ITT: people calling for revolution who will never do a damn thing about it. It's easy to pretend violence is the answer when you'll never participate, let alone start something.

My favorite morons ITT:

”Both options are cliffs!”

Yeah because the guy promising to end democracy and bring about Christian nationalism is exactly the same as the moderate we have now. I hope you’re getting paid to be that stupid.

”I won’t vote to support genocide!”

At the end of the day someone becomes president, and spoiler alert the other option is still worse. It’s cute you think your principles are more important than the safety and security of at-risk groups domestically (and frankly abroad as well). Short-sighted and idiotic.

”We might not even get ice cream!”

Okay well organize and protest that after we’ve avoided the cliff.

”Haha Americans are stupid for the entrenched political system that they find themselves in”

Hope you enjoy your five minutes of smugness, because a Christian nationalist USA doesn’t benefit anyone in the world in the long run.

This analogy is so absurd. Like if you have a vote on driving off a cliff, the answer is not to treat the vote as legitimate. The answer is to attempt to stop the bus by any means necessary. Pry open the engine panel and chuck a wrench in the gears, cut the fuel line, break the shifter lever, anything, just get off the fucking bus. Neither driver should be trusted.

EDIT: I am sick of hearing "WHY WON'T YOU VOTE THO"

First of all, I already said this:

The only reason to vote for the less-immediate cliff driver is to give you more time to stop the bus.

That's the other problem with this post: the non-voter is a strawman. Most people with real critiques of the bus vote too because they understand this. Voting barely matters for the most part but you may as well do it. Most people yelling about "don't vote it's pointless" are like 15 years old doing baby's first radical politics.

I just don't understand why every time we criticise the bus we have to deal with loads of people yelling about why we don't take the voting more seriously, as if who we vote for is the bigger issue than the fact that we're stuck on a careening death machine with a bunch of people calmly debating how fast we should all die.

If I have to read one more both sides are terrible "take" that encourages voter apathy I'm going to lose my mind. Vote, people I don't care who you vote for but you have to vote because apathy is how we get fascism.

Do something rather than just throwing a piss fit and encouraging others to do nothing.

This is a long established problem with FPTP voting (FPTP = First Past The Post: One voter = one vote). You don't really get to vote for your choice candidate, rather you vote against the worst of the two popular candidates by voting for the other guy.

Now there are plenty of election reform solutions, but in the US, both parties are weakened by the people having more choice, so neither party is willing to back amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would install a more public serving voting system.

This also means, according to CIA analysts who have studied nations on the brink and how they can avoid civil war, the US is very likely to see a civil war in its near future (next decade). But then we're also likely to see elections neutered anyway, so that the Republican party controls all elected positions (and appointed ones after that). And then local genocides can get underway.

So yes, if you're voting to make a point (other than you want the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 to play out or want to delay it for a while) the point won't be heard. In fact, the Republicans and their foreign national propaganda machine supporters are probably very glad you're willing to withhold blue votes to make a point. It won't make that point, but they're glad for you for trying.

The four people vote and you still drive off a cliff due to gerrymandering

Sounds like something a cliff hater would say.

We'll all be rich at the bottom of the canyon.

Liberalism is driving off a cliff and killing everyone because a third of people voted to do it.

There are 9 people on the bus. Five people vote to get shit burgers even though no one wants that, just because they think it will save them from the 3 people who vote to drive off the cliff. One person obstains. Two of the three people hijack the bus and drive off the cliff. Four of the five people blame the person who obstained as they drive off the cliff.

Fascists don't care if they win or lose. Voting can't save you once you've reached this point. You don't have slightly high blood pressure that you can treat by eating right. You have cancer. You fight the cancer with everything you have or you die.

And not-voting doesn't mean the bus stays put.

It's going somewhere.

A dilemma doesn't go away just because you don't like the options.

Voting metaphors that don't have people dying in either option are disingenuous imo. Like I understand the concept of harm reduction to a point, but let's not pretend one of the options is something as innocent as "getting ice cream".

I'm pretty sure they left the Electoral College out of this hypothetical scenario. Because the reality is, no matter how the general population votes, the Electoral College makes the ultimate decision. So the electoral College mightve decided to go for ice cream even though most people wanted to go off a cliff or didn't care at all.

And even more realistic, the only two options would have been 1) going off a cliff or 2) exploding into flames. because those are fair analogies for the options we have for US president these days.

And that's why so many people don't want to vote. I don't want to go off a cliff or burst into flames. No. I don't want either of those things.

except the options are: 1- going off a cliff and 2- going off a cliff

Or, more realistically:

• 3 vote to drive off the cliff
• 2 vote for ice-cream
• 4 vote to drive off the cliff at a slightly reduced speed, having been assured that they might get to look at a picture of some ice-cream, but only after democracy has been saved

This is written from an "I'm right, you're wrong" perspective. In real life, no one is running a drive off a cliff campaign, and the guy promising ice cream may not be able to deliver.

Also, fundamentally both left and right can make the argument the other side wants to run off a cliff.