If you live in a democracy with first past the poll elections with an electoral college, then you should understand how the system works and vote accordingly.

If you understand, then you understand that only swing states matter and you're essentially free to vote as you feel in solid red or blue states.

Pipe dreams will usually poll well with people stupid enough to believe them.

What's with y'all always being so willing to show how you bleed when scratched?

Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala.

Neither of these facts alone necessarily implicate the candidates. You really have to consider the context. Being endorsed by someone hardly means you keep their company.

What is the point of comparing Helene to Katrina? Harvey was also a 4.

Why discount the impact of Katrina just because there were systematic issues? It was a natural disaster and that was the impact.

Because it comes off to me like you're trying to "well ackshully" about Helene being really the most devastating hurricane.

Why are you making this some type of competition?

To be fully transparent, the next paragraph says her team disputes that characterization.

But I remember similar articles before Obamacare was passed talking about how the admin had started assuring private insurance that there would be no public option in the final bill.

And lo and behold, we know what happened there.

Right? Imagine believing there are enough conscientious progressives / leftists to flip CA red because of third party voting. Sure, Jan.

You're nice for engaging in good faith.

It's a bit funny that people who seem to think they are the politics, Marx, and communism understanders don't even seem to understand basic Marxism that I picked up in an intro to political philosophy class, which covered Marx for all of about two weeks.

You wouldn't be here without us

People win suits against the police all the time. It's just the police rarely face consequences for it, especially as an institution.

We know this.

In an electoral college system, only swing states matter.

But parties will pay attention if votes are siphoned from them. If you're not in a swing state, a third party vote has basically no negative effect but may have a positive effect of influencing a major party.

I think it's more than arguable that voting for Kamala in Louisiana or Mississippi or even potentially California is a bigger waste of a vote than voting third party.

Withholding a protest vote (for either side) and supporting voter apathy is lame as hell.

What are you talking about? You know there are more than two candidates running, right? I'm literally saying I will be voting third party in a presidential election as I always have, and me voting third party has literally never mattered because the electoral college. Who's withholding their vote? Although, that doesn't mean I think voting in a bourgeois democracy is actually a meaningful expression of political power and organization.

You're all hand winging about people on the left who just don't want to vote Democrat, again even in states where the result is already known. You can't even dare to criticize Democrats or send any message even in safe states like CA, WA, or NY. Because the handful of conscientious leftists are definitely gonna flip CA red or could definitely flip MS blue if they sucked it up and went for Kamala.

When the capitalists continue to fuck us , you'll have done fuck all to push socialism because you spend all your time, again, running defense for one of the two most powerful capitalist institutions in the world.

Guess what dummy, you're playing soccer with these Yahoos whether you like it

Yeah, actually a lot of us are very aware of the game and how it's played. Are you? You know most of us aren't in swing states, right? So what is my protest vote going to affect again? My vote already doesn't matter in a presidential election. It's literally never mattered as long as I've been a voting adult.

or not so pick a fucking side and THEN ALSO DO MORE."

Yeah I have picked a side. The anti-capitalist side. Which of these parties are anti -capitalist, again?

99% of y'all are calling out this user saying they'll "do nothing and be smug" instead of voting, but y'all are just gonna vote blue and similarly be smug, do nothing, but continue to run defense for millionaires and one of the most powerful capitalist political parties in the world.

At least this user won't be doing the latter.

Because if lay users can see how I vote within the app, then I might start being harassed by people for daring to downvote them or daring to upvote someone. And may stay tracking my voting habits.

In which case, I'd probably stop voting.

Having a barrier to that info is better than no barrier even if it's not impossible, imo.

I typically operate under the assumption that basically anything I decide to post on a public forum is not private.

Call me crazy, but I care less about the instance admins being able to see my vote history than regular users. For me the latter will produce a chilling effect on how I operate with the site moreso than the former, even if admins have more power that can be abused. I was already aware of the votes not actually being public and the idea admins could see that info seemed to be a given, but I still think there's a difference between having a motivated malicious user go out of their way to look (making an instance, looking on a different platform, etc) vs making it simple for lay users to see that info within the platform itself (which I what I think is under discussion, currently).

And honestly, if a solution could be determined to help make votes anonymous but still allow admins/mods to deal with bots/trolls, then I'd be all for it.

As long as there is an appeals process. And it seems there was.

You think this organization's judgement is some objective algorithm and doesn't contain its own subjective biases?

Most of the population doesn't live in a swing state

Guess it's "Mostly True"

Nothing. But a good portion of the electorate did get to learn about the power of marketing and the difference between liberalism and socialism