If everyone who didn’t show up because of genocide in palestine (or darfur / tibet / cambodia) voted, would trump still be president? I don’t honestly know.
What I DO know is that things are objectively worse now than they were before the 2020 election and there was no party in that election that adequately addressed the problem. So sure, maybe this is an instructional moment and there will be a huge surge on the left in 2024. On the other hand, maybe there won’t be an election at all because of “war with domestic terrorists” or something. I understand the argument of “nobody WANTS to vote a lesser evil anymore” when it’s between the likes of Al Gore and Mitt Romney. When it’s Trump, Project 2025, and a risk of validating Jan 6 (which we unfortunately did), I’m sorry but even though I agree with your position my gut feeling is to blame you MORE than my dumb Trump voting family because at least they got duped. You (generally) walked right into it and said “Ha. Yeah. Win without me.” and then left it to burn, knowing full well that this bullshit we are living was a possible, or even likely outcome.
“Why did this thing I did nothing to stop happen if it was the worse option?” Well. I don’t know, but I know who I’m more frustrated with about it.
See, the difference between our perspectives is that you’re punching down at voters rather than punching up at politicians. Maybe if every single person who stood by their valid moral principles was convinced to abandon them, it would’ve changed the outcome. I don’t know how that’s supposed to be achieved, exactly, aside from trying to shame people for having morals, which I don’t expect to be particularly effective.
Alternatively, instead of changing the public in order to be in line with what politicians want, we could change politicians to be in line with what voters want. I think the word for that is “democracy.”
It sounds like this might be a deeper part of disagreement: fundamentally the voters pick the politicians. Blaming voters isn’t punching down, that is the ground floor and the only place progress is made. Its the ONLY place to punch.
Politicians serve at the leisure of the people. It is our duty to vote them in or out. It’s not punching down to tell voters to do their jobs, voting is literally the only ask for the vast majority of people. Besides jury duty, it is the minimum form of governmental/political participation a citizen can do.
There is no excuse for doing nothing besides being lazy. I am going out of my way to respect your perspective and your right to have it, but at the end of the day I think doing nothing and being proud of it is a cop out, and saying “it’s all the same in the end” is not just a cop out but is also disingenuous.
If everyone who didn’t show up because of genocide in palestine (or darfur / tibet / cambodia) voted, would trump still be president? I don’t honestly know.
What I DO know is that things are objectively worse now than they were before the 2020 election and there was no party in that election that adequately addressed the problem. So sure, maybe this is an instructional moment and there will be a huge surge on the left in 2024. On the other hand, maybe there won’t be an election at all because of “war with domestic terrorists” or something. I understand the argument of “nobody WANTS to vote a lesser evil anymore” when it’s between the likes of Al Gore and Mitt Romney. When it’s Trump, Project 2025, and a risk of validating Jan 6 (which we unfortunately did), I’m sorry but even though I agree with your position my gut feeling is to blame you MORE than my dumb Trump voting family because at least they got duped. You (generally) walked right into it and said “Ha. Yeah. Win without me.” and then left it to burn, knowing full well that this bullshit we are living was a possible, or even likely outcome.
“Why did this thing I did nothing to stop happen if it was the worse option?” Well. I don’t know, but I know who I’m more frustrated with about it.
See, the difference between our perspectives is that you’re punching down at voters rather than punching up at politicians. Maybe if every single person who stood by their valid moral principles was convinced to abandon them, it would’ve changed the outcome. I don’t know how that’s supposed to be achieved, exactly, aside from trying to shame people for having morals, which I don’t expect to be particularly effective.
Alternatively, instead of changing the public in order to be in line with what politicians want, we could change politicians to be in line with what voters want. I think the word for that is “democracy.”
It sounds like this might be a deeper part of disagreement: fundamentally the voters pick the politicians. Blaming voters isn’t punching down, that is the ground floor and the only place progress is made. Its the ONLY place to punch.
Politicians serve at the leisure of the people. It is our duty to vote them in or out. It’s not punching down to tell voters to do their jobs, voting is literally the only ask for the vast majority of people. Besides jury duty, it is the minimum form of governmental/political participation a citizen can do.
There is no excuse for doing nothing besides being lazy. I am going out of my way to respect your perspective and your right to have it, but at the end of the day I think doing nothing and being proud of it is a cop out, and saying “it’s all the same in the end” is not just a cop out but is also disingenuous.