Originally Posted by
Opaque
Part of growing up is learning how you can actually make a difference and what is just masturbation.
Writing in Bernie might make you feel rock and roll, but it's an empty gesture that does nothing. I'd rather the system be different, I'd rather a lot of thing be different, but all you can ever do in life is make the next best decision. Complaining about how that decision isn't ideal does nothing of value for anything other than your own ego.
That's not propping up the status quo or supporting it, it's doing the best you can with the options that are actually there.
That is the very definition of supporting the status quo. And that attitude long term is the only thing that has enabled it. Kedawa is correct that third parties terrify the Republicrats. They have a vested interest in maintaining that line.
Real change isnt something you can get by showing up and voting for the 'lesser of two (that are really the same)' every four years, any more than "buying green" solves the environmental crisis. It takes long years and losing. If we had ignored all the cries of "A vote for him is a vote for Bush, think of the Supreme Court seats!" and voted our consiensces 20 years ago, Nader wouldn't have been president, Bush still would have been, BUT we probably would have other viable options 4 years ago and even more likely would have been able to elect Sanders, Yang, or Gabbard now.
Originally Posted by
Bacon McShig
I get the whole "I'm not gonna vote for Biden" thing, you don't like him, your state probably isn't going to flip whether or not you vote for him, cool, don't vote for him. Write in whoever you like.
The bit that sours me is that the people that intimate that stance often say (or at least give a strong implication) that they're gonna stay home and not vote at all. Now personally, I've never voted in a presidential election that didn't also have a dozen-some other local races and measures on the ballot, and I don't think that's something unique to my region. Voting your conscience on Biden doesn't really win you any brownie points if you're not voting your conscience on anything else. You're just trying to pin a medal on your apathy.
Nobody's said that. I'm still voting. Just not for Biden or Trump.
It's the naked antagonism. The president is supposed to be a representative of the nation, not the president of *just the people who voted for him*, and Trump takes a big fat dump all over that notion nonstop. Other presidents might have worked shadow ops to undermine large swaths of the population, but Jesus fuck at least they sometimes
tried to act like they were listening to opposing viewpoints and making some kind of play to the people on the other side of issues. They seemed to consider the insights and recommendations of experts that knew more than them. Trump just makes a jerk-off motion to anything not in lock-step with him, feeds a steady diet of scapegoats to his undercarriage, and bloviates about how he actually knows better than anyone about anything when he demonstrably doesn't know shit about shit.
So, being uncouth and not pretending to pander?
I feel the same way about how the former rebel crowd has dug themselves into a nice little rut of nihilistic inactivity. This administration has given an endless buffet of ammunition to get mad about and turn back at 'em, and I look around at the sorts of people that should have some fire in their belly and be raging against the machine and they just largely seem to be in a sedative 'everyone sucks so why bother caring' shrug over it.
No, it's just that "the machine" includes your team.
Last edited by Vasteel; 01 May 2020 at 08:03 PM.
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