Leather Apron Club, who makes great videos, released his election day message recently: if you're a conservative, don't vote. Basically it's a takedown of various boomer talking points for voting (civic duty, lesser of two evils, can't complain if you didn't vote, etc).
The problem is, the boomer talking points are not the reality of voting. The vote is an exercise of power that, while virtually meaningless on an individual level, advances group consensus.
"Voting for a candidate endorses 100% of their platform."
- This is simply wrong and frankly a naive statement. No need to elaborate on this, just look up Bush's term after he thought he won a "mandate" with his 2004 reelection.
"Voters are dumb cows who don't even know who's in power or how it's exercised."
- Largely true. Problem is, you will need a majority of those cows on your side to effect any meaningful political change. Voting for a cause orients them in a general direction.
"The Republican party keeps getting more liberal"
- While this is true on paper, if the only paper you read is campaign press releases, anyone paying the slightest attention to the Overton window since Trump became a national figure should be able to perceive that the right is actually moving farther right. The true liberal "softening" of the GOP was in the 2000s and early 2010s.
"Trump backed off on abortion"
- Trump gave you the repeal of Roe v. Wade, something I thought was unlikely in my lifetime. Any counterpoint to this is disingenuous.
"Trump supports Israel and he's in bed with the neocons"
- The only way to end the current wars is to make peace with the respective stronger party in each: Russia and Israel. Any suggestion that Trump has gone neocon is risible.
"Reading a book or volunteering or getting a government job is a better political action than voting"
- No. Beyond the stated purpose, voting is a measure of allegiance to a particular direction. It's arguably one of the most tenuous, but it galvanizes half the country into conflict with the deep state. Without conflict, there is no movement. Without awareness, nothing is possible.
People are designed to move in groups. Groups create change. Reading a book or whatever is predicated on the idea that intellectual power will be the primary lever at some point down the line, which approaches utopian thinking.
Vote. Use the tool at hand to take action.
I've heard the side of the 'do not vote' crowd. It's mostly come off as a weak position. Sure you need to gather power other ways but you can also vote while burning the current system in effigy.
It's not like voting requires a ton of effort. The people saying not to vote are just showing that they're also too lazy to do literally any of the things they do advocate for doing. It's an obvious psyop.
I don't expect too much out of Trump but at least he can move a few things around for positive outcomes. The democrats are straight up pyscho communists and anarchic degenerate traitors.
Yeah. This is obvious. Voting requires minimal effort, particularly with mail-in / early votes. Doesn't even take 5 minutes to fill out the bubble for Trump. If you can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes to have a tiny chance of gaining a big cultural/political victory, your opinion is shite.
If you don't do the most basic thing to participate in politics, then I don't believe that you're going to do anything more strenuous. Why would I think you're going to "march through the institutions" or anything else for that matter if you can't even be bothered to go down and vote?
If you don't like the two parties candidates, vote for a third party or write something in.
No kidding, these people aren't even willing to mount a token defiance so how can anyone possibly trust them to do the hard reformation? Not me.
This is basically just virtue signaling and being contrary to put on a show of being morally superior. Empty fence-sitting political vanity, as usual.
Not voting is a proxy vote for the winner.
If you're in a deep red or blue state you get the same outcome whether you vote or not, so you rely on enough of your fellow party members to vote (or not vote).
For a protest vote you must vote 3rd party or for a write-in.
So if you didn't vote you're as responsible for what the winner does as the people who voted for that candidate.
The don’t voters always strike me as the cloward piven accelerationists. They want a collapse instead of a pendulum swing.
I'm not entirely sure there is a pendulum. Don't some argue that it's a ratchet? Then the only way out is a collapse - though I'm not sure boycotting will achieve that.
I've argued it is a ratchet. Every single normal belief today is far left compared to even 30 years ago, even though we've been through multiple R-D cycles.
That is absolutely true. It's anyone's game once collapse occurs, the most prepared will survive. Until then the dems are gonna keep winning. Even when the repubs win, the dems advance their goals.
Didn't Bill Clinton sign a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman and oppose ending Don't Ask/Don't Tell in the military?
The Republicans removed that definition of marriage from their official party platform this year. It's been said that the Republicans are just the Democrats in slow motion, and that's largely true.
There's definitely a case to be made that we should go all in on pushing whatever crazy shit comes out of the mind of the left as fast as possible so that we can make everything fall apart and hopefully do a better job when we put it all back together.
You may have, but I didn't mean anyone here - I think Auron MacIntyre has made that argument. Of course, it is very optimistic to think that there is a pendulum.
As far as normal beliefs go, I think on economic matters it is different. The left was a lot more left-wing on economic issues. Now it's just a banker-social activist synthesis.
You think banks are rightwing. They are not, and have never been. So a socialist-banker alliance is just called liberalism.
He’s also a mental midget and better off being ignored. Him and DoM both.
Banks don't like regulation that hurts them, like Glass-Steagal or however it's spelled. Banks don't care about socialism or right-wing. Banks like what's good for banks.
I think that is a little short sighted. It may be more difficult to undo a mistake, especially given the context of government. But actions like roe show a swing, it simply takes almost a lifetime to achieve it. The trans debate is another where one might originally see a ratchet effect but it’s becoming more and more apparent it’s death throes. The was an interesting piece I posted earlier on the longhouse effect and how matriarchal submission becomes a generational game of telephone and everything becomes self referential instead of based on a static or grounding belief. This causes a system gone haywire because the only static factor is the act of submission itself. That cognitive dissonance where you must submit to be accepted but also can see clearly there’s something abjectly wrong with the thing you’re submitting to. That divergence in reality will eventually cause a collapse, one which we use the strong/good, good/weak, weak/bad, bad/strong metaphor for. So you could almost use the rachet concept if the “click” is a complete reset of the argument, but that also seems more pendulous where you have to reset the swing eventually.
I really hope you're right. I can think of reasons why you're wrong though. Roe was a pendulum, but what was unthinkable in the 1970s is now the norm, such that ultra-red states are overturning laws that are as restrictive as France's. Perhaps it was always a losing battle for pro-life.
As for transgenderism, that does seem like the forces of sanity are winning back some ground. My pessimistic nature inclines me to think that this is a temporary backlash until complete surrender. We saw the same with same-sex marriage. There was a lot of resistance in the 2000s, but then it just completely collapsed.
I wouldn’t say collapsed as much as the swing is obscuring the backswing. When you see an object in motion towards you it seems inevitable that it will eventually reach you, even if its apex falls well short of that distance the timeframe of the swing determines your perception of it.
Pretty insightful point on that analogy
The system needs to collapse for any meaningful and lasting change to happen. But that collapse can be brought about by voting. Hitler is a good example for that.
They're not even that, they're just an Establishment psyop.
If the last four years didn't permanently cure anybody who says they're an "accelerationist", then they're too stupid to have any kind of say in anything consequential.
The bottom line is that, for now, voting makes them have to work harder to cheat. I expect in a few election cycles, they'll give up on the pretense and just edit the spreadsheet directly instead of printing off and filling out all the fake ballots.
But voting is the least you can do. It's a flip of the bird, not a fait accompli. You should also be organizing and infiltrating.
Shit within a generation they won't have to cheat anymore. Their great replacement agenda would be pretty much complete with four more years of open borders and dumping them into swing states.
Then there's all the rumors of stacking SCOTUS, adding new solid blue states to the union, etc. Basically unchecked fuckery that will send us into non recoverable death spiral.
We've been in that since 2020. Even if Trump wins, I don't expect him to be able to fix the economic issues in one term, and all it will do is buy us some more time. The dollar will collapse, it's just a question of when at this point.
I don't see any of the actual arguments here.
Namely that the argument isn't that you shouldn't vote. I have and so has my wife.
The argument is against continuing to have faith in the political system, especially any faith in democracy. The reality of it is that we're up against people who are evil. Real, not metaphorical literal actual evil. They worship demons, they sacrifice children, they destroy our society, they elevate perverts and they persecute normal people.
This isn't a disagreement. It's an existential struggle. One way or another it will come to violence and it will not be resolved without it.
By all means, vote for Trump, I sure as fuck did and I've convinced dozens of people to do it too. But don't let that stop you from buying a gun, buying ammo, training, and gathering the like minded. If you don't know how to fight you aren't a person, you're a slave in training or a future corpse at the feet of the barbarians. No amount of voting changes that fact.
Pretty much this. By all means go out and vote if you want to, but we need to realize that the actual issue at hand is our morally corrupt society; our corrupt government and institutions are merely a reflection of this greater issue. Even if it turns out that Trump was playing his cards close to his chest and merely pretending to go along with certain political and moral compromises to ensure a maximum amount of votes (which brings up the whole question of whether we should appease the godless for votes), that still doesn't change the fact that half of the country actually believes in all the degeneracy and godlessness. The tenets of democracy hold that the voice of the majority and the commons is supreme, so what do we see when that same majority is made up of child-murderers and degenerates, especially when everyone else isn't willing to directly oppose them lest they lose votes? I do hope I am merely over-blowing this issue and that all these concerns will be proven wrong should Trump get elected, but considering that we have seen the major players of the right make political concessions on basic moral questions like abortion, child mutilation, and sexual degeneracy, I do think there is a majority in the nation (outside of the typical screeching leftists) that do sincerely hold to these immoral practices or at the very least tolerate them. If this wasn't the case, then why would these politicians have made concessions in the first place instead of doubling down on their virtues and values?
The actual arguments for not voting:
They're not good arguments, but it happens.
One time my state voting website made it really hard to find local candidates, I thought it was a Federal only, and then my ballot has like 10 local elections where they don't even have an (R) or (D). So I didn't vote for those offices and it was because I didn't put the work in I should have.
But that's what it comes down to. If you don't vote, it's because you're a lazy fuck.
While Leather Apron Club enumerated a few decent points, I don't think he touched on the most pertinent reasons for not voting. Here is why I'm not voting this election, even though I've voted right wing my entire life (with one caveat, I still advocate for voting in local elections):
(1)
Both political parties are corrupt and controlled by the same people.
The people in power know that the best way to control a populace is to give them the illusion of choice and resistance, a false choice dichotomy, where no matter what choice we pick, we lose, and the people in power win, where politics is curated into a gilded cage, an overton window where debate is vicious, but completely controlled.
This has become ridiculously obvious the last several years, that the mainstream political right is nothing more than a false choice trap, a "boil alive slower" choice, a "move left just a bit slower" choice, a "we'll genocide White people, but 'legally'" choice. The mainstream right has compromised, given ground, and acquiesced to every single issue for the last several decades. Every time the mainstream right is in power, they may push back on one or two issues, but in totality, they still progress the globalist agenda and Kalergi plan.
In general, once enough people realize the charade, and exfiltrate themselves from the corrupt and controlled system, parties, and leaders, they look for and form their own dissident groups, to try to advance effectual solutions. The left tried to do this with Occupy Wallstreet. The right tried to do this with the Tea Party and MAGA movements. They've all been infiltrated and corrupted. The people in power infiltrate and corrupt these groups, slowly bringing them back into the fold of the controlled system, the overton window, completely neutering the group from being effectually resistant to the system.
The other way the people in power control us, is by giving us false saviors/leaders. These false saviors can be bred and trained, completely artificial, wolves in sheep clothing, or they can be genuine, but are weak and stupid, incapable of actually fixing our problems because their policies and ideas are decades too late, or don't take into consideration everything that's happening, often shilling several false philosophies and ideas of the corrupt system (like feminism, egalitarianism, race blindness, etc.). At first, these leaders say the right things, to condense the dissident right under their banner, but over time, their intensity, ideas, and policies become less severe, moving the dissidents under their banner back under the control of the system. With genuine, but weak, leaders, the people in power artificially prop them up, and censor and quash any effectual alternative leaders, so the people overwhelmingly are more likely to only see the false leader(s) offered to us, making the dissident populace mostly congregate around the false leader(s), rather than the effectual ones. Whether Trump is truly artificial, or a genuine but weak leader, is unknown. There's evidence to point either way. What's clear, though, is he doesn't go far enough, and at most, is merely a delaying tactic for what actually needs to happen, making people slightly less uncomfortable for a few years, which is the worst possible thing we could do right now (detailed more below).
It should be obvious that politics is nothing more than theater, like watching pro wrestling or pro sports, which is entirely scripted. People cast their vote for red team or blue team, even though they both work for the the people in power, and dupe us into thinking they work for our interests, when in fact they're actively harming us, and keeping us from from realizing the truth.
I should also remark, since many here will probably retort: "but they tried to kill Trump". Most likely, yes, even though there's some evidence to suggest those attempts were staged (like no wound to Trump's ear). But, even if these attempted assassinations were genuine, it must be understood that the people in power aren't completely monolithic. They have disparate goals, interests, and pathways, which often cause friction within their group. These disparate groups often war with each other, but regardless of who wins, we lose. Given that the people in power hold every anti-virtue possible, it's only natural that they remain a fractured group with constant in fighting. So, Trump could easily be a false choice leader propped up by one group, but a different group is actively trying to stop him.
(2)
People only wake up and fix problems when they're uncomfortable.
Comfort is the enemy of action. Comfortable people are made apathetic, pacifistic, and inactive in the face of lies, tyranny, and evil. This is one of the reasons why Western civilization has been able to be so corrupted and degenerate. We have all manner of comforts, technologies, bread and circuses, dopamine sinks, barriers to nature (keeping nature from reprising against stupidity and weakness), relative abundance, wealth, and safety. This comfort has pacified and weakened the public, enabling extremely malicious people to infiltrate and corrupt every institution against us. If our ancestors were alive right now, they would've revolted and killed everyone responsible decades ago, if not longer.
The only reason so many people have woken up to the truth and rejected the lies the last several years is because they were made uncomfortable. The people in power, in their hubris, pushed too far too fast. They turned up the temperature of the boiling pot we're all sitting in, and lots of people realized "hey, we're being boiled alive" and jumped out. Under the weight of all the lies, our lives have been made a living hell, and the lies no longer make sense. People were forced, due to discomfort, to reject the lies, reevaluate, and seek alternative ideas, information, arguments, and explanations for why things are the way they are. Comfortable people don't change their minds. Why would they?
The false choice right, and the false leaders we're being offered, at best, will merely make people slightly less uncomfortable for a few years, while keeping the Kalergi plan in full swing and advancing the globalist agenda, while only pushing back on a few small things. The mainstream right is a "boil slower, but still boil alive" alternative. Making people less uncomfortable now, is the worst thing we could do to ourselves. It could conceivably stop the red pill movement for a few years while they're in charge, neutering our movement, giving credence to the false philosophies, ideas, and agendas offered to us by the false choice right.
(3)
We deserve to feel pain for our inaction.
Government only exists upon the will of the governed. It's our natural right to govern ourselves. We only abdicate our natural rights, and give them to government to do things in our stead, in the hopes that they apply things more fairly (like justice), that they protect our natural rights, and act in our own interests. Western governments aren't doing this. They've become extremely and blatantly antagonistic to us, and are actively seeking to exterminate us, while also weakening, brainwashing, lying, gaslighting, poisoning, manipulating, dividing, shaming, degrading, and making us poor. They're actively destroying everything and everyone we love. They're making the entire world ugly and evil. They're lying to us about literally everything, from medicine, to healthcare, to "science", to biology, sex, the roles of men and women, philosophy, entertainment, and history.
If you can't fix a corrupted system through that system, then it's your (our) job to fix it ourselves. It's no one else's responsibility to fix our problems. It's ours, and ours alone. Casting a vote for a false leader is a continuation of the false solution people have been seeking for decades, thinking that one person, or a few people, in the right position, can fix all of our problems. Given how systemic, evil, and corrupt all of our institutions are, it's incredibly naive to think one person, or even a handful of people, can fix all of this.
This mindset is also inherently lazy and apathetic, all the hallmarks of people trying to cling to the last vestiges of their comforts, because they know that fixing these problems ourselves will be painful, even though it's necessary, and has been for a long time. Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. This is true for everything, including people. People are loath to get up off their ass and actually fix things themselves, especially when they're comfortable. Better to just call someone to do things for us.
We've been attempting that solution for decades. Where has it gotten us? The world has only gotten worse and worse. If you attempt the same failed solution over and over, you're a moron and deserve to fail. If you continue to make the same mistake, you deserve to feel pain for that mistake. Abdication of our responsibilities is what's led us here. Expecting other people to save us is what's led us here. You can't fix a problem by acting in the same way which caused the problem in the first place. The longer we let a problem fester, the worse the solution becomes. We're now at a stage where the problems are so bad, so systemic, that we only have one option left.
But, we have the right, and we've always had the right, to reclaim our natural rights and responsibilities. We can, at any moment and whim, tell the government to fuck off, and [rule 2] the people harming us. The U.S. was founded on this principle. If we're unwilling to do that now, even thought we live in a country founded on revolution, we absolutely deserve to be ruled by tyrants. Pacifism in the face of evil only leads to destruction. Remaining silent in the face of lies on leads to more lies. Good people who do nothing to stop evil and lies, aren't actually good people.
(4)
The Kalergi plan.
Even though White people are the only demographic that votes for the right in majority, I haven't heard a single right wing politician (except 2 local ones just this year) explicitly espouse for White ethnic interests beyond extremely vague rhetoric and policies (like improving the economy). However, the mainstream right has actively, repeatedly, and explicitly expressed interest in supporting and passed policies for non-white groups, and has repeatedly told their voting base (White people) that we must be "big tent", or "we won't survive". Not only is this an admission that they know the Kalergi plan (the systematic replacement and genocide of White people in our own countries, through open borders and mass non-white immigration) is taking place, but they're actively endorsing it by catering to our replacements, and shaming White people into accepting our own genocide.
Furthermore, the mainstream right actively participates in facilitating the Kalergi plan, by keeping the borders open and mass non-white immigration flowing, with the only vocal push back being "so long as we're replaced legally". The mainstream right, in coordination with the openly globalist left, also actively censors any discussion of race realism, the fact that nations are built on its people, that you can't change the people of the nation without changing the nation, that you can't transplant a unique people to a different location and expect them to act completely differently, that there's no such thing as magic dirt, and that White people have the right to collectivize and espouse for our ethnic interests. We're also being viciously shamed for any form of racism, even on things that aren't racist. We're being labeled inherently racist and evil, that we're colonizers, inherently evil, and owe every non-white on the planet our money, hard work, property, homes, and our very lives. We're shamed and censored if we dare disagree with any of this, even if we advocate for our own survival
White people are being denied our natural rights, to associate with whom we choose, to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and our people/nation, the ability to have our own homes/nations, the ability to protect the borders of our own homes/nations, the ability to gatekeep out undesirables (for any reason), and the right to fight back against our oppressors, natural rights that are granted to everyone else.
Why should any self respecting White person continually vote for leaders and parties that are actively participating in our genocide, and preventing us from stopping it? Trump has actively espoused anti-White sentiments and policies this election cycle. He views racism and antisemitism has evil, that White people collectivizing is bad and should be punished, and that he wants the biggest immigration numbers ever.
Delaying the necessary action to stop this only serves the people in power. Every year we wait to act gradually decreases the White population and increases the non-white population. The people in power are hoping that by the time White people act, we'll be in such a small minority that we'll have almost no chance of winning. They run war games on possible civil war/revolt scenarios, and they show that every time we get violent, the entire house of cards falls, they lose all power, and we win. They're hoping to stave off the violence for as long as possible. They use their false choice parties and leaders to advocate for pacifism and "vote harder [current year]", and call anyone calling for action outside the controlled and curated confines of the corrupted system "feds", even though the feds don't want us to fight back. They want us to continue to using the corrupted systems.
(5)
Participating in a corrupted system, tacitly places your approval on that system.
Every time you vote, even though we know the votes are rigged, and the parties and leaders are corrupt, you rubber stamp all of it with your approval. In addition, this tacit approval also hinders any discussion, collectivization, and action against that system. What do MAGA right wingers say when people like me advocate for revolt? I'm a "fed". I'm a "loser". I'm a "democrat operative". "Vote anyway".
I refuse to participate in a system I know is corrupt. I refuse to cast my support behind people actively trying to kill me and my people. I refuse to compromise with half truths and outright lies. I refuse.
The lesser evil has only lead us here. Compromise with lies has only lead us here. You don't correct a lie by acquiescing to some of it, making it easier to swallow for fools and cowards. You tell the truth, and only the truth. You don't fix a problem by continuing to operate in falsehoods and lies. You can only fix a problem through truth, and only the truth. Every single time a good person compromises, we're dragged down to hell, one inch at a time.
There is only one way out of this.
Listened to him with Blonde last night. My bigger issue with his stance is that he seems to focus almost entirely on national politics.
How are decent local politicians supposed to get in to at least attempt to unseat the socialist freaks if you refuse to vote? You're just ceding the entire political machine to them in the hopes that they won't murder you before it collapses and that you'll survive the collapse.
Here's the link to Leather Apron Club's interview yesterday with Blonde, formerly of the Matt & Blonde show.
His audio is really quiet and I only listened to the first half.
He did mention that he's about to release a million+ entry database "Early Life Checker" as a secret project (though I noticed that he's already shown samples of it on his Twitter).
You can quibble about the definition of neocon, but Trump is openly & avowedly a Zionist. Particularly this round since he accepted a 100 million in campaign financing from Miriam Adelson.
I understand how this might not bother Trump supporters who are similarly pro-Israel or indifferent.
But I also understand that this is a deal breaker in casting a vote for those on the right who do a lot of noticing.
The choices are "Donald J. Trump" and "I do not have the will to live" and no amount of sputtery shithead explanation about why you're actually really smart and principled for not voting for Trump can change that. That's all the argument there is today.
The Sunnis didn't vote in the 2004 election in Iraq because they claimed that it wasn't a legitimate government or a legitimate election.
As a result, they were entirely kept out of power for the next four years and only had the single option of insurrection. As result, they were destroyed with sectarian violence, including by AQI who didn't give them power back once they took control. It killed somewhere around 500,000 people.
After the Sunni Awakening movement, they were brought back into the government. They had a minority position, but they could stop the worst excesses of the Shia regime.
Then, after an admittedly fraudulent & contested election, instead of responding with level heads, they went back to fighting, and still didn't ally with the Kurds as part of a coalition. This time, they worked with ISIS and were raped & slaughtered to death by ISIS instead of AQI (those are the same people, by the way). They lost their insurgency again, and a few more hundred thousand people were dead.
At every step they kept convincing themselves that an electoral system would never produce change and all it's done is kill themselves and solidify the power of Iran in the country. They had to make the same mistake twice, and kill hordes of their family to learn to use power effectively, even in a corrupt system.
If they had stayed in the government, they could have continued blocking aggression from the Iranians and the Shia, even if they couldn't have seized the government due to fraud and corruption.
Don't be like the Shia.
Maybe it varies from state to state, but if one can't even be assed to vote for propositions/amendments and parody/protest candidates, they're part of the problem. Exceptions to those who attempted more active resistance. For the most recent 3 elections, any objections to Trump are outweighed by what is permitted when he loses; the status quo that has persisted since the progressive era. Another Trump win increases the possibility that your preferred social structure is achieved in your lifetime, or your great grandkids'. After a Trump victory, we might have the opportunity to tell the McCain/Romney voting base to suck a long one.
From what I can tell, LAC is a follower of Nick Fuentes. That doesn't discount his coverage of historical analysis, but they're (groypers and other personality centric groups) are driven by drama and related herd social noise, then drawing their conclusions to satisfy in-group approval. For LAC's emphasis of being outside the mainstream, he comes off as a single-issue citizen. Maybe he has real hot takes in videos I haven't seen.
Weird how it's always "conservatives" telling conservatives not to vote. It's never anyone else.
The left is in lock step in their agenda. They eat themselves all the time, sure, but when it comes time to nail down their puppets, the machine does not suffer a philosophical witch to live. They are entirely unified. And that unified machine, if allowed to proceed, gets you killed and your children enslaved forever.
Besides, I think most local governments have their elections today, too. Your local politician -- people you can actually meet and speak with, and sleep somewhere in your town -- stand between your community and any potentially tyrannical government, are arguably more important than who sits in a castle thousands of miles away.
The only person I never voted for was John McCain.
His neocon stench was too much & BO was going to crush him anyway.
If you don't vote, someone else will choose who you "voted" for.
STOP THE STEAL
You're not voting directly for the president. Really, it's choosing electors for the presidential race.
The presidential race isn't the only thing on the ticket. There were state and local measures on ballot that have more bearing over my day to day than the current president.
Big brain post.
I voted on a "make the rubble bounce" basis. Just because you're getting fucked doesn't mean you need to lie there and take it. Make them earn their steal.
God that guy is such a fag
'Civic duty' is retarded. It's as if you're saying that it's your job to prop up the regime.
Lesser of the two evils: depends on how much less evil one side is. Many here will disagree with me, but I don't think McCain is less evil than Obama.
Can't complain? Actually, the only way you can complain when you DO NOT VOTE (which I don't recommend in this case, not that anyone is asking me). If you do vote, you are part of the system, so you can be held accountable for the abysmal outcomes of the system. A reasonable defense is that you tried to forestall worse, but voting for the lesser of the two evils every time is ensuring that the lesser evil will get more evil every time. In other words, it's good that Romney lost, because there would have been no Trump.
Eh... not really. A lot of stuff gets done without 'majorities' of voters.
Reagan passed an amnesty and appointed two garbage candidates to the SCOTUS. And after that? George H.W. Bush signed a hate crime bill & appointed David Souter. The GOP has been garbage in living memory.
Honestly, I got chills when Trump praised MIKE POMPEO in his talk with Joe Rogan. That said, he's clearly the least warmongering.
This I agree with. In any situation you are, you have a number of tools at your disposal for resistance. Sometimes, this means participating in government-orchestrated polls, at other times it means boycotting them.
This is only an available option to the left. It's beyond obvious at this point. Any right winger thinking he can obtain victory solely by marching through the institutions is retarded.
I know this isn't what you're saying, but people who blow their top over one or two statements are living in a bygone political era where "messaging" was king rather than a candidate's overall rhetoric and work.
Yes! Just like 'peaceful protesting' is only an option for them.
I have no doubt about Trump's personal views on the matter. I'm hoping against hope that Trump's instincts and the views of his supporters will prevail over the neocons and the entrenched interests. Let's see what happens.
You're always part of the system; you have one vote regardless of what you do with it.
If you don't vote then you are voting for the winner: you had the power to decrease their lead by one or two votes and you abdicated that power.
The only way you can actually be justified complaining about the system is if you vote for a write-in candidate - the "none of the above, system is broken" vote.
I'm thinking more of when they put two sh*t sandwiches before you like Obama and McCain. And whoever you vote for is an endorsement of one over the other. I don't mean when any of the candidates is remotely half-decent.
I like Nevada's system, where you can vote for 'None of the Above'. You can also spoil your ballot, and that is recorded (opponents of Nazi Germany did that in Third Reich-staged elections), but it isn't shown. Imagine if it were: Obama 40% McCain 35% Spoiled 15%. Would be great.
This post is about not voting and not voting is an endorsement of the winner. If you really wouldn't prefer one over the other then vote for none of the above or equivalent.
I agree with you that 2008 McCain was terrible and there were a lot of people who didn't vote because both were awful, but they should have voted a protest vote so like you said we could all see how many people despised both of them.
And like you also said it doesn't apply this time. Gotta get out there and vote Trump.