Macron appointed a reactionary as prime minister after the left won the election? What’s next, Joe Biden implementing Donald Trump’s border and Covid policies?
Haha just kidding, the purpose of a system is what it does and what the electoral “democracies” do is serve the capital class, regardless of the outcome of elections or the preferences of voters.
There’s some non-zero chance that Harris will win the US presidential election by millions of votes and Trump will become president anyway, and lots of liberals will blame anarchists for not voting rather than a political system that consistently empowers reactionaries regardless of electoral outcomes *because that’s the whole point of these systems.*
@hannu_ikonen
I will absolutely blame both.
Anyone who does not vote is a Trump voter. That may be the point of the whole system, and it may be horrible. But not voting doesn't do *jack squat*
Except make you look super cool to the other edgelords. (while you sit safe in a position of privilege)
Everyone who voted for Clinton in 2016 turned out to be a Trump voter too
@hannu_ikonen
Um no, that's not how it works. The Burnie bros and the other privileged people who didn't vote were trump voters
@hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum @Asbestos wait please enlighten me how people who don’t vote are privileged. Voter turnout increases with education and income. Are the 60% of people making less than 20k who didn’t vote more privileged than the 76% of people making six figures that did vote? It seems to me like voting is the domain of the rich.
@hannu_ikonen @HeavenlyPossum
No the people who *choose* not to vote to make some sort of a point about the system are privileged. Because it's not a matter of personal risk to them.
@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?
@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.
@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?
@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.
@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.
@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
well what do they say?