politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
What?
Do you know how elections work in your own country?
The US is First Past The Post. Whoever has the most votes wins, even if they do not have a majority of the vote. Splitting the votes of one party, or abstaining from voting only gives more power to the opposition. It is an absolutely shit system, and election reform needs to happen, but it’s what you have to deal with now, and being ignorant of how it works is going to hurt everyone.
Hypothetically there are 100 people voting between the “stubbing your toe” party and the “hot poker jammed in your urethra” party. The urethra party runs a campaign about how horrible stubbing your toe feels, and gets 40 votes. The Toe Party runs on a platform of “the choice is obvious” and gets 35. A small subset of Toe-ers break off and run their own “hitting your funnybone” party because they don’t like feet and get 10 votes. The remaining 15 voters really do NOT want to have their pissholes sealed shut by a piece of red hot iron. But at the same time, stubbing your toe or hitting your funnybone really hurts as well. They equate “pain” as an absolute value, deem both sides equal and abstain from voting.
The number of people who do not want a blistered pisser outnumber the opposition 60/40. But in the end, the numbers come out; Funnybone : 10 Toe : 35 Urethra : 40 The next day, everyone is lined up to get their pissholes branded.
Are you telling me that the abstainers hold no responsibility in the hurt that is bestowed upon the whole group? Or that Funnybone can blame Toe for not marketing themselves better?
You can’t vote against Trump, you are correct on that point, but abstaining from the vote reduces the numbers of literally the only other option.
I don't want a second Biden term. I won't vote for a second Biden term. Simple as that. That's, literally, exactly how democracies are meant to function.
Forget about Biden, it's about which direction the country will go. One of the two dominant parties will win, either repub or dem--it's that simple.
Do what ever you want, but I'll be voting for the party that doesn't want to kill my friends and I just hope there's enough other people who give a single shit about other people's lives instead of pretending this is some kind of popularity contest game show.
Nobody but Biden wants him for a second term. But as others have mentioned, not voting isn’t helpful.
Democracy is literally meant to function when people make their voices heard. If you’re not exercising your right to vote (the thing that people in the US fought for) then you are accountable for the consequences of your decision being made for you.
I live in a democracy. Voting is compulsory. Some people will take the monetary fine and abstain, but for many it encourages them to at the very least become informed about the policies of each party on the big ticket issues. It’s not perfect but it means everybody has a say.
Your democracy allows one party to use the strategy of “erode confidence in the very political system we are a part of” to convince people that not taking part in their freedom is a smart choice.