Technology Connections: If it helps, you can think of voting as a treatment for anxiety.

If it helps, you can think of voting as a treatment for anxiety.

I'm sorry but at this stage, people who aren't committed to voting this November for the not-fascists are succumbing to the same mindset that influencers selling "natural" remedies to cancer patients peddle as good. Very unpleasant chemotherapy treatment sucks but is better than dying.

More people seem to be learning about Project 2025 and it seems to be waking them up. All I can hope is that they stay awake until November. I'm so tired.

You can add "this Sunday" for us French people (wish us luck !)

Bonne chance 👍 (Hope I got that right!)

That's it. Thanks!

i wish you the best of luck

I almost feel like I should go with Theatre rules and say Break a leg But good luck

On an ideological level, it helps to remember that to beat Hitler you had to ally with Stalin, and Biden for all his faults, is nowhere near as bad as Stalin.

Non voters just hanging out on the life raft being all "Whelp, we're going to die anyway, might as well just let this play out."

The two party system has made it easy for lobbyists and special interest groups (mega corporations) to fund both parties so that no matter who wins their goals will be advanced at the expense of the common people. This is why a European style multi-party system that is harder to buy off is better.

Also your model is inaccurate , one island should be an erupting volcano filled with lava for Trump, and a barren desert island with no water for Biden. Both are bad , but one is worse. That is the situation the USA is in.

So you're just completely ignoring reality www.npr.org/2023/01/01/1...

Despite infighting, it's been a surprisingly productive 2 years for Democratswww.npr.org Despite more than a handful of setbacks, President Biden has delivered on several major promises since 2021, some with bipartisan support. Those compromises could be harder with the new Congress.

They just don't like the fact that a president is more than just a person, it's the staff, support, and people that they surround themselves with. Those are the water and the trees on Biden island, they're the lava on the Trump desolation, and thus far no 3rd party has managed to sustain anything.

everyone seems to think the only thing on the ballot is the president too. leave that field blank or write in a random name if you really want to but please don't ignore all the other ones

To be honest I'd say Biden is more akin to snake oil than chemotherapy. At least chemotherapy does something.

fine, snake oil vs. poison is the same calculation for me

That's fair but if you've got cancer maybe they're two sides of the same coin.

It seems likely the fascist candidate will use the new powers granted him by his hand-picked court to round up folks with impunity. Hyperbole? Maybe. Then again, I never thought J6 would happen in a million years. I plan to vote this November like my life (and MANY others') will depend on it.

The worst part of politics is that the choices you get to make as a citizen are actually not complex nor interesting at all. “Push X button to not die” is the most boring worst videogame ever made but pretty much the depth of participatory politics.

Yeah. Voting isn't going to magically fix everything, but you have to consider it the bare minimum. The starting point. The price of admission. You still have to fight for your beliefs, and hold people to account. Call, donate, volunteer, protest, write, be snarky online. But VOTE.

If you want to send postcards to boost Dem turnout I just wrote a thread explaining it and giving links to get started. It’s so easy, and proven to be effective in close races.

Writing postcards to voters is a proven method for boosting election turnout - in close races, the .5-1% of voters they get to the polls can make the difference! It might be the most powerful, most efficient method for winning. Research: cdce.umd.edu/feature/powe... But how to start? 1/

The Power of the Postcard in Rocking the Vote | CDCE l Center for Democracy and Civic Engagementcdce.umd.edu Encouraging more eligible voters to register and participate in elections could be as simple as mailing them a postcard, finds new research led by the University of Maryland Department of Government and Politics. In a study published in Political Behavior, Professor Michael Hanmer and colleagues examined an effort in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Thanks! Email sent to Postcards to Voters.

You’re the best! Warning, it can be habit-forming…

Yeah, I would prefer my country not meet the same fate as Steve Jobs

We (in the UK) have decided on the new paint but more voted for the fascists than we're comfortable with. Thankfully our somewhat mad voting system stopped them actually getting many seats (they got as many as the green party... Nuff said)

Bro, even the progressive media I watch is trying their hardest to make sure Donkey Tramp gets elected. Straight-up the dumbest myopic bullshit I have ever seen.

This is more like a placebo, which is admittedly dead on for what your first post described

I'm not sure why people act like this is a real election They haven't been real for decades, but this one is going to be the fakest ever

what is that even supposed to mean

They are a doomer with other comments discouraging people from voting

Username is a helpful tell

Our electoral system is well-known to be littered with easily gamed mathematical flaws that make them nothing but a bribery contest. They've been that way longer than we've been alive, but the only socially acceptable response is "it's not a perfect system, oh well!"

There are known good solutions to every problem with that system that will never be implemented because the people in power can always pretend that any change is too complicated. You can't vote your way out of fascism, which we have lived under since Nixon at least.

hang on- most of the people you are smarming live in California, New York or Texas. Let’s be serious please

I think exercising one's franchise at every given opportunity is the most serious of all things, and any skepticism towards a message which says that - in any context - is dangerous rhetoric.

and then you made some claims that are nonsensical based on the fact that againnnnnnn the thing you said is not happening is generally not what is happening for most in a position to listen to you and do what you want us to do

fgs i follow you and you’re talking to me like what you say shouldnt matter to me

I don't know what imagined position you are arguing with, but you probably don't see all the same posts that I do! And I'm responding to some scary shit that I'm seeing going around, including in my replies right now.

“people who aren’t committed to voting” my dude most people in California, New York and Texas are workers and/or disabled people who have life and death shit going on all day that wont turn out the same whether or not they personally pull a lever

also, just as there's no guarantee with chemo (changes the odds of you dying at this time from this malignancy) voting isn't guaranteed to get you a better future, it only changes the odds that this election won't be your last

We here in the UK have just had an excellent vote and believe me, I feel a lot better

I am really hoping I can have that sense of relief.

😀 I hope so too

Now we get to find out what Kier Starmer actually believes Still better than Tory, but I’m not exactly calm ^^”

I fucking hate that I have to vote for the guy funding genocide. It sucks and it feels bad and I’m partaking in an action that furthers genocide, but I still have to do it because we’re all backed into this shitty fucking corner and it makes me so sad snd angry.

The only thing making it even remotely palatable to me is knowing that the other guy would continue funding genocide and also do worse in nearly every other issue that could be mentioned.

Those who are able to vote in the US election have far more power than they realise. We might not bear the brunt of the outcome elsewhere but we will feel the effects...