There is literally 0 chance the area I live in will be blue. Does me going out and voting actually do anything besides add to the popular vote tally?
Absolutely. Voting in federal, state, and local elections makes big differences. I’ve lived in red and blue states, and my votes have personally swayed policy for red and blue states. Some of the stuff I voted for passed on margins as slim as 1,200 votes, in a city of hundreds of thousands of people (guess how many of them voted?)
As a direct result of me voting, my life dramatically improved because my cut bus lines were restored, the feds rebuilt parts of my city, and people were no longer getting arrested on bullshit charges.
Further civic action saved one local park from redevelopment.
So few people actually vote, even fewer with bad takes. So voting can have a profound impact on your life and other’s lives. Some of my friends got the right to marry. Some others lost their ability to access healthcare and were forced to move states to access it again. It makes a difference.
This doesn’t end with Americans either. You guys worldwide have had a number of extremely close elections, see the list below. Do your civic duty and vote! It can take an hour or less with a bit of research, and has a surprisingly big impact on your life.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_close_election_results
Great list!
Let me highlight the 1988 Massachusetts democratic primary:
Herbert L. Connolly lost to Robert B. Kennedy by one vote, and it was his own. Connolly arrived at his precinct a few minutes after the polls closed and wasn’t able to vote. Kennedy won the following general.[74][75]
Vote anyway. Voter apathy is largely how things got so bad.
I’m in a similarly red state. I know my vote probably isn’t going to matter (thanks,
ObamaElectoral College), but I’m going to do it anyway. And I’m trying to get as many people around me out to vote as well.You should go vote if for no other reason than to keep Sherrod Brown in his seat.
And honestly nobody knows what’s actually going to happen in this election. Ohio is “red” (god I hate that terminology) only by a few points. It’s flippable in the right circumstances. Like if people remember that MAGA wants to force 10 year old rape victims to have their attacker’s baby.
This is a numbers and momentum game. If you vote AND some of your fellow closeted Midwestern Democrats (or at least pro small-d democracy) vote and convince some people who want to have a chance to fix American democracy to vote for the Democratic nominee, Ohio could flip.
They all could. If there were justice in the world, all 50 states would be “blue” on November 5th because of who Trump is, what he’s done in the past, and what he’s telling us he’ll do in the future.
Vote!
I know my vote probably isn’t going to matter (thanks, Obama Electoral College)
Unironically we can assign some blame to Obama…
In 08 he had the opportunity to “save” the DNC. Instead he viewed the entire concept as outdated and ignored the party, instead handling everything internally on his team
If Biden had worked on the DNC and tried to build it up after Hillary’s people burnt it all down, we wouldnt have had to suffer thru trump and would be seeing the end of a.progressive presidents second term right now.
If he’d have done that and lived up to 08 campaign promises, then there probably wouldn’t be any “red states” left by now.
Obama didn’t break the party, but he had a chance to fix an already broken party and instead just ignored it. We’re still paying for it
This post is kind of like when somebody who doesn’t know anything about cars starts throwing out words like carburator, transmission, and alternator because they know those are car things, but they have no idea how to use them in the context of how they are actually relevant.
It’s hard to begin to know how to tackle correcting anything because the amount of effort it would take to unweave and reconstruct the kernels of truth is like trying to extract an egg out of a fully baked cake.
This is probably overly harsh considering the slant of the post is absolutely in the right spirit, the analysis is just completely broken.
Holy mental backflips to change talk about the electoral college to talk about the DNC and act as if they’re the same.
Are you not aware of how since 2016 the DNC has used “victory funds” that “share” donations with state parties and that has lead to Republicans solidifying power in red states and using that power to maintain it thru things like gerrymandering and voter suppression? And that those things exacerbate existing issues with electoral college?
But during the three-month period when the DNC was working to spin the situation, state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement — validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies and Bernie Sanders supporters.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191
That program is still around. Today it’s known as the Biden Victory Fund.
But there is about a million going to each state and 90 to Joe so far. So it is a little better…
And the backflips continue! This is not the electoral college.
Dude never has any idea what he’s talking about.
Will you just stop man? Jesus fucking Christ with the “everything is the fault of democrats” bullshit.
Be less obvious.
I live in Nebraska and I feel the same way. I go out and vote in every election because that’s my civic duty, if the majority of people in your area with our same feeling actually went out and vote it is possible to become a swing state.
That being said my personal opinion is if you don’t vote you forfeit your right to complain about politics. You didn’t voice your opinion when it was important, so you shouldn’t voice it when it’s not.
Edit: spelling
Same! I’m in a red state but I have voted in every election since I reached the age to vote (a looong time ago). Yeah, my state always goes red for POTUS but I still vote Dem for POTUS so we don’t look like we’re a total shithole state. We have a Dem governor, a Dem House rep in DC, and my personal State senator and rep are Dems, too–I helped put them there. Dems are still quite outnumbered in the State legislature, but there’s been enough of them to keep the repubs from overriding the governor’s veto of some of their fascist bullshit bills. Every bit helps.
Your vote is sending a signal to future elections. If Ohio has a 20-point red margin, it’s unlikely to get any attention from blue candidates. If it has a 5% margin, that changes, and suddenly the next campaign considers spending time & money to try and move the needle.
Remember the old Roman adage: “you’re not defeated until you admit defeat”. If you don’t vote: you’ve lost. If you vote, you might still lose that election but there’s a better chance to win in the future.
Berthold Brecht:
Anyone who stays at home when the war begins and lets others fight for their cause must be careful: because whoever did not share the fight will share the defeat.
Sorry I’m not well enough versed in American politics to know who’s blue or red.
Whether you should vote or not doesn’t depend on the people around you. It is your right to have your say. The result is the cumulative effect of everyone in your area doing the same. Whether you think you’re surrounded by millions of blues or millions of reds doesn’t make any difference. Your perception may be incorrect, and your analysis, that there is literally zero chance that your vote will matter, is incorrect.
Nobody knows the results of an election until the votes are in and have been counted. It doesn’t matter that your area has always been red, blue, green, turquoise, pink or whatever. Areas can change allegiance, and it is by individuals getting out and voting.
If you don’t vote, you strengthen the position of those who vote the other way. It is not considered a protest vote because the system would prefer to consider this as voter apathy. If you want to register a protest vote and “none of the above” isn’t an option, find the official way to spoil your ballot paper and do that, but whatever you do, get out and vote.
Other than helping you sleep at night, probably not. That’s enough reason to do it though.
If Ohio voted 15% blue last election and then votes 25% blue this election, that’s significant information that tells people there may be momentum for change.
There may not be a chance of winning this election , but every vote tells people what people want.
If you don’t vote, Ohio will always look like it will only ever vote red.
Hello… hello… hello…
Welcome to the shit-lib Ecco chamber.
The two-party system is a fucking joke. Voting for Rethuglicans is fascist bootlicking. Voting for Democrats is just rainbow-colored fascism. Both sides just virtue signal to their base about identity politics, but change nothing fundamentally that will anger the true masters: the oligarchs who really run shit.
I bet you’re fun at parties.
If you are voting the opposite of the norm in your area, you are making a bigger impact than the reverse of the situation. Go by county and try to flip yours to blue. If it happens to flip, your vote counts 100%, otherwise you have at least tried and voted. Here is some links to check 2020 results by town or county.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html
Vote for who you think is the best option. Ohio is a pretty safe Republican state for Trump. I will probably be voting for the Democrat, but you should read up on everyone who is on the ballot and make an informed decision.
Always vote. Progressives lose elections because 30% of any population votes for the conservative at every single election, no matter what, like it’s a religion. Progressives need a culture that says: ALWAYS VOTE. It doesn’t fucking matter if it doesn’t fucking matter. Vote anyway. Let your kids see you voting like it’s actually important. Make it important.
One of the best comments I’ve seen here. Kudos
Elections aren’t just about the President. That’s arguably the least impactful person on the ballot. Look at your local reps running for state positions, find ones you like, they’ll have much more impact on your daily life.
Plus, it’s a good opportunity to pay a little closer attention to local politics. My town is getting pretty hot the last few years, with some major controversies
- siting for a new high school, with hundreds of millions in state and federal funding at stake, and a huge impact on the community for the next half century. They’re racing to open it in time for the coming school year, but the site is still controversial
- summer closure to vehicles of the shops and restaurant area was a huge hit during COViD period, but now some people want to “go back to normal”
- huge arguments for and against our strong mayor able to get things done
- the town bought contaminated land for Pennies but trying to figure out what to do with it means figuring out how to clean it up
- we have a great sports facility with a large number of astroturfed fields but “the carpet is scuffed and worn”. Can we afford to get it re-carpeted? Is there an advantage to going back to grass?
- were having a lot of population growth and want to encourage higher density housing in the center of town near shops and transit, but how much can/should we try to control that? A neighborhood near me just got a couple of six story apartment blocks thrown down in the middle of much smaller duplexes and three deckers: is that good or bad? Technically it’s still a walk to the town center and it’s on a new trail, so that’s good, but it’s way out of scale for the neighborhood and would be better closer in with other buildings that size, so I’m glad I don’t live there. I see this one house is now abutting a brick wall almost as tall as the house
Absolutely yes. Every vote for Democrats is a vote against Trump. He has such a weak ego, your one vote along with millions of other votes against him will drive him crazy. Death by 81,283,098 cuts.
Vote. You don’t have to vote for Biden or Trump, you can write in a vote or choose a third party or independent candidate on the ballot, if your State allows it. Not for the reason of making practical change, because it won’t in a two party system, but to show the analytics, media, the ruling power that you don’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Anyone that says otherwise does not know what democracy means and supports a broken system through enabling. Local votes ate more important IMO, always vote for that. The more informed you are, the less likely you are to support a broken system.
For president?
Probably not.
But it might for down ballot races which are still important.
Like in 08 when Obama first ran. Dems made lots of gains in state governments because he drove turnout.
