I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: progressive Christians are probably our best bet of significant progress. There are plenty of problems with the dogma and institutions of most modern Christian sects, but Jesus himself was obviously extremely progressive. And Christians as a whole (2/3 of Americans) tend to let Christian messaging heavily influence their vote.

A wave of Talaricos could seriously jeopardize the Republican party. This should be highly encouraged.

When did Harris bomb Iran?

Harris would not have done the same, so yes voting would have prevented it. Not voting did not prevent the genocide in Gaza. So you accomplished nothing, and things got worse.

Ad-hominem all you want, your opinion has no value whatsoever. Grow up and think about something besides virtue signaling for once.

Braindead bad faith take. Who’s gloating? It’s tragic. This could have been prevented.

I don’t support either of those things, but they’re happening either way. Hence why I voted for the one poised to do less. Unfortunately, not enough people did the same thing, and now we’re bombing Iran. I guess you won. Congrats?

Who is the DNC mass murdering right now? The government is controlled by Republicans right now. The Democrats losing the election did not end the genocide in Gaza, in many ways it’s gotten even worse. And now Republicans are doing additional terrible things that the Democrats would not have done.

You care more about posturing and virtue signaling your purity than you care about other countries. Everything is worse now but at least you didn’t compromise.

What was bipartisan about it? It’s actually a perfect example of my point.

Prefacing a statement deserving of valid criticism with an assertion that critics are bad does not make the criticism invalid.

And genocide marches on, entirely unaffected by your lack of support. Good thing there weren’t any other policies “blue maga” differed on, right?

The real life adventure was navigating schedule conflicts all along

I disagree. I don’t think it really sucks any energy out of anything else at all, it’s one or two hours every couple years. And I don’t think the handful of people who would otherwise not vote would shift the perception of normal people.

Not do I think strategic voting morally ties you to anything. It’s a harm reduction action. You didn’t have to get distracted by the circus, and nothing stops you from taking actions outside voting.

Sure, every grain of rice helps. If polling indicates that they are the only two parties with a chance of winning, voting for anyone else serves no purpose.

Obviously this would highlight the need to take actions outside voting, but what’s the point of wasting a vote doing nothing, even if all you get is a single grain of rice?

Can we stop with this? This is a ridiculous fantasy that just makes you look immature.

It’s too boring for American audiences. Now, woodchippers on the other hand…

They actually expend substantial effort and sums of money to find this out

And yet here we are, so clearly they’re either drawing the wrong conclusions or they just don’t care. Either way, it’s not an effective strategy.

voting for them anyway if they do something absolutely abhorrent and beyond any kind of humanity tells them they can get away with anything and is just a race to the bottom.

Elections don’t care about nominal votes, they only care about margins. Candidates don’t get any extra powers if they win by 1 vote or 1 million. The race is taking place with or without you. You can help the ones moving slower, or resign yourself and your neighbors to the ones moving faster. But protest voting doesn’t stop the race.

Write your representatives, protest, build dual power, organize your community, engage in direct action, run for local office; these are all productive strategies. Vote for ideal candidates in primaries. But in the actual election, vote strategically against the most abhorrent and least humane candidate, or you’re liable to get them.

If you want anything to change, you need to take effective actions. The consequence politicians face by taking ineffective actions is maybe not winning their race. The consequence our neighbors face by taking ineffective actions is the erosion of their civil rights.

If you actually want to pressure politicians, you do it by contacting them directly to inform them of their failings, they’re not just going to magically know why you didn’t vote or vote third party.

Protest voting doesn’t apply the pressure you think it does.

Then get out there and organize. It takes you.

And yet we are the ones to suffer the consequences. Who cares who’s “responsible”? What matters is who is affected.

Not as gross as “child porn”, or “kiddie porn”, I feel gross just typing that out. CSAM just feels more clinical, more detached, like a term a defense attorney would insist upon to avoid biasing the jury.

Great

Not gonna yuck anyone’s yum, but I’ve tried the tunnel and still prefer the hole.