That’s basically the exact opposite of how politics actually works though. Both sides massively pander to their base. Trump is pandering to racists, poorly educated whites and evangelicals. Biden is pandering to minorities, socially liberal women and people with college degrees who hate Trump.
Because progressive were so willing to use your vote holding tactic in every election they don’t get pandered to as much because nobody has reason to believe they will turn out. Sanders tried in the primary to win with a broad, progressive coalition, but since voting is not a habit for many in this group turnout was well off record pace even pre-Covid and he got beat soundly.
I grant that your points are accurate about the group of people who you are talking about–younger unreliable voters. That is not who I am talking about.
When I’ve been specifically talking about threatening to withhold our vote, I’m talking about likely voters. Voters like us ITT. This forum is not full of twenty year olds. The median age has to be ~40.
I don’t know how that gets conflated to be that I’m advocating for unlikely voters to threaten to withhold their vote. I hope that is cleared up.
I appreciate everyone who shared answers to this question. I respect all those who have, are, and will be taking action to mold the world in a way that aligns with their values.
I am trying to understand the reasoning behind an answer that was essentially given multiple times to this question. That answer was: “Vote”[in another future election]. At least that’s how I understood those responses.
This seems like an odd response in a way. Because to me it implies that we will be using our vote(or the threat of withholding our vote) in a future election as leverage to move Biden or other candidates towards are preferred positions. If that is the case, then why would we not use that threat right now in order to move Biden?
There is no physical law of nature that states that welp, once the primary is done, that’s it, don’t ask for more. No more organizing ourselves and making demands(that’s what the banks, insurers, and titans of industry get to do). There is no rule that you must pledge your vote and support months in advance, while the candidate panders to everyone but you.
Trump wins. GG democracy. I have yet to see an even remotely convincing argument from the don’t vote types on why this isn’t true, just lol thats fake news level bullshit. I won’t waste time on why its GG democracy because that has been spelled out clearly.
Yes a lot of the arguments are true that voting for the lesser of two evils has fucked us, the establishment has fucked us and continues to fuck us, but the most important thing that shockingly hasn’t been brought up is…
Demographics, they are a changing. There is only one route for progressives to win in this country. It’s for Biden to win, us to hold onto democracy a little longer, and wait for demographics to change and millennial to become the major voting block. This is literally the only path. Yes the establishment is too strong and it fucking sucked they fucked Bernie and all of us because they’re straight up evil
I was on the fence on whether to vote Biden or not for awhile after Bernie lost, but this became pretty clear to me. Maybe its because I’m younger, and I see how much more progressive my age group is first hand, and maybe if you’re a older progressive this option sucks because you won’t live to see it, but do the younger generation a solid and help us fucking get there.
If Trump wins 0 chance of progressive change in mine or anyone heres lifetime.
If Biden wins I think its inevitable. I mean look at the progress we’ve made in the last two elections, of course the old ghouls are going to fight us tooth and nail and we will lose battles but time is on our side.
Parliamentary democracies can have third parties because of the way voting is set up. America’s system simply cannot because of it’s first past the post winner take all system. Parliamentary democracies are clearly superior, but it ain’t what America has.
The idea that people get more conservative as they get older is a debunked myth. The only change as people get older is that the poor people, ethnic minorities, etc, who skew liberal but have poorer access to health care and other quality of life things that extend life, tend to die younger.
The vast majority because we aren’t getting richer plus what’s happening now is making people leftist for life.
Boomers that did get more conservative did so because they got cheap education and high wages so have really good incomes and cheap homes. So they went fuck you I got mine.
We ain’t getting ours. Even the ones who do see what it’s done to their friends and it disgusts them
Ok, that’s true of millennials who won’t have been able to get onto the property ladder by then, but those who will be home owners will largely have families and the same financial interest in lower taxes that is the underlying reason why people vote for conservative parties (law and order and defence being excuses, not reasons usually).
When people are young many things disgust them that unfortunately later on in life they end up supporting. They usually say this is down to understanding the world better as they aged, but in reality it’s that any values and principles they might once have had have all but disappeared.
A lot of the boomers you hate would have voted Dem back in the 60s and now look at them.
I’m with Stim on this one. Besides the whole “more conservative as you age” thing being used as a baton to beat down progressives in a super condescending way that’s not even true, I think it is becoming even less true every cycle. As the right moves insanely right, embraces racism, and works for the ultra wealthy, they are making it even harder for any decent person to become more conservative. A vast majority of people I know in their 30s are becoming not only more progressive as they age, but way more aware of and active in politics.
The lesser of two evils sucks. Never having a chance to see the clear demographic shift that is happening lead to progress will suck more. We need to fade autocracy to allow a progressive future to be viable. The only way to do that at this exact moment in history is to elect Biden.
It’s 100% ok to hate it. To bitch and moan on here. To protest after Jan 21st. To want 0 drone killings as opposed to just an 80% decrease.
It is 0% ok to not do what you can to help Biden win this election.
This is true and mitigates somewhat against the effects I described, but it’s impossible to say by how much.
“Decent” people will oppose overt racism of the Tumper variety but some may still subconsciously expect to be benefit from their privilege. Again, we don’t know how the numbers will break down.
There was a scientific study done on this a year or so back, I’ve got to find it, but it debunked the “people get more conservative as they get older” myth pretty roundly.
Imagine an America where everyone <40 voted in equal proportion to those >65. It’s freaking awesome! Al Gore gets a head start on climate change, we avoid the Iraq war, progressives build increasing momentum, and Trump dies in debt and derision without ever touching office. We could have that world! But we are choosing not to.
We don’t have the choice we wanted, but we have a choice. And it turns out that the lesser of two evils, repeated over time, results in a lot less evil in the world.
Everytime the Republicans win, they jackhammer the Overton window to the extreme right, and dedicate themselves to further disempowering the vote we already under-utilize. If we don’t raise our voices now, we may lose our window to be heard.
The drone thing is 100% bad faith also. Sanders is pro drone strike and the people who say they can’t support Biden because he won’t eliminate drone strikes supported him.
