4 ms·

Or they didn't see a viable candidate that represented their interests and decided to abstain. This is a legal right.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Your interests are going to be represented by one of the two major party candidates, whether you like it or not. And even if you're firmly on the side of "do not like," one of those candidates is almost certainly going to be less worse than the other. Maybe you think both of them have authoritarian tendencies, but only one of them openly talks about the press as the enemy of the people and tacitly encourages their followers to demonize and harass their opponents. Maybe you want universal health care and neither of the candidates support it, but one of them talks about shoring up and expanding the Affordable Care Act and the other one talks about repealing it. Maybe you think both of them are too beholden to Wall Street, but only one of them literally lives in a gold-plated penthouse a couple blocks away. So, sure, it's your legal right not to vote. But it's my legal right to point out that by doing so, you are not nobly opting out of the system -- you're supporting the winner.
- cf498 8y ago
  If you are voting for someone in a representative system they are acting in your name and their action are your responsibility. Not to mention that you give legitimacy to such a system by participating in it and help it to perpetuate itself. Then again, supporting the lesser evil might be reasonable in some situations, but that doesnt get you out of the responsibility of the actions of the lesser evil. Voting is a lot like the Trolley problem.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  It's the candidates job to win my vote. If neither win my vote what am I supposed to do? Vote for someone I don't like at all? Why should I have to do that? People who don't vote have been roughly 45-50% of the voting bloc in recent history [1]. As a Democratic Socialist learning towards Socialist, neither Hillary nor Trump represented really any of my views. Pretty much none at all to be honest. Both were terrible people, and terrible candidates. [1] http://www.electproject.org/2016g http://www.electproject.org/2016g
  - khazhou 8y ago
    There wasn't even a single issue you agreed with either Hillary or Trump on? Because even if there was just one thing you cared about and which only one side supported, then by your stated principle that both parties are (otherwise) the same, then you should have voted for that. Or... even if both sides were pro-war, pro-big-business, anti-worker, whatever, you could have still voted against the undignified office-demeaning racist.
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      One thing that I agree with isn't enough to get me to drop my morals and vote in favor of endless wars, low wages, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable college, keeping marijuana illegal, privatization of our schools, more oil drilling & fracking, more income inequality, more anti-union rhetoric, doing the favors of Wall St., surveillance state, etc. I voted for Obama in 2012, and even though his public image was fantastic, I feel as if the blood from everything that was kept out of public view is on my hands. I won't make that mistake again.
      - khazhou 8y ago
        This is on your hands, too. I mean, it's probably not even worth me making the same cliched points about responsibility to vote, that you can read anywhere else. I'll just note this: the disappointment in Obama, the lack of perfect (or often, even "good") candidates, the general disappointment in the actions by government... none of that is new, unique to this cycle, unique to the U.S., or unique to you.
        prolikewh0a 8y ago
        I'm sorry, but it's not on my hands. Nothing is really different, just a never ending slow decline for the majority of the country. You should put blame in the right places, such as campaign finance laws and mainstream media which undoubtedly played a bigger role than non voters...since people who abstained literally did nothing. Maybe the system is broken and people see nearly the same candidate over and over and have no real way to vote outside that?
e40 8y ago
Yes, because as we all know, both sides are exactly the same. /s
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  What are they different on that makes the lives of everyday Americans better? Abortion? LGBT rights? They're both war & business parties and practically do exactly the same things. They both sell out the worker in favor of the establishment. Once you expand your knowledge of political ideologies outside of USA's acceptable overton window, you get a true sense of just how close both parties actually are.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    "Both parties are the same" made sense in 2000, when there were two generic white guys running, if you were too young to remember Watergate or Iran-Contra much, and also because the trillion dollar wars and deficits to come were unimaginable. After the invasion of Iraq, let alone the ACA, and what's happened post 2016, it seems to me like hollow propaganda. It's fundamentally no longer possible to have a productive discussion when you can't get to the point of believing your counterpart is sincere about anything.
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      >two generic white guys running Two generic white people ran in 2016. Obama left in 6 or 7 wars/major conflicts. He dropped 26000 bombs in 2016 alone [1]. He used the espionage act against journalists more than any president in history [2]. He let protestors get their heads smashed in by oil companies in North Dakota right before he left [3]. He expanded the surveillance state [4]. Obama seemed sincere and then ended up selling out the American people even further. Schumer wont whip the vote to block Kavanaugh [5]. Democrats recently overwhelmingly backed the largest defense budget in US history [6]. It still makes sense. It's not "hollow propaganda". Both parties are war, oil, and business parties. Neither are in favor of helping the worker. [1] https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-many-bombs-did-united-states-drop-2016 https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-many-bombs-did-united-states-dr... [2] https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-access-pipeline-water-cannon-police-standing-rock-protest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-acces... [4] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveillance-powers-his-way-out https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveill... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/schumer-plays-long-game-avoids-hardball-with-centrist-democrats-over-supreme-court-pick/2018/07/27/f3fb86dc-90d2-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/schumer-plays-long-... [6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/06/20/house-and-senate-democrats-vote-68-percent-and-85-percent-for-massive-military-spending/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/06/20/house-an...

Your interests are going to be represented by one of the two major party candidates, whether you like it or not. And even if you're firmly on the side of "do not like," one of those candidates is almost certainly going to be less worse than the other. Maybe you think both of them have authoritarian tendencies, but only one of them openly talks about the press as the enemy of the people and tacitly encourages their followers to demonize and harass their opponents. Maybe you want universal health care and neither of the candidates support it, but one of them talks about shoring up and expanding the Affordable Care Act and the other one talks about repealing it. Maybe you think both of them are too beholden to Wall Street, but only one of them literally lives in a gold-plated penthouse a couple blocks away. So, sure, it's your legal right not to vote. But it's my legal right to point out that by doing so, you are not nobly opting out of the system -- you're supporting the winner.

cf498 8y ago
If you are voting for someone in a representative system they are acting in your name and their action are your responsibility. Not to mention that you give legitimacy to such a system by participating in it and help it to perpetuate itself. Then again, supporting the lesser evil might be reasonable in some situations, but that doesnt get you out of the responsibility of the actions of the lesser evil. Voting is a lot like the Trolley problem.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
It's the candidates job to win my vote. If neither win my vote what am I supposed to do? Vote for someone I don't like at all? Why should I have to do that? People who don't vote have been roughly 45-50% of the voting bloc in recent history [1]. As a Democratic Socialist learning towards Socialist, neither Hillary nor Trump represented really any of my views. Pretty much none at all to be honest. Both were terrible people, and terrible candidates. [1] http://www.electproject.org/2016g http://www.electproject.org/2016g
- khazhou 8y ago
  There wasn't even a single issue you agreed with either Hillary or Trump on? Because even if there was just one thing you cared about and which only one side supported, then by your stated principle that both parties are (otherwise) the same, then you should have voted for that. Or... even if both sides were pro-war, pro-big-business, anti-worker, whatever, you could have still voted against the undignified office-demeaning racist.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    One thing that I agree with isn't enough to get me to drop my morals and vote in favor of endless wars, low wages, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable college, keeping marijuana illegal, privatization of our schools, more oil drilling & fracking, more income inequality, more anti-union rhetoric, doing the favors of Wall St., surveillance state, etc. I voted for Obama in 2012, and even though his public image was fantastic, I feel as if the blood from everything that was kept out of public view is on my hands. I won't make that mistake again.
    - khazhou 8y ago
      This is on your hands, too. I mean, it's probably not even worth me making the same cliched points about responsibility to vote, that you can read anywhere else. I'll just note this: the disappointment in Obama, the lack of perfect (or often, even "good") candidates, the general disappointment in the actions by government... none of that is new, unique to this cycle, unique to the U.S., or unique to you.
      - prolikewh0a 8y ago
        I'm sorry, but it's not on my hands. Nothing is really different, just a never ending slow decline for the majority of the country. You should put blame in the right places, such as campaign finance laws and mainstream media which undoubtedly played a bigger role than non voters...since people who abstained literally did nothing. Maybe the system is broken and people see nearly the same candidate over and over and have no real way to vote outside that?

e40 8y ago

Yes, because as we all know, both sides are exactly the same. /s

prolikewh0a 8y ago
What are they different on that makes the lives of everyday Americans better? Abortion? LGBT rights? They're both war & business parties and practically do exactly the same things. They both sell out the worker in favor of the establishment. Once you expand your knowledge of political ideologies outside of USA's acceptable overton window, you get a true sense of just how close both parties actually are.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  "Both parties are the same" made sense in 2000, when there were two generic white guys running, if you were too young to remember Watergate or Iran-Contra much, and also because the trillion dollar wars and deficits to come were unimaginable. After the invasion of Iraq, let alone the ACA, and what's happened post 2016, it seems to me like hollow propaganda. It's fundamentally no longer possible to have a productive discussion when you can't get to the point of believing your counterpart is sincere about anything.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    >two generic white guys running Two generic white people ran in 2016. Obama left in 6 or 7 wars/major conflicts. He dropped 26000 bombs in 2016 alone [1]. He used the espionage act against journalists more than any president in history [2]. He let protestors get their heads smashed in by oil companies in North Dakota right before he left [3]. He expanded the surveillance state [4]. Obama seemed sincere and then ended up selling out the American people even further. Schumer wont whip the vote to block Kavanaugh [5]. Democrats recently overwhelmingly backed the largest defense budget in US history [6]. It still makes sense. It's not "hollow propaganda". Both parties are war, oil, and business parties. Neither are in favor of helping the worker. [1] https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-many-bombs-did-united-states-drop-2016 https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-many-bombs-did-united-states-dr... [2] https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/ https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-access-pipeline-water-cannon-police-standing-rock-protest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-acces... [4] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveillance-powers-his-way-out https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveill... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/schumer-plays-long-game-avoids-hardball-with-centrist-democrats-over-supreme-court-pick/2018/07/27/f3fb86dc-90d2-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/schumer-plays-long-... [6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/06/20/house-and-senate-democrats-vote-68-percent-and-85-percent-for-massive-military-spending/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/06/20/house-an...