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This "I'm a progressive but if Hillary is the nominee, I'm not voting" shit is stale

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boiled goose

good with gravy
It makes you significantly better than people who would not vote at all or vote for Trump, which is 29% of Bernie supporters. At least you can effect local and state elections in a positive way.

From my perspective, instead of blaming the 29%, I'd rather see Hillary try to earn those votes.
 
This is more like, "Not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump". The system is a system which brings you literally no choice.

But that is the reality, unfortunately. In time, we can change that, but for now those are cards we're being dealt with.

I wonder how many people, if given the choice between voting for Hilary or Adolf Hilter, would still either not vote/write someone in.

It might be hyperbolic for some, but to deny that his campaign shows all the fruits of that is sticking your fingers in your ears and going "blah blah blah Hilary can't be trusted so I vote for neither"
 

Moofers

Member
There are a lot of states that allow for write-ins. If it comes down to Hillary vs Trump, why shouldn't people be allowed to write in Bernie if they want to? All this "it sends a message that leftists don't vote!" etc about not voting would be countered by the argument that they did go vote, they just did it for Sanders, which should make a statement about how dissatisfied they are with the other candidates and the way politics work in our country.

I think if you vote, you've done your part. Don't stay home, just go vote and if you don't like the main choices, vote for the one you want. At least then you've done your duty as a citizen and made your point clear. If the left wants to complain about how not voting for Hillary will cost us too dearly, then they're missing the point we are trying to make with Sanders in the first place: Hillary is an insufficient response to the issues we are trying to call attention to.
 
Why would it matter when you are going to get served a dinner that you don't like regardless of who wins? If I had the option between two candidates that I don't like, I would rather not vote at all instead of giving a fake vote. Unless of course write-in votes are still a thing.

If we're talking complete, full on, no candidate has one thing over another that I like or dislike more than the other, then sure. I sincerely doubt that is true in this election. I sincerely doubt that's true in any election.

If you like even a little bit of one dinner more than another, then vote. No one is listening to you if you don't speak up.
 

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
All I'm saying is that you guys are blowing a hypothetical Trump presidency way out of proportion and seriously understating what a Clinton presidency (essentially a president working on behalf of corporate/elite interest groups) would likely do in the long run.

This is ridiculous. You know Trump name drops huge corporations and their CEOs all the time. Fuck, even during his Florida winning speech he talks about how he was hanging around with some powerful people from X company.

People are not underestimating a Clinton presidency, they are just choosing to look past that for a chance at actually getting things accomplished in the future.

But I don't believe you understand that with comments like these:

Is the whole SCOTUS appointment thing that big of a deal? Bigger of a deal than throwing a wrench in the plans of the elite in this country?
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
But that is the reality, unfortunately. In time, we can change that, but for now those are cards we're being dealt with.

I wonder how many people, if given the choice between voting for Hilary or Adolf Hilter, would still either not vote/write someone in.

It might be hyperbolic for some, but to deny that his campaign shows all the fruits of that is sticking your fingers in your ears and going "blah blah blah Hilary can't be trusted so I vote for neither"

I mean, if you are going hyperbolic, just make it Hitler vs Emperor Palpatine.
I'm not sure who I would pick.

What can she do to earn them? Because even if she suddenly promised to adopt Bernie's platform 100% I can guarantee you a relevant portion of that percentage would feel it's not enough.

Definitely not trivial. But, I am not the candidate running.

Here is a (bad) example. Let's say she said " I recognize that donations from rich donors and corporations skew and corrupt politics, so for the general election and going forward I will no longer be taking large donations nor working with Superpacs. That means though that YOU have to pick up the slack. It has to be the average citizen that fund this campaign, much like Bernie has done. If my rival on the GOP side does not do the same, they are being bought. I will point it out every time it happens so you know where they stand, blah blah blah"

Again, it might be a bad strategy that could be seen as unilateral disarmament . But, would it appeal to Bernie supporters. Hell yes. It would be Bernie + Hillary's toughness and willingness to crush republicans.

Why can I not even imagine this happening? I think it's because ultimately, she doesn't really agree with this approach, which is why fundamentally she does not appeal to large chuck of Bernie supporters.
 

impact

Banned
Hilary doesn't deserve votes just for not being Trump, and frankly annoying OPs like this make me less likely to vote for her.

Did all the BernieBots already switch or something?
 

Steel

Banned
From my perspective, instead of blaming the 29%, I'd rather see Hillary try to earn those votes.

I feel like she could never earn the 9% that'd vote Trump without Bernie.

But, really, what could she change domestically at this point without fully becoming Bernie on policies? They're really not very far away.
 
The only thing I actually trust Clinton to do is not get people deported.

Why? She's running on a "I'm just like Obama! ticket, and Obama generally hasn't been shy about deporting people:
qMKiXvj.jpg


I didn't see a more recent chart so it may have dropped in the last year or so, but the point remains.
 

Sapiens

Member
The worst thing about this election season is not Trump but it is watching how salty people get about who they vote for.

That being said, I don't blame people for being apathetic about Hilary. There's nothing wrong with it.
 

Azzanadra

Member
Why would it matter when you are going to get served a dinner that you don't like regardless of who wins? If I had the option between two candidates that I don't like, I would rather not vote at all instead of giving a fake vote. Unless of course write-in votes are still a thing.




I'm from Canada, so don't worry about me contributing to that. Whenever we have an election in Canada and I am faced with a bunch of candidates that I do not like, I just default to voting for the Green Party and call it a day.

Its different for us though. We don't need a Bernie Sanders because our "Bernie Sanders" happened in the sixties, yet the United States of America, the "shining city on the hill". I would too write in Bernie, but our local MPs (and the Prime Ministers themselves) are goddamn saints compared to Trump, Cruz, and yes, even Cinton. The US is lagging behind, and the Hillary is only perpetuating the cycle. They had a chance and they blew it, now they will have to settle for mediocrity- again.
 
What can she do to earn them? Because even if she suddenly promised to adopt Bernie's platform 100% I can guarantee you a relevant portion of that percentage would feel it's not enough.

That's a debate for another thread...the anti-Hillary crowd won't vote for her no matter what. Bernie was just a safe way to say so.
 
I mean, if you are going hyperbolic, just make it Hitler vs Emperor Palpatine.
I'm not sure who I would pick.

One is a real person who was responsible for the death of millions driven by nationislm and bigotry. The other is a made up person who still isn't even comparable to the choices given.

Seriously?
 
From my perspective, instead of blaming the 29%, I'd rather see Hillary try to earn those votes.
She's not going to waste time coddling the fragile egos of 20, 30 something millenials that have the worst turnout ratio of any electoral group, ever. Seriously, there's no point in convincing Jill Stein people.
 

pgtl_10

Member
I'm expecting that the mainstream Democratic voters simply will not ever be angry enough to demand substantive change until they've endured enough of the polar opposite. We endured 8 years of Bush to get to Obama and his most "liberal" proposition was a solution to healthcare that was a warmed-over Republican idea whose most attractive feature was compromised away. The slate of Republican candidates gets worse every cycle and, like clockwork, the Democrats put forth a centrist and tell progressives to fall in line and hope for next time.

The Democratic party perpetually whines about a lack of progressive action in Washington yet largely fails to support candidates that propose what they claim to want when it comes time to do something about it. At that point, they fall into their pattern, demand we fall in line or be guilty by abstaining, and wonder why they're not going to get what they claimed to want when it was convenient to do so.

It's why I don't vote Democrat. It is a cycle that will not end.
 
I am curious how many people with similar thoughts and comments on this forum aren't from the united states. Without saying so and using terms like "left" can really fuck up a conversation about US politics.

to be honest, it gets tiring.

The most frustrating thing this election has been this constant need to take every discussion down the tangent of "well, in Europe, the democrats would be considered center-right." It's like yeah, sure, fine, whatever. But this is quite clearly an election in the USA. Not Europe. So how is this conversation served in any way by this constant reminder?

It's like "wow, 7 feet? That's a tall person!"
"No way, here in the Himalayas, some mountains are thousands of meters tall, so that's not really that tall after all!"
 
I won't argue that not voting makes you less of a progressive. What it does make you is a selfish, apathetic, fucking asshole progressive, and at that point you may as well not be a progressive at all.

A conscientious refusal to vote is a totally legitimate form of protest which more Americans should engage in.

Otherwise, stop being a prick. You can either commit to making change, over time, with a person who is at least somewhat reasonable, or you could cross your arms and pout like a fucking child.

Voting is actually a commitment to resist change.
 
The worst thing about this election season is not Trump but it is watching how salty people get about who they vote for.

That being said, I don't blame people for being apathetic about Hilary. There's nothing wrong with it.

I can appreciate apathy - I'm somewhat apathetic myself of Hillary. However, it cannot be said enough that a candidate for whom I am apathetic is preferable to a candidate who I fear.
 

GamerJM

Banned
I don't know, what are your reasons for voting green?

For me, it's mainly because I feel like the Democrat is going to win California anyways, and the more people who vote green will cause the Democrats to shift further away from the center in hopes to gain the people who would otherwise vote Green. I'd rather use my vote to send a message to the Dems that they aren't far left enough instead of using it to further help ensure my state's votes will go to a candidate that's almost certainly going to win them anyways. If I lived in almost any other state I'd be extremely down for Hillary.

Though I'm still deciding, maybe I'll vote Dem. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that an admittedly small part of me wants to vote green in order to feel like a self-satisfied hipster. I dunno, on one hand I actually dislike how vehemently anti-establishment a lot of people on the internet are these days when it comes to politics, but on another hand I do think there's a certain level of truth to it.
 

Steel

Banned
She's not going to waste time coddling the fragile egos of 20, 30 something millenials that have the worst turnout ratio of any electoral group, ever. Seriously, there's no point in convincing Jill Stein people.

Only 6% are(presumably) Jill Stein people. 20% won't turn up to the polls at all, and 9% would vote trump.
 

zethren

Banned
I'm glad all the people in here not voting live in the vacuum where there isnt a hyper-nationalistic, xenophobic, and racist circus leader attempting to seize the presidency. Really, I am so happy you are privileged to exist there; how about you go post in that forum then?

Quoting because it needs to be seen again.

Let's not hand the country over to a complete and utter maniac.
 

Mael

Member
Its different for us though. We don't need a Bernie Sanders because our "Bernie Sanders" happened in the sixties, yet the United States of America, the "shining city on the hill". I would too write in Bernie, but our local MPs (and the Prime Ministers themselves) are goddamn saints compared to Trump, Cruz, and yes, even Cinton. The US is lagging behind, and the Hillary is only perpetuating the cycle. They had a chance and they blew it, now they will have to settle for mediocrity- again.

Wait you think that a Sanders president with the same Congress and Senate we have today is going to make the US progress at a rapid stride?
Did someone forget that it's parliament that vote the laws and they're the one that decide on which law gets to pass or not?
 
She's not going to waste time coddling the fragile egos of 20, 30 something millenials that have the worst turnout ratio of any electoral group, ever. Seriously, there's no point in convincing Jill Stein people.

This is some anti-millennial bullshit lol. I'd be amazed if the most informed generation of young people weren't also the most likely to be dissatisfied with the status quo.
 

Future

Member
Hilary doesn't deserve votes just for not being Trump, and frankly annoying OPs like this make me less likely to vote for her.

Did all the BernieBots already switch or something?

Why do people think voting for Hillary is a personal pledge to her or some bullshit. It's not about Clinton "deserving" votes... What the hell does that mean?

You vote to keep a democratic presidential administration. You may hate Hillary, but if you like liberal legislation, and liberal appointees, and a liberal Supreme Court then you vote for the democratic nominee this cycle. The republican nominee is against all the shit you want and more

Now if you are not liberal, and truly don't care about policy then hey... Don't vote. But as with anything people tend to not care about anything until it directly affects them. If any of the liberal talking points is of interest to you, then you vote Hilary, regardless of what you think of her
 
It actually does nothing, statistically and ideologically.

If you want change, create it. I think Americans have been subservient to authoritarianism for so long that we've forgotten it doesn't even have to be this way. We can literally create the nation we want, just as previous Americans did when they founded the country and at every major milestone in our history. Revolution is possible, but the work has to be done.

It's much more than nothing, it's actually a vote for either anarchy or malice. I can't believe the significance of this particular election is so lost of the very people who would be most fucked by it.

This whole bullshit of putting election and political reform solely on the presidential elections is LUDICROUS. Where were you in 2010? 2012? When all the literal extremists got into office?

How do you plan on steadily increasing voting rights and access for everyone if you wont even vote to keep a democrat in office at the state level, let alone the Federal? You think bullshit gerrymandering and voting laws is the product of what exactly?
How do expect to push back shitty healthcare laws, the loss of employee rights and civil rights with a conservative supreme court?
How will you erode systematic racism when you choose to let explicitly racist people take office across the country and in the white house?
How do you plan on empowering those around you to make the incremental changes for true progress if you can't see the forest for the trees?

Huge swaths of people haven't even been given the chance to become to dangerously spiteful and apathetic, and you're choosing to keep it that way? What kind of a progressive left leaning person are you then?
 

Lothars

Member
Its different for us though. We don't need a Bernie Sanders because our "Bernie Sanders" happened in the sixties, yet the United States of America, the "shining city on the hill". I would too write in Bernie, but our local MPs (and the Prime Ministers themselves) are goddamn saints compared to Trump, Cruz, and yes, even Cinton. The US is lagging behind, and the Hillary is only perpetuating the cycle. They had a chance and they blew it, now they will have to settle for mediocrity- again.
You are still talking out of your ass, You are the one comparing Harper to Hilary which is insane. Yes Trudeau is good but Hilary isn't bad at all.
 
Only 6% are(presumably) Jill Stein people. 20% won't turn up to the polls at all, and 9% would vote trump.
They weren't going to anyway. They will be too busy playing an online shootbang surrounded in a haze of cheeto dust and mountain dew to go outside, stand in line and cast a ballot. Just want to take the easy way out.
 

pgtl_10

Member
so if I vote Green does that mean I'm a horrible citizen now that hates women or is too young and naïve or any of the other implications thrown around in this thread?

Yep. According to this thread you can only be two things. There is no nuance.

People here are so zealous they scare me.
 

Cat Party

Member
I wish we lived in a world where left minded people could afford to sit an election out to get a better party for the future. But we don't. There are millions of people on the margins of society who will be actively harmed if the GOP gets the White House back.

If you don't want to vote for yourself, vote for them.
 
There is merit in punishing the Democratic Party. Republicans do it all the time. When they don't get their way, they put through an even MORE conservative candidate while Democrats compromise and put through a right of the center candidate...

People should be anger there is no liberal party in America.

Shh. Competent strategy is anathema to democrats.
 
They weren't going to anyway. They will be too busy playing an online shootbang surrounded in a haze of cheeto dust and mountain dew to go outside, stand in line and cast a ballot. Just want to take the easy way out.

and the rhetoric is tossed aside for the true view held beneath.
 

Azzanadra

Member
Wait you think that a Sanders president with the same Congress and Senate we have today is going to make the US progress at a rapid stride?
Did someone forget that it's parliament that vote the laws and they're the one that decide on which law gets to pass or not?

Not a rapid rate, theres always an element of compromise. But Clinton's already compromised beliefs would lead to stagnation, maintaining the status quo. Sander's lofty goals will lead to some level of advancement, which is better than what your getting with Clinton (AKA not much progression). A vote for Clinton is a vote for todays America.
 

Mael

Member
A conscientious refusal to vote is a totally legitimate form of protest which more Americans should engage in.

There's already more than 40% of people who don't vote and you want more?

Voting is actually a commitment to resist change.
Actually not voting is exactly like saying you don't care about the result so you don't things to change (or don't care if things change or not).
If you care about change very much you engage in politic and try to get your choice elected.

Not a rapid rate, theres always an element of compromise. But Clinton's already compromised beliefs would lead to stagnation, maintaining the status quo. Sander's lofty goals will lead to some level of advancement, which is better than what your getting with Clinton (AKA not much progression). A vote for Clinton is a vote for todays America.

A vote for Trump is a vote for yesterday's America.
Sanders lofty goals aren't even considered worse voting for the majority of the Dem voter base what makes you think he would be anything but hot air if the parliament doesn't want to go his way?
 
I can't comprehend how someone thinks that not voting somehow sends a message. Who hears your not vote? What message do they hear when you don't do it? Because apparently, you haven't been not voting hard enough. Despite the fact that most people don't vote, the same things are still going on.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
Wait, Clinton wants to end the Jedi supremacy in the Galaxy?

Sorry haha. I was not saying Clinton was Palatine in this scenario. I was just pointing out how lesser of two evils can be a hard choice.

Ive already said that to me personally Hillary is clearly clearly superior to any Republican.
 

daveo42

Banned
A conscientious refusal to vote is a totally legitimate form of protest which more Americans should engage in.

Saying you aren't voting does nothing and shows you are more lazy or ill-informed than anything else. Not voting doesn't stop people from being elected unless you basically got every single person in an entire country to not vote. Which is impossible. Even if voting turn out was less than 1%, we'd get a winner and a brief story about how people are apathetic about politics.
 
Ultimately, if people did actually go out and vote in the state elections, we would have some change. The state-level politicians would move further left across the board (or right-wing politicians would win by a smaller margin), thus making the pool of potential candidates for the White House that much more liberal. I'm not entirely convinced that accepting someone like Trump because he's "anti-authoritarian" or creating the opportunity for Trump to be elected is a solid way to protest/make change.

Eh, what difference does it make if Hillary is as guaranteed to win as she is made out to be.

Because a lot of the people saying that are reassuring themselves and are still in the denial phase of Trump's success.
 

Future

Member
Not a rapid rate, theres always an element of compromise. But Clinton's already compromised beliefs would lead to stagnation, maintaining the status quo. Sander's lofty goals will lead to some level of advancement, which is better than what your getting with Clinton (AKA not much progression). A vote for Clinton is a vote for todays America.

No, it's a vote for the chance at liberal Supreme Court that will rule over the future progressive policy that you want.
 

Iorv3th

Member
It makes you significantly better than people who would not vote at all or vote for Trump, which is 29% of Bernie supporters. At least you can effect local and state elections in a positive way.

But it also gives you no right to complain if Trump is elected president.

But if he/she decides to vote for Hillary and Trump still wins can he/she then complain about Trump being president?

I don't want Trump or Hillary to be president. I'll still go vote in the other elections though. But I really don't want either one of them.
 

Azzanadra

Member
You are still talking out of your ass, You are the one comparing Harper to Hilary which is insane. Yes Trudeau is good but Hilary isn't bad at all.

Did Harper deny me free health care? Nope. Did he try to take away abortion and gay rights in any serious way? Did he vote to declare a full-fledged war against another country? Did his platform consist of making Canada the big-brother police of the Middle East? What I can tell you is that Clinton has supported/done 3-4 of these things.
 
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