Don't forget to vote.
As long as we have First Past the Post voting [0], we will be stuck with whatever candidates those two parties choose to offer us. We will not be able to use our votes to elect candidates who accurately reflect our political will - we will only be able to choose the lesser evil out of the options presented to us.
The political discontent arising from Trump's election and presidency should be used to change our voting system to something that doesn't suffer from Duverger's Law [1] or the Spoiler Effect [2], and that will allow the outcomes of elections to closely map the range and number of actual political opinions - i.e., something that makes electoral results accurately reflect the real will of the people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
I do think we need radical reforms if we want the ship to not sink, though, so I don't feel that encouraging people to vote, without urgently arguing that voting reform is necessary, is deeply meaningful.
On another current HN thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13939645), a Show HN about a tool for interactively modeling dynamic systems, I followed the tool's author back to their website, and found a really great interactive blog post about Building a Better Ballot [0]. I'm going to be spreading that around as much as I can; it seems to me the best tool/post for really understanding the various voting methods and some of their flaws. I hope you'll check it out and share it, if you also like it. (I'm in no way affiliated with the author or tool, for the record; just impressed by it.)
Please stop pushing the false narrative that if only everyone voted, the kleptocracy would grind to a halt. It's culturally entrenched at this point.
You are one voice in three hundred million. So is everybody else. Please vote.
If maybe there weren't swing states, the outcome would have been different. The system is set up this way for a reason - so that people like you can tell people like me that if they only voted, things would be fixed. Maybe they would, but, like I said, my vote doesn't count, so I can't really vote for it, can I? :)
There has to be a better way to run this "democracy" we were born into, and that change has to start with us; the entrenched politicians won't dare change it on their own.
Entrenched politicians aren't going to change things on their own, but it's a false to assume that that means they are going to change things for anyone who can't threaten their hegemony.
My state is not a swing state. My representatives are both solidly entrenched and also on the take. In terms of federal issues, my vote will never count here.
So get the word out in your community and change that fact. If you want change, be the spark.
It is beyond me that, given that my vote doesn't count in the presidential election (due to electoral college rules), and my local representatives are entrenched, due to division of the representation, how things will 'sort themselves out' if I just faithfully go to the polls every time.
I apologize if it seems I don't take your frustration and discouragement seriously because I truly do, I feel it too. My point in it all is that going to the polls is the least one can do. Even better is encouraging some friends to engage with you because 10 votes is surely better than one.
Could you explain what has that got to do with me, and the fact that my vote doesn't count, for the reasons I've outlined above?
The outcome for my state was decided before I got to the polling place.
The outcome of the election is specifically designed to value my vote as less than that of someone in a smaller, rural state.
The candidates I got to vote for were selected for me, through corruption and subterfuge. I've read the emails of party officials working together to foment hatred between their own supporters out of whole cloth.
So, no, even though I voted, my vote didn't count. Never counted.
But at the end of the day what matters is who gets out to vote. Your state's outcome was decided not by fate, but by people who vote. Count yourself among them.
I'm afraid that this sounds to me too much like the political equivalent of 'do what you love and the money will follow'; based in faith, rather than evidence.
Yes, the two party system and electoral college should be fixed. Changing the voting system will probably involve people voting to change it.
Ah, no. I have to abide by the result of the vote.
Except that my vote counts less than others due to the electoral college, and party officials colluded to smear my voting sector and prevent the candidate I wanted to vote for from even appearing on the ballot.
So, no, my vote never counted.
Have you forgotten Debbie Wasserman Schultz being thrown in front of the bus? Did you miss Donna Brazile denying giving debate questions to HRC, only later call it something she would "forever regret", while then, in another situation continuing to deny that she did it?
And OMG, someone told Clinton that there would be a question about Flint's drinking water during a debate held in Flint, Michigan. You'd have to have ESP to predict that.
Listen, I wanted Bernie too. I cast my primary ballot for him as well. But clearly more registered members of the Democratic Party wanted Clinton. She was more popular than Bernie among Democrats.