@Asbestos @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen so you think that for the majority of eligible voters in poverty elections aren’t a matter of personal risk but for rich people they are? Or that Hispanics are more privileged than whites? This is counting by eligible voters not simply a percentage of the population.

@hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum @Asbestos of the majority of non-voters don’t vote because they don’t want to vote. This is according to actual polls and not speculation:

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why

@destroy @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum
Again, I am talking about people who deliberately don't vote as a statement of some sort. just like what was mentioned in the post I was replying to. I think that seems pretty clear

@Asbestos @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen How is not voting because you think it doesn’t matter who you vote for different from the main reasons people don’t vote in the poll?

@Asbestos @destroy @hannu_ikonen

If the US enthrones a Republican who lost his election for the third time in my lifetime, don’t blame the trivially small and electorally irrelevant community of anarchists. Blame yourself for not voting harder.

@Asbestos @destroy @hannu_ikonen

What about people who choose not to vote because voting is structurally irrelevant to their lives and serves only to legitimize undemocratic outcomes?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/turnout-at-iraqi-national-election-as-low-as-25-as-many-boycott-polls

@HeavenlyPossum @destroy @hannu_ikonen
Yeah that falls into the original category of point proving or performative edginess. The slight degree that it legitimizes undemocratic outcomes is overwhelmingly offset by an vastly shittier outcome. the phrase "structurally irrelevant" brings to mind someone in a position to not care what the outcome is, and someone who believes their self righteousness is more important that actual harm coming to others.

@Asbestos @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum so the majority of Iraqis are in a position to not care what the outcome is?

@destroy @Asbestos @hannu_ikonen

When people in other countries refrain from voting because it is pointless, this is good and understandable. When Americans refrain from voting because it is pointless, this is bad and selfish. This is because America is the only real country, the only place where real things happen. /s

@HeavenlyPossum @destroy @hannu_ikonen
I never said anything of the kind. You're just going to insult and strawman now? Just make up stuff?

@Asbestos @destroy @hannu_ikonen

That has been your approach throughout this conversation

@destroy @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum
Wait wut? Iraqis?
if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bus.

@Asbestos @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum are you not reading the articles posted in the comments you reply to?

@destroy @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum
No. because the points made in the post don't warrant it. why should I take the time to read an article if the person making it can make a decent argument?

@HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen @Asbestos But the majority of nonvoters polled saying they won’t vote cuz their vote doesn’t matter is essential to the conversation because non-voters are concentrated in low income and non-White populations

@hannu_ikonen @Asbestos @destroy

Then why are you in my mentions, other than to experience little dopamine hits from yelling at me about voting? If voting is so critical to stopping Trump—despite 2016—why are you not trying to persuade anarchists to vote, rather than just insulting them?

@hannu_ikonen @destroy @Asbestos

The link I provided was to an article about declining voter turnout in Iraq, in recognition of the fact that the Iraqi electoral system exists to empower the same group of elites regardless of voter preferences, like in the US.

You dismissed these Iraqis as privileged edgelords.

@destroy @Asbestos @hannu_ikonen

Except that for the majority of Americans eligible to vote, the degree to which their vote is relevant is zero.

@HeavenlyPossum @destroy @hannu_ikonen
That's a false and shallow argument forwarded by coffee shop edgelords.

@Asbestos @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen then why don’t most poor people vote?

@Asbestos @destroy @hannu_ikonen

I wonder if it has anything to do with an electoral system that consigns the vast majority of American voters to electoral districts that play no meaningful role in presidential elections, or that frequently assigns the reactionary loser of the election to the presidency.

@destroy @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen
Because they are more focused on immediate survival. They do not have the luxury to worry about what may happen. They also are working multiple jobs and have kids to take care of and can't go sit in line for an hour.

@HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen @Asbestos That’s not what they say when they’re asked, though.

@destroy @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen
well what do they say?

@hannu_ikonen @Asbestos @HeavenlyPossum The majority say one of these three things: they aren’t interested in politics, they don’t like the candidates, or that their votes don’t matter

@hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum @Asbestos 53% of nonvoters believe that it makes no difference who is president, whereas only 24% of voters believe that

@HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen @Asbestos 66% of non-voters believe that “Voting in elections has little to do with the way that real decisions are made in our country.” Whereas 45% of voters believe that.

@Asbestos @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/medill-npr-nonvoters-2020

@destroy @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen
OK fine. One might think that their life experience may have given them that idea and that the very people who want minority control would do whatever they could to make them think that. So are you saying that them being beat down is the same as someone who has the time to make a big political statement about how their vote legitimizes an undemocratic system are the same people?

@HeavenlyPossum @Asbestos @hannu_ikonen Yes of course I am. How do you think being beat down manifests in personal behavior? The people who answer the surveys are willing to make statements like that one in surveys why wouldn’t they do that on their social media sites?

@destroy @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen
there are neurological studies that show immediate need for basic things causes the brain to not devote effort to long range planning. it's thought to be an evolutionary mechanism

@hannu_ikonen @Asbestos @destroy

Are you suggesting that impoverished people don’t vote because their brains are not engaged in long range planning?

@Asbestos

So if I follow your arguments so far, people who don't vote are either stupid, edgy or mentally enfeebled (due to "evolutionary mechanism") and acting against their best interest.

Now, considering that the democrats have gotten more votes than republicans in every election since 2000 (with the noticeable exception of 2004, where bush was re-elected under quite extraordinary circumstances), and considering the deteriorating life conditions, political climate, and growing fascism in your country, do you think this fits with reality?

Edit: I forgot clinton was a democrat. Y'all have had the majority of votes since 1992.

@destroy @HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen

@hannu_ikonen @destroy @Asbestos

On the contrary, it is a true and trivially obvious observation about the structure of US electoralism.

@HeavenlyPossum @hannu_ikonen @destroy @Asbestos people correctly identify China as a dictatorship but it has an electoral system that's only a bit worse than the American one.

@Asbestos @destroy @hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum keep voting for prosecutors who continue Trump’s experiments with border fascism and continue arming a genocidal army (and supporting a settler vigilante-aligned government as a “trusted ally”) while boasting about building the most lethal military. People who think voting is the ultimate expression of foiling fascism are probably the very edgelords they continually blather on about. It’s all symbolism and false piety with liberals who raise nary a finger to reshape the material conditions of everyday life and want only to soothe their ego and protect their class standing.