Ask Lemmygrad

"Your side isn't entitled to my vote. If your side wants my vote, they have to earn it."

Tell them if they want my vote they can have it by just seriously embracing two (only two) of the following:

Drug legalization
Vacancy control
Massive increase in funding non-profit housing
Massive increase in train infrastructure
Free public transit
Significant reduction in military budget
Withdraw from NATO
End fossil fuel subsidies
China-style expansion of solar and wind farming
House the homeless in permanent housing
Criminalize corporate lobbying
Complete provision of free health care for all including mental health and dentistry
Debt jubilee
Climate reparations to global south counties

From the W. E. B. Du Bois article:

In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a “Socialist” Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by “force and violence.”

...

The present Administration is carrying on the greatest preparation for war in the history of mankind. Stevenson promises to maintain or increase this effort. ... The “other” party has surrendered all party differences in foreign affairs, and foreign affairs are our most important affairs today and take most of our taxes.

...

Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged hope. It is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of protest.

"I won't vote for a rapist" is a good one

I tell them bluntly that only a couple dems have won my vote in the past decade, when they protest I bring up

Police reform (Biden: "fund the police")

Abortion (Obama promised to enshrine it in law, 111th congress dems had a supermajority, did nothing)

Supreme Court seats (at any point when the dems had the majority they could have forced it, instead we have today's bullshit)

Formerly student debt forgiveness (Bidens limp attemps have satisfied most of my lib friends)

Federal Marijuana Legalization (rescheduling Marijuana can be done any day by the president*)

Foreign policy failures (Iraq [Bush but dems supported], Libiya, Syria, Bolivia [Trump but dems supported], Yemen, Cuba)

Drone strikes/Whistleblowers

Capitulation towards republican tax ratcheting

General tendency towards bipartisanship, thereby stopping actual reform (looking at you ACA)

I parrot an old Beijer article, and say it's fine for them to have that belief, but they should know it's heterodox among US historians and academics.

The impact of third parties on American politics extends far beyond their capacity to attract votes. Minor parties, historically, have been a source of important policy innovations. Women’s suffrage, the graduated income tax, and the direct election of senators, to name a few, were all issues that third parties espoused first.

John D. Hicks,

Let a third party once demonstrate that votes are to be made by adopting a certain demand, then one of the other parties can be trusted to absorb it. Ultimately, if the demand has merit, it will probably be translated into law or practice by the major party that has taken it up…The chronic supporter of third party tickets need not worry, therefore, when he is told, as he surely will be told, that he is “throwing away his vote.” [A] glance through American history would seem to indicate that his kind of vote is after all probably he most powerful vote that has ever been cast.

I point out that they make the false assumption that democrats are “less worse” than republicans. From a far left perspective, the difference is negligible.

They wouldn't dare because they'd receive a long lecture on how electoralism is a game, a distraction created by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat from real power and how its one and only possible utility is in raising an explicitly communist, Marxist platform and getting it in the public eye and as there are no such candidates with backing of a vanguard party there is no purpose in participating in such charades on my part.

I would further point out there is no harm reduction for the evils of America's empire on the world. Biden escalated the Ukraine conflict into a war, prevented an early surrender and peace agreement, has the blood of thousands including children on his hands as does the whole party of murderous hooligans known as the Democrats.

I could go on and on with this but the point is to turn the tables on them and demand they account for the vile things the monsters they waste their breath supporting doing. But liberals are hypocrites and people who are explicit in being neo-liberals are fascists with the mask already half-slipped off their face so it's pointless to debate with them as they'd say all those problems I outlined are good and that such is what you get for resisting the US. The only thing to say to such people is that you will not save them if they are rightfully put up against a wall.

generally "no."

but if it's someone I actually like, and want to help come to better stances, I'll explain that it's useless to care who the president is. The Senate and the supreme court matter more in terms of policy, and every single "left" leaning president has still been behind some vile shit.

When they were telling us to "vote blue no matter who" back in 2019, I would calmly explain that Biden's politics aren't far off from Republican ones, and that his career spits in the face of what his supporters think of him.

as it seems to me, the lines like "you're just letting the conservatives win" and "if you don't participate in the system you're against the progress" are ultimately just things they tell themselves so they feel like they're in some way useful. I would posit that most of them know, on some level, that voting doesn't do anything of note. I would further posit that most of them know that they're wasting their time caring about who the president is, but do it out of fear for the future. they lack the theory and the understanding to know that the existing system doesn't include our voices, so like a person blinded by a dark room, they're swinging around wildly in the hopes that they'll hit something. A lot of them just need to be sat down and talked to in human terms, person to person. Enough of that and they'll come around on their stances.

Not an answer, just reminded me of

It’s always the same “something something First Past The Post” spiel. You gotta vote for the opponent of who you hate. I just argue about how broken it is and I may get some nods in agreement here and there but everyone always says “that’s just how it is.” Anytime I bring up the possibility of the system needing to change, through whatever means necessary, I get shot down and condescended to.

I point out the long list of murders and war crimes committed by the 'progressive' party.

I tell them I've voted for Yosemite Sam in the last ten elections and I'm not about to change that now.

It doesn’t take to long for me luckily enough so I do vote for hun, but I vote for whatever candidate I want to.

If I like their policies then they will deserve my vote. I don’t vote on party lines. You have to earn my vote.

I’m also referring mainly to local and state elections. Those at least matter quite a bit. Federal elections are complete spectacle and dogshit.

I have no interest in talking to them. Their proper place is to keep their mouths shut and their wallets open for my perusal.

Vote with your rifle. /S

Lol they always call me an anarchist because i don't vote so yea you can guess how educated they are.

''I can't vote because I am not a citizen and I am not going to swear allegiance to the British crown to be a citizen''

No

I'm pretty jaded about the whole thing so anymore I just vote for Not the Republican when it comes down to it.

After talking to a few people in the Dem party, I think the writing is in the wall that they don't wanna move left. Their "only goal is to win election" as one member put it. And they think that is to keep pushing old white dudes and show some pride flags in June.

I'm gonna be slowly removing myself from the Dems anyway. I'm a sitting member of my local club and they just don't wanna do anything. They keep asking how to get more young people involved and I keep telling them the young people are either socialist or alt-right. They aren't gonna maintain a base unless they move left.

I sent my app in to join the Marxist Unity Group this morning. And I'm reaching out to the local DSA chapter to see if they are dead and will gauge the possibility of reviving it. Anyone in this space in the Panhandle looking to get involved maybe reach out?

TL:Dr; I vote for the old white guy with the blue on his sign because I'd be throwing my vote away regardless.