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The problem with not voting (fedia.io)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/tumblr@lemmy.world
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[–] 9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous how easily people just accepted that primaries are just a joke, that the DNC can hold them when they want to and just decide on their own when they don't. Telling people to vote for Biden now, when he is not yet by any stretch an official candidate, is to forfeit a democratic right. They openly say they're ready to rubber-stamp a decision of party oligarchs.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    "People" don't even have a basic understanding of how our elections or government works. Anyone that refuses to vote in the primaries has absolutely no right to bitch about what candidates are "picked".

    The comments after the 2016 Democratic party primary was equally hilarious and depressing. Hearing "the election was stolen from Bernie!!!!!11111" from people that didn't vote in the primary was obnoxious, and the dumb-asses expected me to agree with them. "No, you moron: he lost the primary. He lost because lazy fucks like you couldn't take 30 minutes out of your day to go vote for him."

    Of the dozen Sanders supporters I knew at the time 3 of us actually went out and cast a ballot for him.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I caucused for him in 2016 and it was pretty depressing how many people wouldn't vote for him "because he's so far behind". First, who gives a fuck? It's a primary, vote for the candidate you actually want. Second, he wasn't really behind. He was behind when including the superdelegates who have only gone against the popular vote one time in all of history. Had Bernie had the popular vote at the end of the polling period, all of the supers would have cast votes for Sanders. But you can't explain this to people. Sure, you can tell them, but they aren't going to actually listen, hear, and comprehend what you're saying. All they know is they want to vote for the winning candidate, because of course primaries are a sporting event and only being on the winning team matters. I lost a lot of faith in people in 2016, and I haven't really regained any of it since. Matter of fact, I've lost considerably more faith since.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I can sort of understand their reasoning -- I'm with you in that I don't agree with it and think it's self defeating, but I can see how they could arrive at that conclusion.

    What really killed me is how many of my friends and colleagues that hard-core loved Bernie Sanders didn't vote because they either "forgot" to, didn't register to vote after being slammed with reminders to, didn't bother to look up when/where to vote, or just couldn't be fucked to make the effort. Even after countless hours talking about how great he is, posting on social media, and even donating to his campaign.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    The DNC definitely heavily sways the outcome of the primaries. They use their superdelegates as a cudgel to fool people into thinking any other candidate has no chance of winning, then they use the media to repeatedly report how far ahead their chosen candidate is (including supers). Idk why most people are afraid to vote for someone who's behind in the polls during a primary, but they are. Apparently the average person wants very badly to be on the winning team. I saw this first hand when I was a delegate for Sanders in 2016.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    lmao anyone would be so much better than biden in the dem seat

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, in the last primaries he was the least inspired, least charismatic candidate. He had effectively no platform beyond keeping the status quo. He wasn't the worst candidate only because the DNC, against its own rules, gave platform to an actual Republican billionaire.

    It's wild for me that people defend him before he even is a candidate.

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