Dude, I’ve been voting since Obama 1. Every election is a crisis, every election is “just trust me bro, this one is too important, you can pick your principles out of the dirt next election, please, bro, I mean it”. I’ve become convinced that this is a situation where tomorrow never comes. The republicans leapfrog is into fascism, and then the democrats keep us right where the Republicans left us, saying ‘oh, man, if only we had four more years, or a few more legislators. Oh well, here’s a new bipartisan domestic surveillance bill.’
I’ve never voted for a Republican and I don’t intend to start, but I’m sick of being clowned on with this fucking line. I know I’m being played, and you can’t make me like it.
Every presidential election is important, and it never makes sense to make a “protest vote”. That’s just not how voting works.
I’m sure somebody has cried wolf at every election, but McCain and Romney never aimed to become dictators. Republicans currently have a published plan to institute fascism. It’s pretty obvious that these elections actually are exceptional.
Every Presidential election is too late. The elections to sway things start at the party and local level and continue on up. Most people aren’t involved in those and so they’re left with the choices at the end that were long since selected by others.
I don’t know what crowds you’ve been running in, but Obama and McCain had pretty similar platforms. Like, that was the big criticism of that election until McCain picked Palin as his running mate and crazy entered the limelight.
The Obama vs Romney election was rather uneventful.
Hillary vs Trump was a clown show, but not many were doomsaying. I think most just expected Trump to stuff his pockets and hoped not much would change. But he went rabid and we have been in crisis mode ever since.
Obama and McCain felt very different in the moment. Obama was promising healthcare reform with a national public insurance option, McCain wanted to let health insurance companies sell Arizona policies in California and voce-versa. McCain casually joked about bombing Iran, while we were already balls deep in two wars; Obama was planning on ending the Iraq war (though Tbf, I can’t recall if that was an Obama I or Obama II promise). Obama Romney was, OTOH, much more of an election of their character than their policies- as far as I recall, there was very, very little difference on the policy front, which is why that election was down to shit like Romney having binders full of women. To be fair, I eagerly voted for Obama in both of those, and it’s only in hindsight (and towards the end of Obama II) that I realized that Obama was really, really super moderate. But still, both of those elections definitely had the “oh fuck, oh God, the republicans want to start World War Three as a gift to Lockheed Martin, this is too important!” mood, IIRC. That got turned up to 11 in HRC/DJT, and I’m frankly a little surprised that you don’t remember this kind of rhetoric from that election, as it was even part of the DNC strategy of highlighting Donald Trump. The whole point of focusing on Trump was “look at this fucking guy, he’s unelectable, he’ll burn the whole country down, so you’d better hold your nose and vote for Hillary OR ELSE”. FWIW, I did hold my nose and vote for Hillary because it was “too important”.
I’ve been voting for quite a bit longer than you have and I’m sick of it, too. I personally feel Obama was an absolutely horrible president. Biden isn’t doing all of the good shit, but he’s probably done the most good shit I’ve seen since Clinton. Of course, things are so messed up, that one almost has to try or they just accidentally do good shit at this point.
I would love to see ranked choice voting implemented so that we could finally have a chance to maybe vote for someone we want instead of against the fascist.
Because you have to be smart enough to pick and time your fights. Biden has done some of the best work we’ve seen in a long time.
I think you know this, though.
Dude, I’ve been voting since Obama 1. Every election is a crisis, every election is “just trust me bro, this one is too important, you can pick your principles out of the dirt next election, please, bro, I mean it”. I’ve become convinced that this is a situation where tomorrow never comes. The republicans leapfrog is into fascism, and then the democrats keep us right where the Republicans left us, saying ‘oh, man, if only we had four more years, or a few more legislators. Oh well, here’s a new bipartisan domestic surveillance bill.’
I’ve never voted for a Republican and I don’t intend to start, but I’m sick of being clowned on with this fucking line. I know I’m being played, and you can’t make me like it.
Every presidential election is important, and it never makes sense to make a “protest vote”. That’s just not how voting works.
I’m sure somebody has cried wolf at every election, but McCain and Romney never aimed to become dictators. Republicans currently have a published plan to institute fascism. It’s pretty obvious that these elections actually are exceptional.
Every Presidential election is too late. The elections to sway things start at the party and local level and continue on up. Most people aren’t involved in those and so they’re left with the choices at the end that were long since selected by others.
I don’t know what crowds you’ve been running in, but Obama and McCain had pretty similar platforms. Like, that was the big criticism of that election until McCain picked Palin as his running mate and crazy entered the limelight.
The Obama vs Romney election was rather uneventful.
Hillary vs Trump was a clown show, but not many were doomsaying. I think most just expected Trump to stuff his pockets and hoped not much would change. But he went rabid and we have been in crisis mode ever since.
Obama and McCain felt very different in the moment. Obama was promising healthcare reform with a national public insurance option, McCain wanted to let health insurance companies sell Arizona policies in California and voce-versa. McCain casually joked about bombing Iran, while we were already balls deep in two wars; Obama was planning on ending the Iraq war (though Tbf, I can’t recall if that was an Obama I or Obama II promise). Obama Romney was, OTOH, much more of an election of their character than their policies- as far as I recall, there was very, very little difference on the policy front, which is why that election was down to shit like Romney having binders full of women. To be fair, I eagerly voted for Obama in both of those, and it’s only in hindsight (and towards the end of Obama II) that I realized that Obama was really, really super moderate. But still, both of those elections definitely had the “oh fuck, oh God, the republicans want to start World War Three as a gift to Lockheed Martin, this is too important!” mood, IIRC. That got turned up to 11 in HRC/DJT, and I’m frankly a little surprised that you don’t remember this kind of rhetoric from that election, as it was even part of the DNC strategy of highlighting Donald Trump. The whole point of focusing on Trump was “look at this fucking guy, he’s unelectable, he’ll burn the whole country down, so you’d better hold your nose and vote for Hillary OR ELSE”. FWIW, I did hold my nose and vote for Hillary because it was “too important”.
I’ve been voting for quite a bit longer than you have and I’m sick of it, too. I personally feel Obama was an absolutely horrible president. Biden isn’t doing all of the good shit, but he’s probably done the most good shit I’ve seen since Clinton. Of course, things are so messed up, that one almost has to try or they just accidentally do good shit at this point.
I would love to see ranked choice voting implemented so that we could finally have a chance to maybe vote for someone we want instead of against the fascist.