#remember that if voting didn't matter then republicans wouldn't do it

[leupagus]

My fellow voting Americans!

Please remember to check that you are still registered/remember to register to vote if you've recently moved or become eligible to vote. The primaries are coming up soon, and the general will be happening on November 7th. Yes, 2023 is an election year — because every year is an election year — and you never know what important propositions, local politicians, or even amendments might be up for election.

Anyone who needs help registering can drop me an ask anytime; I'm a literal expert on this stuff, and nothing brings me more joy than getting people involved in the electoral process.

If you can do even more (volunteering for a cause/politician, signing up to work elections, even running yourself for a local town council/school board seat) that is awesome, but the bare minimum for being a good citizen of this country is voting. So make sure you're ready!

[hoosbandewan]

No matter who someone votes for does not make them a bad person. If someone votes differently than you and you find that as a reason to not support them then you are part of the problem. I'm thankfully open-minded and glad I can have Democrat and Republican friends and we can all still be friends even with different beliefs and opinions. I don't understand how anyone can have that mindset.... You want Peace and love but are the first ones to throw someone under the bus if they think differently than you do.

And using Ewan to push your thoughts is shameful

Having friends on both sides of the aisle is fine. Having a difference in opinions is fine. I think it can be incredibly damaging for people to get caught in an echo chamber and be surrounded only by people who share their same viewpoint. And the fact that we can all have our own thoughts and opinions is what makes a free country like the U.S. so wonderful.

I even know a good number of Republicans and conservative-leaning people who didn't and wouldn't vote for Trump. And, you see, that's the difference.

Voting for Trump.

You cannot, in good conscience, look me in the eye and tell me that casting a vote for Donald Trump makes you a good person. I could have forgiven a Trump vote in 2016, but not in 2020 and certainly not in 2024.

Trump attempted to overturn a democratic election and was indicted for it. And on that day, he voiced support for the Capitol rioters who wanted to hang his vice president for failing to reject the electoral votes that proved Biden's win.

Trump nominated Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, a move that has already killed women and will continue killing people. In Texas alone, the maternal death rate rose by 56% between 2019 and 2022, the year that Roe was overturned. Since the reversal, the infant mortality rate has risen by 7% nationally - and by 13% in Texas alone.

Trump is unapologetically and unabashedly racist, displaying repeated and disturbing rhetoric aimed at immigrants, Mexicans, black Americans, Haitians, Muslims, and more. In his first term, he instituted new procedural barriers to prevent immigrants from seeking asylum in America. He put migrant children in cages. He has unjustly called for the death penalty for numerous people of color - remember the Central Park 5?

Trump has threatened to deploy the military and law enforcement to target his political opponents and left-leaning Americans.

Trump rolled back almost 100 policies focused on clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals in an era when mitigating climate change is more important than ever. And he plans on gutting even more.

Trump is a convicted felon with 34 felony counts under his belt.

Trump has shown time and time again that his views and policies align with fascist ideals. He wants very, very badly to turn the U.S. democracy into an authoritarian regime.

And if this isn't enough, Trump has been endorsed by the KKK since his 2016 campaign. He's the golden child of white supremacists and white nationalists everywhere.

So, yeah. If this is your guy, I don't want fucking anything to do with you.

I am so sick and tired of Trump supporters crying about peace and love and civility and "oh, but where are the tolerant left?" when they turn right around and vote for Donald Trump.

You don’t get to hold abhorrent views and beliefs and then be friends with us. You don’t get to be friendly to our faces all while supporting a man who wants us dead or oppressed. You can't profess to love your fellow Americans if you are condemning them.

I don't want to hang out with racists and fascists. Because if you choose to support and vote for a racist, fascist, misogynistic, dangerous person, then that makes you one, too.

[batboyblog]

Hi, idk if you're a Mdni page or not, but I'm really scared. I'm 15f, I live in a mostly red state, I've grown up here, and everyone I know is voting red. I was previously in the middle, I didn't care either way who won. I'm terrified of the election after reading about everything the Republican candidate did and plans to do. I wanna know if there's anything I could do to help prevent Trump from winning the election? I have a younger sister, and I don't want her to have to live in a country where her rights are being stripped from her. I just wanna know how to help. Thank you for reading and feel free to delete if I broke a boundary.

for the record I don't mind anyone sending me an ask, everyone is welcome to interact respectfully.

that out of the way, I remember working for Hillary in the 2016 election (by my math you would have been 7?) and our intern was your age and he was... he was everything he was so dryly sarcastic, smart, unflappable, could do anything, he kept us sane and he saved our asses with his can do (and tech skills) more times than I can count.

So to any teens out there who are not yet old enough to vote and think "oh there's nothing I can do" in 2016 we won a Senate race by 1,000 votes, which 100% was the doors we knocked and the voters we talked to out of our office, a 16 year old intern working his ass off saved Obamacare in 2017, not a word of a lie, you can make a difference as an intern or volunteer

Now, from the tone of what you're saying it sounds like your parents would into that, idk if you're parents are the kind of people who let you explore your own thing, or the kind of people who just wouldn't notice, or if they're the kind who would seriously object to you volunteering for the Democrats or progressive groups.

A lot of people assume because they live in Red States or Blue states they don't matter, but for example there are key Senate races this year in Texas, Montana, Ohio, and Florida (Red) and Maryland (Blue) Alaska is a traditionally red state but its one and only Congressperson is a Democrat who will run a very close race to get re-elected again this year. So where ever you live there is a key race, even if it's local. And lots of chances to call voters or send them postcards in swing states

Any ways everyone check out ways to Volunteer Run for Something also supports younger local candidates so if you live somewhere very red or very blue it can be helpful to find locals running for school board or city Council

now for you personally young person, and everyone else, have real and serious conversations with people in your life about this stuff, I can not TELL you how often I knock on someone's door and we talk politics and they tell me "oh well I'm a Democrat, but everyone around here is really a Republican" but like I just talked to 4 other people who were Democrats in their neighborhood, they just saw one Trump sign and gassed themselves up about it. People are often much more swingable than you think, feel everyone out, if there's an adult in your life thats convincible, work on them find out what they care about and bring them facts, be claim and reasonable and work on them. Each of us doing one on one work with people who know us is WAY! more impactful than any TV ad a campaign can buy.

finally if your parents won't let you volunteer for Dems, reach out to the League of Woman Voters, they're not partisan, so they're not Dems or Republicans, they believe in voting. When I was in High School I organized a voter registration drive in my school at lunch time, thats a great thing to do, call your county/town clerk's office and talk to your school, get a social studies teacher involved they love that shit, young people are much more likely to be Democrats so just registering them is helpful.

best of luck, in the words of Hitchhiker's Guide, Don't Panic.

[awakefor48hours]

A shot you shouldn't be missing is your daily click. Along with that, just remember, now more than ever is it important to vote. Republicans are going to use this as a way to make Trump look like a victorious hero, rising against the injustice of the left. Your vote matters.

Voting is a constitutional right that people have died to get. If voting didn't matter, voting wouldn't be made this difficult to do. You do matter.

[shaneyunfiltered]

I think I might stop trusting Tumblr when it comes to politics. Remember the old days of the internet when Tumblr was widely mocked for its irrationally liberal leaning? The same Tumblr that was dumb enough to think it could take on 4chan and win?

Yeah, Tumblr is really starting to regress to that same point now. It might be even worse now, due to the absolutely violent lack of decorum and decency this recent infestation of whiny, unhinged liberal fucknuts have for anyone who dared to vote third party instead of an establishment Zionist who has practically the exact same platform as Trump, and may or may not have even proven that the Democrats have observably failed to convince the American people that they have any convincing plan worth a damn other than the extremely vague, uncertain, fearmongering suggestion that they might be less oppressive than Trump. Keyword being might.

It's just fucking weird and disturbing that these liberals are calling for literal death threats towards anyone who didn't vote for Harris, I shit you not. I'm getting a very strong feeling that this all might be a highly elaborate Zionist psyop, because you know which exact voter demographic Kamala Harris ended up alienating the most?

Muslim Americans.

Just look at any fucking interview with any American citizen of the Muslim faith, many of these people who actually come from Palestine themselves, and how personally they express that they don't feel represented sufficiently enough by either the Republicans or the Democrats, that they only felt heard by third-party candidates such as Jill Stein, who actually had their best interests in mind instead of exploiting them for their vote just so they can continue to be ignored and oppressed in this already godforsaken country. Look at any of those and then TRY to tell them to their faces that they're somehow terrible people for not voting for the politicians who very clearly do not give a single, solitary fuck about them. I fucking dare you.

On that note, does anyone else find it absolutely sad and pathetic that these dumbfuck liberals honestly believe that things would've been even slightly better under Harris than under Trump? Did they not witness the absolute incompetence of the Democrats as they didn't do a goddamn thing to stop the Republicans from getting more of what they wanted under Biden than they ever did under Trump? What in the actual ass makes you idiots think Harris would have done any better? Because she's not a bumbling geezer like Biden? No, her policies are literally the same as Biden's, as the rest of the inherently inept, castrated state of the Democratic Party. She wouldn't have done jackshit, she'd just quietly allow those ruthlessly bigoted Republicans to continue getting what they want and wouldn't do a damn thing to stop them. You're a fucking idiot if you genuinely believe otherwise.

I am not kidding or exaggerating in the slightest when I say that I have heard exponentially more informed, balanced, rational, and most importantly, properly researched takes on this current election on motherfucking LeftTok than I ever heard from any of these insufferably whiny, disturbingly vicious Tumblr liberals. For as much as Tumblr loves to constantly dunk on TikTok for being Gen Z/Alpha brainrot, they sure aren't doing anything to prove that they're actually better at any of the legitimate research and thought that goes into LeftTok's political coverage. Congratulations, Tumblr liberals, you're the new boomers. And you have exactly the same violent disdain for anyone who believes differently from you to match.

Whatever the outcome of the election, I'm not any more worried than I reasonably have to be. Innocent people in marginalized groups are going to suffer tremendously no matter who wins the election, because they already face systemic oppression in this godforsaken country on a regular basis to begin with, no matter how much help they receive to improve their situation. Neither party gives a fuck about them, the Democrats just lie about caring about them, like they always have. Malcolm X was right; Republicans are wolves, and Democrats are foxes. The point is, we can't rely on anyone in this neoliberal late-stage capitalist establishment to actually do anything to improve any of the problems we face. It's been made abundantly clear over the last several years that our "representatives" don't actually represent us. We can only rely on ourselves to represent ourselves. That means putting actual pressure on the oligarchs in power, force them to meet our demands one way or another, by any and all means necessary.

As much as I've recently shat on the repulsive liberal cowardice and naivete of Charles Xavier, there is one quote of his that exhibits far greater character, nobility, and pragmatism than any of these fucking Tumblr liberals could ever hope to even think of:

"Those with the greatest power... protect those without."

That's exactly what I'm going to do. Real political action does not begin and end at the ballot, and election results, subsequently, do not automatically determine the fate of the country and the people within it. That is up to us, and only us. We, collectively, have far more power than we realize.

Donate. Volunteer. Organize. Protest. Strike. Hell, maybe even riot, if you have absolutely no other choice. But don't think for even a microsecond that viciously attacking people out of pure emotional incontinence without any further elaboration or action is going to do jack-fucking-shit.

And yes, I am addressing some of my mutuals here. Block me if you must, that's your prerogative. We all know Tumblr was never a popularity contest to begin with anyway.

[kittydoggie]

I'm so sick of supposed leftists playing into their subconscious biases that southern people just aren't people. That we're this big collective mass of hardline Republican voters, and that it's ok to essentially treat us like the enemy, no matter where we actually stand. We're all a hivemind hellbent on doing whatever is worst for the common man, after all.

I see it in every single youtuber doing a fake southern accent for stupid takes, I see it in posts online about "well, if you'd just *vote better*,"(As if rampant voter suppression and rigging isn't the norm here) I see it in the laughing when some natural disaster happens here. I still remember sitting in my apartment in Atlanta, terrified during a blizzard that my roommate wouldn't make it home, freezing because our heater couldn't bear the strain. I was working as an animator at the time, and completed my contracts wearing gloves inside. And I remember being told that I deserved it because my city didn't have the money to buy something for weather that only comes around a few times in a lifetime. Because our houses and cars are prepared for the weather we have all the time, instead of freezing cold.

You don't actually care about fixing America. You just want someone to blame shit on when it goes wrong.

Except if the south disappeared today, all of us dead and gone, you'd still have a fucking nazi problem in America. Racism wouldn't disappear. It wouldn't suddenly become a worker's utopia. Because these issues are built into the fabric of the country, from the founders up. Inequality is built into our nation, and the people who are actively fighting to keep it this way aren't contained in a single region of the land. They're in C-suites and Congress. They're from all over.

Treating us like the enemy won't fix things. We just won't make the mistake of trusting you twice, when we could have actually been good allies.

[thebeat-of-myheart]

I can't find the post, but years ago there was an interview on @humansofny that started out something like this:

"I get affected really badly by politics. When Trump was elected in 2016, I found myself so depressed, I couldn't get out of bed. All I did was drink wine and cry." (This is off memory- no idea how accurate I am)

I think about that guy all the time. I thought about him first thing when I woke up this morning and over and over again throughout the day. I also thought about the millions of people who woke up in the same boat. I thought about my American friend and her daughter all day.

I can think about that guy from HONY all I want, but the good thing about that guy is he will never die from giving birth after being r*ped.

I tried to avoid social media today but got stuck in a doom scroll and now I feel like I need to face the facts of what happened.

Millions of people went to the polls and voted to take away the rights and freedoms of their loved ones. Millions of people voted for a removal of healthcare, for higher taxes for the working class, for higher tariffs, purely for the benefit of wealthy men.

Canada and every country will be affected- today's not about us, but it will be. If PP gets in we are heading in the same direction.

Canada and the USA are both so focused on freedom- so why are we so obsessed with destroying our freedom? Why are women and children not deserving of rights? Why do we want to follow in the footsteps of the Taliban or Nazi regime?

Unfortunately millions of people did what they THINK is best for the economy. Millions of people need a better education before they cast their vote. The future of said education, will now be changed to fit the agenda of project 2025. The American people are putty in the Republican party's hands.

I am angry on behalf of every American who did the right thing. I am angry on behalf of American children who won't see a proper education, aren't free to explore their identity, all while being forced to wear a clear backpack to school.

Mostly, I am heartbroken. For women across the world. For Afghani women that can't speak in public. For American women that can't access life-saving healthcare. I am heartbroken for every woman who almost, for a second, thought we would have some representation.

We took an EXTREMELY well- qualified candidate, with the proper background, education and work experience needed for the job, and tossed her to the side, for someone convicted of sexual assault, for someone who was impeached, for someone who uses language like "grab her by the p*ssy". For someone with public ties to Epstein and Diddy. For someone who regrets nothing he's done.

I am so. Heartbroken. Thinking about the loss today for women. Thinking about the misguided voters who didn't do their research, or were pressured by the men in their lives. We have failed. We have failed our wives, our daughters, our neighbours. We have proven that no matter how qualified a woman is, it'll always. Be. A man.

WHY DO WE ONLY CARE ABOUT OUR DAUGHTERS WHEN THEY ARE HOT ENOUGH TO DATE?

Canadians- as the next federal election looms closer, I BEG of you to do your research. Do not vote the way your family taught you to, or your partner, or the way you decided you would when you were 14. Policies, parties, leaders and relations are always changing. As we struggle in an ongoing cost of living crisis, take a look into federal vs provincial policies. Learn who does what. Learn what you care about. Think about the people in your life. Think about how hard women have struggled to get THIS far. Think about your child just wanting to be happy in their own body. Think about the ice caps and inflation (reminder: tariffs exist!!). Think about the people that were here first. Think about the rights and freedoms we have fought so hard for.

Remember, without feminism, we wouldn't be able to vote at all.

Please don't send us back in time.

[writingmyheartoutforyou]

The anti-voting people have always fucking annoyed me so much. Being able to say "voting doesn't matter, both parties are the same!" speaks of a privilege that I'd say most Americans do not have. Voting doesn't matter to them, because they feel like their situation will not change no matter who's in charge. I'm from a red state (it's more purple than red but to the general public it's a red state) and the people running my state know that voting is important. How do I know? They wouldn't be trying to stop people from voting if it didn't matter! Every election cycle, my state moves slightly more left, and the republicans in charge freak out and start introducing more ways to stop people from casting their ballots, or throw out votes entirely. If voting didn't matter or change anything, they would not be fighting to stop people from doing it. My family takes voting very seriously, it's been drilled in my head since I can remember that people have fought and died for the right to vote. Every election year we all go vote as a family. I take it very seriously. If you don't vote or if you think voting is useless, do me a favor and just stop talking about politics.

[sception]

There absolutely is a core of racist, sexist, christo-fascists behind Trump. They were enthusiastically behind trump in 2016 and 2024 when he won, but they were still just as enthusiastically behind him in 2020 when he lost. What put Trump back into office was not an overwhelmingly fascist electorate, not support for his policies or a major rightward swerve of the US population in their principles.

Remember that 'did Joe Biden drop out?' was a trending google search on election night. USAmericans as a whole did not vote on policies, they weren't even aware of them. In blind surveys of the policies the campaigns ran on Kamala's were consistently preferred by a wide margin. In surveys that ask the US population to choose between only two options of mass deportation or mass amnesty for undocumented immigrants the latter wins. Not by nearly as much as I would like, but it does. While some state measures that would have defended abortion access failed in this election, others succeeded, and we have seen such measures succeed even in very red states. The population as a whole overwhelmingly supports same sex marriage rights, and a majority say that trans people are unduly discriminated against. Medicare for all is consistently the most popular proposal to how to deal with the failings of the US health care system with every demographic including republicans.

Yes there are way too many fascists in the United States, but not enough to have enacted fascism on their own. The majority of even Trump voters did not intentionally vote for fascism, and they won't like it when they get it. Again, yes, there are fascists who do want what's coming, but the majority of the American people didn't vote for Trump, they voted against, or just refused to vote for, the status quo. And all Democrats offered was a perpetuation of that status quo.

In a year that has seen some of the most vociferous anti-war protests across college campuses since Vietnam, Kamala campaigned with Liz Cheney and boasted about 'the most lethal military in the world' while offering unconditional support for Netanyahu's unpopular and genocidal war.

In a time when the US labor movement has been more active than we've seen in generations, after years of massive wealth inequality and corporate price gouging driving the price of food and housing through the roof, the Harris campaign's major economic policy was tax cuts for small businesses owners.

Instead of pushing back against the bullshit narrative that immigrants are bad for the economy or cause crime or take up public resources - all provable lies - and offering sensible policies like an open system for migratory work visas & a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people already here, the Harris campaign reinforced those lies by saying 'we're going to get even tougher on the boarder' - as though anyone who actually believed that would be a good thing wouldn't be voting for Trump anyway.

After four years of unpopularity and dissatisfaction for Biden and internal Democratic polling showing Biden was going to lose the election in the kind of red sweep that ushered in Ronald Reagan, and after an initial surge of momentum for Kamala specifically because she wasn't Biden, she then did everything she could to say she would be exactly the same as him, that she wouldn't have done anything different in the last four years if she had been in charge.

The majority of the country has seen their standard of living actively decline during Biden's administration. It doesn't matter that the causes weren't specifically his fault, it doesn't matter that the US happened to decline less quickly in those years than other major nations, it doesn't matter that the administration did some things that were actually good, or that they tried to do things that would have made more of a difference but were blocked by republicans in congress and the courts, or that Trump's policy proposals would and now will make everything actively worse. An incumbent government CANNOT win a fair election in those conditions, ESPECIALLY not if they only run on more of the same, ESPECIALLY not if they spend a BILLION DOLLARS trying to court the other side while telling their own base to EAT SHIT.

Trump didn't win because he ran a great campaign. He didn't win because he's an effective speaker or debater or a good candidate or had popular policies. He didn't win because the United States is just a racist, sexist country flat out - there are way too many racists and sexists in the country but not nearly enough to win on their own. He didn't win because of third party voters or young people being just too lazy to vote. He didn't win because too many principled leftists refused to vote for the lesser evil. He didn't win because of jews, or hispanics, or black men, or LGBTQ people, or any other minority demographic the liberal establishment wants to blame - as if carving off and ostracizing even more of their base could somehow get them more votes instead of less. Trump won because the party that was supposed to represent the interests of workers sold out to capital thirty fucking years ago and never looked back even once no matter how bad things got in the time since.

Donald Trump won because neoliberalism failed, and the people know it failed - they can feel it from their bones to their pocketbooks. Donald Trump was the only one offering an alternative. It's an alternative for the worse, and what's coming next will be extremely bleak. But I refuse to blame a frog that jumps out of the pot to escape a sure death in the boiling broth for failing to consider the fire beneath it.

There’s not too much point in talking about the election anymore, but I think some people are misconstruing the results. 21% of the American population voted for trump. He won the popular vote with polls only recording a 43.7% approval rating, and he has never held an approval rating over 50%, something that Biden and (arguably) Harris have. He lost millions of votes from 2020 to 2024, it’s just that Harris lost millions more.

All this is to say that there is not some ‘silent majority’ of trump supporters in America. While some people will definitely be emboldened in their rhetoric and action by the results of the election, Trump was a deeply unpopular president, and is shaping up to be one again. He will enact unpopular policies that are against the will of the average American, but that doesn’t mean every American is out to get you. Engage with your local community, check in on loved ones, and maybe even take a look at local political offices in the coming few years. If you dislike the two party system, volunteer or donate to a third party. It’s altogether likely we see another 2022 situation, resentment grows further against the Republican Party, and the midterms offer a lot of opportunity to alternatives, at every level of government.

It may all feel like the end, but it’s not. We’ve been through it before, and no matter what we do, hate and ignorance will bleed through the cracks in society again in the future. It’s going to get better, but that’s easier to say if we make it better.

[scottguy]

Trump is a master of innuendo. "Have it fixed." = "We will install election officials who will cheat and lie and say Republicans won no matter the actual vote count."

Trump is admitting he WILL end democracy.

Remember, once a country loses democracy to a tyrant, they can't just vote the tyrant out of office. Worse, the tyrant can do ANYTHING they want, shoot at protestors, lock up liberals who complain, put anyone in jail for anything, and start any war they want.

Democracy = freedom.

It will be easy to PREVENT tyranny simply by bothering to vote for Kamala Harris.

But, if just voting is too much trouble, and Republicans win, then it will take nothing less than a full scale civil war or world War in which Republicans have full might of the biggest military in the entire world.

Hundreds of millions will die and major cities will be destroyed and those fighting for our rights back still might lose.

Please consider this if you start thinking your vote doesn't matter. When a few million people EACH think that... it really matters.

Imagine if Democrats and Republicans are in equal amounts on the left side of the cartoon below.

Do you see all the potential power from nonvoters to force politicians to help average Americans there?

If politicians don't pass laws that help us, we can vote them out!

You vote "doesn't matter" ONLY when you don't use it.

If voting didn't matter, the right wouldn't have been working SO hard to make it difficult for people to vote. They literally fear the power of liberal voters because they know that there are MORE of us.

[eveningdawn222]

Hey,

You're nineteen. The same age I was during the first Trump election. I supported Bernie and, still to this day, hate Hillary and what the DNC did at the time.

I hated picking the lesser of two evils. I remember when Obama was elected and I still remember some of the Bush years. I still think it's absurd we're having to choose the lesser of two evils.

When it came down to Clinton and Trump in 2016, I chose not to vote. I couldn't bring myself to.

Since then, I've regretted that choice and learned a lot lot more about political theory. I've kept up with legislation at the local and state level and learned to decipher politician speech.

As someone who clearly remembers 2016 and is starting to see history repeat, please reconsider a refusal to vote for Biden if it comes down to him and Trump.

This is about harm reduction and protecting democracy. I'm pissed about our country supporting Israel as well. But withholding a vote will do nothing when the whole of DC is deadset on supporting Israel. Or when the Republicans have clearly stated with Protect 2025 that they intend to end democracy if elected - Which means you and I will be completely blocked more than we are now from getting a true progressive in.

I can't force you to vote for anybody. But some things I learned in 2016 election?

Primaries matter. Dems were forced to change their positions on some issues after seeing that Bernie nearly got elected.

Politicians don't care if you don't vote. Only if you do. Not voting won't send the signal you think it will. All it will get you is ridicule from Democrats and nothing from Republicans.

Harm reduction is incredibly important. Yes, Trump and Biden may share some issues. But I know Biden will support unions much better, is not looking to actively kill queer people like me, and can be pushed on issues like student loan debt (I didn't think he'd do anything for it - still not great but so much better than Trump would have been).

Presidents don't have all the power, but they have enough to make a difference. Democrats should have done more with the Supreme Court and Ginsberg should have resigned while Obama was in office. However, we wouldn't have the complete shit court we have today if Clinton had won the electoral college and the presidency. Jan 6 probably wouldn't have happened.

At the very least, I ask that you take time to consider what I've said. I'm terrified for my country. We can't break the ratchet until we stop it. (If you don't know what the ratchet effect is, take a sec to look it up.)

Best of luck to you. May what you need always be within reach.

yeah anon i get that. it is really scary and i am still on the fence about voting 3rd party. i want so deeply to not have to vote for fucking biden. i want a better world, a better leader. genocide joe shouldn't fucking be president but neither should fucking trump. please know that i'm not completely set in voting 3rd party, im constantly trying to figure out the best option, to the point that i'm getting literally physically sick from fighting internally with myself. thank you for reaching out, im just so conflicted between thinking "it's the lesser of two evils" and "no change will ever happen if we don't take a risk."

[sureuncertainty]

yeah no but like as a trans person living in florida i really have no patience for the people acting like voting doesn't matter and that "both parties suck" etc because one of them actively wants me dead, so like. yeah no i think one is actually indeed worse than the other.

if voting didn't matter, then republicans wouldn't be trying their best to stop people from voting

i grew up in Oregon and then lived in Washington for several years. Oregon has been a mail-in voting state for as long as I can remember. in Washington, every election season I received a pamphlet detailing each candidate, exactly what they said and stood for, and what they planned to do. Voting was simple, I filled out my ballot at home, which took about 15 minutes, put it in the mail, and was done

then i moved to Florida and realized how fucking difficult voting can be in other states. I tried signing up online but I had to fill it out several times and i STILL somehow didn't receive my ballot in the mail like I was supposed to. so i had to last minute go to a physical polling place in person which I have never had to do before, i had no information about the candidates, and it took me hours of research to try and piece together enough info to figure out who to vote for

it wasn't until i moved here that i realized just how bad voter suppression is in other parts of the country, which really just goes to show how important voting actually is. and if it's this hard for a white person living in Orlando, I can only imagine how hard it is in other places, especially rural places where there aren't polling locations close by

yes the system is rigged. yes it's corrupt. yes it sucks. yes it's hard. but it's also the system we exist in and I know you all want a violent revolution but i'd rather just try and make things better as we can.

[tardistimeladyyeah]

This.

I also think a lot of Rights Theory supporters have some expectation that there is the perfect candidate out there when there will never be.

Supporting the Rights Theory in this US election may result in MORE overall harm to not just Americans, but Palestine and anyone else in the middle east.

Republicans have said time and time again how much they want someone to just end everything over there (blow everything up). Based on that language, they are not interested in a ceasefire.

And sure, you can say that Democrats do the same by allowing funding for Israel to get through. HOWEVER, Democrats want to work on a ceasefire. It's also important to know that if you are upset with how your representative(s) are handling the situation, you can talk to them about it. Call their office. Write a letter. There are ways to change things without telling people not to vote in an extremely consequential election.

Even though it may be tempting, I wouldn't recommend voting for a third party right now because that's how Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Electoral College (for non-Americans, she did win the popular vote, however, the US Constitution mandates an electoral college. The electoral college assigns a number of votes to certain states based on the population of the state obtained by the US Census that takes place every ten years. So, if a presidential candidate wants to win the presidency, they must win 270 electoral college votes. This means that, even if a candidate wins the popular vote, they can still lose the electoral college which is what determines who won the presidency). Voters didn't like Trump or Clinton, so they voted for Jill Stein instead. In swing states that went to Trump like Michigan and Arizona, if Clinton was able to get more people who ended up voting third party, she would have won. So, by voting for the third party candidate, they gave Trump the victory.

Maybe they'll come a day you can vote third party and that candidate will have a chance (most likely through ranked-choice voting, where people rank their choices for their most favorable candidate to their least favorable candidate) and when we won't have to worry about the electoral college holding more weight than the popular vote.

Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to sacrifice the rights and existence of Palestinians (yes, they matter a lot in this election because, as I've said before, one party wants to blow everything up and the other wants a ceasefire) and people with uteruses and LGBTQ+ people and the concept of freedom for all itself because you don't like how anyone has handled one thing. It's a lousy excuse to sacrifice the rights and wellbeing of everyone because one issue wasn't being handled correctly. And yes, that issue involves human rights. However, once again, one side wants to blow everything up and the other wants peace. They want to talk about this and hopefully they'll listen to the concerns of their constituents (do it peacefully by peacefully protesting (vandalism is not considered peaceful protest, so don't engage in that either). They'll listen to you if it's peaceful. If not, they won't) and include those in ceasefire talks.

Also, not voting isn't peaceful protest (because I'm sure people are making that argument). It's willingly dismissive of all of the other issues (in addition to the issue you care about and all of the logistics and international relations and stuff) that America faces. Remember, people with uteruses are suffering under abortion bans in red states. Those bans are considered human rights violations. Trans people are struggling to access healthcare. Immigrants (including Palestinians) are under attack every day in the US. Teachers are struggling to teach because they have to walk on eggshells because they may lose their job if one parent complains about one book or one lesson. Gun violence is still a huge problem. Obviously, don't forget about Palestine, but don't forget about the other issues you say you care about. It's important to call a genocide a genocide (especially when it clearly is a genocide) and it's important to vote people in who will work towards a solution because everyone deserves a safe home on this planet. But, we can't do anything when our own rights are stripped away and when there is no longer anything to save over there.

There is no one candidate that will ever meet all of your policy wishes. That's just how it is. Vote Harris/Walz to get somewhere besides bombs.

Okay fine. I teach an ethics course and I just keep seeing all of this discourse on whether or not to vote in the upcoming US presidential election and I just wanted to lay a few things out here.

People who are saying they will abstain from voting because they see voting for anyone as supporting/endorsing genocide are operating from a Rights Theory perspective.

Basically, Rights Theory posits that you should never take any action that could violate someone else’s rights. EVER. The balance of benefits and harms does not matter. There is NOTHING that can justify taking away the right to, for example, life.

And I think that’s where these anti-voting folks are predominantly coming from. They see voting as endorsing/enabling genocide, full stop, and therefore it is morally indefensible EVEN IF IT WILL RESULT IN LESS OVERALL HARM.

People who are arguing that you SHOULD vote, and vote for Biden specifically, are operating from a Utilitarian Theory perspective.

Utilitarianism is all about balancing benefits and harms, and essentially prioritizing overall harm reduction. They recognize the harm the system is creating, but are willing to participate in the system because through doing so they can ensure that various harms are minimized--certainly not eliminated, but reduced, and, importantly, made easier to eliminate eventually.

Through utilitarianism, we can actually make people's fundamental rights EASIER to defend! But a lot of people are so caught up in the idea of moral purity, and Rights Theory, that they're willing to let their inaction erode people's rights because at least they aren't actively participating in the system. (they are still passively participating, however, and we can argue about inaction being a form of action, but I digress)

Point being, VOTE. Because of Utilitarianism, but also because, if you believe in the inalienability of people's fundamental rights? Voting will make it much easier to protect those in the long term, and that's frankly more important than you getting to feel exempt from an exploitative system you are nonetheless inherently a part of and complicit in.

[valkyrieera]

I have always been honest with you. I have only tried to encourage others with every word I speak. Some call me a poet, where word is my sword but word is not the weapon of my choice.

My sword is you. My word is but spoken into the dark in hopes it illuminates the path you were chosen to follow. You are the power that can change the world not for us, but for our children and theirs.

My sword, I ask that you listen. Words are what sharpen your blade, but knowledge is what powers the swing. It is time I share with you what I have seen. It is time you sharpen your blade.

Politics are the power of manipulation. For decades I have seen the powers of each party and watched how they decided to use them. I have seen a party reduce minorities to ash, making them believe they have been wronged and plant a hatred in them. I saw the same party reap the hatred they grew when they announced their presidential candidate, and marketed him as the savior of minorities.

Remember, they made you hate. They made you believe that you were less than you are by controlling your money. They allowed people to treat you poorly for so long because they needed to. They needed you to believe that the color of your skin mattered and made you less of who you are. If you had believed you were just American, you wouldn't of voted the way they wanted you to.

Now, they are not the only ones to blame. I know many of you believe that each party has their own agenda but that is not true. Politics are how each party benefits from the other. It's teamwork. It's how they stay in power that matters. While one party makes you believe you are lesser, the other makes people believe they are better. If you are too busy fighting each other and believing they will change it, they keep that power.

Think for a moment, my sword. I know that is not your purpose, but it should be your desire. Remember a time before when skin color wasn't a political topic? Do you remember growing up and not thinking twice about those around you of a different color? Now remember when that started to change. The political topic of race ignited when a person of color took the throne.

The Democratic Family wanted you to believe they were giving you a savior, a face in the crowd. They treated your cities like garbage so that you could see their king as your future, and suddenly the world was different.

However, the Republican Family didn't speak about that. They knew better than to show you the truth, so they in turn lied to you. They fashioned themselves the True American, intentionally spreading the idea that whites were better by advertising a true America without color.

To them, this was how it needed to be. They knew that the rival family grew hatred in the people of color so they tended the fields of white people. Suddenly, that is all politics became.

They want you to vote. But imagine if you didn't. Imagine if the very thing that gave them power was taken away from them. Imagine withholding your voice and only staring at them as they tried to get you to speak. You stand there, in silence, as they wonder if you are swayed by their words.

They will stumble. They will falter. They will show you their true colors are simply shared. They NEED our votes, but we do not need them.

Democracy is just a temporary Monarchy, and the Senate their court. Our representatives are their spies, letting them know how we would vote if they decided to encourage certain things. Do not vote for their spies.

Do not vote. Let it die. Tear down what they have built and when it is reduced to rubble we shall build the country in its true image.

Do not vote. Do not speak. Let them stumble through the awkward silence.

I ask for those who wish for real change to stay silent. Gather at their rallies, no matter the party. Gather and never speak. Stand there, do not rejoice. Do not clap, do not smile or frown. Simply be The Silence of 2024. Let this year change who truly is in power.

[xtruss]

Interview with Mary Trump

"Donald Is a Fascist and the Republicans Are Trying To Destroy Our Democracy"

In an interview, Mary Trump, the only niece of the former American president, talks about an uncle she describes as dangerous, his enduring power and the growing hate in America.

— Interview Conducted By Marc Pitzke | 08.25.2021

— SPIEGEL International

Mary Trump: "He's literally the weakest person I've ever known." Foto: Sara Naomi Lewkowicz / DER SPIEGEL; Michael Reynolds / Zuma Press / action press

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's only niece, has just finished a talk show appearance by video chat from her kitchen. She's sitting in the library of her apartment building, trying to relax. The ceiling-high shelves behind her are filled with carefully curated coffee table books. Through the wall of windows, one can see Manhattan's thick traffic below.

Trump, however, seems irritated. "This was the first time I've been treated badly in an interview," she says.

She had just appeared on "The View," a popular morning chat show, where they discussed politics, the pandemic and racism. Yet one co-host checked out of the conversation without even greeting her: Meghan McCain, daughter of the late senator John McCain, who had been reviled and insulted by Donald Trump even as he went to his grave.

The younger McCain is famous – infamous – for her own conservative tirades. After the show with Mary Trump, she tweeted: "There is no 'good' Trump family member to me."

And there it is, Mary Trump's burden: her last name.

She will be forever linked to her uncle, his lies, is hubris, his incompetence, his autocratic tendencies – and the damaging fallout from his one term as president.

Last year, the psychologist published her memoirs: "Too Much and Never Enough." The book revealed the horrific family history of the Trumps – and made her a target of Trump fanatics, who still worship the former president. For months, she hardly left the house – because of COVID-19, but also out of fear of being recognized and vilified.

Now Trump, 56, has written a second book, "The Reckoning: America's Trauma and Finding a Way To Heal." It addresses the darkest period of U.S. history, with the nation's enduring racism, and, of course, her uncle.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Trump, last summer you called your uncle the world's most dangerous man. Now that he's out of office, do you still feel that way?

Trump: After the election, I was happy for about a minute. I was very relieved, of course, but the number of people who voted for him was just heartbreaking. Seventy-four million! Yes, Joe Biden won. But the Democrats in general didn't win enough. We needed a total repudiation of Donald and his party, and we didn't get one.

DER SPIEGEL: So, you think he still presents a danger?

Trump: We're not out of the woods. It became clear right after the election that he was going to do everything in his power to undermine the legitimacy of the results and that the Republicans were just going to let him do it. For him, losing is not acceptable and winning doesn't mean legitimately winning, it just means getting the win. He knows he didn't win, but I don't believe he knows he lost, either.

DER SPIEGEL: How so?

Trump: He's been trying for two years to steal this election. I don't believe he can wrap his head around the fact that everything he did, all the stops he pulled out, all the stops the Republican Party pulled out for him, haven't worked. So, he's still trying to steal this election.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you see Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol Building, as such an attempt?

Trump: He is very good at finding people weaker than he is, which is shocking because he's literally the weakest person I've ever known. But they're out there obviously, in large numbers. Then, there are people who are much smarter and powerful than he is, who know how to use him. So, it's a very dangerous combination. Were there people around him who knew that it could very possibly lead to that moment? Absolutely. Was he completely willing and comfortable to take advantage of the situation and make it worse for his benefit? Absolutely.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you think he welcomed what he saw on Jan. 6?

Trump: Oh, my gosh, yeah. It was probably one of the best days of his life. The worse it got, the happier he was. It wasn't an accident when he told the mob that if he wasn't granted the victory, it was Mike Pence's fault. So, should we be surprised that people were running around with nooses wanting to string Mike Pence up? It would have been perfectly fine with him. Absolutely. The only thing he probably regrets about that is that there wasn't more violence.

DER SPIEGEL: What went through your mind that day?

Trump: I hadn't listened to his speech beforehand, because I've tried whenever possible not to listen to him or look at him, because I don't care what he has to say. At first, like everybody else, I found it really hard to know what precisely was going on. It just looked like a mess. The first word that came to mind was tawdry. But then it became obvious to me that it was much worse than that. This is our Capitol! This is the center of – well, I don't like to say American democracy, because I don't think America has ever completely been a democracy like we aspire to be.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you think he will run again in 2024?

Trump: I don't know. But because he's being enabled, he sees an opening. He feels the power. He also knows that the only way he stays out of legal trouble is to get back into power.

DER SPIEGEL: Does it weigh on you to be so personally connected to his world? In your new book you reveal that in 2017, a few months after your uncle's inauguration, you went into inpatient treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. What happened?

Trump: I just remember feeling so out of control. I remember spinning out and didn't know how to stop. I lived in a very Republican town then, so I was really isolated. For the first time in my life, I lost friends because of an election, and I knew I needed to do something. But despite the fact that I'm a psychologist, I didn't know there were treatment programs for that. I knew there were for addictions, but I didn't know there was such a thing for post-traumatic stress.

DER SPIEGEL: Your uncle traumatized half the nation.

Trump: Every once in a while, I think about how this country will be forever stained by what he did. That's really hard. We never recover from that. Maybe in 200 years, but not while I'm alive.

DER SPIEGEL: Don't you think his spell is broken? Joe Biden's policies are pretty popular, and Trump's "Big Lie" hasn't amounted to anything.

Trump: The Democrats don't understand the seriousness of the threat. They are playing by rules in a rulebook that the Republicans lit on fire. There are no rules anymore. They need to start fighting like their lives depend on it. But they're just not willing to do that. There is an unwillingness – also in the U.S. media – to use the kind of language that is accurate and necessary to get people to understand the seriousness of the threat.

DER SPIEGEL: How serious is it?

Trump: Donald is a fascist, and the Republicans are an autocratic, anti-democratic, counter-majoritarian party that would be perfectly happy to establish some kind of apartheid in this country. They are actively trying to destroy our democracy. If they win back the House in 2022, it would be fatal to the American experiment. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Donald, two years before the presidential election, speaker of the house. And then there will never be another Democrat allowed to win an election.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you really believe that?

"The Democrats don't understand the seriousness of the threat. They are playing by rules in a rulebook that the Republicans lit on fire. There are no rules anymore."

Trump: We see it happening already. Last year, there were 155 million presidential votes cast in this country. There have been maybe 36 cases of voter fraud, which is a vanishingly small number. And yet, we've got hundreds of voter suppression laws in place or being pushed by the Republicans. If the Democrats lose the House and/or the Senate in the 2022 midterms, it's over. It is over.

DER SPIEGEL: You don't think the U.S. democracy is resilient?

Trump: The way this country is structured is inherently anti-democratic.

DER SPIEGEL: What do you mean?

Trump: The U.S. Constitution is not a democratic document. For example, we currently have a 50-50 split in the Senate, but the 50 Republican senators represent 40 million less people than the 50 Democratic senators – because the constitution gives every state two senate seats, no matter how populous.

Trump supporters in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6: "It was probably one of the best days of his life. The worse it got, the happier he was." Foto: Shay Horse / NurPhoto / Getty Images

DER SPIEGEL: In your new book, you write: "The ugly history of our country is filled with sordid, barbaric and inhuman acts committed by average citizens which were encouraged or at least condoned by the highest levels of government. To deny this history means to deny our national trauma." That's a devastating judgement – how did you come to that conclusion?

Trump: If there's one thing Americans are very good at, it's perpetuating myths about ourselves.

DER SPIEGEL: For instance?

Trump: One of the most astonishing things this country got away with was portraying itself as a beacon of democracy during World War II, while at the same time an entire population of people was being held in what was essentially a closed, fascist state in the South. Black Americans who served their country came home only to be lynched because they had the audacity to wear the uniform. Part of that is also that people think that the North were the good guys. But a large percentage of Northerners were really racist, too, and perfectly happy to have Blacks freed, but did not want them to have any political power, so they decided that it was more expedient to make common cause with the former Confederates than with the freed men and women.

DER SPIEGEL: Isn't the way of looking at U.S. history changing rapidly?

Trump: The right is doing everything to make sure that Americans continue to stay ignorant about their own history. Imagine if post-World War II Germany hadn't taken the steps that it has taken.

DER SPIEGEL: Not all Germans back then were too excited about that, either.

Trump: That's a good point. It requires the political will. We let people off the hook for flying the Confederate flag because they claim it's just about their Southern history. But they know what it means. It means that they are completely on board with white people owning black people.

DER SPIEGEL: Is the U.S. still a racist country?

Trump: If you're a white adult American, it's almost impossible not to be racist because of the media environment we grow up in, our families or our friends' families, the influences of our education. But when you become an adult, you need to take responsibility for that stuff. If we don't acknowledge it, then it's never going to change. But it's very hard to acknowledge that.

DER SPIEGEL: How much do you blame your uncle for that?

Trump: I blame him for the fact that it's becoming more and more acceptable to be openly racist. What Donald did was prove that racism is a successful platform when you run for office in this country. People like him are out there very openly being racist and white supremacist, and they're getting tens of millions of people to vote for them because either they agree with them or they don't have a problem with it because lower taxes are more important. We're in a really dangerous place.

"The Republicans are an autocratic, anti-democratic, counter-majoritarian party that would be perfectly happy to establish some kind of apartheid in this country."

DER SPIEGEL: Do you also blame him for the disastrous COVID-19 situation here last year?

Trump: That's been one of the worst things for me to deal with. Knowing that your uncle is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is not a good feeling. That many died in exactly the same circumstances my father did, alone, because my uncle, who could have gone to the hospital to be with my dad, rather went to the movies. So, that's been really, really hard. Because of his incompetence and his cruelty we're still struggling with this. Because of his encouragement of the unvaccinated and his failure to model decent behavior, which he is incapable of doing. It's just a kick in the teeth.

DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't he one of the first to get vaccinated?

Trump: Secretly! Everybody in the family got vaccinated. They're all vaccinated. Imagine how people are going to react when they find out that they've all been betrayed and the people they put their faith in lied to them for political expediency.

DER SPIEGEL: Psychologically, how do you get people to admit they've lived a lie for so long?

Trump: It's hard. I don't hold out hope for most of these people. I really don't.

DER SPIEGEL: That sounds rather pessimistic.

Trump: I am bizarrely a quite optimistic person. Maybe that took a hit over the last couple of years. But I am pretty much an optimist. I haven't given up hope.

DER SPIEGEL: Yet the next Trump generation seems ready. Do you expect your cousin, Donald Jr., or your cousin Ivanka, to run for political office?

Trump: No.

DER SPIEGEL: Why not?

Trump: My uncle is such a buffoon, but he does have charisma. If you met him, for the first 10 seconds you would see it. After that, you would realize that he's a total psychopath, but a lot of people are very susceptible to his kind of charisma. Donald Jr. and Ivanka don't have any of that. They don't survive politically without him. They don't survive in business without him. No, I don't see that. Hopefully, they'll all end up in jail.

DER SPIEGEL: What's next for you?

Trump: My next book will not be about my uncle. I'm taking a break. Never write a book about trauma while you're still being actively traumatized.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Trump, we thank you for this interview.

— Mary Trump's latest book, "The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way To Heal," was published in August by St. Martin's Press. The book has also been published in German translation by Heyne Verlag.

— Mary Trump, 56, holds a doctorate in psychology and has known the former president since childhood. Her father Fred Trump, Jr., Donald Trump's older brother, died in 1981. Her first book, "Too Much and Never Enough," about her uncle became a bestseller in the United States in 2020.

[ghiraheeheeheem]

I'm not sure the "entire" population got amnesia about Trump, considering he didn't even get the vote of the majority of the voting population. The voters for him might indeed have amnesia though; it wouldn't be the first thing they didn't pay attention to in the 80s.

Oh I wasn’t trying to imply that everyone in America loves him. What I mean is when he first started in the running, back where there were.... Jesus I don’t even remember but a LOT of Republicans still in the running... At that time I really don’t think many people, even the ones who ended up voting for him, took him seriously. 

Because at first damn near everyone was laughing at the idea of this... icon really. An icon of assholishness.

I mean look at this 1994 clip.

What I mean is EVERYONE knew he was a money-guzzling dickwad. Republicans. Democrats. Whoever. He was a laughably greedy dirtbag.

But in a matter of months I watched as people all around me stopped laughing at the idea of him being president (my family is mostly Republicans mind you) and started considering him as a candidate. 

I know my commentary was salty and I think I came off as aggressive but in my mind it was more a criticism of how quickly and easily the news changes public opinion. I think we see this a lot in... for example... pervading covert racism. The media is skewed to cast white lawbreakers in a more positive light than black lawbreakers of equivalent crimes. At this point I sometimes wonder if they don’t even realize they are doing it anymore. 

But the point is, that coverage spin has a LOT of influence over public opinion. We saw a pretty rapid shift of public opinion of Donald Trump from being comically bad to being a serious candidate. I firmly believe this is the result of how the media chose to cover him. And I don’t even mean toward the end of his campaign where he was getting more coverage time than Hillary on account of how profitable it was to watch him be controversial. I mean early on, back when Ted Cruz and Ben Carson and Jeb Bush were still well in the running.

I’m not exempting myself even, a staunch liberal. Even I started seeing him in a very different light as the campaigns went on. I (obviously) didn’t start liking him, but there was a definite shift in opinion on how I perceived him. I would argue for everyone.