I don’t like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.

Not voting isn’t going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews and he’s publicly told Israel to “finish up their war”. He’ll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn’t a straight cisgender male back here at home.

A vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of them or their policies, it’s a statement that you like their policies more than the other guy’s, and “sticking it to liberals” and “refusing to support genocide” (that’s not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way – a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.

How incredibly privileged do you have to be to see an entire national election as what will happen in the Middle East and ignore Trump’s campaign promises to wipe transgender Americans off the map, and further, to not realize that the same thing will happen in the Middle East regardless of which candidate wins?

I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I’ll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there’s a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.

    • brianary@startrek.website
      8·
      9 months ago

      That’s not what you said. Your original “only” indicates that you think that votes + splitting your opponents votes isn’t a strategy.

      If splitting votes didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be so much effort put into gerrymandering. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

      Voting is a practical, strategic act, not an ideological one.

      • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
        5·
        9 months ago

        >Voting is a practical, strategic act, not an ideological one.

        every act is morally good, amoral, or immoral. it’s immoral to vote for bad people.

        you may think ends justify the means. you may think your strategy is better or more moral. i disagree.

        • brianary@startrek.website
          9·
          9 months ago

          No, I’m sorry, that’s dangerously naïve, and a self-serving, solipsistic moral panic. How old are you?

          If we used RCV or anything better that winner-take-all, that would be different, or if we had a parliamentary system. But we don’t.

        • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
          5·
          9 months ago

          it’s immoral to vote for bad people.

          One could argue that it’s immoral to not vote in a way that prevents the worst choice from winning.

            • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
              3·
              9 months ago

              I’m vegan, so I never get to truly vote my conscience and won’t be able to until someone takes a stand against factory farming. I’m not interested in debating factory farms here nor am I making a direct comparison to genocide, just noting that it is a significant moral issue for me and has never been up for a vote, just as the genocide in Gaza isn’t up for a vote.

      • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
        1·
        9 months ago

        >If splitting votes didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be so much effort put into gerrymandering.

        you’re falling prey here to a logical fallacy called equivocation. splitting is used in two distinct senses in electoral politics, and you are taking one of its uses and purporting that it supports the validity of the other use. it does not AND the other use is misleading at best, but i believe it’s genuinely dishonest and manipulative.

          • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
            2·
            9 months ago

            on the one hand there is gerrymandering which has the effect of splitting up voting blocks.

            on the other hand there is the lie that votes are owned by or owed to only two parties, and any vote outside of those two parties is stolen by the so-called third parties.

            in fact, the votes belong to voters, and it is up to them to decide who they want to vote for, and it is up to the politicians to try to win those votes.

              • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
                3·
                9 months ago

                >I assume you haven’t seen enough elections to understand that yet.

                condescension and baseless attacks on my identity wont get me to vote for fascists

                  • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
                    1·
                    9 months ago

                    my identity doesn’t change the truth of anything i’ve said. it has no bearing on this conversation, but your attempt to raise it implies you are going to be attempting to use my identity rhetorically. that’s called “ad hominem”, when you attack the speaker instead of what they have said.

      • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
        0·
        9 months ago

        > Your original “only” indicates that you think that votes + splitting your opponents votes isn’t a strategy.

        you are putting words inmy mouth. i explained what i said. i’m the authority on what i meant.

        • brianary@startrek.website
          4·
          9 months ago

          I’m putting your own words in your mouth. I’m sorry you refuse to accept that splitting opponents votes works. Good luck.