Image Transcription:

A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:

"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.

It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.

But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.

I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.

Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.

There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."

End Transcription.

The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.

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[–] 151 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (13 children)

Hoo boy. Against my better judgment, I'll wade into this pool.

  1. If voting for either party gets you the same result, fascists wouldn't be so focused on elections and trying so hard to take the vote away.

  2. Withholding your vote doesn't do anything. When has losing an election pushed either party left?

  3. Voting doesn't prevent you from engaging in other forms of direct action.

Both parties suck. People will needlessly suffer and die no matter who wins. But there are also people who will suffer and die under one party but not the other, and the same can't be said the other way around. Our democracy is fundamentally flawed, but voting is a tool at our disposal, and we're in no position to turn anything down.

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  • [–] 54 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Before Obama, I could still remain quiet when people said "voting for anyone is implicit approval," or whatever - and for the most part, they're right - voting is a pretty low level of change.

    I voted for Obama because even if he is a bit of a tool, he's black, and now a huge group of minority kids saw someone who looks like them in the white house. I voted for him not because of the "HOPE" on his signs but literally to give black kids hope. (And yeah, for the most part, it's false hope, just like it is for white kids, welcome to the club.) He was a positive symbol and, if it's a symbol who is also a centrist Democrat, that's better then a centrist Democrat that isn't a positive symbol. And a shit ton better than Mitt Romney or whoever the other guy was.

    And then Trump happened, and any respect for the "don't vote" viewpoint drained out. If you still think both parties are the same at this point, you might want to start asking yourself what else is going on with you - because "not great" is not identical to "fucking terrible"...

    Biden isn't doing what I want him to do - health care, income inequality, corruption in Congress, etc - but the infrastructure bill isn't a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, we need it. We need a lot more, but 1 > 0.

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  • [–] [S] 39 points 2 years ago

    The amount of people in this thread who don't understand how our voting system works is too damn high

    You're absolutely correct in your points

    Especially the "against my better judgement" part, this comment section went to hell really quick

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    [–] 97 points 2 years ago (20 children)

    "Democrats have always fucked me over but I keep voting for them because the alternative is actively more harmful".

    No, I don't find it touching nor powerful. This is a celebration of the failure of the 2 party system.

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  • [–] 119 points 2 years ago* (28 children)

    When you roll out the feasible alternative let me know. Until then, I'll be voting for the candidate whose rallies don't break out in chants of "kill f*ggots, kill all transgenders"

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    [–] 52 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    This would all be resolved if America just changed first past the post voting.

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    [–] 50 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Vote for the most useful option, then go make a difference in local politics or wherever you can actually influence anything. Limiting your interactions with politics to whining isn't going to change anything for the better and is definitely not going to get rid of Republicans nor Democrats.

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    [–] 45 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    My father beat me when I was a kid, he ran for child services president and I voted for him. I heard that the other guy beat his kids more, so I really had a moral duty to vote for my dad. You guys, it's really important to vote for the guy who beats his kids less.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (2 children)
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (20 children)

    How? It is exactly what it sounds like when people say to vote for the "lesser evil", especially in this post.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (32 children)

    It is exactly what it sounds like when people say to vote for the “lesser evil”

    You do realize that if you don't get the"lesser evil" what you get in fact is "more evil" right? We don't default to "not evil" by not choosing.

    (edit) People that say this often seem to think the choice is between (A) Choosing one of the evils (B) Revolution that ends capitalism and sets up communism.

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    [–] 35 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    In a democracy, if there is no alternative we have to vote for the lesser of the evil. It's better to keep things worse, than to make it more worse, if there is no alternative. If an alternative is there, then absolutely. We should all be encouraging an alternative system in a democracy. But if nothing's is available, then this.

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    [–] 35 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Complain today about fewer options.

    Complain tomorrow about Führer options.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It's ok to complain. The complaints are valid. Still vote and encourage others to vote.

    If your two choices are between a 99% fascist and a 98% fascist. Vote for the 98% fascist.

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  • [+] 33 points 2 years ago (8 children)
  • [–] [S] 83 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Unfortunately here in the US with our current voting system, voting for the lesser of 2 evils is the best strategy once it's election day.

    Primaries are for voting with your heart, election day is for strategic voting.

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  • [+] 21 points 2 years ago (33 children)
  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago

    The system doesn't actually require any collaboration to eventually become a two-party race. It's pretty much statistically assured if voters behave rationally, but with limited information.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago

    You’re starting out with the wrong assumption in your question. The question should be “why is it that there are only two choices?” And the answer is: because the voting system laid out in the constitution makes it an inevitability.

    It’s not a coincidence that the countries in Europe with many parties have a different type of system. Statistical models demonstrate that their many parties and our two parties are a natural consequence of how our voting system works.

    It’s bad enough being stuck in the situation we are, but wrongly attributing the cause to a vast conspiracy, involving both parties working together, just leads to the wrong conclusions about what to do about it.

    In reality, voting third party instead of the party you most align with just helps the party you least align with. The GOP backs third party candidates that might attract liberal voters for a reason.

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    [–] 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Saying democrats or voting got black people rights is a slap in the face of those who literally fought for them.

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  • [–] [S] 27 points 2 years ago

    I'm sure black people would have gotten better rights if no one voted for the lesser of 2 evils.

    People fought for the rights, and politicians who supported those rights won elections because people voted for them.

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    [+] 18 points 2 years ago (16 children)
  • [–] 68 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Wild how he doesn’t even mention the possibility of voting for a third party.

    Why would he? The US voting system makes third party candidates an impossibility. It's not a viable option.

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  • [–] [S] 50 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    To elaborate a little further: Our First Past the Post system makes third party candidates a spoiler candidate for the party they most closely resemble

    Say you've got 3 people running for a position. Person A and Person B are fairly similar but differ in some key points, Person C is the exact opposite of Person A.

    The election happens and this is the result: Person A gets 30%, Person B gets 30%, and Person C gets 40%. Person C wins, even though 60% of people didn't want Person C.

    This is why third party candidates are usually considered "spoiler candidates"

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    That's because unless they get rid of the first-past-the-post system, it's 100% wasted.

    Unfortunately, FPTP also keeps the existing dominant parties complacent in only having one enemy, so they don't actually have to try very hard. So changing it is unlikely to gather a lot of steam, either. "Lesser evil" sucks, but is ironically a lesser evil than just throwing away the vote entirely.

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