Yes the alternative is worse, but election after election you can’t just keep handing centrists your vote who don’t give a shit about you or your policies (and actively shit on you while loudly posturing that they aren’t like you at all). At some point you have to make the threat of withholding your vote a real one, there are always consequences to that especially for this election but at the same time nothing is really going to change if we keep handing centrist corporate democrats the reigns to power because this time is an emergency too (just like last time).
Here’s where you’re missing something fundamental. You’re taking as a given that a protest vote will meaningfully register with the Democratic Party, and they’ll chase you around to get your vote back. I’d offer that a significant reason major US parties have drifted rightward over the past 40 years is this. Conservatives skew older. Leftists skew younger. Young people simply don’t vote. Ergo conservatives have an outsized voice in the political sphere. When more leftists disengage, the conservative voice grows louder.
If you protest vote the Democratic Party, you’re just proving to them that they can’t count on your vote. If they can’t count on your vote, they have the option of scrambling to try to figure out what you want, or chasing voters whose support they can count on, and based on recent history that’ll probably result in more of a shift to the right. Because, at the end of the day, right-leaning voters have a weird fervor that leftists don’t share, and leftists disengage at the drop of a hat. If we’re being honest, that’s not a great group of people to have on your team if you’re trying to sustain political relevance.
I don’t think this sentiment is about protest. It’s about conscious. Many cannot consciously vote for a Zionist president complicit with genocide. Many may change their minds, it’s a year away, but many won’t. We can selfishly brow-beat them into voting for Biden. But in the end, it’s their choice.
We can selfishly brow-beat them into voting for Biden.
Shaming people into voting for your candidate doesn’t work, but Dems will do it anyway. It splits the left and helps Republicans, but they either aren’t aware of this or don’t care.
Here’s where you’re missing something fundamental. You’re taking as a given that a protest vote will meaningfully register with the Democratic Party, and they’ll chase you around to get your vote back. I’d offer that a significant reason major US parties have drifted rightward over the past 40 years is this. Conservatives skew older. Leftists skew younger. Young people simply don’t vote. Ergo conservatives have an outsized voice in the political sphere. When more leftists disengage, the conservative voice grows louder.
If you protest vote the Democratic Party, you’re just proving to them that they can’t count on your vote. If they can’t count on your vote, they have the option of scrambling to try to figure out what you want, or chasing voters whose support they can count on, and based on recent history that’ll probably result in more of a shift to the right. Because, at the end of the day, right-leaning voters have a weird fervor that leftists don’t share, and leftists disengage at the drop of a hat. If we’re being honest, that’s not a great group of people to have on your team if you’re trying to sustain political relevance.
I don’t think this sentiment is about protest. It’s about conscious. Many cannot consciously vote for a Zionist president complicit with genocide. Many may change their minds, it’s a year away, but many won’t. We can selfishly brow-beat them into voting for Biden. But in the end, it’s their choice.
Shaming people into voting for your candidate doesn’t work, but Dems will do it anyway. It splits the left and helps Republicans, but they either aren’t aware of this or don’t care.