It’s really not. Exit polls show a tiny fraction of voters picked Trump for anything other than his empty promises of “instantly fixing the economy”.
That’s ignoring all the people who didn’t vote at all. Saying not voting is the same as voting for the bad thing is an empty accusation that lacks critical thinking.
I do wish we'd have a bunch of electoral reforms but those candidates don't do well during primaries.
Pew Research disagrees. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/13/what-trum...
Economy ranked #1 - 93% said it was very important (side note: something Democrats somehow missed).
Second was immigration - 82% said it was very important (another thing Democrats missed).
Less important to Trump voters: climate change (11% said it was very important), racial and ethnic equality (18% said it was very important), and abortion (35%).
> > The one topic that lagged a bit was health care: 58% said they knew what he would do if he won the race.
I would love to see a deep dive on the 58%'s answer since Trump has had a healthcare plan since 2015 that we have yet to see.
It's game theory. Gaining a vote is as valuable as convincing someone who would have voted against you to not turn out.
Caveat: if you aren't in a swing state, and we're constraining ourselves to the Presidency, you're right. (Though not voting on anything on the ballot is just stupidity or laziness. Pretty much every jurisdiction has meangingful issues being decided by plebiscite every few years.)
If you're in a swing state, however, not voting endorses the status quo. It may not be what was intended by the voter. But drunk drivers are dangerous irrespective of intent.
In practice, the issues people tend to bring up for conscientously not voting tend to be comically undone by the winner of the election. And if you tallied up everyone who didn't vote (let's take them at their word that it's conscientiousness), you'd swing almost every election. So yeah, a non-voter and a MAGA voter are electorally identical, ceteris paribus.