For the Cali governor race, I was actually pretty excited to vote. Then I looked into candidates and literally none of the top 8 candidates could even answer “yes” when asked if they would call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. I know it’s not super relevant from the perspective of a state, but it really took the wind out of my sails.
Also the state then proceeded to vote for some millionaires that don’t actually give a fuck about us lol! Yay!!!
The Hungarian flag might be a better choice here instead of the US flag.
We’re obligated to use every tool at our disposal in the fight. No one tool will fix everything.
Voting is one of our many tools
Voting is one of our many tools
It’s only a tool if there’s a non-fascist candidate available. Name one such person in the US.
“All candidates are fascist.” - Smooth Brain
I never said they are. It was more of a clarification that voting isn’t always a tool, but usually.
As for specific candidates - highly depends on the country. There’s countries like USA, North Korea or Eritrea, where there isn’t a single non-sociopathic soul in politics, effectively making elections pointless.
And there’s other countries, where most candidates are horrible, but a handful of somewhat decent ones also exist, so at the very least there are options. We can argue about their viability, but them existing is in itself a step up.
You? are are you not in the USA?
If not, then your opinion is irrelevant, no?
this is why your country will not learn from this experience, to many of you are still far to proud.
I’ve never been to the USA, and I thank God every day for that.
Why though? Are we only allowed to have opinions about the countries we currently live in?
Well, my point stands regardless of country. If all the parties and their candidates are fascists - voting is pretty much pointless.
Luckily, that’s usually not the case in most countries, so voting may have some sort of impact. Even if the party you vote for only gets 3% of votes.
You’re apparently getting downvoted for not being an American but
As an American (or my preference, a future citizen of the New California Republic), I agree with you when it comes to federal-level and upper-state-level politics. Local politics can have actual human candidates, but it’s only fascist reptiles higher up - yes, even Bernie, who is a liberal Zionist.
Ilhan Omar is maybe the only exception.
We’re obligated to use every tool at our disposal in the fight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_boycott
Voting is one of our many tools
You need someone to vote for.
You need someone to vote for.
Easy. I will vote for the person who will do the least harm to my country as it is a fact that someone will be elected.
vote for the person who will do the least harm
Republicans say they’re doing this every election cycle.
Democrats say they’re doing this every election cycle.
It does not appear to be a working strategy, when your “least harm” candidates are all dictated by their advertising budgets and national media relationships
Who would you vote for in an election between Mussolini and Franco? Because that is where your country is headed
ah yes, because there are only two candidates on every ballot.
There are two candidates with any realistic chance of winning. Third party won’t work in the current system
There are plenty of things besides the president on ballots though. In fact, I would argue those are even more impactful to your life than any of the federal candidates.
Don’t tell this to the “pro-voting” crowd cause they despise anyone who looks outside the uniparty.
I was talking about all the state and local candidates on elections, not to mention judges and other things. Everyone should vote. It’s the bare minimum. Not to mention the primaries.
Election boycotts require a mass movement to work, not just general disenfranchisement and non participation. Catalonia comes to mind, as controversial as that was by the “just vote” crowd when the referendums were making headlines. I can’t think of many places in the US where that sort of coordinated non-participation is even floated as an idea in the public consciousness. If you have any examples I’d be interested to hear though
Election boycotts require a mass movement to work
Absolutely. And that’s what we saw during the '24 primary in Michigan. Tens of thousands of spoiled ballots from residents disgusted with the Gaza Genocide.
Anyone can make a cool-sounding quip. One I’ve heard a lot is “If voting could change anything, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
Have fun voting for the people they pre-select for you. https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/03/green-party-candidate-governor/
To anyone who doesn’t read the link, they gave the most likely candidate to actually beat the corporate-owned Democrats 10 minutes to support updated paperwork, and disqualified him when he didn’t respond within 10 minutes.
Now Bacerra is virtually guaranteed to be governor. He is, to no one’s surprise, owned by corporations. He allegedly said “what Israel did is not within international norms and it should not be part of the community of nations”, but being a corporate-owned Democrat, I’d be surprised if he actually does… anything at all to facilitate Pissrael’s expulsion from civilization.
They try hard to stop people from the groups they know don’t support them, because that makes the cost of fraud more, as the competition will have an easier time doing it themselves.
yup, only reason they do it is because its a bigger pain in the ass later to rewrite for the history books if they don’t manage decent.
I find many anarchists are against electoralism but still vote because they recognize it’s easy and can make a tiny difference. They just focue their efforts on direct action rather than electoral politics. The ones who say “don’t vote” are idiots
Anarchism isn’t strictly about being against electoralism. It’s more about the justification of power.
If a hierarchical system can’t morally justify why some should command and others should obey then it should be dismantled.
There are valid reasons to vote and there are valid reasons not to vote.
As an example: many indigenous people living on land the US claims to own were made certain promises by the US government. These promises were made to their people as a nation, not to them as individuals. By accepting US citizenship and voting in US elections, they would be tacitly legitimizing the occupation of their land and also surrendering any claim to the land they were promised. In fact, the US government often attempted to force citizenship upon indigenous people whether they wanted it or not.
As a white person, I suppose I may as well vote, but voting is part of the corrupt imperialist system and therefore part of the problem, and I won’t disparage anyone who has a conviction against participating.
That’s a good point, although I would still argue that not voting in that case is a useful form of resistance. Like have governments ever felt threatened by nonvoters? Especially the US?
Yeah, but how do you feel about people who don’t care about any of that? is that a valid reason to vote?
Voting is useful. But it is not enough.
voting is fine, but your vote can’t change how other people vote. this is where a lot of folks seem to throw up their hands, like if they don’t win, there was no point.
and it can change who is on the ballot… if you vote in the primaries. which were just yesterday… and how many people voted in those? 22% in CA, compared to 62% who voted in 2024 general.
the problem with voting, and in life in general, is most folks want everyone else to do the work for them, and then they want to complain about the result not being what they wanted… while they never participated. and if you call them out, they call you a jerk or make excuses.
You don’t have to vote in every election, sure, but there is a major difference between being aware/active and not trying at all.
I voted.
Was pretty easy. I started by removing all Republicans from consideration. Then I used the internet to do some looking into the remaining candidates and made my selections. Remember to do a little extra research on anyone listed as “independent” or “no party” as they might be wolves in sheep’s clothing. I found two Republicans who ran as not Republican to try to get more votes.
Took me roughly an hour and there were a lot of positions/candidates on this ballot.
Not that hard, folks.
I voted too!
Anti-incumbent for the most part, and voted for a lot of third party and independent candidates locally.
I love how the same people who say voting is pointless because both sides are bad are the same people who complain about people saying both sides are bad.
karmawhores
Man so many people want to change the world and won’t do a single thing to actually do anything huh?
yeah, because day-dreaming is easy and never fails. changing things, is hard, and fails often.
Yep. People want their bespoke utopiae, and don’t want to do any little thing to push society in that direction. They want it to magically appear.
Do people realize you can go out and vote while recognizing the system is rigged? Like what do you lose from casting a vote?
Hours of your time in areas where voter suppression is in full swing.
That is where it is very worth the time!
We had a district in Houston with a seven hour long voting line. The last person to vote was in the news, even, because of how much we laud voting for voting’s sake.
Our AG, Ken Paxton, seized on the story and had the guy in the story prosecuted for election fraud.
Yeah your soon-to-be Senator is a real peach.
Yeah they really do make the effort to ensure you don’t vote don’t they? I wonder why?
My state expanded mail-in voting during the pandemic and it’s so nice to just fill out a ballot at home. The Republicans have been fighting against it and now I have to include a color photocopy of my ID with it due to their fuckery.
My state implemented mail in during the pandemic, then yanked it away and made mail in even more difficult than before in time for the '22 election
I’m probably not going to trust a mail in ballot this year.
Of course there’s also danger if only magats use mail in voting, so there’s a balance.
Everywhere I lived that had mail in voting had local ballot drop boxes and would update your ballot status the same day. You would get an email if it was accepted or not which was pretty cool. But I also haven’t lived in those crappy vOtEr iD 4 iTeGrItY states
So you’re against tegridy, ey?
Man i think we all could use a little tegridy.
Bring headphones and water
Hmmm… I bet I could build a little battery operated chair with an umbrella, cooler, and fan… Like a small tailgating rig that inches forward on its own.
Then I could set up outside the poling place and rent them to people.
So nothing lose if it is worth it
I cant be smug on the internet.
I’m very smug about how the people who chose not to vote are the reason for this administration.
I believe in you
a feeling of superiority born from inaction and excuses is very powerful feeling.
why exercise/eat right? you will die anyway, etc.
I vote to show it doesn’t help and I haven’t been proven wrong.
But it doesn’t hurt is my point
True, and my upside is being right so I keep voting.
If things change I might stop
If your vote starts making a difference you might stop voting?
Yeah it’ll take the fun out of it
Aight go off, monarch (idk your gender)
Haha same, if it worked then why do the parties I vote on always lose!?
Literally the only person who I voted for in a primary who won the general election was fucking Fetterman.
'Voting is so dumb. I cast a vote and the thing I wanted to happen didn’t happen, that proves it does nothing! "
That’s quite a take.
But what if the thing I want never happens?
hey hey hey…
you’re only allowed to engage in ONE side of this argument…
And we wonder why people hate politics…
It might not and you can choose to be defeatist about that but I’d rather keep trying, both by voting and by organizing within my community
If I had hope it would have been destroyed already.
Defeatism is the only thing that keeps me voting. (And my mom.)
Then you must vote every day!
I like this idea. I’ll scan my blank ballot and fill one out every day until it starts working.
It’s to most Lemmy ahh take imaginable.
“WAHH I’m a big smart special snowflake, why isn’t my vote the only one that matters”
If it makes you feel better he’s at least 3% better the Dr. Oz would have been. What a fucked timeline.
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So voting could only matter if yours is the deciding vote. Makes perfect sense.
Voting only matters if the guy I want wins. And even then only a little.
You realize that is terrible logic, right? That’s literally just saying you should never have tried to do anything good unless it worked out the way you wanted in the end.
Our government is built on terrible logic. I’m just trying to adapt to it.
If only it were only casting the vote. But people chose to do canvasing, helping in electoral campaigns and arguing online that’s actually taking away the energy.
Vote, if you want. Pray, if you want. Curse capitalists, if you want. But don’t expect it to change anything.
Voting doesn’t have to include putting all your faith in the system is my point.
I’m not against it if you don’t have faith in the system. I’m against the propaganda.
Totally fair! I’m not pretending voting works in a fascist system, but the numbers are more likely to make change at the lower levels of government, and there are many reasons (even statistics) that voting has a net positive effect rather than a net negative, even if the government will be corrupt either way.
Voting doesn’t hurt anything but saying its gonna solve all this is wishful thinking.
If your apathy was so damn important it would have accomplished something, ANYTHING by now…
Meanwhile other people keep taking advantage of said apathy every fucking day while you claim arrogance and apathy every day you shitty moron…
You’re just lying to my face about how much you love others using you…
other people keep taking advantage of said apathy
Screaming “vote harder” at all the folks getting dragged into ICE detention centers
Why is the dog wearing an anarchism T shirt? That it not what anarchism is at all.
you clearly don’t own a dog.
Maybe. That is, though, what people who wear anarchism t-shirts are.
