to your presumption of that outcome or if it is, that choice is irrational.
Your choice absolutely could be linked to your own perceived disutility of voting; you consider that for you personally to go to vote will decrease your utility. I am not from the US, in my country elections are always on a Sunday, polling stations are EVERYWHERE, it is easy and very cheap to get Voter ID (we ALL need ID to vote but it is super easy to get it), it is increasingly easier to move your voting rights as needed and your employer must give you leave if you request it for voting or they can be sued to oblivion (sadly that doesn't stop some employers because of how fucked up the court system is) so for us there is very little utility lost to voting. I understand in the US that you can be living paycheck to paycheck, have no polling stations anywhere near you and thus might need to spend hours on a bus getting there to find you were removed because you did not show up last election and had to register again. There IS disutility there.

[Malkiah]

See here is the thing. We do not make teleological moral judgments based on the results. We judge them at the moment of choice based on the perceived results.

alright that's a fair distinction, i concede the point there.

You cannot guarantee the desired outcome when you are not voting.

in this case i kind of can: by not voting, i am not explicitly endorsing the existence and operation of a system that i find morally abhorrent in the depths of my soul.
my desired outcome for not voting is to not participate in the ongoing maintenance of western capitalist civilization. i know it doesn't change anything, but at the very least i can sleep at night with my hands clean on having been an activate participant.

if everyone agreed to your behaviour and repeated it, no one votes. Thus the choice you make to not vote is NOT logically tied to your presumption of that outcome or if it is, that choice is irrational.

and what would happen then, i wonder?
i mean it's hypothetical and it's fantasy and i don't normally indulge in that sort of thing, but... what if just nobody voted? what if there was a presidential election and not one single person voted? how would the US political system respond to that?
i find that notion compellingly fascinating, though obviously farcical.

[Nymrohd]

alright that's a fair distinction, i concede the point there.


in this case i kind of can: by not voting, i am not explicitly endorsing the existence and operation of a system that i find morally abhorrent in the depths of my soul.
my desired outcome for not voting is to not participate in the ongoing maintenance of western capitalist civilization. i know it doesn't change anything, but at the very least i can sleep at night with my hands clean on having been an activate participant.


and what would happen then, i wonder?
i mean it's hypothetical and it's fantasy and i don't normally indulge in that sort of thing, but... what if just nobody voted? what if there was a presidential election and not one single person voted? how would the US political system respond to that?
i find that notion compellingly fascinating, though obviously farcical.

I mean we are not far from it. It is extremely common in major democracies to have a party hold full control of the legislative and executive with less than 30% of the electorate having voted for them (the Tories in the UK have exactly that with about 29,4% of the vote, and have changed prime minister three times since). Representative democracy is about the will of the people, well there are more people against or apathetic to most OECD governments than there are for them by a 2 to 1 margin. They already have little legitimacy.

I think in the US your democracy is not nearly as bad as people say it is though. Grassroot movements still work there. The Tea Party completely changed the face of the GOP. I honestly don't see why people assume it is impossible to turn the Democrats to the left; not turn them left, just turn them close to the center than the pro-corporate social liberals they currently are. You actually have primary elections where you can get to vote for more progressive candidates and my understanding is that this has happened in several cases. Not every primary will be a win but if enough are, the very party slowly changes. The GOP did not go full bananas in a day.

[Malkiah]

I think in the US your democracy is not nearly as bad as people say it is though. Grassroot movements still work there. The Tea Party completely changed the face of the GOP. I honestly don't see why people assume it is impossible to turn the Democrats to the left; not turn them left, just turn them close to the center than the pro-corporate social liberals they currently are. You actually have primary elections where you can get to vote for more progressive candidates and my understanding is that this has happened in several cases. Not every primary will be a win but if enough are, the very party slowly changes. The GOP did not go full bananas in a day.

philosophically i don't disagree with you, it's just a question of whether it's possible to turn the political machinery of a society (any society, not just the US) to a particular goal. in my personal case, it isn't.

[Nymrohd]

philosophically i don't disagree with you, it's just a question of whether it's possible to turn the political machinery of a society (any society, not just the US) to a particular goal. in my personal case, it isn't.

I'd say when it comes to social rights, it very much is. Look at gay rights. When it comes to the economy, imo it still is possible but it requires a far more passionate approach (and really, an implicit threat of violence and destruction of property). Our economic systems have evolved throughout human history. Global poverty is decreasing. We just need to keep moving forward.

[Malkiah]

I'd say when it comes to social rights, it very much is. Look at gay rights. When it comes to the economy, imo it still is possible but it requires a far more passionate approach (and really, an implicit threat of violence and destruction of property). Our economic systems have evolved throughout human history. Global poverty is decreasing. We just need to keep moving forward.

and if minority rights and economic policy and poverty reduction is your goal, that's a fight you can engage in and make progress.
unfortunately for me, my philosophy and my politics cannot be fought and progress cannot be made, so the whole thing is a bit weird.

[Cthulhu 2020]

@Malkiah convince me with peer reviewed sources in a Master's thesis length post as to why, if everyone who isn't voting started to vote, that nothing would change at all. If we're going college debate hall level, let's go. It's pretty obvious things would change drastically if every non voter voted. But let's see what you've got. I'm willing to be convinced. Change my mind.

[Nymrohd]

@Malkiah convince me with peer reviewed sources in a Master's thesis length post as to why, if everyone who isn't voting started to vote, that nothing would change at all.

But that's not what is being said?

[Malkiah]

@Malkiah convince me with peer reviewed sources in a Master's thesis length post as to why, if everyone who isn't voting started to vote, that nothing would change at all.

well, i wouldn't necessarily posit that theory so i'm not inclined to act in defense of it, not to mention the fact that near as i can tell insufficient data exists to make a determination on that either way - i actually looked this up, there's shockingly little data about the political inclinations of non-voters.
however, if you want to alter the discussion somewhat and make the conversation that there is little to no evidence that things would significantly change if everyone who doesn't vote voted, i will take that on, because we actually have some data on this.

i won't put the whole thing here again, i'll just refer to my post #34 in this thread:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post54106706

*edit to add:
just another link to another study that reinforces what was in that other post, that i found while trying to dig up more reference studies on this topic.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...stered-to-vote

the upshot is that of the data available, all indications are that non-voters lean roughly equal to the general voting populace in terms of party preferences.
ie, the split between those who would likely vote democrat (if they voted) and those who would likely vote republican (if they voted) are roughly equal.
of note, the percentages of those who say they would vote third party/independent is higher than the national average. what conclusions you can draw from this beyond the fact that non-voters tend to focus more on their place on the left/right political spectrum and less on party loyalty... well i suspect that 100% voter participation would increase the proportion of votes for not-the-democrat and not-the-republican in statistically more significant amounts than for the democrat or the republican, but that's pure conjecture on my part.

my interpretation of all this is that if voting were mandatory for every citizen over 18 in the US the available data indicates that there wouldn't be much of a shift, at least in terms of raw percentages.
of course, that could change election outcomes wildly from region to region depending on the political and social zeitgeist of that area.
but on the flip side you'd have some areas where there is no difference at all - i refer back to my own county: of 511k eligible voters, 313k voted for biden and 70k voted for trump... even if we assume that every single non-voter went for trump, biden would still win by over 100k votes.
chonogo indicated his region in alabama is of similar makeup, but in the reverse for republicans, though i have not looked up the relevant numbers for his county so i can't speak to the accuracy of that.
i don't know what the dem/repub distribution would be for areas with close vote results, since there is no geographic data for where non-voters reside and in what concentration, so no reasonable conclusions can be drawn either way about whether they would change.

If we're going college debate hall level, let's go. It's pretty obvious things would change drastically if every non voter voted. But let's see what you've got. I'm willing to be convinced. Change my mind.

i'm willing to agree that the limited data available indicates that things could change slightly in terms of presidential elections IF the proportions of non-voters happen to reside in geographic regions where those extra votes would nudge particularly close margins into an electoral victory one way or the other, but there is no data currently to suggest that presidential/senate/congress elections would overnight be democratic blowouts or that local/state elections would notably shift.
though again i must emphasize that in relation to local elections (and i'm classifying state positions as 'local' for the purpose of this specific assessment) there is not enough location distribution information to cross reference with regional election trends to be able to say either way.

i also want to point out that the sparse data i could find on non-voters didn't seem to distinguish between those who "don't" vote and those who "can't" vote, so if we're looping back around to a hypothesis of 100% voter participation i can't say what the percentages would be.
if that one study i'm referencing lumped them both together, then things wouldn't shift much - as in, if "can't" and "don't" voters are all roughly equally split between voting dem or repub if they did/could vote.

but if the study is only referencing those who can vote but choose not to, and does not include those who want to vote but can't (ie voter suppression) then an argument could certainly be made those who are being targeted for denial of access may very well be people statistically likely to vote democratic and could tip the overall election results both nationally and locally.
for myself, i make a significant distinction between "don't" and "can't" voters both morally and pragmatically speaking - i think everyone should have easy efficient and burdenless access to voting.

unfortunately, it's supposition either way on what the change to the political landscape would be due to a lack of data to even suggest one way or the other.

[Fugus]

It really isn't, you're just deliberately not understanding the question.

The question I asked is whether or not the things which ostensibly put you off voting for Clinton would have actually impacted the political outcomes of her being in office. As in would any of the DNC, Wasserman-Schultz, "she was entitled" stuff have changed who she would have nominated for the judiciary, who she would have put in cabinet, which legislation she would have supported, etc to an extent where the possibility of a Republican alternative would have been a preferable outcome

Incorrect, I didn't intentionally misunderstand it, if you actually read my response, I actually misunderstood it.

I thought you were asking me to scientifically prove that Clinton's actions during those events were enough to run off enough voters to change the results.

Given what you just said. I doubt it would have changed who she would have nominated.

But, given the fact that she performed that action it called into question anything she promised his voters afterward and whether she would "Compromise" it away.

If the answer is 'no', then your questions aren't relevant and you're just throwing them out to obfuscate.

Incorrect, that is you just running from the answer you don't like because it forces you to admit the facts you don't like.
Newsflash, just because they aren't important to you, doesn't mean they aren't important to others.

Yep. It's called "acting like an adult".

No, it's not. Hate to say it, but you will find millions of adults who will personally take a loss rather than reward someone who flips them off.

This is an appeal to popularity fallacy. "Millions of people are irresponsible with their votes" is not an argument in support of voting irresponsibly.

Again, incorrect. I was not using the votes of millions of people to justify my own, THAT would be a fallacy.

I completely own my actions, I am putting to you that even if you changed my views (You haven't) you would also need to change the views of millions of others to even matter which you won't do. And all that just to avoid accept that Clinton shot herself in the foot and it was her own fault for it.

Dunno, why is it so hard for you lot to understand that the system is zero sum and voting irresponsibly has a manifestly negative impact on the demographics you claim to care about?

Again, your leftism is performative. You care more about acting in the "right" way even if it comes at a cost of actual progress rather than compromising your ideological aesthetic in order to get concrete results.

I understand where you are coming from, but you need to get out of your own head on this one if you were want to see where the problem is. Not everyone thinks like you and when you are dealing with millions of people, their views on the subjects also matter.

What Clinton did in that event was not taken kindly and you can see why given what I have said if you take the time to actually listen to it instead of ignoring it.

It's almost as if there's a difference in actual political outcomes when Democrats lose elections versus when Republicans do so, or something.

Still doesn't change the fact you are holding our own side to a lower standard just like they have tried to do. Your actions justify theirs in this regard.

You wonder why they were willing to support someone like Hershel Walker, look at your own posts, you are an example of what they do on this topic.


Edit: Maybe you would like to take an honest swing at those 2 questions yourself if you have a problem with them. Just answer honestly.

[downnola]

Incorrect, I didn't intentionally misunderstand it, if you actually read my response, I actually misunderstood it.

I thought you were asking me to scientifically prove that Clinton's actions during those events were enough to run off enough voters to change the results.

Given what you just said. I doubt it would have changed who she would have nominated.

I read shit like this and I'm reminded that 13% of the registered population of Akron showed up for the primary for Mayor. Still, a significant portion of the population will cry about the shitty choices, if they bother to look up their platforms, and if they even show up to vote in November. The primary that gave us Clinton had an equally embarrassing turnout and produced an equally obnoxious and awful discourse. I don't understand how people are still trying to peddle the snake oil of "voting DoEsn'T mAtTeR" after the absolute shitshow of the last 10 years of American politics. Federal and local governments maintain an abysmal approval rating and people still, with a straight face, argue that unless your preferred candidate wins, voting simply doesn't matter and don't dare ask to take responsibility for the results of the election. The cheek, the nerve, the audacity, the gall, and the gumption.

[Fugus]

I read shit like this and I'm reminded that 13% of the registered population of Akron showed up for the primary for Mayor. Still, a significant portion of the population will cry about the shitty choices, if they bother to look up their platforms, and if they even show up to vote in November. The primary that gave us Clinton had an equally embarrassing turnout and produced an equally obnoxious and awful discourse. I don't understand how people are still trying to peddle the snake oil of "voting DoEsn'T mAtTeR" after the absolute shitshow of the last 10 years of American politics. Federal and local governments maintain an abysmal approval rating and people still, with a straight face, argue that unless your preferred candidate wins, voting simply doesn't matter and don't dare ask to take responsibility for the results of the election. The cheek, the nerve, the audacity, the gall, and the gumption.

The sad thing is I did vote during that primary and I also voted during that election. And during that election I voted down ballot Democrat for every position except for president where I wrote in Sanders name because of the event I mentioned which they like to pretend didn't happen or doesn't matter.

During the 2020 election, I voted in both the primary and the general. I voted Sanders in the primary but since he lost and Biden was a stand up person about the whole thing, I voted down ballot Democrat in the general including for Biden.

But they like to give me crap because I refused to vote for Clinton in the general while they ignore everything else and been doing so ever since that election. I watch them wonder how Republican's could look the other way when they do screwed up stuff and then I watch them do the same with her. I watch them make fun of politicians who do stupid stuff that insults their own base and runs them off but she is sacred for some reason.

I can understand 100% where they are coming from but they can't take the time to see the other side of that coin even though they need both sides voting on the stuff.

[Milchshake]

The sad thing is I did vote during that primary and I also voted during that election. And during that election I voted down ballot Democrat for every position except for president where I wrote in Sanders name because of the event I mentioned which they like to pretend didn't happen or doesn't matter.

Simply hard to believe when you spent houndreds of posts in 2016+ explining why you were not voting.

Grats, you suppressed your own credibility much as you suppressed your own vote.

Mind as well ask that mall guy for serious business advice.

[Fugus]

Simply hard to believe when you spent houndreds of posts in 2016+ explining why you were not voting.

Grats, you suppressed your own credibility much as you suppressed your own vote.

Mind as well ask that mall guy for serious business advice.

Simply hard to believe that you can actually read what others said and still come up with such a wrong take on it.

No matter how much you white knight for Hillary, it won't change the fact she shot herself in the foot.

Evidently it just wasn't "Her Turn", she made sure of it and you just keep trying to defend her for it.

Edit:

Here is some food for thought, the moment you are holding Hillary Clinton to a lower standard than we hold Republican's is the moment you lost the plot and are doing it wrong.