this thread has been utterly useless at actually providing me any answers to my questions but has produced a lot of people who are not leftists and do intend to vote trying to explain it or tell me not to care, as well as a few doses of predictable condescension for being stupid enough to wonder
Leftist who intends to vote here: imo the case for not voting only makes sense if you accept certain assumptions like “the outcomes will be the same under Trump as under Biden” and “withholding votes will cause future Dem candidates to take leftist votes more seriously”, which I don’t think hold up
And generally I think we are better positioned at any point in history to talk concretely about the differences between these two candidates because *they’ve both been president*. We’ve watched not just what they said they would do, but what they’ve done.
Related question - if voting doesn't matter, why would so many GOP/MAGA strategies be about vote suppression? If voting doesn't matter, why voter ID? Why close polling places, limit early voting, etc.
Voting matters. They just don't want the Other Side (Dems) to vote so they can win.
one of the more coherent arguments ive seen (but dont necessarily agree with) is that both are fascists and so outcomes will converge to relatively the same point (basically your first one). to me that suggests a danger in flattening both options that way, but i at least get where theyre coming from
I think the better version of this argument (which I still don’t agree with) is that democrats, while not fascist, do not resist it sufficiently to keep it from gaining footholds steadily. But I have a hard time taking this to an endpoint of no preference in this election now.
Unless like you’ve said it’s just a rejection of electoral politics generally (which I still disagree with fundamentally, but which I think is more honest in simply rejecting these questions than trying to twist them to a given answer).
This is a better version but *not resisting* because it isn't enough or whatever results in more roadblocks to self-fulfill doomsday scenarios. We are dealing with nearly 60 years of efforts to solidify minority right rule.
