politics

So .. that's all what I thought you were saying, so thanks for that. And I do you get your point about the long term strategy of how we vote in year N impacts the campaigns in years N+2 and N+4. But none of that changes the fact that in any given election, there will be a winner regardless of the number of people who vote. A candidate will be declared a winner, period. In the case of president. To take it an absurd extreme example, if there was literally 11 votes cast for president in the entire country, with one person total from each of Ca, Tx, Fl, Ga, NC, NJ, Pa, NY, Oh, Mi, and Il all voting for the same one candidate then they would have 270 electoral votes and be named president. The other 189.5M registered voters sitting out the election wouldn't have stopped it. So from a very raw mathematical perspective, I just don't see how anyone can claim there was any way to prevent Trump from winning on election day other than by voting for the Democratic nominee (considering that no 3rd party presidential candidate has received a single electoral college vote since 1968, even Ross Perot in 1992 with basically 19% of the national popular vote had zero electoral votes I don't believe we'll have viable third parties anywhere that doesn't have ranked choice voting). And at least in the 2024 election, I personally think that stopping the faction that was literally advertising their very unapologetically white nationalist Nazi-inspired platform fronted by the guy who said repeatedly he wants to be a dictator and that if we voted for him in 2024 we'd never have to vote again, really could have been a more important goal than trying trying to position for a better 2028 campaign at the expense of the now. Most other elections, I would feel a little different. But not this one.

Both things are true here. Voting for Harris would have told the DNC that hey they didn't do the wrong thing (which is not the same as hey you did the right thing). And enough people not voting for Harris because the DNC sucks also gave Trump the win. I can call out both sides of those statements involvement in the election cycle and be correct about it. Pointing out the faults of the one doesn't ignore the faults of the other. That doesn't mean I think you're wrong about long term strategies. But I think people sitting out the primaries is the bigger issue on that front. We've seen repeatedly that when progressives run and people come out to vote, the progressives win against the opposition from withing of the neoliberal Democratic establishment. So we need to collectively stop waiting for the DNC to listen to us, and shout it in their faces louder than ever before in the primaries. And yes, I'm well aware that there really wasn't a choice to make for president in the 2024 Democratic primary. But there were a lot of other choices to make and not one state hit even 40% turnout in the 2024 primaries.

I don't believe that not voting encourages future campaigns to reach out and engage to win your votes. We had pitiful turnout in the 2024 primaries, and it didn't convince the DNC and Harris to go and listen to the non-voters to form their campaign strategy. It encourages them to really not give a crap about your opinion because if you don't like theirs you're going to stay home instead of vote against them. Beto wouldn't have got so much attention for his unorthodox 2018 Senate campaign of actually going out to every county and talking to people all over the state if pursuing the historically non-voting was the typical campaign response. I believe that showing up to the polls to get your name on public record as being a reliable and regular voter is what tells them you are a potential vote against them so they better try and earn your vote. "Uncommitted" only made up 4% of the vote in the 2024 primary, and it was big news. Imagine what 75% primary turnout and 15-20% of that being "Uncommitted" would do to motivate the campaign strategists.

So anyways, you have your views, I have mine. We've both spoken frankly and listened openly. Cheers.