[fmdud]

>Stop voting.

Being "apolitical" actually turns out to be a pretty naïve stance on politics. There's a great David Foster Wallace quote about "protest by non-participation" like this:

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”

DFW wrote that 15 years ago at this point. Non-voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. The fact that you're not voting means they don't have to give a shit about what you think.

[crdoconnor]

If you attend a protest you probably have 100x as much impact on the political system as somebody who votes.

If you strike you probably have 200x as much impact on the political system as somebody who votes.

If you are ready and willing be tear gassed, arrested or beaten up for your beliefs you can help shape politics in a way no voter ever has or will.

Non voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. It doesn't show that they don't have to give a shit about what you think. It's just tacit recognition of the truth. Individual votes are close to insignificant. Real politics happens elsewhere.

[fmdud]

I agree but the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking, attending protests, etc. as it's really a stand-in for the idea of "making your voice heard", as opposed to "completely opting out of the political process and telling yourself that doing so is making your voice heard".

[crdoconnor]

>the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking

I don't think that's true in the slightest.

[phaus]

DFW would be correct if it weren't for the fact that every candidate for a major office that you are likely to encounter in your lifetime will be one of the garden-variety shitbags that's already a part of the entrenched establishment.

On paper, voting for a president vs not voting increases your chance of changing the world by about 1 in 50 million. In actuality, no matter who you vote for, its essentially going to be the same type of person.

I think that we are at a point where its still useful to vote in local elections and even in the presidential primaries (in some states, only a few thousand people show up for presidential primaries), but after that, the odds of making a meaningful impact are astronomical.

I still vote in all elections, but when I do it I fully understand that I am wasting my time.

[skidoo]

When enough people stop calling in to vote on American Idol, the show will be cancelled.

[vezzy-fnord]

That or in the face of majoritarianism, gerrymandering and electoral colleges - you realize that the odds are stacked against you, and simply choose "not to play".

[eli]

The fact that your vote may have less impact than you might wish doesn't mean that it has literally zero value.

[logfromblammo]

If your vote has less value to you than the time it takes to cast the ballot, it has zero economic value, and will therefore not happen, regardless of its nonzero absolute value.

A cynical potential voter may recognize that the net effect of laws and rules set up around the voting system is to alienate his or her opinion from the results of elections. In that case, declining to vote is a rational and reasonable decision. Most people judge the value of their votes by the perceived impact that their votes have on the results of the election. If you cannot detect a change in public policy as a result of your votes, your vote does literally have zero value.

In that case, you should be doing something else to effect a change in your own situation. I suspect that for most people, working during the time you would ordinarily spend voting then spending the profits on a lobbyist to directly influence an already-elected policy-maker for a specific issue that interests you would be more effective than casting a free ballot.

[eli]

> If you cannot detect a change in public policy as a result of your votes, your vote does literally have zero value.

So the person who casts the deciding vote in a race decides 100% of the election and everyone else 0%? That doesn't sound right...

I'm all for making it easier to vote, though.

[logfromblammo]

The person who casts the deciding vote probably won't know that they had done it, so that vote could also have zero value. All they know is that the voted for the winner.

Every vote in the entire election could have zero value, if none of the winners change their political stances as a result, and public policy is essentially unchanged from the period before the election.

That's why I see votes on a binding referendum to have more value than races for office between two essentially indistinguishable candidates.

[vezzy-fnord]

In U.S. politics (and I suppose generalizing to other majoritarian voting systems), the only realistic option for a major party shift to occur is a schism in the ruling dichotomy - as happened with the Whigs being torn on issues of slavery and fizzling out to Republican and Democratic. Or, more recently, the Southern Strategy morphing the Republican Party's platform into a more populist one, taking over the role of the Democrats prior to the 1960s, and dramatically transforming the formerly blue Deep South into a firmly red bloc.

Trying to break a third party in any other way is remarkably difficult, as a result of the inertia caused by reasons I listed previously. It's been engineered this way for well over a century by now.

Until you reform ballot access laws, introduce proportional representation on the federal and state level (which will break so much shit it's not funny) and have fairer debate coverage, trying to wrestle in third party candidates through mere vote will be exceedingly implausible/impractical.

Entryism, I suppose, is another option, though it has not been used effectively at all thus far.

[eli]

Here's the thing with voting: the person with the most votes wins. Even if they're a third party candidate and even if they weren't "supposed" to win. I think this is a really cool!

There are examples of this happening. Surprise progressive wins. The system doesn't make it easy, but it's possible. It will happen again. But it's a whole lot harder when their supporters choose not to vote.

[innguest]

You are totally deluded if you think that way. I used to refute this sort of sophism when I was 12.

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine all there is is the town you live in with your local community. All of a sudden a gang comes in and demands protection money from everyone once a year, or they will cage non-payers. This gang then champions an idea called "democracy" whereby the oppressed sometimes have a cathartic moment where they think they are telling the gang their opinions and making choices on how the gang will run their criminal deeds. Of course, the gang does all in its power, with a lot of rhetoric, to convince the oppressed that only through this "voting" thing that this gang made up, can you really change things in your town. The gang gets every townsfolk to believe it is their duty to participate in this ritual. More importantly, through this propaganda, the gang is able to inculcate in the oppressed that they must shun and mock those that see through the whole charade and refuse to be enablers in this act of submission to the wills of the gang.

You and DFW are both brain-dead.

[biggot_man]

Lets call our two-party-government "democracy". It will be fun.

Is it the same as voting for mtv awards ? If i don't like any of the "chosen" artists do I still have to vote ?

It can surely save me countless hours of mind numbing music.

[jbeckham]

We don't have a democracy in the United States. We have a representative republic. There is a big difference.

Not being involved in the political process just completely removes any influence you have on the process and the outcomes. However, if your belief is that not voting is the right thing to do, then by all means, please abstain from voting. I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway.

EDIT/Clarification: We don't have a pure democracy in the United States. We have representative democracy and a republic as pointed out below.

[snowwrestler]

We have a representative democracy in the U.S. We also have a republic. The two terms are not contradictory.

"Representative democracy" tells you how decisions are made--we select a few citizens to make decisions on our behalf. "Republic" tells you who is sovereign--in the U.S. the individual citizens have the right and power to rule, and have used that to construct our own government.

Counter examples:

The U.K. is a representative democracy, but not a republic. It's a monarchy.

North Korea is a republic but it's not a democracy. It's an autocracy.

[biggot_man]

What you have, in particular, is a "I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway"-cracy

Not very democratic eitherway.

[jbeckham]

Unfortunately, we don't have a "I'd rather only have engaged people vote anyway"-cracy because the get out the vote crowd will bus in people with the bribe of a free lunch.

I never claimed I wanted a pure democracy...