1y ago

‘A dying empire led by bad people’: Poll finds young voters despairing over US politics

www.semafor.com

‘A dying empire led by bad people’: Poll finds young voters despairing over US politics | Semafor

United States | News & Politics @lemmy.ml

☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ @lemmy.ml

10mo ago

‘A dying empire led by bad people’: Poll finds young voters despairing over US politics

www.semafor.com /article/05/28/2024/a-dying-empire-led-by-bad-people-poll-finds-young-voters-despairing-over-us-politics

politics @lemmy.world

Rapidcreek @lemmy.world

1y ago

‘A dying empire led by bad people’: Poll finds young voters despairing over US politics | Semafor

www.semafor.com /article/05/28/2024/a-dying-empire-led-by-bad-people-poll-finds-young-voters-despairing-over-us-politics

11 comments

Remember everyone, pessimism and cynicism are what the owners want from us.
Resistance to fatalism is resistance to the status quo, if you can't keep the fire alive with genuine hope for the future anymore then at least keep it going with the spite every second you don't give up inflicts on the status quo.
- Yes, ~~but~~ and don't allow your resistance to be selected and controlled by the owners. Be wary of people telling you the "right" and "wrong" ways to resist. Resistance takes myriad forms, some of them clean, some of them markedly less-so. Some of them legal, some not. Some of them safe, and others dangerous. If you find yourself policing others' resistance, make sure you aren't becoming a tool of the Owner Class to funnel resistance into less effective, more easily-ignored or countered methods.
  
  Bro you just posted this caution against tone policing resistance to tone police a call to resistance.
  Freedom never comes through surrender, and climate justice will never come through catering calls to resistance to people saying they're tired and burnt out. We're all tired and burnt out, shit's still gotta get done.
- I'm about out of hope, but I have enough spite to last many lifetimes.
- So this is something I've recently realized that I've been experiencing. I still vote in my countries elections and stuff. But I've realized I'm starting to get fatalistic ideas. I feel like, in a sense, I'm losing hope for a better future. In my own personal life I can't seem to get ahead financially.
  I used to wonder why some people would just completely throw in the towel when it came to politics and I'm starting to maybe understand how they could get there. It scares me for my own well being as i feel like im maybe giving up on the idea of finding a better job/having better footing in my life. But yeah I'm at a loss at the moment.
  I hope that things get better for everyone sooner rather than later
Easy to let despondence & cynicism override reality, but if it were true that voting does nothing, nobody would put such effort into discouraging us from voting; into confusing us so much that we disengage.
Standing in line to tick may feel too tiny to count, but everything counts, from the mysterious interactions of subatomic particles to your most basic civic interaction with the rest of your nation (voting).
- Voting can have an effect, of course, but whether it does is dependent on many things.
  if it were true that voting does nothing, nobody would put such effort into discouraging us from voting
  This is not necessarily correct.
  Never assume that the thing that an opponent loudly and visibly opposes is their actual goal; it may very well be a distraction to keep you from their real goal/ or the real threat to them. That's not some abstract hypothetical, either; this is done all the time in politics. Putting non-starter provisions in bills in order to expend your opponents' political capital killing the extreme provisions in order to get your real goals passed, is a common practice, as one example.
  An inexperienced opponent telegraphs their real moves unwittingly. An experienced one feints.
- https://adst.org/2016/10/2000-presidential-election-florida-recount/
  Except this one time pinky swear. Also the electoral college can override any vote the peasants cast.
There was a vote that happened in my youth where two parties ended up with (Edit: NEARLY) identical amounts of votes in the house. In my voting district there was an independent running who was fairly popular with the city and we voted him in. The end result was that during legislation there was some vote ~~where the yes/no vote was split perfectly even between the two major parties and our little independent became the deciding factor~~ Edit: My memory was faulty. He forced it into a tie with his vote and the speaker of the house had to be the tie breaker. But the point still stands that his one vote had a pretty large implication.
This is a very niche and unlikely scenario (it did happen though, look up Chuck Cadman) but it was a very clear indication to me that yes, voting does matter. And every one single vote DOES count and make a difference.
- https://adst.org/2016/10/2000-presidential-election-florida-recount/
  Here's a good example of a time that it didn't and they made up the results anyway. Mix that in with the electoral college and you got yourself a worthless voting system.

11 comments