@benroyce
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What does that even mean?
Toxic Idealism. You are just taking an ugly word, toxic, and put it in front of a beautiful word, Idealism. There is no such thing.

Spineless capitulation exists across the political spectrum.

Mindless cynicism is far more emblematic of the right

The rest is mostly true except the graphic should have far more blue hands to represent how the left vastly outnumbers the right.

@davoyager

Toxic idealism is when there is a better choice but it is scorned or attacked because it is not ideal

There is only better or worse in this world. There will never be any other choice. Forever

So people who do not choose better because they are walled off into inaction by their foolish toxic idealism are only aiding fascism

This sort of inept idiocy is a very real phenomenon unfortunately

Perfect is not the enemy of good

But plenty of morons insist it must be

@davoyager

we are currently suffering through 4 more years of trump as a direct consequence of assholes staying home and not voting for harris

some of this is racism

but some of it is toxic idealism: demanding something better before they get off their lazy entitled ass and prevent fascism

@benroyce @davoyager

I think 2000 can be more accurately blamed on Florida just blatantly stealing the election than people staying home

@gbargoud @davoyager

florida 2000 wasn't example of people staying home, it was an example of the other problem: idiots who don't understand what a third party vote means in an FPTP voting system

certainly moron nader voters didn't put bush into the win column, what they did was put the results into the hands of a shitbag supreme court

@davoyager @benroyce

When voters were purged from the rolls before the election and then ballots were not counted for various badly defined reasons after the election leading to the governor's brother winning the state by a razor thin margin, I find it hard to blame voters themselves even if fewer Nader voters would have made the margins large enough to block that theft.

@gbargoud @davoyager

i mean it can all be true right?

and when you look at how many voted for nader, and how thin the margin was, it's pretty obvious that played a roll. and i will castigate such morons for helping to give us bush

@davoyager @benroyce

Looking back on the 2000 election (which happened before I lived in the US citizen or turned 18 so I didn't really follow it that hard at the time) it is wild just how fucking corrupt that was right out in the open

@davoyager @benroyce @obscurestar

I'm just amazed that there are people who keep getting elected to national positions in the democratic party who just let such blatant election theft slide.

They should have been primaried a quarter century ago and we're still dealing with their shit.

@gbargoud @davoyager @obscurestar

I blame nonvoters

It's a feedback of alienation. Things suck, so they detach. So things suck more. Rinse repeat

I'm not letting leaders off the hook. But you can't change who they are. Meanwhile if people just fucking voted we could get rid of them

Someone might say "well you can't change nonvoters either." In that case we're just fucked. I don't accept that. So I prefer to hammer at the one thing we might be able to change:

Nonvoters, fucking vote already

@benroyce it's not fair to blame nonvoters when systematic vote suppression has been a major strategy of the Republican party for nearly half a century, and has been a feature of US policy since the founding. We still have many people officially disenfranchised, including people who have served their time, and many more who have been deliberately removed from voter rolls or intimidated from showing up.

Yes, there are also some people who genuinely don't care. But that too is a product of strategy and execution. We're deliberately meant to feel hopeless and disengaged. The cure isn't to condemn people for falling victim to it, but for the DNC and grassroots left to help them engage with issues in a way that gives them a reason to exercise their vote. Like, feeling empowered to change their income, their tax burden, their healthcare costs, their childcare costs, the quality of their kids' schools, the precariousness of their employment, etc. Give them reasons to take an unpaid day off work, stand on line for four hours under the armed watch of ICE "monitors", and mark their ballot. These are things worth fighting for, but the GOP has made sure that a fight it will be.

@cczona

not in a million years does castigation of nonvoters have anything to do with people who *can't* vote. it's only about people who *choose* not to vote

in fact, to win back voting rights, that's even more reason to show up and vote

secondly, if someone is psyoped into not voting, that is on them. it's a personal weakness they need to get over

thirdly, the dem party sucks and will not offer up these issues. we need to replace them. by voting (in the primaries). proof: mamdani

@cczona @benroyce

One common way that voter suppression is done is by looking at the number of voters in the previous year and sizing the polling stations based on that even if there is a candidate who has people more excited or a population shift.

So on top of everything else showing up for boring candidates means you're making sure that when there's a good candidate in the future, they can't say "no one showed up last year so we're shrinking the polling place"

@gbargoud @cczona

absolutely, they make voting harder

they also make laws like "you can't bring bottled water to people waiting in line to vote"

https://www.abc27.com/news/is-it-illegal-to-hand-out-water-or-food-outside-your-polling-place/

(this has since been struck down in many places)

but we're only talking about a few more hours of waiting

it shouldn't deter

especially since we reverse such meddling if we show up

we also ask people to protest and strike: those are much greater efforts (we need to do all 3). i see plenty of elderly at protests

> we also ask people to protest and strike: those are much greater efforts (we need to do all 3). i see plenty of elderly at protests

... That's a weird take. Less than 3% of American are showing up to protests and strikes. Far more show up to vote, yet you are scapegoating the smaller percentage of people who don't make it to the polls on election day vs the overwhelming percentage who aren't at any given strike. The reality is that it takes sacrifices to do either, and both require a lot of grassroots mobilization work in order to increase turnout. No amount of scolding people can substitute for being at their front door and listening thoughtfully to what their concerns are.