America is more Brave New World than 1984; people can protest the government, but if that protest rarely overcomes the inertia of the status quo, does it even matter?
Anyway, our government isn’t designed to be steered by protest but by voting, which despite all its flaws does shift inertia.
Even voting within states are completely rigged with gerrymandering and popular vote means nothing in national elections.
Other similar examples of this argument:
"Everyone knows taxes go to corrupt corporations, they are completely useless get rid of them"
"Everyone knows masks dont block 100% of airflow, theyre completely useless!"
Possibly because those seats are worth money. I don't know that people competing for them means voting 'works' in any definitive fashion.
Princeton recently released a study (this one[1], I think?) that basically says as much: voting does very little.
1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
Currently, of those 4 seats, 3 are in their high 70s or even 80s and the 4th was appointed by the governor.
I'm in my 30s. My interests are either entirely not, or very very poorly represented in Washington.
Tell me again how my never missing an election has made a difference?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/...
Even if you live in WA/CA your vote still matters. At the federal level there are 4 elected positions, 14 at the state level, and more at a local level. There are also primaries, so even if your Governor is guaranteed to be a Democrat you can at least pick which one.
The people that do vote have an outsized impact because, like you, most Americans are too lazy to vote.
I do also vote in primaries, those have typically gone opposite to how I voted, or else were a foregone landslide for my pick.
I also never implied I live in WA. Apparently you got confused because I spelled out the name of the capital city of this country.
I see your point that district style voting can feel pointless unless you you're in a swing district. I still think there are smaller positions you can influence over but I agree with you on that.
You cannot meaningfully vote in the US, you have two options that have similar fascist views of the rest of the world and are unlikely to change anything. That is a false choice, meant to lull the chooser into a false sense of agency.
It is simply wildly untrue to imply that the two major parties don’t hold opposing views on at least a few important topics or that voting doesn’t help determine which party holds the power to realize their worldview. There’s a lot of overlap and a lot of ineffectiveness but this does not make them the same.