The convention has barely ended, and I'm already being flooded with these articles trying to guilt me into voting for Clinton. If she can't stand on her own merits as a candidate, then she doesn't deserve my support.
The article fuckin' links to Noam Fucking Chomsky. Look. I know how hip it is to slag on Clinton. I know how butt-hurt everybody is about not getting their way. But can you just for a minute look at how fucking entitled this way of thinking is? Bitch, it's not about you. It's not about Clinton, it's not about "deserve" it's not about "support." "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." - Otto Von Bismarck, the asshole that effectively made WWI possible You know what this election is? This election is a whole bunch of pissed-off OWS don't tase me bro black lives matter slacktivists being enrolled in the process of donating money, going to caucuses and putting signs on their lawns for the first time ever. And for the first time ever, they're discovering that hope matters fuckall and at the end of the day, politics belongs to the ruthless sociopaths, same as it ever was forever and ever amen. Know who's a great man? Carter. Know who was a shitty president? Carter. Four years of solar panels on the White House roof and the destruction of our foreign intelligence apparatus such that we're still reeling from it because Idealism. And look. I get it. I would have loved to have voted for Sanders. Dude speaks my language. Politics about 90% aligned with mine. But that dude would have looked like a Pound Puppy in a Blendtek video about two days after inauguration. So yes. Hate the fuck out of the system, be outraged, be indignant, stand on your principles and argue about who does or doesn't "deserve your support" but look me in the eyes: The country is full of angry morons that think Elvis is alive, Eve came from Adam's rib and 70 years of globalization and regressive tax policies can be reversed 140 characters at a time. They're not voting their conscience, they're voting their rage and FUCK your guilt, FUCK your dudgeon, FUCK your principles, this isn't a goddamn game. - William Gibson, Idoru Let me reframe this for you: you're being flooded with articles asking you to be an adult rather than a child. And if that sounds scornful, congratulations. It is. No thinking human being with access to the Internet should even be considering enabling Trump in any way, shape or form. Enough of them are that the rest of us need to get strident. The fact that I'm getting good at bitch slaps like this speaks to the entitled disaffection being practiced in these hallowed halls of the Internet but Sweet Holy Jesus it matters. If she can't stand on her own merits as a candidate, then she doesn't deserve my support.
“[Slitscan's audience] is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”
Whoa whoa whoa, before we go kicking Bizmarck around for setting up an intricate set of political alliances that eventually led to WW1, we should also acknowledge that Kaiser Wilhelm was a fuckwit who couldn't keep shit together. Its hardly Bismarcks fault that the royal family lost the genetic lottery and ended up with a ruler not fit to clean his boots...- Otto Von Bismarck, the asshole that effectively made WWI possible
I refuse to help perpetuate in any way the system that allows someone like Trump to have power over another person. Voting for anyone in this election grants legitimacy to the results, even if that means a President Trump. >No thinking human being with access to the Internet should even be considering enabling Trump in any way, shape or form I've said this before. Blame the Trump supporters. They're the ones who will put him in the White House, not Sanders supporters.
They're all like Trump, Trump is just not very good at it. You want to fight the good fight, join an activist group of whatever flavor appeals to you. Elections aren't revolutionary, they're about not getting worse and maybe, if you're lucky, pulling the Overton window a little further in your direction, and Sanders has done us all a disservice by leading people to believe a presidential election could ever be revolutionary.I refuse to help perpetuate in any way the system that allows someone like Trump to have power over another person
Obama already did that. Not sure where you live or what it was like there, but in 2008 I was living in the ghetto, and I never saw it happier ever. Bums were out on the street high five-ing, people were walking around smiling, and there was an electricity in the air that's hard to describe. It didn't last long, but I'll admit that I thought for a moment that the 08 election was going to be a new awakening. I didn't support Obama in the primary, but I was sure happy when he was elected....Sanders has done us all a disservice by leading people to believe a presidential election could ever be revolutionary.
Abdication of your responsibility as an American citizen to vote, is specifically empowering the shit that is going on in our society right now. You think the majority of people in America voted for this, and want it this way? No they didn't. Because less than 30% of Americans EVER vote. So you wanna be all punk rock and individual and all "fuck the establishment"? Well then VOTE, moron. Otherwise you are just feeding yourself the Republican-funded pap that says "voting doesn't matter." And being a tool and shill for the R talking points ain't punk rock at all.
Then you refuse to sit it out, because inaction when your opponent is motivated and energized is accomplishing exactly that. That's a petulant bleat, not an argument. Make the argument. Blame is not a binary condition, nor is it a limited commodity. They have more blame. That does not make you blameless.I refuse to help perpetuate in any way the system that allows someone like Trump to have power over another person.
Voting for anyone in this election grants legitimacy to the results, even if that means a President Trump.
I've said this before. Blame the Trump supporters. They're the ones who will put him in the White House, not Sanders supporters.
One of the practical effects of your grandstanding is tacit endorsement of an unpredictable authoritarian becoming commander-in-chief of the largest and most powerful military in human history. Another effect is revealing your total naivete concerning our political system, and I say that as a twenty-five year old. Also, I must quote this article again, which speaks directly to your point. [Emphasis author's.]If she can't stand on her own merits as a candidate, then she doesn't deserve my support.
A second objection reflects a common belief people have about voting: it suggests that one should always vote in accordance with the candidate that most reflects one’s values. It’s a very powerful inclination, felt deeply by those who believe that one must stick by what one believes, no matter the cost. But this position excessively romanticizes the act of voting itself, and treats casting a ballot as more significant than it actually is. It sees elections as being a key way in which one expresses one’s personal moral identity, instead of simply being a means to a possibly marginally better set of outcomes. What matters is not who you vote for, what matters is what happens in the world as a result.
And what the article is arguing (and with which I agree) is that choosing not to support Hillary could very well be the moral equivalent of voting for Trump depending on your state.
That's why I reject the false premise, and refuse to participate in this charade of 'democracy.' You can also see how I would resent being guilt tripped or shamed into voting for someone (Clinton) who I do not support, just to prevent someone else (Trump) I do not support from winning.
Depends on your definition of viable, I suppose. One could argue that Perot and Teddy Roosevelt were "viable" from the perspective that they made waves, even if they didn't really have a chance (although I suppose the same could said be about Nader if that's the bar for being viable). Maybe a better argument is that Lincoln was an alternate candidate, given that the Republicans were only a couple years old when he ran (although of course they rose from the ashes of the Whigs). I think the rise of the GOP is a good argument for not having the parties baked into law, and for keeping them very private. The down side of the open primary system is that it basically enshrines into law that these two parties can't die. I think in a winner take all system that the mathematics show that two parties will always dominate, but it's not a law of the universe that it has to be these two parties. I would love to see the GOP collapse under the gravity of its own bullshit, but that seems unlikely.
Reince Priebus obviously deserves to lose his job waaaaaaaaay more than Wasserman-Shultz did. She did her job, and he didn't do his, yet somehow she's the bad guy. Imagine yourself two years ago. Now imagine yourself imagining that the GOP would nominate a guy who disparages military veterans and their families. New management would be a start, but they need a general purge also.
DWS' problem is that it's the outsiders that want her head for thwarting their will. RNC_PR_BS failed to quell a rebellion. I think they're both establishment victims of circumstance; neither fully understood the depth of their problems. But yes. RNC_PR_BS effectively presided over the death of of his party, while DWS withstood an insurgency at great personal cost.
But I don't think it's a false premise at all (again, depending on the state). I agree totally with the author's premise that voting only has moral value insofar as it influences a desirable outcome. Not voting at best doesn't influence it at all, and in a swing state that could be actively harmful to the people living in this country.
I actually disagree most strongly with that claim, of all in the article. Voting grants legitimacy to the results of the election, even when you disagree with them. If you are unable to accept the possible consequence of a Trump Presidency, then you should refuse to vote, not hold your nose and vote for Clinton. I choose to apply Kant's categorical imperative in this situation. If we all refused to participate in this "time consuming media spectacle" then the world would be a better place. If we abolished the office of the President, then we couldn't even worry about it falling into the "wrong" hands.