as someone who is, still, going to vote for Biden because I’m so convinced of the threat of Donald Trump - a very utilitarian perspective on voting - it boggles me how many folks who hold similar views don’t understand how ineffective self-righteous yelling is at convincing anyone of anything
if you want people to stand against the same threat don’t treat them like morons, because they aren’t and they sure as shit aren’t going to be convinced by it
Also like 90% of people who say that they can't vote for Biden now don't live in a swing state anyways so their vote literally does not matter. Stop getting so worked up about it!
As someone living in a swing state who knows a disturbing amount of people who won’t vote, I wish I had your confidence. Luckily, the GOP has fucked with my state so much, I think we’re just going full blue from here on out.
Or if you must get worked up about it, channel that energy into messaging that has actually been repeatedly proven to actually increase turnout in key demographics that are usually highly disaffected.
"Hope and change" might be cliche but it absolutely got results.
Every vote matters in this election.
Trump is going to claim fraud & incite civil war if he loses, & he may well get away with it if we don't have a massive landslide.
If people believe the vote counts are fraudulent, I don't see how ensuring a particular margin in the numbers is supposed to prevent them from taking action. It's not like violent maga people are going to say, "Wow, he won by 10 million fake votes, that's really impressive and I support him now."
I think, only because of habitual giving benefit of the doubt, that they keep yelling at “us” (plural, non-inclusive) to vote Biden is only to assuage their fear of uncertainty.
If they can conquer that uncertainty, the rest is cake, right…? The biggest problem is the ONLY problem, right…?
I think this is most of it. People are panicked about the future, they see a situation that's vaguely shaped like a commonly-repeated solution to this kind of helpless feeling ("talk to your friends about going to the polls!") and then they just like, panic at people
Spot on, and when is voting not utilitarian? It's not love, it's better, or worse, policy makers.
Conflating protesting Bibi's crimes with not voting for Biden serves only Bibi, Putin and Trump.
Bibis crimes can happen because of the support of America, those crimes happen because they are facilities by Biden. Biden is facilitating the genocide of Palestinians by Israel.
yes yes yes. in exactly the same boat. and every time i see someone sephiroth-posting about abstention the oppositional part of me completely re-evaluates my commitment to voting biden. and i live in a deep blue state so DO NOT TEMPT ME
if you're going to convince people, this is exactly the opposite of how to do it
and there are some people you are simply not going to convince! learn to figure out who that is and leave them alone and go phone bank or something
I find it frustrating because I want the same outcome as those people - TFG losing - but it appears that they’re actively working to make that outcome less likely
It strikes me that the person working to make that outcome less likely would be Biden, not the people responding to his actions. The fact that you have it backwards is a major part of liberals problems.
Oh, I'm not trying to absolve Biden of responsibility; if he loses it will his fault for not trying to do more. It's like being in a hostage situation: "You have to vote for me because otherwise TFG comes back."
Truly inspiring leadership.
And to be frank, stopping Trump is not the outcome I'm looking for, because that alone is not going to save us, and it cannot be our only focus. The Dems seem inclined to believe they can thwart fascism with some kind of fascism lite. Maybe start there with your criticism.
Too many people think of and use social media as a private venting space (perfectly reasonable and necessary when trying to maintain the equanimity required to persuade idiots) and not as, you know, a public platform. As danah boyd noted, context collapse is social media's central affordance.
99% of online politics is about building yourself a safe space to feel holier than thou and a list of scapegoats to blame when that doesn't actually achieve your political aims
And the funny thing is if any of the blue wave emoji votescolds read this they'll think I'm *not* talking about them
If someone can be convinced to vote against their interests because they don't like someone else's tone then they're not going to stay convinced, no matter *how* you convince them.
If Biden is failing to win over voters, it would seem that is a problem *Biden* should be solving. And therefore all ire should be directed at him and/or the party he represents. But they aren't going to notice or care so haranguing random people on the internet is inherently more satisfying.
Also, the Democratic Party has never once treated Trump like an existential threat. I wish they treated this election with 1/10th the level of intensity that their online boosters do.
Unfortunately, I do have a lot of unbridled frustrated (if not contempt) for most people who are saying they will not vote dem/Biden.
But, I realize that’s not persuasive, so I try not to get into those debates…
Living in a country with a strong history of strategic voting, this type of person can be very frustrating
But also yes, not enough to get my blood pressure up
We have a Prime Minister who can't quit because no one in his party wants to take his place and get Kim Campbelled.
We have a conspiracy nutter right wing party leader.
We have one other party to choose from who has never been majority, but often holds power in minority governments.
Good times.
My advice to myself I'm trying very hard to flow: Don't debate. There are many, many potential voters who haven't made up their minds yet about voting at all. Persuade them.
Right. If I lived in a swing state I might even consider holding my nose and voting for him. But it would be in spite of the vote-shaming, not because of it.
Thankfully I don’t live in a swing state.
Honestly, even if I thought I COULD make more Americans vote Biden by self-righteously shaming them here, I still don’t think I could bring myself to do that, because, like… holy fuck how can I even really blame people at this point? Even if I think they’re making a poor and irresponsible…
…choice, I still, like, GET it. Like I understand why they’re doing it. It’d be like if I saw a recovering addict fall off the wagon after losing her job. Like I don’t think that’s the best choice but damn girl, I understand why you’re doing it and sympathize.
I think a lot of people have heard that "voter turnout is key" but don't understand the difference between a genuinely disengaged nonvoter and the type of nonvoter you encounter on bluesky. Also the average person is very, very bad at messaging, especially when emotional
I know this is primarily about voters engaging with anti-voters, but now that I got to experience "keeping Rs out of office makes you A Lib" evolve into "badger an indigenous person with accusations of being white for wanting to keep Rs out", I'd be quite happy with the message working both ways 🫠
oh, it absolutely does go both ways, I think a lot of leftist messaging about "you're a moron for even considering the hypothetical threat of Donald Trump 2.0" is also bad and self-defeating
if you are talking to someone like they are a moron, you are not actually trying to convince them
