Poll: Is not voting ever a good political strategy?

- How are you making your stance known (other than posting here) and what group are you joining that has the goal and ability to bargain with her campaign for your votes?
- What verbal commitment from Harris would you be satisfied with, given that a verbal commitment is all that can happen until she is actually President?

I'm not sure why the inclination would be to amplify your position in the public sphere without making these two things clear at every opportunity. There is the potential here to impact countless others' intentions regarding voting, without bringing them into the bargaining position I can only presume you intend.

lol this is disgusting. yes it's on the non genocide agreers to justify all their choices. especially since other people, who are apparently babies, might hear.

this thread is fucking pathetic and full of a lot of people who think they're smart but are actually dumb as shit, poster aimless chief among them. i will be voting for harris in november and honestly gaza isn't a huge issue for me because i've seen so many us backed genocides in my lifetime, it sucks but i see a genocide of poor and mentally ill people in my own backyard every day and the chance to address that is my primary motivation for voting.

people can choose to not participate politically and be perfectly valid morally upright beings. the assumption of a zero sum game in this kind of thread question is stupid horseshit. the worst thread of the year from one of our worst posters.

I'm not asking anyone to justify anything, voting or not voting is a personal choice. But given the amount of "oh, so you support genocide?" bullshit I see thrown around here, I just assumed the posters with the higher moral ground had some sort of plan and I wanted to know what it was.

It definitely feels like the posters who plan to vote are being forced to justify themselves, and I find that disgusting.

Particularly in light of what some of our ancestors went through to make voting a routine task for some of us.

I’m with DJP — that’s what my parents taught me about voting, that it’s something people fought hard and even died for and i ought not squander if I want to sleep at night. The privilege of withholding my vote never seemed more important than that, to me at least.

^^^
I’m finding it difficult to put into words how awful it is to see liberal guys sidelining reproductive rights and failing to consider the POV of people from groups who haven’t always enjoyed the right to vote, just to have this VeRy iNteLLeCtUaL DiScUsSiOn.

absolutely no one is being told to not vote, that voting is bad or that their reasons for voting are invalid/bad/etc.

zero posters in the history of ILX have been "forced to justify themselves" for voting for a Democrat

Very slightly upthread, comment about "non genocide agreers"- the implication is clear. And that's just the most recent example.

Yeah I think the moral pressures implied or otherwise are expressed in both directions.

I think that's fine fwiw, would be nice if people could accept that there are moral arguments either way. I'm not persuaded by the vote-withholding position for lots of reasons, but I don't think it's crazy, I understand the objections. I don't think any of think we're presented with ideal options, in this or any other election.

any of us think ...

I think that's fair to say.

Very slightly upthread, comment about "non genocide agreers"- the implication is clear. And that's just the most recent example.

The comment about non-genocide agreers... from a declared Harris voter in response to you actually making demands of non-voters or people who want to take Harris to task over Israel.

Per your equivocation upthread about where Harris stands, you don't want to be on Team Genocide. Cool, good desire to have. Pretty much bullshit, because she's going to enable genocide in office. Other concerns outweigh the obvious reality of what President Harris would mean on Israel (and American imperialism in general), completely understandable.

No one is requiring you to justify how you weigh those concerns but at the same time no one is responsible for helping to make you feel better about that vote by pretending Harris isn't going to be a continuation of foreign policy as it exists.

zero posters in the history of ILX have been "forced to justify themselves" for voting for a Democrat

lol this is rich

xp I don't care who made the comment, it's part of a pattern of how we are talking about these issues and it is making people feel compelled to justify their voting intentions, in the face of accusations of being complicit in genocide. It's been like Godwin's law here.

there is a single declared November American non-voter at ILX and he's not even taking part ITT, we haven't had a Republican voter since Roger Adultery disappeared (if he's ever even voted) and the only libertarian we've had is very much a liberal now

99% of American ILXors have voted Democratic for the two decades of its existence, Democratic voters are not a persecuted group around these parts

Whole lotta hit dogs hollerin’…

anyway I didn't make any demands, I just asked how people are planning to "take Harris to task". Because posting here won't do it.

this thread is fucking pathetic and full of a lot of people who think they're smart but are actually dumb as shit, poster aimless chief among them.

Every few months someone on ILX is a victim of your splenetic rants and it gets less charming every time, and you should shut the fuck up and apologize to Aimless who didn't personally insult you or anyone on this thread. Fucking hell, man.

If you've got anger problems, map, step off fucking ILX. I've had enough spit-flecked rage from straight guys to deal with it here.

I can share that, of the many reasons I have for voting for Harris, #1 on my list is that I have a daughter, and I want her to grow up in a country where she is valued, empowered, and in control of her own destiny (inasmuch as any of us are). I want her to grow up in a country that would elect Harris as President. I don't want her to grow up in a country that would elect Trump again. And I don't want her to grow up in the hellscape that our country would become under a second Trump administration. Things are bad enough already.

Thanks for the support, alfred, but what I post and what map posts are in full view and those who read this thread will form their own opinions of each. I've been on the internet for 30 years and on ilx since greenspun days. I know how all this works and I much prefer map's open hostility to those who covertly twist my words and try to smear me covertly.

I can share that, of the many reasons I have for voting for Harris, #1 on my list is that I have a daughter, and I want her to grow up in a country where she is valued, empowered, and in control of her own destiny (inasmuch as any of us are). I want her to grow up in a country that would elect Harris as President. I don't want her to grow up in a country that would elect Trump again. And I don't want her to grow up in the hellscape that our country would become under a second Trump administration. Things are bad enough already.

Who is being patronized by that post, and in what way?

I ... don't think that's patronizing? Paternal, sure, but I think it's OK to worry about your kids!

This patronizing shit is just as offensive as calling Aimless “stupid” or whatever
― brimstead, Monday, August 26, 2024

dude

if you read that and you see "patronizing" it really feels like you're bringing outside baggage to the post. it's just a person expressing their feeling about an issue!

outside baggage???? Personally I’ll be voting but that dude’s posts seemed like shit designed to make someone feel bad. “I’m voting because I’m not a dickhole and I’m great dad” great, congrats, welcome to the human race.

Lord forbid someone justify their actions by deffering to personal love for others. Patronising as hell. Let's run them off the board so we can get back to what this board is really all about: hating

I can understand the resentment against fathers and mothers who portray themselves as representatives of the only raft to the future. It can feel like an exclusion to the rest of us. But I think everyone is doing what they can, and they are adrift like all of us

I don't have a kid but I love my goddaughter, who is no relation. Today is her 16th birthday, and I'm totally basking in the possibilities for her future

outside baggage???? Personally I’ll be voting but that dude’s posts seemed like shit designed to make someone feel bad. “I’m voting because I’m not a dickhole and I’m great dad” great, congrats, welcome to the human race.

― brimstead,

You're writing as if designed to extricate yourself from it.

Personally I’ll be voting but that dude’s posts seemed like shit designed to make someone feel bad. “I’m voting because I’m not a dickhole and I’m great dad” great, congrats, welcome to the human race.

what tf did I do to you?

nm, all good

"I want her to grow up in a country that would elect Harris as President. "

We've just elected a centre-left government with the first women chancellor. Rachel Reeves has been going on about how proud she is to be the first woman chancellor. Her policies will be almost as regressive and right-wing as a Tory chancellor but I guess some are celebrating this historical fact.

Just recalled this.

Janeway mentioned pic.twitter.com/jTD7q6VzM2

— Don Hughes (@getfiscal) August 23, 2024

I can share that, of the many reasons I have for voting for Harris, #1 on my list is that I have a daughter, and I want her to grow up in a country where she is valued, empowered, and in control of her own destiny (inasmuch as any of us are). I want her to grow up in a country that would elect Harris as President. I don't want her to grow up in a country that would elect Trump again. And I don't want her to grow up in the hellscape that our country would become under a second Trump administration. Things are bad enough already.

― epistantophus

i don't think this is "patronizing" personally, but i do think that what i'm seeing here is... everyone here has their own perspective, their own reasons for voting or not voting, and those reflect some major, significant differences in values and lived experiences.

what you're talking about here really gets to the heart of something i had to go through in 2016. i really didn't want to grow up in a country that would elect trump, particularly since so much of the vote for trump was, to my mind, a reflection of blatant misogyny, that people would do anything rather than vote for a woman. and maybe that's part of why it's so important to me to vote for harris. i believe a lot of the negative stuff that's happened is a reflection of patriarchy, of patriarchal values.

over and over again i see people who have perpetrated sexual abuse being not only excused but celebrated for the abuses they've perpetrated. i've seen not just the victims but people who spoke out against the abusers, people who spoke out in favor of the victims, ridiculed and ignored because, i don't know, pussy hats are cringe or whatever. somehow that's what gets talked about, and not the horror so many people, particularly women, had to come to terms with seeing this fucking sexual abuser being placed into a position of ultimate power in the us, not seeing our worst fears played out over and over and over again. under trump, under biden, you know, it just keeps happening. just a nightmare. a complete nightmare, for so many of us.

it's not _new_, god, i still remember the confirmation hearings for thomas, the way anita hill got treated. like with most allegations of abuse, _she_ was the one who was put on trial. and we've just seen that happen over and over again in the most extreme, horrific way. i don't really believe that somebody is going to do a better job at governing just because they're a woman, just because they're Black, just because they're Asian-American. honestly it's kind of an undue expectation anybody who's part of a marginalized group faces, the expectation of not just doing as well as cishet white men, but doing _better_ while facing far greater pressures than white men ever have to face.

-

which, now that i write it out... i think i agree with and relate to a lot of what you're saying, epistanophus, even if i wouldn't say it in the same way. i'd love to live in a country where i feel valued, empowered, and in control of my own destiny. i'd love to live in a country where i feel empowered, where i feel like i matter. i don't have kids. i never really had the opportunity to have kids, in large part because of the kind of country i grew up in, one where i wasn't valued, empowered, and in control of my own destiny. over the past decade i've seen more and more of that, more and more of this entitled white male rage.

in 2016, america elected somebody who was, from my perspective, an open, proud abuser as president. he acted like one. he still acts like one. in 2021, he tried to overthrow the government in a coup. in 2024, he is the standard bearer and face of one of the two major political parties, a party that holds unquestioned, unchecked, undemocratic power in a number of states, a party that has been and continues to hurt all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. personally? personally i think people with uteruses _have_ been hurt more by people like trump than i have.

there's this pink floyd album called _the final cut_ and it's a Problematic album but one of the things roger waters talks about on it, this dream he has, is the dream of a world where everyone has recourse to the law. those were the ideals i grew up with, those were the ideals i had until 2016, where for me, those ideals were shattered. i don't believe i truly have recourse to the law. i don't believe i _ever_ truly did.

that's made me in some ways deeply cynical, and that's a protective shell, really. that's me being hurt and expecting to be hurt. because just like in 2016, i'm in a country that might elect donald trump president, and i have to live with the reality of that. knowing that over 60 million americans, one fifth of all americans, decided that voting for someone like that was important, was congruent with their personal values.

in that previous paragraph you can see part of how i cope with that, which is to, in some ways implicitly devalue elections, devalue the electoral process. voting is a right that not everybody has had, that people have had to fight long and hard for, a right that... a lot of people still don't have, in america. there's a lot of voter suppression. there's a lot of inequality in voting. i've seen that firsthand, and i think it's good to be grateful for the rights we've earned. kurt vonnegut quoted eugene v. debs a lot, something to the effect of "while there is a soul in prison, i am not free". and we can have Discourse about the truth of that statement, about the prison-industrial complex, and if people want to argue that fine. for me, what debs indicates an underlying truth i believe - that injustice in a system, an organiztion, a polity, devalues it. and america right now is very, very unjust. more than a lot of people want to acknowledge. and i'm... personally skeptical of the idea that we can address this injustice without acknowledging the full extent of it.

-

and i understand, because this is a large country with a lot of different perspectives, that harris isn't necessarily in a position to do that. that a lot of people she's trying to reach believe in the dream. believe that an america that elects harris president is a free, equal country, is a country that's in control of its own destiny. isn't a country that's controlled and dominated by repressive, patriarchal forces. when i look at the democrats, i don't see a party that's truly dedicated to fighting those repressive, patriarchal forces. maybe that's an unfair judgement on my part. maybe i'm placing undue expectation.

they just keep saying well we need more power, more power, and it's frustrating because they're set up to fail. they are. they're set up to fail and it's me as a voter, a queer voter in a state where, due to the electoral college, i'd argue, i believe, that m vote literally does not matter, who's held responsible for the success or failure of the democrats doing what they say they're going to do. they want my vote, and they want my money, because even if i vote for them there's a next election, and a next, and a next, and it seems like most of what they can say is "things could get even worse", as if they aren't already, as if they haven't been already. and it seems like no matter what i do it's somehow not enough.

if i vote for harris, i'm supporting genocide, and that's not... i mean i'm not criticizing people who believe that. when i heard people talk about voting for trump, over and over again they justified what they did on the grounds that it was "the lesser evil". that was a genuine belief that they held. supporting this abuser, this person who's done more to promote patriarchy than nearly anyone else i can think of, this person who has hurt so many people, done damage to so many people, is somehow the "lesser evil" than some patronizing neoliberal woman... i don't know how it would feel to be muslim in this country, to be palestinian - because a lot of people in america are, in fact, palestinians - and see that sixty million people have voted for a candidate who's vowed to continue supporting the genocide of the palestinian people. i really can't imagine how that would make me feel. pretty bad, probably. pretty bad.

but if i decide not to vote, or to vote for anybody at all besides harris, well, then i'm held morally culpable for anything bad trump might do. me, somehow, and not the people who voted for trump. to trump voters, the democrats conciliate, the democrats wheedle, the democrats offer fruitless "compromises" to people who have clearly indicated their disinterest and contempt towards any such thing. they treat people who voted for trump better than they treat people who didn't vote for trump _or_ the democrats' candidate. they seek to curry favor with the white racists and promoters of patriarchy (men and women, mostly white) who voted for trump, and to those of us who have been hurt by racists, hurt by patriarchy, who ask for more, who desperately want any sort of relief, any sort of hope, to those of us who see people we care about suffering and dying, to us they say... things could be worse, as if we don't know, as if we don't feel that terror every day.

i do think the democrats are sincere, i do think the democrats want to make things better. i also think the democrats want to win elections. sometimes those two goals are not fully aligned, and when they're not, i worry that they value the latter over the former. particularly when i see their party candidate supporting genocide.

and, you know what, fuck it, i'm voting for her anyway. i've had extensive experience having to choose in difficult situaions, situations where there's no right answer. in situations like that... i have no guilt, blame, or shame for the decisions i make, merely acceptance of the consequences. i feel the same way towards anybody else. i don't even hate trump voters. they're just people who have chosen to act in a way that hurts me. i want to protect myself from being hurt.

which is why i don't engage, by and large, in politics threads. i have seen a lot of people here who, the way i read it, are clearly hurt and are speaking out of that hurt. i don't want to... i don't want to perpetuate that. i ust want to be fair and kind and truthful.

and to be able to sleep at night. i want that, too. i'm gonna try to get back to sleep now.

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.

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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.

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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.