Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Edge-]

Do the elections happen in a vacuum separated from the rest of the mortal universe?

No. You can easily express yourself in the following matter by using your mouth or other forms of communication: "I did not vote for you, because your policies were not progressive enough and you repeatedly had your candidate giving the middle finger to progressives while making love to conservative ideas."

Not voting doesn't communicate that.

It just communicates that you didn't vote, the reasons for your failure to vote could be everything from a protest vote because Biden is too much of a leftie to a protest vote because you're a racist and sexist who can't stand a woman of color on the ticket to the fact that maybe you just spent all day in bed jerking off because you're horny and lazy.

The progressive camp had their chance to make their voice heard. The primary. And they did, but they didn't mobilize enough progressives to get "their guy" to win. And, again, now you're taking your toys home in a temper tantrum while thinking that the other kids can divine that you're doing this because Timmy wouldn't do the Starscream voice when playing Transformers.

[Endus]

Do the elections happen in a vacuum separated from the rest of the mortal universe?

No. You can easily express yourself in the following matter by using your mouth or other forms of communication: "I did not vote for you, because your policies were not progressive enough and you repeatedly had your candidate giving the middle finger to progressives while making love to conservative ideas."

By not voting, you're not expressing that. You're not participating in the process, and not engaged politically. You're choosing to remain silent, not demanding that your voice be heard. You're choosing to say nothing.

Voting lets you say "yea" or "nay" to any particular party. That's not a lot, but it's something.

You want more-involved and detailed discussions? That takes greater involvement than just voting. Working with candidates and the party to help support candidates you like. If you're not willing to do so? That's fine, but that means you're choosing to remain silent.

Not voting means you're in the same pool as "I didn't vote because I was busy watchin' mah sports" or "there was an election?" and "They're all lizardpeople! Learn the TRUTH!" There is no way to pick out your argument from any of the rest, and it has as much value as any of those.

[Mihalik]

Complaining about 'purity tests' begins with good intentions and ends with the following:

I don't think you understand the junction we are at.

This is it. This is the last vote. It's the alternative or the Nazis now. American democracy will not survive 4 more years of Trump.

The economy is in tatters, internationally we're up against a wall, brownshirts are kidnapping people off the streets, 150k people died in a pandemic.

And this will get a whole lot worse before it gets any better. The Trumpkins will blame minorities, the poor, the different, there'll be no courts to keep the brownshirts in check.

The past 4 months convinced me that this is it. And if you can't see that you are either an idiot or blind.

[Benggaul]

By not voting, you're not expressing that. You're not participating in the process, and not engaged politically. You're choosing to remain silent, not demanding that your voice be heard. You're choosing to say nothing.

Voting lets you say "yea" or "nay" to any particular party. That's not a lot, but it's something.

You want more-involved and detailed discussions? That takes greater involvement than just voting. Working with candidates and the party to help support candidates you like. If you're not willing to do so? That's fine, but that means you're choosing to remain silent.

I think that they're under the delusion that the candidates read all of the correspondence sent to them from RandomJoe69 on Twitter.

[Edge-]

Right now, those progressives are mostly told to stay off the fucking bus... because they're not groveling at the feet of a career conservative politician with a cop VP like everyone else is commanded to.

No, everyone on the bus voted for who they want the driver to be. The progressive camp's bus driver didn't win.

So you're functionally demanding that the bus not be driven at all and just stay in place because your guy can't drive it, despite the historical agreement amongst bus riders that whoever was voted to drive the bus will drive the bus and everyone else will accept the results because that's the agreement.

[wunksta]

Do the elections happen in a vacuum separated from the rest of the mortal universe?

No. You can easily express yourself in the following matter by using your mouth or other forms of communication: "I did not vote for you, because your policies were not progressive enough and you repeatedly had your candidate giving the middle finger to progressives while making love to conservative ideas."

Despite the frequent occurrence of election boycotts, there are few studies available in the scholarly literature concerning their effectiveness, particularly as a strategy of opposition parties seeking to bring about the end of electoral authoritarian governments. This article uses an original data set with global coverage of hybrid regimes from 1981 to 2006, and uses event-history analysis to determine the efficacy of boycotts in national elections among other risk factors thought to undermine hybrid regimes. This article also takes a preliminary look at democratization outcomes following boycotted and contested elections in hybrid regimes. The core findings are that boycotts hasten the electoral defeat of hybrid regimes without much risk of destabilizing the electoral process, but ultimately do not lead to increased competition in successor regimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...10414013488548

The Egyptian opposition’s decision to boycott parliamentary elections looks familiar to those of us who study Latin America, where high profile boycotts have periodically been used by parties who distrust the government in charge of administering those elections. Unfortunately for the Egyptian opposition, the Latin American experience should be seen as a cautionary tale, since boycotts have too often turned into self-inflicted political wounds. The opposition is choosing not to act as a legislative brake on the executive, thereby reducing its own political influence.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/01...tion-boycotts/

Removing yourself from the political process only hurts yourself.

[Endus]

Hey, I didn't say that. Pistolets are way better than sandwiches.

But either way we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm sure you feel like you have a strong rational basis as to why you believe your opinion is right, but likewise other people have a strong rational basis for why they believe not voting is their own way of expressing themselves, while believing other people are wrong obviously.

That is the reality you have to deal with in a democracy. So either you can keep the trolley running, or you can take into account that there is an entire different culture of people who could be on the bus with you, if only you understood that they look at things differently than you. Right now, those progressives are mostly told to stay off the fucking bus... because they're not groveling at the feet of a career conservative politician with a cop VP like everyone else is commanded to.

The argument that not voting gets your voice heard does not have any basis in rationality, to begin with.

The one argument along the lines you're talking is Downs' Paradox, but that's about whether the opportunity cost of voting is worth the benefits that accrue for doing so. It's a defense of apathy, because your vote doesn't generally matter in the end, not an argument that not voting is some kind of strong political message.

[Benggaul]

I don't think you understand the junction we are at.

This is it. This is the last vote. It's the alternative or the Nazis now. American democracy will not survive 4 more years of Trump.

The economy is in tatters, internationally we're up against a wall, brownshirts are kidnapping people off the streets, 150k people died in a pandemic.

And this will get a whole lot worse before it gets any better. The Trumpkins will blame minorities, the poor, the different, there'll be no courts to keep the brownshirts in check.

The past 4 months convinced me that this is it. And if you can't see that you are either an idiot or blind.

You're forgetting the most important point: Trump and the GOP are fixing the system to make all of that MORE easy to do as time goes on. The judges they've been packing the courts with, the gerrymandering, the dismantling of the USPS PURELY to fuck with mail-in voting, the voter suppression in general: all of that gets worse the longer those people are allowed to remain in charge.

The people who think it doesn't matter whether Trump or Biden wins this year because neither are "progressive" are in for a rude fucking awakening when, if Trump gets another 4 years, progressive ideas are no longer even brought to the table in Congress because they don't have a prayer of passing.

[beanman12345]

Hey, I didn't say that. Pistolets are way better than sandwiches.

But either way we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm sure you feel like you have a strong rational basis as to why you believe your opinion is right, but likewise other people have a strong rational basis for why they believe not voting is their own way of expressing themselves, while believing other people are wrong obviously.

That is the reality you have to deal with in a democracy. So either you can keep the trolley running, or you can take into account that there is an entire different culture of people who could be on the bus with you, if only you understood that they look at things differently than you. Right now, those progressives are mostly told to stay off the fucking bus... because they're not groveling at the feet of a career conservative politician with a cop VP like everyone else is commanded to.

You are a hardcore trump supporter.

[Edge-]

2016 all over again. Shame those who didn't live the same life as you and come to different conclusion then you. Shame them for participating in a the Democratic process as most completely marginalized and ignoring all their positions in the Primary. Then afterwards. If you don't vote for the person you prefer it'll all be their fault. Where are we at Biden polling almost exactly where Clinton was 4 years ago.

Again, so your issue is with voters choosing the "Wrong guy", which like...fuckin happens and is a natural part of democracy.

Maybe the progressive crowd should have spent more time over the past four years registering and mobilizing voters for Sanders.

Again, "your sides" failure to get "your guy" elected is on y'all, yet you keep blaming others as if they somehow owe "your guy" something.

[Benggaul]

Where are we at Biden polling almost exactly where Clinton was 4 years ago.

False.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...n-at-her-peak/

Don't get me wrong, I take all of that with a grain of salt and don't think there's an ounce of room to breathe or for complacency thanks largely in part to the voter suppression, but your statement is just inaccurate.

[Edge-]

You misunderstand. There is nothing to argue about. You literally have a bloc of people who feel like they shouldn't vote because the candidate isn't progressive enough.

And the Democratic party has literally know way of knowing this is why y'all didn't vote.

They don't exist in your brains. They can't read your minds. Not voting doesn't send any message, it's not a "protest" vote. For all the DNC knows you were too busy doing cocaine off a hookers back on election day and forgot to go to the polls. Or maybe you had really bad sunburn and spent the day soaking in a nice aloe bath.

[Endus]

No.

You misunderstand. There is nothing to argue about. You literally have a bloc of people who feel like they shouldn't vote because the candidate isn't progressive enough.
That is all you get to deal with. That is the pragmatic reality. You either adjust to that or just leave them where they are. There is no discussion or reasoning to be done.

In the bold, you admit to being unreasonable. Explicitly. You're just stating that you're obstinate and unwilling to change, no matter how irrational your position is demonstrated to be.

And I mean, fair enough. But this is a public forum. I'm well aware that changing people's minds here is generally a fool's errand. What I can do, and why I post, is that I can communicate to everyone else what the flaws in your position are, and why they should not take it seriously.

I'm not trying to convince you. Like you said; you're not open to discussion or reason. I'm using you to talk to everyone else.

Edit: And, to be clear, I'm not saying you couldn't be open to a solid argument. I'd hope you would be. I'm just underscoring the part of your post where you explicitly state that you aren't open to changing your mind, no matter how strong an argument is provided. And indicating that it doesn't matter to me, because you're not even my primary audience. This is a public discussion, not a one-on-one.

[beanman12345]

False.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...n-at-her-peak/

Don't get me wrong, I take all of that with a grain of salt and don't think there's an ounce of room to breathe or for complacency thanks largely in part to the voter suppression, but your statement is just inaccurate.

TBF all 400 of his statements in this thread are inaccurate. he's concern t'ing.

[beanman12345]

Because it's more a difference of culture and ideology than it is about reasoning or a rational basis.

There is a fundamental disagreement on what it means "not to vote". That will not be overcome with debate or having a chat about it.

I agree, the willfully ignorant don't want to vote, and they are fully supported by trump supporters like you.

[Endus]

Explicitly I'm explaining that there is a fundamental difference of culture. You somehow feel that not voting is 'not expressing yourself', I disagree.

In the same sense that not speaking is "not expressing yourself".

You've yet to explain how your political voice is going to be heard, through your disavowal of all methods of communication and influence.

[Ivanstone]

2016 all over again. Shame those who didn't live the same life as you and come to different conclusion then you. Shame them for participating in a the Democratic process as most completely marginalized and ignoring all their positions in the Primary. Then afterwards. If you don't vote for the person you prefer it'll all be their fault. Where are we at Biden polling almost exactly where Clinton was 4 years ago.

The past 3 elections the GOP had the same voting populace come out if you factor in for population growth. The GOP knows this which is why they keep trying to suppress the vote. Not showing up does have actual ramifications.

Clinton lost because people who voted for Obama didn't show up. She could've been better but the electorate should've also been paying attention.

[starlord]

Explicitly I'm explaining that there is a fundamental difference of culture. You somehow feel that not voting is 'not expressing yourself', I disagree.

its expressing that you are satisfied with either outcome so there is no point in "changing" to appeal to you.

[Benggaul]

Voter suppression. You mean like in New York a district in New York they threw out a large percentage of the vote?

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/16/...ts-thrown-out/

Gee I'd hate for Trump to do that.

Per your own link:

The leading cause of invalidations appears to be a failure by the voter to have signed and dated the ballot, according to several campaigns who have been monitoring the process.

People not filling out their ballots correctly is hardly voter suppression.

[Edge-]

By communicating why people are not voting.

How does a non-vote communicate this?