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Not voting is an act of renouncing your voice and your rights. It's not a protest. It's at best complicity with the status quo, and at worst going to support a candidate that will be far far worse for the issues you are "protesting". You don't get to complain when you don't vote. All you get to do is sit down, shut up, and continue your inaction.
Individual politicians and political parties routinely use count a vote as approval. In that way, if no other, voting does serve to support the existing system.
But, even if you believe there must be revolution and the current system CANNOT be reformed, voting is still harm reduction, unless revolution will happen before the results of the election can influence the system.
I saw an anecdote here the other day on why it is important to vote for Harris even if you disagree with Harris politically.
I'm pretty sure the anecdote is fake but the general story goes:
In 2000, someone attended a rally for Al Gore in Florida. They ended up deciding that the democrats didn't represent their voice. They felt (correctly) that the environment was an important issue and that Gore wasn't going to do enough to save the environment, so they voted green party instead as a way to punish the Dems and make them see the light.
We all know what happened after, but think of what might have been if just a few thousand Floridians voted for Gore instead of... well, anyone else.
You can "what if" and project this election forever, but I think its important to remember that if shockingly few people voted for Al Gore instead of a third-party candidate, or protest voting, the global war on terror probably would never have happened. Maybe the 2008 housing crisis too. We would likely be reaping the benefits of decades of green energy research, instead of just getting started.
So then why did we get further environmental destruction and more war on terror under Obama? Why was Hillary Clinton, a notorious war hawk set to succeed Obama instead of someone with genuinely progressive positions?
The US has a fascist far right and a far right with gay rights party up for election. And the far right with gay rights party has become more reactionary on issues like immigration and also in many places violently cracked down on peaceful anti-racist protests. It is currently violently cracking down on anti-genocide protests. Maybe there is a chance to reform that party. But this requires a mass uprising against the entrenched party elite. The party elite that has used the fascist far right as a boogeyman threat to not question their power. A threat that they rather accept bringing into power than to provide non-genocide, non-racist, non-exploitative policies.
Because Al Gore didn't win and because the global war on terror happened and the 2008 housing market collapse happened. Obama might never have been president.
Like, what point are you even trying to make? The world you describe doesn't exist in a timeline where Gore wins.
Hysterical and immature.