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Polls don't matter, especially this far out.
Vote. Put pressure on politicians to do better. But more than anything. Vote.
If the polls say he's 100% going to win. Vote. If you're in a state that goes blue every time for the last 100 years. Vote. If you're in a state that goes red every time for the last 100 years. Vote.
And even if they dont do better, elect them anyway. That'll teach them.
Don't vote and help their much worse fascist opponents get elected instead, which will affect the general population, not the wealthy elites. That'll teach them!
Either way the working class gets fucked
You're correct. But they get fucked much harder one way than the other. It's all about harm reduction.
Harm reduction is a myth, people have been preaching harm reduction for decades and there's been no reduction in harm. Quite the opposite, poverty has increased. Homelessness is at a rate not seen since the Great depression, income inequality is the highest ever recorded. The most percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck is higher than any other level recorded. There has been no reduction in harm.
You are now just blatantly lying. Poverty and homelessness has been trending down for decades.
Let's see. The government tells us that poverty is trending down for decades, yet the number of people living paycheck to paycheck has been increasing. The number of renters that cannot afford their rent has been increasing, homelessness is at the largest level ever recorded, but the claim is poverty is decreasing. Have you ever stopped to consider? Maybe they are lying?
More damn lies.
No it's not.
No it's not.
Not even close.
You got any sources for your bullshit, other than "my ass"?
2016 Paycheck to paycheck rate 38%
2020 Paycheck to paycheck rate 63%
2023 paycheck to paycheck rate 78%, up 6% since 2022
50% of renters cant afford their rent
Hopelessness at record level
NPR article about record homelessness
I won't say you are lying, but ignorant of the facts.
Ah so you're doing that disingenuous bullshit where you're saying the TOTAL number of homeless has gone up while intentionally implying you meant the homelessness RATE has gone up.
Guess what? Our POPULATION has gone up over the past hundred years too.
Even just looking at pure numerical data, only last year did the number of homeless edge above the 2012 level, which is the earliest we have good data for. There's no way in hell it's beating out 2009-2011 after free great recession, much less the great depression.
As for poverty, it's currently around HALF of our earliest data from 1925. Trending down steadily.
Capitalism has its problems, but trying to paint a picture of life getting worse over time is absolutely bullshit.
This is why things are shit, people refusing to acknowledge the oligarchy is killing us.
I'm not going to vote for Biden until he stops funding a genocide. You cannot say put pressure on them and vote for them no matter what. They do not give a fuck what you think if you're going to automatically vote for them. That's why the uncommitted votes in the primaries scared them so much.
Trump thanks you for your service.
Oh no, you're only the thousandth person to tell me that. It's so persuasive. Either I vote for the guy funding a genocide or the Boogeyman gets elected1!!111!!1
Yes, that's the reality of the situation, whether you like it or not. If you don't care if that happens, fair enough. But don't try to say that not voting for Biden doesn't help Trump.
I didn't say that. I said that at this point, months into this debacle, it's obviously not persuasive to me. I am not willing to sell the lives of Palestinian children to make my life marginally more comfortable.
Those children will die regardless of who you vote for or if you don't vote at all. It's a horrific tragedy that is completely out of anyone who isn't in power's control. So instead of worrying about that, worry about what you CAN control - preventing fascists from gaining more power and making things even worse than they already are.
I see people saying their vote doesn't matter when they're in a highly partisan district, which is most of them.
News flash: Even the dumbest politicians can look at arithmetic. If they see their margins shrinking, they'll adjust. Or go full retard and double-down. And then get a worse beating.
Also local elections can be decided by one vote and can be just as important.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-01/ca-16-results-recount-tk-tk
Five votes. In a district of 735,000 people.
So the two runners-up were competing for who gets to lose in a run-off election?
:-/ It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
I see people saying it when they're in heavily gerrymandered districts and deeply disenfranchised states. Dems have been playing the "Just go out and vote!" game in Florida for a quarter century, and Repubs keep finding new ways to yank the football. Even ballot initiatives don't work, as the Florida gerrymandered legislature just reverses out whatever voting rights or decriminalization laws the public passes.
Okay, then protest. And also VOTE.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying "voting doesn't work so I'm not going to do anything" is just allowing them to dictate everything that will happen.
Studying the history of the electoral system and the patterns of disenfranchisement isn't equivalent to "doing nothing". And in the end, you have to be rational rather than idealistic. When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you're not going to vote him out of office.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest. You have politicians that you admit want to become the next Putin but won't say anything or of fear of pepper spray.
There's an internet meme about France surrendering. French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets. American politicians try to take away your democracy and American citizens just roll over to expose their belly.
It's not the French that surrender at the slightest bit of difficulty.
So do American college kids.
French politicians have been squeezing the pension system since at least 2006, and the street protests have come and gone without discouraging new efforts to dismantle the system.
Bully to them for trying, but without material control over industry, they're all sound and fury.
Polls always matter, you just have to understand polls.
This is with third party options and show Biden up 2% which is probably close to margin of error.
It doesn't mean Biden has it in the bag, but it means his chances are improved.
But Biden risks the same dangers Hillary did in 2016.
People don't really want to vote for them, they just don't want trump. So there's a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don't think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don't need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.
It's a dangerous game, and we wouldn't have to play it if we ran a candidate popular with Dem voters.
That's largely how Romney lost to Obama in 2012. Republican turnout sagged in a year when both candidates' approval ratings were underwater. Mitt lost a bunch of midwestern states that a candidate like Bush or Trump could have won, thanks to his vulture capitalist career alienating blue-collar conservatives and his weird knock-off religion alienating evangelicals.