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Comment by Detrytus | Hacker News Reader

I hate this line of reasoning. People who didn't vote are equally guilty, because they did not care enough to show up. Or, maybe, they just didn't make it to polling station on time for some reason (having to pick up kids from school, or working second shift or something). You should always assume that the result of the elections is representative of what society thinks. That's how elections (and opinion polls, for that matter) work. Unless you have a really good proof why some minority group was actively excluded from voting.

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There is actually extensive mathematical history to fair voting, the output of which is super not in use, and of which I do find plenty of the alternative systems more representative:

https://youtu.be/qf7ws2DF-zk

I do think regular variety elections are generally representative though. I just also see value in keeping these asterisks in mind.

Many people don’t vote because it is difficult for them, they don’t see a difference in their lives because they get screwed one way or the other no matter who is in power, and if you’ll recall the last administration was complicit in genocide which is why I voted third party.

It’s true trump is bad but so is genocide. Really hard to make the case of the lesser evil when it’s just variations on top tier criminality. You have to offer something to voters.

Yes many people don’t vote because of deliberately fettered access to polling and/or a generally correct understanding that the electoral college nullifies or makes redundant their vote in their jurisdiction. Your vote for a third party is a signal but essentially a qualified abstention. Your high horse however is so misguided and absurd- to suggest that you held a moral high ground because the Biden administration supported the Gaza genocide is flatly wrong. If you want to place blame for that administration’s actions, blame Citizen’s United, blame AIPAC, blame the DNC, etc. And write letters, protest, get mad. But facilitating the ascent of what is objectively, obviously, candidly worse to make that statement is insulting to the intelligence of anyone to whom you make the argument. Perhaps your vote was in a jurisdiction where you could assume the electoral votes would go to the Dems anyway, but that just makes it flat out virtue signaling. The left will continue to cut off its nose to spite its face to the peril of US democracy and world peace. You nailed em tho.

Voted in PA. I suspect that regardless of who is president next, from either party, US policy will be changing towards Israel. The right, because they are anti-Semitic, and the liberals, because they lost an election over genocide. If the only thing the establishment wants from us is our votes, well they're going to have to earn them. They have no qualms about being transactional with other folks. They just get mad that we're transactional with them because we're supposed to behave.

I'm not sure I'd use the word "guilty" - that suggests some wrong doing.

However I agree with your premise - trying to remove abstaining voters from the math is incorrect. Abstainers are explicitly making their view known.

That view is "I don't care, but are equally good or bad". (Which in turn demonstrates a profound ignorance of what's going on - and frankly folk that unconcerned should probably not pick a side.)

I believe it's fair to say "America voted for this". America is a democracy and the voters spoke. Of course it's not unanimous but majority rules.

And it's not like his campaign was disingenuous. The man was on display, and most of the things he's done were signaled clearly in the campaign. (He's long been against foreign wars, so the Iran debacle seems out of character, but then again it's in line with his dictator instincts, and he desperately needs a distraction from the Epstein files.)

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