this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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Of course the number of votes matter. Not voting affects the number of votes, because if the non-voter would have vote - the number of votes would be different. The responsibility is shared between all the people who get the right to vote. No one argue that this includes the ones who actually voted - the argument is about whether this includes the non-voters.
Is that a typo? Surely you mean that no one would argue that it doesn't include the ones who actually voted.
Right. Sorry. Was more along the lines of "no one argues with the fact that ...", which pretty much means the same thing as your correction.
The comment I originally responded to said:
So we agree then that that position is ridiculous and that no one should be claiming that.
Not ridiculous - just not sufficiently detailed. The people who didn't vote are only to be blamed if the candidate they'd vote for if they did vote lost. Basically, if Biden (Trump) wins:
The people who voted for Trump (Biden) should not be blamed, because they already did what they could - they voted for Trump (Biden). It's not like they could have voted "harder".
The people who voted for Biden (Trump) should not be blamed either - they got what they wanted, and they were within their civilian right to do so.
The people who did not vote but would have voted for Biden (Trump) should not be blamed because just like the previous group - they got what they wanted. Also, even if they would have voted it wouldn't have changed the outcome. There is an approach that say this should still be condemned because this was still a risk, but I believe one should not be so quick to condemn a bad practice when it succeeds because if you have to do that that means you were unable to find enough cases where the practice failed (and condemn it there) - which should compel you to consider whether this really is a bad practice.
Also - we are talking about blaming Trump's (Biden's) loss on them, but they would have voted for Biden (Trump), which means that by not voting they gave half a vote to Trump (Biden) - so why blame them for not voting?
This leaves us with the people who did not vote but would have voted for Trump (Biden). These people are blamable - they did not get their preferred candidate, and they could have done something to increase the odds that he would have won.
That's complete nonsense. You literally just said, "No one argues with the fact that this includes the ones who actually voted" and here you are arguing with the fact that the people who actually voted for a candidate are included in those responsible for getting a candidate elected. Which is it?
I make a distinction between "responsibility" and "blame":
If the candidate you supported won, you share in the responsibility for it - but not in the blame because from your point of view there is no blame because it's not a bad thing.
That's still nonsense, the point of view doesn't matter. If I rob a gas station then I'm still the person to blame for the gas station being robbed, regardless of whether it was a good thing or not from my point of view. That's simply not what the word means.
That kind of blame is useless when trying to prevent gas station robberies. You need to blame the robbery on something the people who don't want the station to be robbed could have done different, so that they could do it differently next time. Putting the blame on the robber, in this context, won't do any good - the robber know exactly what they could have done to prevent the robbery (which is quite simple - just refrain from doing it) , but they won't do it because they want to rob the store.
Let's pretend, just for a moment, that the point of the public discussion of the elections is to try and affect their results. You conclude the if Trump gets elected, it'll be the fault of the people who voted for Trump. So you go to Trump voters and try to convince them that if Trump gets elected it'd be their fault but they can change that if they act now and refrain from voting.
Say you've managed to convince them that this is the case. Will it affect their behavior? Will they say "I was going to vote for Trump because I want him as president, but now I realize that this would mean it's my fault he gets elected so maybe I shouldn't"?
On the other hand, if you manage to convince a non voter on Biden's side that it'd be their fault if they don't vote and Trump gets elected - that's potentially another vote for Biden, and enough of these can change the outcome.
Again, what you're saying here is fundamentally absurd. If the robber was not to blame, then it would be unjust to punish them. This isn't how words work, or how society works, or how anything works. You're being completely unreasonable.
Your problem is that you're assuming that the robber's actions, or the Trump voter's, is completely immutable and out of your hands, while everyone else's are something you can control. Neither of those are true. You have no more ability to get me to to vote Biden than you do to get a Trump voter to change their vote. As usual, every argument that claims "if you don't vote for Biden you're supporting Trump" rests on the assumption that you're entitled to my vote, which is simply not true.
Disagree. I can't coerce neither of you, of course, and as you said I'm not entitled to anyone's fault, but I'm still allowed to argue on and internet and try to make people see reason. And for that, I have a "leverage" on you that I don't have on a Trump voter - the proposition that you don't want a conservative dystopia.
(Of course, if you do want a conservative dystopia consider my entire argument null and void)
Again, wrong on both counts. I'm already not supporting a conservative dystopia so you don't have that leverage over me. Meanwhile, there are many people who vote Trump don't intend to support a conservative dystopia, so you would have leverage over them.
You are not actively supporting it, but you are not making the minimal effort to oppose it either.
Why are they voting for the candidate who promises a conservative dystopia then?
You're vastly overestimating the level of political literacy of the average American, let alone the average Trump voter.