[thunky]

> around 36% sat at home or abstained, but in practicality they basically said they were fine with whoever won.

Or, they were not fine with whoever won.

We've got two abismal parties to choose from. Yes, there's an agument for voting for the lesser of two evils, but it's not a great one.

I'd like to believe at least some of those 36% would vote for a decent candidate/party. But once you lose faith in the system, and realize that it doesn't represent you, you might just stop participating in it.

[mostlysimilar]

> We've got two abismal parties to choose from. Yes, there's an agument for voting for the lesser of two evils, but it's not a great one.

No, we have one destructive/harmful party (R) and one status quo party (D). They are not the same level of bad and that's immediately obvious from this last year.

[GolfPopper]

The problem with that is the status quo wasn't that good.

To compare the two parties with a house on fire, absolutely the sadistic pyromaniac arsonist burning down the neighborhood one house at a time is a bad guy and needs to be stopped. But when person trying to rally everyone to go after him is the abusive slumlord, it doesn't always resonate as effectively as it might.

A healthy society wouldn't tolerate either one. I wonder if the Democrats seeming inability to stop right-wing abuses has been partially motivated by the knowledge that successfully stomping out that sort of corruption would curtail their own abuses, too.

[thunky]

> I wonder if the Democrats seeming inability to stop right-wing abuses has been partially motivated by the knowledge that successfully stomping out that sort of corruption would curtail their own abuses, too.

Absolutely. And we know this because when they were last in power they did nothing to counter corruption or limit executive power. Instead they were partaking in it.

Trump is exploiting a system his predecessors created.

[tshaddox]

> Yes, there's an agument for voting for the lesser of two evils, but it's not a great one.

This is only a remotely viable claim if you think the two evils have extremely similar amounts of evil.

[ratelimitsteve]

if you're on a train to pittburgh, it stops in poughkepsie and you don't get off, you decided to go to pittsburgh by doing nothing. your reasons may be your own, but your ass is in pittsburgh.

[MiiMe19]

If you are on a train going off a cliff and you can turn the train around to go off a different cliff, but decide it isn't worth the effort just to go off a different cliff, you still end up going off a cliff. Nice.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you still end up going off a cliff. Nice.

This false equivalence is exactly what counts for being "fine with this corrupt leader."

[MiiMe19]

I refuse to vote for a party that was complicit with the threats against me and my friends. The other party is pretty ass too, despite being closer to what I want politically.

[JumpCrisscross]

> refuse to vote for a party that was complicit with the threats against me and my friends. The other party is pretty ass too, despite being closer to what I want politically

Sure. There are a lot of other people like you. Political operatives work hard to find folks like you, because groups who won’t vote are groups you can transfer resources from. (Same, oddly enough, for folks who will vote for you regardless of what you do. You can take advantage of that loyalty to buy votes on the margin.)

It’s dumb. And it directly undermines the causes you and others like and around you support, because again, your devoted non-participation creates political capital on the other side of any issue you would have voted on. But it’s common and a real part of any electoral—possibly political—system, and no elected who wins and keeps office can afford to ignore the free resources predictable non-voters offer up.

[MiiMe19]

I don't really care if it hurts the causes I want, I am not voting for the people who send my friends death threats. Either way, neither party really supports what I want so voting for one would hurt the causes I want anyway.

[ratelimitsteve]

welcome to Pittsburgh!

[timeon]

Honest question: Why do you think they are the same?

[MiiMe19]

Friends and I have been threatened with violence multiple times by prominent members of one party and the other party does the same thing to other people. I would love to go into detail but I don't want to get doxxed because it is pretty specific. :(

[ThrowMeAway1618]

>Friends and I have been threatened with violence multiple times by prominent members of one party and the other party does the same thing to other people. I would love to go into detail but I don't want to get doxxed because it is pretty specific. :(

So you're a nazi/white supremacist/Boogaloo boy? I wouldn't worry too much about getting doxxed, there are plenty of those around.

Or are you a batshit ancap[0]? That's a smaller group, but still sizable enough to avoid being doxxed just by mentioning it.

In fact, most groups that get that kind of hate (from anyone) are big enough (Trans folks are ~3,000,000 in the US, gay folk are ~30 million. I'd expect you could give at least some detail without doxxing yourself just by mentioning it -- assuming MiiMe19 isn't the name on your driver's license.

As such, I call bullshit on your claims. Prove me wrong.

[MiiMe19]

The situation was specific enough and got enough media attention that yes, I would dox myself by giving pretty much any hint. And no, I am not in any of the groups you gave, or anything related. I hate politics and politics obsessed losers and have better things to do with my time. The only hint I can really give is that years later, despite not even being related to the action that started this whole thing, I (and friends) have been harassed in public and have had people threaten to hurt me just because of this one thing.

[LinXitoW]

Here in Germany, we have like 20 different parties on the ballot, with maybe 6 of those having a reasonable chance to actually get any seats. Not a SINGLE ONE perfectly represents me and my issues.

I still voted, because my personal laziness or moral superiority does not trump the very real world effects of the "bad ones" winning. Lazy people like you with post hoc rationalizations exist here too, and they're just as bad and wrong.

[thunky]

> I still voted, because my personal laziness or moral superiority does not trump the very real world effects of the "bad ones" winning. Lazy people like you with post hoc rationalizations exist here too, and they're just as bad and wrong.

We're not talking about me. So maybe cool it.

[hirsin]

Those are the same thing in our system.

[ryandrake]

By not voting, you are clearly saying you are fine with whoever wins. If you were not fine with whoever wins, you would have voted for someone, anyone else.

[samdoesnothing]

There's a double standard that I see a lot here, where people want to vote for a party, denigrate those who chose not to participate as being morally culpable for the results of the election, but won't take moral culpability for what their team does when they're in power.

If you vote for team A and they win and then do something bad (inevitable), shouldn't you be morally responsible for that? After all, you seem fine claiming non-participants have moral culpability for whatever the winning team does.

[LinXitoW]

Yes, you are, to the extent that "the other option" would have been better.

This seems incredibly obvious. If my options are "don't bomb children" and "bomb children", there's an obvious choice and obvious culpability. If my options are "bomb children" and "bomb way the fuck more children" the choice is also obvious.

You do not get to pretend a moral dilemna doesn't exist just because you're not a fan of the available choices. You are still culpable.

[samdoesnothing]

Consider this scenario:

You have a train hurtling down the track that forks into two groups of people, 10 in one and 5 in the other, some of the people go on to cure cancer and some are murderers and you don't know where they are. Also it's possible batman set up the scenario to kill the bad guys and by flipping the switch you kill the good guys. Or the Joker set it up and the reverse is true.

In this case, you could argue that you only have moral culpability by intervening. Unless you are absolutely sure you have full knowledge of the intended consequences by acting, you can absolve yourself of the moral culpability by non-intervention.

And since we don't know the long term consequences of political actions, there is at least an argument for non-intervention.

[inglor_cz]

I also sat out one election here in CZ, but that does not mean that I was "fine with whoever wins". It was "I really cannot decide which of the two guys is worse and I need to survive either of them."

Fortunately the Czech president does not have that much power.

[timeon]

How about parliamentary election?

[inglor_cz]

I have voted in all of them so far. Smaller parties = not much personal attachment + higher chance to find at least one that is, in that particular moment, more aligned to your interests.

In general, I believe that more choice is good and polarizing political systems are subpar.

[adastra22]

Participation adds a moral dimension. It becomes a trolly problem — do you throw the switch and take culpability for the outcome?

[LinXitoW]

Well yes, but you're completely misunderstanding how the trolley problem applies to voting, esp. in the USA. You're pretending that "Not Voting" and "Voting" are the switch options, but that's simply not true.

There are just two possible outcomes: Dems or Reps getting power. That's the switch options you have. "Not Voting" simply means letting the trolley take the Rep route and being JUST AS CULPABLE for the results as every single republican voter.

Your fantasy of "not voting" being an actual moral option is like arguing "I disagree with the concept of a trolley, so I'm just going to turn away from the switch". You're morally exactly as culpable, because you made a choice that is morally the equivalent of "not switching tracks".

[thunky]

There is a subtle difference though because a vote is supposed to be a act of support. With the trolley problem there is nothing to support.

Voting for party A/B is a reward that encourages party A/B to do more of what they're doing.

So let's say only 1000 people voted because everyone else hated both options. That would pave a path for party C that would not exist if everyone held their nose and voted for crap.

[groby_b]

Not participating in the trolley problem does not remove questions of moral responsibility. You had the choice to throw the lever, you said "either outcome is fine".

That's your choice. "I don't participate at all" doesn't work unless it makes the whole trolley go poof.

[ThrowMeAway1618]

>Not participating in the trolley problem does not remove questions of moral responsibility. You had the choice to throw the lever, you said "either outcome is fine".

As the eminent philosopher[0] opined:

   You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
   If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
   You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
   I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Free will

[0] https://genius.com/Rush-freewill-lyrics

[adastra22]

There are more moral frameworks out there than just utilitarianism.