this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025

218 points (87.6% liked)

Not voting (in your election)

107 readers

1 users here now

Place to hang out, memes, share experiences or just vent.

Welcome to all not wanting to vote, not able to vote or just annoyed by the US presidential election taking over Lemmy and other social media.

Coming here to argue about voting will result in a ban.

Be kind to each other & follow the server rules.

Be specifically aware that not everyone here is from the so called USA.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

punkisundead@slrpnk.net

218

say it louder for the people in the back: THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/notvoting@slrpnk.net

102 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Text: screenshot of a Tumblr thread reading:

Every day I am forced to confront that the the Democratic Party won the White House and Congress in 2020 and instead of doing the smart thing and ending the filibuster, packing the court, and going scorched Earth on the GOP which, mind you, had just tried to overthrow the election, they kicked back and proceeded to do absolutely nothing of note except cut a blank check for the most televised genocide of the last 30 years.

A disciplined party could have un-fucked everything trump did in the span of a few month, but they chose not to. They chose not to, and now we're all paying for it.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Ok.

Still voting Democrat because...

They are not Republicans.
No 3rd party is even remotely viable and no 3rd party is doing the work necessary to become viable. The last 3rd party candidate for president received half of a single percent of the total votes cast, proving that no 3rd party can win a presidency, or even come close.

So until a 3rd party actually starts winning local/state elections (they aren't) and gets more than ZERO members in Congress, I'll keep voting Dem.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[–] CatsPajamas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Vote for the third party then, you absolute dunce. "No one votes third party so neither do I!"

Grow a spine.

[–] perestroika@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Don't accuse him of not having a spine, he's grasping the game theoretic arrangement of things quite decently.

In the US, to propel a third party to power, one of the mainstream parties has to utterly lose its position. If that's going to be the Democratic party at this point of history, the US will be a dictatorship (and civil war will ensue soon). Why? Because Trump will have time to change the system to be president-for-life.

The US electoral system is a two-party system. The root cause: because a region typically has one mandate, and the winner of that region takes it all. To make third parties viable, a proportional electoral system is needed (e.g. a region has 10 mandates, distributed to parties accordig to their percentage of the vote).

When should one apply pressure to make third parties viable?

When it's calm. When there is not a wannabe dictator on the horizon. It could have been done sometime in the Clinton / Obama era, but not now. Now is a "fasten your seatbelts" period of time.

[–] the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The most important elections coming up will be the primaries. It's the only opportunity progressives have of getting into office. A much better rallying cry than, "We're not voting!" Would be, "Primary all of them!"

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago

I agree here. In the past there was this call for candidates to be electable but that is bullshit. Would trump be electable? We can never know so in the primaries go for what you want that is best to you.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 week ago

Ah but if Democrats did literally anything of value or put up any safeguards whatsoever how can they force you to vote for them every single time? Oh you dont like it well too bad the other option is fascism.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

They didn't win Congress though?

It was 50-48 split in favour of republicans in the senate (with 2 independents) less than that if you could the DiNOs

The only reason the Dems could do anything at all, it's because the VP can be used as a tiebreaker in certain situations.

Like the Dems are worthless corporate shills and only exist to give the illusion of choice to placate the masses, but you still need to be accurate when you say shit like this.

[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The two independents were Bernie Sanders and Angus King, both of whom reliably caucused with the Democrats.

And "certain situations" means, if the Senate votes 50/50, the VP can break the tie.

So, yes, 50 reliable Democratic votes in the Senate, plus the VP, plus a majority in the House, means the Democrats did "win" Congress in all but the most pedantic interpretations of the word.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

the Democrats did "win" Congress in all but the most pedantic interpretations of the word.

No. Both literally and practically the democrats did not have a majority in the senate, if we go by actual part affiliation, then they only had 48 senators, and if we go by voting record then the DiNOs such as Manchin, Sinema and even Fetterman don't relaibly vote with the democrats.

The ONLY interpretation in which the democrats won the senate is one where you purposefully try to construct that narrative by picking and choosing pieces of the combination of those definitions to suit the argument.

And even then Harris still cast more tie breaker votes than any VP in history. So it's a bit disengenous to go after the entire democratic party when it was well documented that it was the actions of a couple of senators, the """moderate""" democrats that repeatedly blocked votes that could have done good from going through.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The important thing to understand about Democrats is even when they have power they actually have no power.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago

this is actually pretty true. republicans toe the party line even if they disagree. democrats are this mix of conservative to liberal and fight amongst themselves all the time.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The Republicans sure dona great job of getting everything they want with a ghoul in the white house and a split Congress. So why can't the Democrats?

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] julysfire@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If my two options are idiots or evil, I'll pick idiots. Please give me more options

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago

i'll pick the idiot too but I hate the people who defend them like they're gods greatest gift to mankind. No, we need some adults in the room please.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dumpy could have been rotting in prison. But no. Fucking Biden and his doj say on their fucking arses and did nothing. Pathetic

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] nixus@anarchist.nexus 9 points 1 week ago (8 children)

And yet every election, I'm told that I have to vote for them, because they are gonna fly in and save the day. I'm sure that'll happen any day now... Yup, any day now.....

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No, no, they're not gonna fly in and save anything. They've basically dropped even implying they're going to do that. Now the party line is "vote for us! We'll do nothing for 4 years! That's better than actively doing bad things. Remember to vote for us again in 4 years. Or bad things!"

And the most fucked up part is that nothing for 4 years is better than active bad things. We need actual 3rd party candidates and socialists doing some real fucking organizing at the local and state levels and building a coalition. We're never going to get a viable candidate from a viable party that isn't complete dogshit in a national election if there isn't a huge movement behind them, and we're not going to get that if we don't stop pretending like it can start at the presidential level.

That said, in a solid red or blue state, get the greens or whoever over the threshold so they get federal funding. But swing state voters have a much harder choice before them.

Whole system is fucked.

Made myself sad.

Going to bed now.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 7 points 1 week ago (5 children)

"Guys! I keep voting for the lesser of two evils, but my country just continues to become more and more cartoonishly evil? What should i do?"

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

Effectively, yeah. Even when they do actually do something 'good' it's only to bring things 5 degrees to the left of where Republicans moved it, which is 30 degrees to the right of where it used to be. Ratchet effect in full force. I'm not arguing for the lesser of two evils, I'm arguing for non-evil to get better at building a base outside of the main two parties. Get to a point where people actually have some local and state reps in the green party, or a labor party or whatever, and they might actually vote for them in a national election. But it'll never happen until they've actually had a chance to see those parties doing something instead of just (with the biggest fucking air quotes imaginable) """spoiling"""" the general

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Wow. Cool sub 🙄

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Clown ass sub.

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 days ago

Yeah, I just found that out yesterday when I tried to reason with them.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments