Poll: Is not voting ever a good political strategy?

Otm tbh

Political strategies can all fuck off

identifying and repeatedly doing so as a non voter is no weirder than identifying as a voter for any particular party and less so perhaps if no particular party does much you agree with but i cannot figure out where i stand about identifying strongly as a voter (non affiliated) what i might say is throwing tantrums about any of it all the time makes me strongly want to affiliate as someone who leaves the room

Political strategies can all fuck off

― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length),

wish we'd been able to tell MLK!

Yes

Although these days personally would take a lot for me not to vote at all

sorry was just annoyed. to be clear I think discussing your own decision about whether to vote or not as a "political strategy" is the particular thing that can fuck off here. But the term is already annoying without that context as it's used by the people who treat politics as they would a sports management sim.

There are theoretical examples I can think up where it could be useful, if risky.

I do not believe these ever occur in real national elections.

"Is not running for office ever a good political strategy?"

is anybody here going to change their mind on whether they vote, or who they vote for, by what someone on ilx says about the strategic value of their decision?

*raises hand* I used to be an "I can't vote for candidate because" person for [insert any number of reasons -- didn't protect abortion rights, wouldn't prosecute war criminals for torture, didn't address the AIDS epidemic when people were dying in huge numbers]. I argued with people on ilx about this and was persuaded that my positions were narcissistic and stupid. it took a long time -- years! ilx wasn't the only factor, I read books & listened to other people & so on. but it was arguments I had here that persuaded me that I was centering my feelings, thinking of the process in a way that made it About Me even if, to me at the time, I was centering: the things I am passionate about! the people who are being left behind! the dead and abandoned! etc. but now I think of not voting for conscience as a fundamental misunderstanding of voting as self-expression. I'm not expressing myself when I vote. I'm not "supporting" anybody. I'm picking between outcomes. My pick may or may not win the day, but that's all it is, and it matters when I think of it that way. Arguments on ILX persuaded me of this.

Well said.

Is not running for office ever a good political strategy?

Absolutely! My political interests ate best served by my staying the fuck away from trying to be the guy standing for them.

fairly weary of this conversation on ilx (thus I appreciate Aimless's attempt to quarantine it!), but reading all the posts so far makes me think that there's a kind of philosphical problem here: voting is about predicting the future -- "outcomes" as JCLC just put it -- something one cannot fully do strategically because they cannot be known in advance.

four years ago I wouldn't have predicted the Democrats would have moved so sharply right on policing, the border, immigration & asylum, the death penalty (absent from the platform for the first time in decades), Iran, etc. (I know there are left equivalents too, no need to remind me). so, unhelpful post alert: I think the logic is flawed and the basic foundations of these arguments are so speculative you end up debating whether, say, trump is really going to nuke Gaza or some other fantasy.

the other thought I had reading the thread: sounds like the more truly effective strategy would be to vote for the other party, not just abstain. We all lived through 600 years of white working class man voter discourse post-2016. Of course advocating for this on ilx would end up with every single poster permabanned

This question is all about context and assumptions so I will just write in "it depends".

As others have noted, there are circumstances where abstaining achieves nothing, where it's largely symbolic. At least you let them know you didn't like the options.

I would argue there are circumstances where a blank vote is not neutral, because you are actually withdrawing your vote from A and indirectly favoring B. At least in a polarized democratic exercise, it's a bad strategy if you actually care (i.e. think there's a lesser of two evils) but do not cast your vote because you wish for a hypothetical good C, that may never happen. My voting strategy would be along the lines of choosing the one that offers the nearest path to C, and I would only abstain if A/B are indistinguishable or both so abhorrent that it's a question of dignity.

So I guess the most interesting case is indeed the circumstances where a blank vote can function as more or less collective message of general discontent, and we can enter into some philosophical questions about when it's acceptable for your reasons to be lumped together with others.

One of the things I think is good about voting (on a societal level not an individual one) is it helps with transitions of power, something which non-democratic systems can struggle with, as is less clear where power is during a period of flux such as after a leaders death, and the mechanisms of determining that are less clear, which can be hazardous. Potentially outcomes are...generally less fraught

is anybody here going to change their mind on whether they vote, or who they vote for, by what someone on ilx says about the strategic value of their decision?

I think there's a general assumption that people are fixed on everything and don't change their minds, and I believe this to be much less the case than it appears. People change their minds on things all the time. its might not happen overnight (although it might), but in my experience people are much more malleable than is often assumed

I should qualify that. I think I mean more that lots of view people have on things are held with relatively low levels of conviction

arent you the guy who has spent six years convincing an imaginary cpusin not to vote trump or something

I voted yes, because I can imagine scenarios where not voting could be effective to help achieve certain ends. That said, I’m very much with JCLC. I do not consider my vote some holy relic or rite that can only be bestowed on those truly and fully worthy, nor do I see it as some blood pact whereby I accept responsibility for all of that candidate’s views or actions in perpetuity. It’s a small lever we all have, and I try to use it wisely under whatever the circumstances are.

I should probably qualify there as to say that people hold views with varying levels of conviction, and that while views can be very fixed they are not necessarily so

. I'm picking between outcomes.

How do you know the outcomes? And if the outcomes are ones that you disagree with, and are almost assured to be in many cases, then what choice is there?

"no difference between the parties" Nader voters asked that question that and we got George Bush in the process.

A lot of this also hinges on living in a small handful of states, at least if we are talking about the US. My vote in the presidential election as a NYer has zero conceivable strategic value either way. I honestly just do it to not take my ability and right to vote for granted. Maybe if I truly believed our elections were not free and fair I’d withhold my vote.

Also, this discussion primarily applies to presidential elections. I have had the experience of seeing a small number of voter have a very consequential impact I. Local elections.

I, too, am skeptical of the idea that a single well-reasoned and well-presented argument, whether it is posted here on ilx or delivered through some other means, has much effect on the opinions or convictions of those who read it. I think a more realistic model is that when a person encounters such arguments from various sources they are somewhat familiar with and consider trustworthy in other matters, the weight of those arguments is cumulative and may shift the perspective of the recipient.

The mechanism at work there is simple enough. A single exposure to contrary ideas from a familiar and sometimes trusted source can be dismissed from the mind as an oddity and then swiftly forgotten. As such exposures to contradictions are repeated the pressure to resolve them increases. When the 'memory hole' you've been dropping them into gets too full it becomes clear that you'll need to reconsider your trust in those sources or else reconsider your conviction/opinion/belief.

It can go either way. You can lose your trust and distance yourself from everyone who contradicts you, or you can open yourself to revising your ideas. It is often a matter of which option seems more painful or costly. But sometimes revising your ideas is the low cost pathway, especially when the alternative is to isolate yourself from a large chunk of your social circle.

So, I think having these arguments can have an effect, even though we don't see it immediately. It's not just shouting down a well for the pleasure of hearing your voice reverberate against the stones.

idk many of you have had an influence -- direct and indirect -- on my decisions. Certainly my daily exposure to many of you has deepened my chronic ambivalences.

"no difference between the parties" Nader voters asked that question that and we got George Bush in the process.

― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Sunday, August 25, 2024 10:36 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Love when people whip out this old saw instead of making an argument of any substance. “eat the shit and like it”

At least the discussion here is good at taking in the breadth of history and geography that "ever" implies.

How do you know the outcomes? And if the outcomes are ones that you disagree with, and are almost assured to be in many cases, then what choice is there?

This doesn't have to be complicated: You are choosing between the outcomes that seem likely based on what the candidates have said and done, and you weigh pros and cons to determine which overall outcome is preferable.

Do you want to live in a world in which candidate X is in office vs. a world in which candidate Y is in office?

I don’t want a world with candidates or offices!

My campus office is nice -- it even has a door.

Someone’s been “job”-pilled

xxp...okay, but i'm the making arguments without substance.

How do you know the outcomes? And if the outcomes are ones that you disagree with, and are almost assured to be in many cases, then what choice is there?

you have a loose idea of the outcomes, as do I. neither are good; one is, invariably, less bad, unless we're doing the "there's this one thing that's bad which makes any other math un-doable." I understand this position, but I don't hold it. if one candidate will cut welfare and the other will cut welfare more, the first candidate is better, even if both candidates are, say, literal ax murderers. I'm going to get one of the two anyway; if me and all my friends abstain from voting for conscience, it won't have any effect, at all, on this system -- the system is fine with me staying home, it putters on, harming many and helping few. I think there's a case to be made for "I spent election day volunteering at the food bank and thereby did more good," but for me, voting for the Democrat will result in a few things here or there that make me prefer them in office. I don't think it "makes no difference," as many say -- it does make a positive difference, here and there; not in enough places, but here or there is enough for me. there's no issue on which I'd say "it'd be better to have a Republican in office for this". that's enough to get me to the polls, I don't think me not voting makes the Democrats look at the outcome and say "geez we should have done more to stop the genocide in Gaza." I don't think refusing to vote will have any positive effect for Gaza. my vote probably won't either, but I'm voting for the outcome that might do marginally more in the many areas about which I care.

"no difference between the parties" Nader voters asked that question that and we got George Bush in the process.

DLC Democrats decided to do the Ickey Shuffle on everyone to their left (shortly after WTO protests and with a nascent progressive wing reappearing in the party itself) with Liebermann's nomination and we got George Bush in the process.

Whatever other arguments you want to make, votes are owed to and owned by no one - if a candidate or party makes explicit its disdain for a group of voters it can't really be mad when those voters don't turn out.

My dad had a saying, "you pays your nickel and you takes your choice". A vote is your nickel. In terms of elections it doesn't look like much until it gets pooled with a lot of others. It's also why it has more value in local elections.

I think a more interesting question might be if there are any issues that would make ilxors *not vote* for the Dems? since ax murdering isn't going to show up on the platform ever. obviously for almost all of you the genocide in Palestine isn't it, but is there any line you would draw? partially thinking here about the stark difference between this issue in USpol threads and the UK one

my hot take is that there is exactly one instance where a non-vote is strategically good: when an office is uncontested. if the only candidate is gop, the outcome is already known, so the null vote at least communicates a desire for an alternative candidate. but you have to show up to do that, too.

yes, agree strongly with that

I think a more interesting question might be if there are any issues that would make ilxors *not vote* for the Dems? since ax murdering isn't going to show up on the platform ever. obviously for almost all of you the genocide in Palestine isn't it, but is there any line you would draw? partially thinking here about the stark difference between this issue in USpol threads and the UK one

for me it's hard to imagine any such issue, because as I say, my vote is just "which one of these assholes do you think might do any good at all." I expect the Democrats to be awful in a number of areas. for me it's just a question of "what does my not voting for a Democratic accomplish?" nothing; voting accomplishes very nearly nothing, but it's not actually me saying "I'm fine with all you're doing." twenty years ago the genocide in Gaza would absolutely have stopped me from voting for them; so would their failure to protect abortion; 81 of them voted for war on Iraq, a historical atrocity of such magnitude that people have mainly stopped talking about it. middle aged me considers, as I've said, that you are going to get one of them, and that voting is not an expression of personal conscience.

It's hard for me to imagine not voting for a Democratic candidate for a high office like president, governor, senator, or congressional rep. For one, those are offices where third parties are not viable, so the winner of the general election is always going to be either a Democrat or a Republican (unless it's an independent who caucused with one of the major parties like Bernie Sanders). For another, those offices have responsibility over a wide set of issue areas, and on the whole, I agree with the Democratic set of policy positions more than the Republican set of policy positions. Even as I agree with some Democrats more than others, I have not had the experience where an individual Democrat's overall positions are so bad that the Republican's positions are more appealing.

Local races are different. The Democratic Party is dominant where I live, so Republicans are almost never possibilities. Also, the scope of responsibilities for a local office is more limited, so it's often more about who is more competent, less corrupt, etc. As such, I occasionally vote for Green Party candidates for metropolitan water district board or whatever.

I have in the past voted for the stray local Republican candidate when it’s someone I think is generally competent and the Dems haven’t bothered to run a real candidate so the D line is occupied by some sketchy grifter or kook. Fortunately our local Democratic Party has gotten better about contesting races, so that scenario happens much less often. The other situation where I will vote for a Republican is if I like one of the candidates in a republican primary a lot more than the other one. I will still generally vote against them in the general election if there is a decent Democratic candidate, but since we have open primaries I am happy to try to veto the worst Republicans when I get a chance.

Political strategies can all fuck off

― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length),

wish we'd been able to tell MLK!

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i mean i think you make a good implicit point here, which is that "political strategies" aren't, like, individual acts. they're highly organized, they're work, and they don't take place exclusively, or even necessarily predominantly, at the ballot box. voting or not voting as an individual is _not a viable political strategy_. like, not to get too wonkish here, but can someone vote or not vote tactically? sure. strategically? wow that's overestimating the case.

i don't personally believe in voting for tactical reasons. i don't see evidence that how i vote can be tactically effective in any case. my vote is personal, and is based on my values, my principles, my understanding of the facts, and in large part, by my emotions. i don't mind this. i think it's fine for me to vote or not vote out of spite. if someone disagrees with that decision, you know, that's cool, but it doesn't mean that i'm personally in a position where i'm going to actually listen to them. that's the main reason i stay out of the politics threads. i have a lot of opinions, but there's this expectation that i'm supposed to discourse or engage with people when, like, i don't necessarily care how they feel about what i'm saying. i don't feel like defending myself or being cross-examined. and i feel like maybe a lot of other people are the same way. i do think there's some evidence that suggests this is the case, that if somebody's going to change their mind they have to be open to it, and if they're not open to it, arguing with them is just going to entrench people's feelings and it gets to the point where people just start, like, cross-examining each other.

if we're gonna talk about things on the personal level, yes. people here have had major effects on my decisions. including whether or not i voted, yes. i don't count that as one of the more significant ways being on ilx has helped guide me, one of the more significant ways people here have helped me grow. to me, voting, particularly in the us on a presidential level, is _not_ one of the more significant political acts one can undertake. i think it's a fairly minor act. politics, to me, that's about my values and believes and how i live them. i don't think politics happens once every four years any more than the preachers at the churches i went to believed that religion only existed on christmas and easter.

and maybe that's why i find all these arguments about voting or not voting silly. it's like arguing whether or not someone should go to church on christmas. do i think it's a _bad thing_ for people to do? not really.

xp god it must be nice to live in a state with open primaries

I can fully understand US women voting for an ugly bullshit centre-right political party of genocide because their reproductive rights are on the ballot and US trans people for their right to exist. And stick with the party with a nose peg on, because the alternative is life threatening in a very real way. But there will never be any meaningful change until there is a mass popular movement to break capitalism and it's stranglehold on corrupt client states is my take on this. This will just repeating over and over again ad infinitum "most important election ever" etc...

pretty much my take as well

I think most of us realize that voting, considered in isolation, is one of the least effective political acts available to us, but that does not render it entirely meaningless in our patchwork system of governance, where at each level, whether it is cities, counties, school districts, state legislatures, or Congress. At every level what gets done eventually come down to who has the higher number of votes. Whoever has the votes gets to control tax revenues, what is or isn't the law, or who sits on our courts. It's a pyramid of power and we sit at the very bottom, but our puny votes are still the foundation it is built on.

When you get up into the more effective political acts you move from a simple act that takes minimal effort to expending much larger amounts of time and energy. Most of us can only rise a short distance above the minimum, but some of us, like ilxors jjjusten, alfred lord sotosyn, or hoosteen, manage to inject that higher level of commitment. If you want to break capitalism instead of voting, hey, you have our blessing. Go hog wild! We're behind you cheering.

loudly threatening to withhold your vote for specific reason(s), and making sure the votee is aware of that - classic
not bothering to vote at all - dud

IHIBIDTAE

btw, it's worth considering that one of the most basic strategies employed by the conservative opposition is to do everything possible to prevent, deflect, or suppress voting, from intimidation, to voter ID laws, to gerrymandering, or simply convincing as many people as possible that voting is an empty futile gesture that will never make a dime's worth of difference to their lives. Maybe they know something about voting we aren't acknowledging.

xxp
you see, if I was a narcissist I wouldn't be so happy open myself up to ridicule here! It just bothers me that if people don't support the status quo then it is a form of narcissism according to parts of this thread. I'm benefits scum, so my opposition to garbage centrist policies and politicians is at least a significant % of self-interest group concern as well. Anyway I'll go away in peace, because it is mainly a US pol thread.

As I learned yesterday meeting with otherwise intelligent, engaged late middle-age voters, many if not most Democrats have no interest in destroying capitalism -- the Central and South American exiles are particularly passionate about Reclaiming The Flag and Taking Patriotism Back from the GOP.

Younger voters are another story.

loudly threatening to withhold your vote for specific reason(s), and making sure the votee is aware of that - classic
not bothering to vote at all - dud

Mostly agree with this but obviously as soon as you admit that this is what you are doing the threat becomes meaningless.

extremely well said, all of it- thank you for sharing your perspective. I think what I said came off naive and saccharine, but I wasn’t sure how else to say what I was trying to say. Probably I would have been better off not engaging in the political threads at all. I’m definitely not pleased that my contributions set multiple people off, time for some introspection.

Nah, your post was as sincere and well-put as any on this thread. You're welcome here.

<3

Speaking as a left-handed dental hygienist, voting decisions don't have to be about individual self-interest.

Like, you don't have to be a woman to have reproductive freedom as part of your voting decisions. Or queer to care about queer issues, or Palestinian to care about Palestine.

I totally get having parental feels; I have them myself. But I'd like to think that if I were childless I'd vote more or less the same. Traditionally Democrats present themselves as being motivated by sympathy for the downtrodden (however imperfectly they carry that out in reality).

extremely well said, all of it- thank you for sharing your perspective. I think what I said came off naive and saccharine, but I wasn’t sure how else to say what I was trying to say. Probably I would have been better off not engaging in the political threads at all. I’m definitely not pleased that my contributions set multiple people off, time for some introspection.

― epistantophus

speaking as someone whose posts have set people off multiple times, haha...

one of the things that i work on accepting is that i will say things that set people off, often people i like and respect. like debate culture has this assumption that someone is right and someone is wrong and in a case like the topic of this thread, i really genuinely don't believe there's a right and wrong here. (although other people do, and aren't wrong for believing that!)

and for me it sucks because i do avoid a lot of situations or people for fear of saying or doing the "wrong thing", i was raised with these very perfectionist standards that, honestly, didn't super benefit me

one of the values i hold most strongly is that people should be allowed to make mistakes. online particularly, i find there's a lot of pressure on me to not fuck up, to not make mistakes, particularly since transitioning because i am hypervisible.

not totally related, but lately i've been thinking about the values i was raised with, the sense of justice and law i was raised with and... the thing that bothers me most is the cross-examination. to me, i say something and there's this kind of adversarial approach, is this really what happened, is that really what happened. i think what i've learned in dbt as "fact-checking" is important, that sometimes i say things based on my feelings that aren't strictly speaking true. and when that happens - this isn't just a me thing, this is human behavior overall - is that if somebody tells me, quite correctly, "that thing you said isn't true", i get defensive and start arguing with them. which i couldn't do in court, but that doesn't make it ok to just go after, particularly, victims like that. like my last post got as long as it was... i looked at your post the first time and i was just as mad as brimstead was, honestly, i did feel it was patronizing. people remind me a lot of the time to assume good faith. which is hard for me particularly because sometimes people who aren't acting in good faith act like they are. here, though, that's not generally a problem. i kind of assume people mean what they say, and if i'm not sure, i ask. :)

anyway i look at your post and i got feelings but there's nothing factual for me to argue with. all i can do is talk about my own experience and how it's like yours and how it's different.

-

a couple more not-really-related thoughts i've had since 2 am :) (i did get back to sleep, fitfully. this thread isn't what's keeping me up at night, for the record.)

one is that this idea that we're the ones who should be thinking strategically is so weird and backwards for me. the biggest issue i have with the democrats is that in 2016 they lost. all 2016, people were assuring me that trump will never win, that i'm worrying about nothing, and they were wrong. and i do hold the democrats responsible. i voted for clinton in the primaries, i voted for clinton in the general, and she lost. she lost my state at the time in an election in which the republicans were doing blatant voter suppression. she lost in an election where merrick garland, their nominee, was rejected due to blatant political chicanery, and they accepted it. to my mind, the republicans, in rejecting garland, cheated, and they accepted it. they're choosing to accept the republicans' rules. choosing to play at a disadvantage. choosing to win elections by over a million votes and acknowledge defeat, because those were the rules, and when trump loses the next election by over _seven million_ votes, he doesn't accept it, he tries to overthrow the government instead. and for god's sake please don't think for a second i'm saying that the democrats should have tried to overthrow the government in 2016. jesus. no. because those aren't the two options. they have other options. they have power that i don't. they have strategic opportunities that none of us here do.

and they're the ones thinking strategically. they're thinking strategically in concluding that supporting genocide is a good thing to have on their platform. that it will get them into power. that makes every single voter either reckon with their support of genocide, or worse _fail_ to reckon with their support of genocide. i can call it "strategic" thinking, but like, why the fuck am i having to ask these hard fucking questions? because the democratic leadership is exhibiting a profound failure in, honestly, leadership. they're not leading. most of the people i know are voting not out of hope, but out of fear. and obama, you know, i can cynically say that his presidency reduced "hope" to an empty, meaningless slogan. less cynically, though, people believe in the dream. even if obama's promise was in a lot of ways empty (and in a lot of ways not empty, because he did things that had real benefit to not just me personally but to America as a whole), i still desperately want to hope for a better world. and i do, and that hope is _despite_ what the democrats say and do, not because of it.

-

one more thought i had last night. a lot of the 2024 election is blatantly re-litigating past elections. republicans want to re-litigate 2020. democrats want to re-litigate 2016. since i don't talk to republicans, people bring up the terrible things trump did the first time around. and this is true. the damage he did is worse and deeper than i think most people are willing to admit to this day. i'm not looking forward to the prospect of it happening again.

see, here's the thing, though. hillary clinton is, uh, kind of transphobic. most people aren't really aware of this, even most trans people, because, well, she lost. she ran and lost and because of that the stuff she says mainly gets ignored. i hear some of it, just a little, and the stuff i hear from her is a lot of "just asking questions", a lot of "both sides". the democratic party leadership _isn't_ transphobic. hasn't been during the trump administration, hasn't been during the biden administration, isn't now. when clinton starts down that path, i've seen people on stage with her multiple times gently but firmly correct her, in a way that doesn't give her the opportunity to argue. they don't necessarily support trans people as much as i'd like in _practical terms_, but compared to the blatantly transphobic attitudes of a lot of british liberals, british media outlets, people in the labour party, the democratic party on a national level is _much more_ firmly committed to supporting trans rights.

that's made a big difference. things are a lot better for me as a trans person in the US than they are for trans people in the UK. i'm _very_ aware of this. it hurts me a lot to see what trans people in the UK have to go through, the shit they get that i don't. and i'm not inclined to re-litigate the past. i'm not inclined to do counterfactuals. to those people who are, to those people who look at 2016 and say "oh if only clinton had won everything would be so much better"... maybe. and maybe transphobia in america would be more widely accepted, more widespread, than it is now, because it is a fully partisan political issue, because there's nobody powerful in the democratic party supporting transphobia.

-

Speaking as a left-handed dental hygienist, voting decisions don't have to be about individual self-interest.

Like, you don't have to be a woman to have reproductive freedom as part of your voting decisions. Or queer to care about queer issues, or Palestinian to care about Palestine.

― tempted by the food of your mother (Ye Mad Puffin)

ouch. i mean yes. yes, obviously, solidarity is a thing that's important to me, intersectionality is important to me. i work to support people who don't have the same interests as me, who in some cases have _opposite_ interests to me. like, maybe some of the palestinian people aren't huge fans of trans people, you know? but it doesn't justify genocide. it doesn't.

at the same time i _am_ planning to vote for harris _despite_ the fact that she's supporting the genocide of the palestinian people because as much as i try to be an ally, that's a choice i have. that's a viable option.

nobody's supporting the genocide of left-handed dental hygenists. dental hygenists aren't at risk the way the palestinian people are. the way trans people are. that's why i'm always speaking _as_ a trans woman, because it's important and relevant in a way that being a left-handed dental hygenist isn't. it shouldn't be! it shouldn't fucking matter that i'm trans. but it does, so i do center that part of my identity, particularly since it's not obvious unless i center it.

one of the reasons i feel like i don't really have a choice in voting is, i mean. speaking as a trans person, i'm not going to vote for a candidate for a party that wants there to not be any trans people. it affects me a lot more personally than it did in 2016, when i voted for hillary clinton and didn't give any consideration at all to her stance on trans issues.

anyway that's why i think that even though solidarity is important, ultimately voting is an individual choice, that we don't have the latitude to think strategically about it in the same way that the people who write the democratic party platform can.

I voted "no". "Strategic abstention" is a logical fallacy. I don't disagree with the idea on an emotional level-- I don't want to vote for a candidate who I don't like-- but it makes absolutely zero sense from any logical perspective.

Aside from the logical side of it, I find this line of thinking to be hopelessly, obviously insulting, spitting in the face of the underprivileged, spitting in the face of countries who are most-harmed by US imperialism. Do your job in mitigating the harm your country causes to its people and around the world, and vote. Or don't, but don't try and justify it.

if the question was around what strategy you can meaningfully contribute to with your single vote then nobody should have answered

Here's the question, nothing about single votes in there:

Q: Is not-voting ever a good way to apply pressure to change a candidate's policy position in a more positive direction?

Again, I say no. I'd argue further that "convincing the voting base of one's opponent that their candidate is unworthy of their vote", promoting apathy amongst the voting base of the opposing candidate, is an effective campaign strategy. Trump won in 2016, in part, by fomenting the dissatisfaction in the "left" voting base that they felt toward Hillary as a candidate, resulting in a more-apathetic turnout among potential Democratic voters.

I'm sorry if someone else said this, I tried to read the thread but honestly I can't be sure I caught everything:

Abstaining could potentially be part of a strategic plan only if there was a creditable theory of change for how it would be used to achieve the desired outcome. Just not voting as an individual might be a moral decision; it is certainly a personal one. But it's not part of a strategy until there's a plan, and that plan has X% of chance of being effective toward its goal that makes it worth trying.

There would be people doing the thing together, to show organization and power. There would have to be messaging, to tell your target what the action is in support of. And there would need to be CONSEQUENCES clearly defined for what happens next, whether you do or don't meet the goal.

That's like the minimum necessary moving parts that I would expect of any campaign to try to do anything tbh.

anyway i look at your post and i got feelings but there's nothing factual for me to argue with. all i can do is talk about my own experience and how it's like yours and how it's different.

I get it. And I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt rather than sticking with the initial reaction. I have no idea why I felt compelled to share my own perspective/reasoning for voting. It wasn't even the full picture, just my #1 reason. I've always been a D voter, always felt those ideals strongly (despite the party's flaws), it's just that what really brought it home to me on a personal level is having a young daughter growing up in the midst of the ongoing fallout from the Trump era, where her rights are actively being taken away. I know that's been other people's lived reality for a long, long time. Nobody needed to hear my cis white male, privileged, hegemonic perspective. But I haven't lived your experiences, or DJP's experiences, or anyone else's, so I can only speak to my own perspective, and hope it can be seen as it was intended- an expression of solidarity and the desire to be a better ally to all.

io otm and that was my last point really

agree, i do think it's related to Aimless's point about visibility

I think io did a great job of laying out a concise summary of what's required for not-voting to become something directed and politically effective, as opposed to a private personal act that exerts no leverage over policy.

i do think there's possibility for a worthwhile discussion around the topic of "how can abstaining from voting be used strategically by a group of people to achieve a specific, concrete objective?"

however, i can empathize with posters who see the thread premise as a vacuous intellectual exercise, or an attempt to downplay or extricate the personal from the political, or even a kind of intrusion or accusation. and of course, just as we have the right to coordinate and to organize politically, we also have a right to say "fuck you, it's none of your business who i'm voting for." but i do think that there is vulnerability and sacrifice that's at the heart of activism. and so i guess what i'd say is that the only interpretation of this poll that makes any sense to me is, "can coordinated non-voting function as activism?" at which point a whole different discussion arises, maybe, one that can contain the details of biography and inner life that are intertwined with our political acts and which drive us to embrace that values that make us want to enact changes in the first place. in other words, a dialectical understanding of the premise that understands that thinking strategically doesn't preclude us from centering the lived experiences which give our politics substance and meaning. with the added caveat that meaningfully and substantively engaging with politics pretty much means inviting derision, sometimes from ppl who would otherwise share your vision based on shared beliefs. idk

at which point a whole different discussion arises, maybe, one that can contain the details of biography and inner life that are intertwined with our political acts and which drive us to embrace that values that make us want to enact changes in the first place. in other words, a dialectical understanding of the premise that understands that thinking strategically doesn't preclude us from centering the lived experiences which give our politics substance and meaning.

I mean, sure? Like, yes, this is always true at the same time as other things are also true?

Idk I think part of my current lived understanding is that I listened to someone carry on and on last night about how it's impossible to ever truly know The Self and how can you possibly separate all the things that people are a product of, was there ever really an immutable self at all? and so on, with BONUS added strident islamophobia. Like okay, it's fine to think about that but maybe if you care that much, do something to help in the real world that affects people?

I'm probably just tired.

I get it. And I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt rather than sticking with the initial reaction. I have no idea why I felt compelled to share my own perspective/reasoning for voting. It wasn't even the full picture, just my #1 reason. I've always been a D voter, always felt those ideals strongly (despite the party's flaws), it's just that what really brought it home to me on a personal level is having a young daughter growing up in the midst of the ongoing fallout from the Trump era, where her rights are actively being taken away. I know that's been other people's lived reality for a long, long time. Nobody needed to hear my cis white male, privileged, hegemonic perspective. But I haven't lived your experiences, or DJP's experiences, or anyone else's, so I can only speak to my own perspective, and hope it can be seen as it was intended- an expression of solidarity and the desire to be a better ally to all.

― epistantophus

well, everybody will take things differently, and like i'm sure there are people who will be frustrated and complain about some cis white male sharing his perspective as if we haven't heard enough cis white men already. maybe some other time i would've been frustrated and complained about that. all i can say for myself is that i'm glad you were willing to share your perspective... that you got pushback doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong of you to speak up. that's the thing... that's the thing i've had to work really hard on learning. in the past a lot of times people would talk about their perspectives and i felt like as a "cis white man" what i thought wasn't important, that i should keep my mouth shut and not say anything. and sometimes, honestly, that probably is the wiser move, and a lot of times i open my mouth anyway.

i just... i'm just critically reflecting on what you said, and i don't think it was entitled. i believe you were talking about your values. sometimes i see people whose lives are so different from mine, and i just can't believe people live lives that are... that seem to me to be so trivial, by comparison. i was listening to an ad on the radio the way back home from work and it was for a bank talking about how they help out parents who want to send their kids to tennis camp. and it was just hard for me to believe that these were real people, that these were real concerns people have. just because i don't encounter them every day, though, doesn't mean they're not real, doesn't mean parents worrying about sending their kid to tennis camp doesn't _matter_.

i mean if we are going to prioritize, you know, what's more important, trans people's right to exist or a suburban parent's ability to send their kid to tennis camp, i'd look askance at anybody who would say the latter was as important as the former. everyone counts. it's also, like, important to me that you count specifically as a _cis white man_ and not as a "normal person". it's context. it's context, and it's important to me. it's important to me to be around people who aren't like me, to believe that... i can have things in common with cis white men, really. that i can _communicate_ with people who live something approximating "normal" lives. because i really don't, and i really badly want to. something approximating normal. not actually normal, but something where i don't spend as much of my time feeling fucked up and weird and inadequate.

idk. i just remember the ways i got it wrong, the ways in which a lot of ways i still get it wrong, and it's important for me to say that equity doesn't necessarily mean "cis white men need to keep their fucking mouths shut".

much love to everyone here, whether you vote, however you vote, whatever your reasons are or aren't.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'm not convinced that voting in a poll was the most accurate way to gauge sentiment on this topic

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

From the OP:

The poll aspect of this thread is just bait to try to compartmentalize the endless back-and-forth in the US Politics threads about the wisdom or efficacy of not voting as a political strategy.