Poll: Is not voting ever a good political strategy?

I voted “no”.

What happens if we all decide to not to vote in this poll?

I think we can all agree that will move Aimless’ position on the issue in a positive direction

why are y'all even arguing this. like maybe there's not one strategy that everybody should follow. maybe instead of voting strategically, people choose to vote or not to vote for their own reasons, which are complex and multifaceted. maybe if someone thinks other people _should_ vote, it's not helpful to try and browbeat or bully them into it or arguing that they should for _strategic_ reasons that, frankly, are irrelevant to individual voters on a personal level.

i'm planning on voting for harris/walz. i wasn't planning on voting for biden/harris. my reasons are personal and are, frankly, illogical. this insistence that people go to the polls and vote for entirely _logical, sensible reasons_ is fucking stupid. people can decide to vote or not vote because they're mad. people can decide to vote or not vote based on misinformation and disinformation. as an _individual_, i have effectively zero say as to the output of an election based on my individual vote. therefore, there's no reason for me to consider voting or not voting as a strategic decision.

i guess, like, sub-poll (i'm not going to shit up the board with more pointless politics threads): 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?

how do you exert electoral pressure on political parties in a dystopian duopoly without withdrawing your vote when they wildly swing to the right? I honestly couldn't think of any other more effective way back in July. But after the success of an independant in my UK constituency in the last GE, and a few notable others. I'm starting to rethink this.

how do you exert electoral pressure on political parties in a dystopian duopoly without withdrawing your vote when they wildly swing to the right?

in the US: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

related to kate’s post:

frankly whether anyone votes or not is none of our fucking business.

and adding to kate’s post:
i was going to vote for Biden in 2020 and then a man in a mental health crisis was murdered by police two blocks away from my house, and as I lined up for early voting, there were pig helicopters in the sky over my neighborhood attempting to quell and intimidate possible protesters. i didn’t vote for Biden that day because anyone who supports the police can get fucked. irrational? sure. i don’t care.

maybe instead of voting strategically, people choose to vote or not to vote for their own reasons, which are complex and multifaceted.

First, I would not argue that not voting is not a valid choice. For example, for some people voting can be so fraught with clearly unacceptable moral implications that abstaining is the only option their conscience will support. I honor that. Nobody should get flack for it. Whatever other personal complex and multifaceted reasons may exist for not voting aren't in play here. We can let those people make up their own minds.

The crux of the debate I would like this thread to address is for us voters who want to use their potential vote to change the direction of current policies and are seeking a choice of action, including not voting, that will best serve that purpose. The question here is, if that's your purpose, when or how could not voting be helpful in achieving that purpose, and whether not voting is by its nature useless for that purpose, like 'pushing on a string' as the saying goes.

My short answer: A mostly unqualified 'No' with a small sidecar of 'Yes', but in a very convoluted way. (More to come later.)

kate otm. as far as the narrow strategic question goes: the *threat* of not voting, especially in an organized, visible bloc, is a very meaningful way of exerting pressure, especially when candidates are desperately motivated to increase turnout. this threat is implicitly at work all the time, any time a politician does something to "shore up the base," or to "woo" some particular constituency. they're afraid those people won't vote. and a candidate who falls wildly short of their constituents' general expectations may well find they don't get enough votes to win, whether there was an organized threat/challenge or not.

but anyway the purpose of the organized threat is to get the candidate to change, to make commitments, so that by the time Election Day rolls around, the voters' options are different than they were at the outset.

for the threat to be credible, of course, the possibility has to remain open that people won't vote if their demands aren't met. otherwise the politician would learn pretty quickly that they can ignore their constituents' demands, run on whatever crummy unappealing platform they're paid to, and find themselves with only "lesser of two evils" as a sales pitch. if people aren't voting at that point, i don't think the electorate are the party doing something wrong.

the *threat* of not voting, especially in an organized, visible bloc, is a very meaningful way of exerting pressure

I fully agree with this. The key words are "organized, visible bloc". The difficulty here is organizing a large number of voters around a single policy issue that is so important to them that they are essentially one-issue voters, who will not vote for anyone not aligned with them on that single issue. The prime example in recent decades has been the self-styled "right to life" movement. All the required elements were in place to create an organized visible bloc of voters wholly and fervently committed to a single issue. Duplicating that level of success is very hard.

The recent example of Uncommitted voters in Michigan is not a very apt example in favor of not voting, but more of a hybrid, in that the critical tool in becoming a visible bloc was voting. They were able to leverage the political savvy of a relatively small number of activists into putting a slate of uncommitted delegates on the primary ballot and publicizing that slate's single-issue purpose. By utilizing voting as a means to tabulate the size of their bloc they became a visible bloc you could count. Successful politicians find precise verifiable numbers very persuasive. Couldn't have happened without people casting votes.

Bernie Sanders is another good example of using the ballot box and counting votes to uncloak the strength of voter sentiment around progressive issues. Forgiving student debt suddenly became a very hot issue in DC where before it was far off the edge of political radar. Eugene McCarthy was another example of that kind of uncloaking.

The problem with principled, but purely individual abstention from voting as a means of changing policy is that nobody knows what principle motivated you and without organization as a bloc, you may as well have not voted because of any of thousands of reasons, or superstitions, or crackpot theories, apathy or general cussedness. No one can suss your motivation so no one knows what your non-vote represents.

The moral: find ways to be visible, join a definite bloc organized around a specific issue, and unless you are prepared to do or die by that issue alone you will have to come to grips with what to do with your potential vote based on whatever compromised unsatisfactory package of policy positions the candidates present you with.

Supplementary moral: Get better candidates.

I don’t think there are any particularly good political strategies if you live in the US and don’t have massive amounts of money and your political wishes are inconvenient for your preferred party. The Tea Party managed to basically take over the Republicans, but there was nothing there that the party leadership couldn’t live with, and they saw the benefit of encouraging enthusiasm. Democratic Party leadership is never going to allow an impassioned movement to become representative of the party.

That's why you need better candidates. It's nothing an individual can do (although AOC came close to that kind of campaign) so it's hard to find what a friend calls "activation energy" for that level of organizing. If your candidates get elected then eventually they become the party.

in this poll? dunno about political strategy but it's a good "not wasting time" strategy, same with not reading it or posting in it

I presume by posting that you're saying that participating in the never ending bickering about this in the US politics threads is a waste of your time that you have no interest in doing, either. thx, I look forward to your silence on this from this time forward.

it's not strategy, but it's nice to not feel complicit

It’s always an option to not vote for either party especially when the greater evil doesn’t impact you personally. Plus, you get to send a powerful message to the fat cats on top! Take that, imperfect system!

one more and i'm off. lol thinking your preferred brand of capitalist oppressors desperately needs your support

I think Not Voting is a reliably strategy in certain scenarios, but not voting alone without signalling is probably fairly unproductive as its has no messaging and other people (most likely with media presence) will take the not voting and apply their own messaging to it, co-opting it for their own purposes to ends which may differ from the not voters intended effect

but if the not voting is coupled with messaging, then it can become effective. If the non-voters control their own messaging strategy instead of just leaving it up for grabs, it can definitely work. This also has the advantage of being signalled ahead of elections rather than Monday night footballing analysis of what it might be

The Uncommitted in Michigan is a good example of this

But there also seems to be some conflation of "not voting is a good strategy" with "voting is a bad strategy", when these are different things

Voting is just one mechanism of influence (of varying effectiveness), messaging is just as important. If some people didnt vote because they didnt want a bypass and both candidates were pro-bypass but they didn't control the messaging and media outlets say "they didnt vote actually because they also wanted a sewage plant as well as a bypass" thats no good, but if they control the messaging around it that could potentially be a different story

That being said, voting fans and non-voting fans seem to both focus exclusively at the national level, when its arguable that votes carry greater influence at the local level with miniscule turnouts and micro Robert Moses shaping all kinds of stuff with no one paying attention

Although another counter to that is its probably an overall positive to have a percentage of the population not vote. Turnout is a useful metric that would be lost if everyone voted, and in effect is a binary vote of sorts, with people voting to participate or not-participate

At a game between two teams the score is important yes, but so is crowd size, arguably more so

if your moral compass says you cannot vote for any of the options, fine. personally, i think there's always been something for the greater good that gets me out to the polls.

genocide is totally a greater good

Voted yes. If I was currently living in Russia, for instance, I would find boycotting any elections a sounder strategy than casting a vote for the opposition.

I’m voting, and I am lucky to be able to vote for a Squad congresswoman who sat-in with Uncommitted at the DNC. I really respect what Uncommitted are doing, and I agree with their goals. The job of changing US policy in I/P is a marathon, not a sprint. The work of unpicking Israel’s human rights abuses and the exceptionalism afforded to its vile, Kahanist leaders and panty-raiding soldiers might even take another 75 years.

At the same time - and I think it’s possible to have two goals not clash - I am much more enthusiastic about Harris/Walz than Biden/Harris and I understand the main assignment: making sure Donald Trump goes down, and stays down.

As a purely individual decision, you could just as easily ask “is voting ever a good political strategy?” All of Aimless’ criticisms would apply equally.

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.

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.

-

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.