“Complicit” is an interesting word choice here—as if a non-voter is somehow responsible for wrongdoing? What “wrong” was done here? Trump won because he was democratically elected by every measure we have, both popular vote and electoral college. If your candidate lost it’s because they didn’t earn the votes, have the message, or created the reason for that non-voter to vote for them. The candidate and campaign are more responsible for their loss than the non-voter. You are shifting blame to where it doesn’t belong.
Thats a poor reading of the effort the Republicans have put into ensuring they win.
Firstly, its not because of reasons that people win in America, not anymore. People didnt know that the ACA was Obamacare, or that Biden dropped out.
Fox and the GOP created an orwellian political power that has parasitized democratic processess.
Classic example would be climate change, in the 90s, when FOX was created.
Fox platformed cranks, and made them look legitimate. Republican lawmakers pointed to Fox news reports, and stalled if not killed climate change legislation.
The governing principle at that time, was to not provide credibility to cranks. However, shocked by the effectiveness of Fox, scientists decided to talk directly to viewers on Fox.
This resulted in them being fed to the media lions, because the goal of Fox was to discredit them, along with the ivory tower education systems.
Through this process, FOX and the GOP own the overton window for climate discussions. THEY decide what positions Dems must take.
Repeat this proces year after year, and eventually there is no place you can hold a position to win at a national level.
For state level elections this is different, apparently local knowledge overcomes this distorition field.
However, thats not the only trick.
Republicans are beholden to never grant Democrats any credibility. See Romneycare and Obamacare. It shocked me even then, that Repubs actually credited Obama for getting Osama.
This election, people remember Harris as being the Trans supporter. The Campaign itself never focused on this topic.
The Repubs sets the stage on which everyone dances.
Yes - the other candidate should earn peoples votes. They should create the right message.
Yes - as a voter, you should know when its not a fair fight.
Simply so that you can apply the right handicap when viewing candiates.
No offense but my comment was a response to the suggestion that someone who didn’t vote somehow committed wrongdoing. Not sure how a diatribe against the “evils” of the GOP voter persuasion machine speaks much to that. It’s obvious to me both parties denigrate the other candidate through media and publicity.
My decision to not vote for Harris boiled down to my opinion that she failed in her one duty as VP, which was to effectively step in and govern in the event that Biden was unable to function as president. That much was painfully obvious during his debate, which exposed her dereliction of duty.
We're getting wrapped up over the word "complicit." Fine, let's be neutral: "An eligible voter who doesn't vote, through inaction supports whoever ends up winning." The act of not voting can mean nothing but "I'm OK with whoever."
> The act of not voting can mean nothing but "I'm OK with whoever."
Or it can mean “I am not ok with either”. That is the reason I didn’t vote for Trump or Harris. Why should I participate when neither viable political party actually respects my vote enough to run a candidate that is worthy of a vote?
I don’t need to vote for the lesser of two evils or to feel like I voted for a winner.
> I don’t need to vote for the lesser of two evils
One of them is promising that you won't be able to vote again. And are you doing anything to fight foor the changes needed to dismantle the two party system?
I often vote for and support 3rd party candidates and their parties. Do you? Or are you content to just let your party just run shitty candidates every election cycle?
Also, I am not a Trump voter and have never been, but can y’all please stop taking snippets and quotes of his out of context? It’s so fucking tiring and intellectually dishonest and is one of the reasons he won this election. If you don’t know that your “won’t have to vote again” quote is out of context it would be intellectually honest of you to go watch the whole speech and understand the context and audience in which that was said. That way people like me who don’t like the man but happen to think truth is valuable and important in discourse don’t have to defend him.
I'm not an American and am glad to enjoy a system that offers me a real sense of choice. From the outside a third party vote looks like a wasted vote and in the case of the last election essentially a vote for Trump. There's a lot you can do to push for electoral reforms between election cycles.
There are at least several non-US jurisdictions in which voting is compulsory so the /idea/ that not voting is equivalent to some kind of problem at least is quite plausible.
In case anyone was curious, I computed some popular margins of victory defined as (%popular vote of winner) - (%popular vote of highest other candidate).
I got the following small margins of victory smaller than the 1.5% in 2024, five of which are positive and five of which are negative.
-7.8% in 1824, 1.4% in 1844, -3% in 1876, 0% in 1880, 0.6% in 1884, -0.8% in 1888, 0.1% in 1960, 0.7% in 1968, -0.5% in 2000, -2.1% in 2016.
Unfortunately, it's winner take all, and I don't think he's ever cared about the consent of the people he's taking advantage of.
An eligible voter who doesn't vote is effectively a vote for the winner, so a majority was at least complicit.
“Complicit” is an interesting word choice here—as if a non-voter is somehow responsible for wrongdoing? What “wrong” was done here? Trump won because he was democratically elected by every measure we have, both popular vote and electoral college. If your candidate lost it’s because they didn’t earn the votes, have the message, or created the reason for that non-voter to vote for them. The candidate and campaign are more responsible for their loss than the non-voter. You are shifting blame to where it doesn’t belong.
Thats a poor reading of the effort the Republicans have put into ensuring they win.
Firstly, its not because of reasons that people win in America, not anymore. People didnt know that the ACA was Obamacare, or that Biden dropped out.
Fox and the GOP created an orwellian political power that has parasitized democratic processess.
Classic example would be climate change, in the 90s, when FOX was created.
Fox platformed cranks, and made them look legitimate. Republican lawmakers pointed to Fox news reports, and stalled if not killed climate change legislation.
The governing principle at that time, was to not provide credibility to cranks. However, shocked by the effectiveness of Fox, scientists decided to talk directly to viewers on Fox.
This resulted in them being fed to the media lions, because the goal of Fox was to discredit them, along with the ivory tower education systems.
Through this process, FOX and the GOP own the overton window for climate discussions. THEY decide what positions Dems must take.
Repeat this proces year after year, and eventually there is no place you can hold a position to win at a national level.
For state level elections this is different, apparently local knowledge overcomes this distorition field.
However, thats not the only trick.
Republicans are beholden to never grant Democrats any credibility. See Romneycare and Obamacare. It shocked me even then, that Repubs actually credited Obama for getting Osama.
This election, people remember Harris as being the Trans supporter. The Campaign itself never focused on this topic.
The Repubs sets the stage on which everyone dances.
Yes - the other candidate should earn peoples votes. They should create the right message.
Yes - as a voter, you should know when its not a fair fight.
Simply so that you can apply the right handicap when viewing candiates.
No offense but my comment was a response to the suggestion that someone who didn’t vote somehow committed wrongdoing. Not sure how a diatribe against the “evils” of the GOP voter persuasion machine speaks much to that. It’s obvious to me both parties denigrate the other candidate through media and publicity.
My decision to not vote for Harris boiled down to my opinion that she failed in her one duty as VP, which was to effectively step in and govern in the event that Biden was unable to function as president. That much was painfully obvious during his debate, which exposed her dereliction of duty.
We're getting wrapped up over the word "complicit." Fine, let's be neutral: "An eligible voter who doesn't vote, through inaction supports whoever ends up winning." The act of not voting can mean nothing but "I'm OK with whoever."
> The act of not voting can mean nothing but "I'm OK with whoever."
Or it can mean “I am not ok with either”. That is the reason I didn’t vote for Trump or Harris. Why should I participate when neither viable political party actually respects my vote enough to run a candidate that is worthy of a vote?
I don’t need to vote for the lesser of two evils or to feel like I voted for a winner.
> I don’t need to vote for the lesser of two evils
One of them is promising that you won't be able to vote again. And are you doing anything to fight foor the changes needed to dismantle the two party system?
I often vote for and support 3rd party candidates and their parties. Do you? Or are you content to just let your party just run shitty candidates every election cycle?
Also, I am not a Trump voter and have never been, but can y’all please stop taking snippets and quotes of his out of context? It’s so fucking tiring and intellectually dishonest and is one of the reasons he won this election. If you don’t know that your “won’t have to vote again” quote is out of context it would be intellectually honest of you to go watch the whole speech and understand the context and audience in which that was said. That way people like me who don’t like the man but happen to think truth is valuable and important in discourse don’t have to defend him.
I'm not an American and am glad to enjoy a system that offers me a real sense of choice. From the outside a third party vote looks like a wasted vote and in the case of the last election essentially a vote for Trump. There's a lot you can do to push for electoral reforms between election cycles.
If an incident of mobbing occurs in a Norwegian school the bystanders are held to account as well as the actual perpetrators.
This is not even remotely equivalent. Making not intervening when a crime takes place means there is a crime taking place.
In the US elections are not a crime and “not voting” is not a crime.
There are at least several non-US jurisdictions in which voting is compulsory so the /idea/ that not voting is equivalent to some kind of problem at least is quite plausible.
Just because you keep repeating this doesn't make it true.
Fourth smallest margin in POTUS election history.
In case anyone was curious, I computed some popular margins of victory defined as (%popular vote of winner) - (%popular vote of highest other candidate).
I got the following small margins of victory smaller than the 1.5% in 2024, five of which are positive and five of which are negative.
-7.8% in 1824, 1.4% in 1844, -3% in 1876, 0% in 1880, 0.6% in 1884, -0.8% in 1888, 0.1% in 1960, 0.7% in 1968, -0.5% in 2000, -2.1% in 2016.
Presidents aren't elected through popular votes. He won 312 to 226.
A difference of a few thousand people in a few specific states.