Ok, yes, but if both candidates are going to say no anyway then you shouldnt just not vote. You are just as bad as the people who say “this doesn’t affect me so I’m not going to do anything.”
Have some empathy for your community and their other issues. Don’t expect people to care about you if you don’t care about others. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
It goes without saying that I am not necessarily talking about you and I am not making a statement about the community. I am speaking against this abomination of a post that is trying to justify single issue voting by saying they are voting for things that are actually tightly coupled.
In the same vein though, it’s a lot easier to say “vote for the lesser evil” when you aren’t being directly impacted by that issue. Even if being middle of the road on something like trans rights is better than outright hate, that still doesnt change that like 15+ states are trying to effectively ban trans people from existing in public by preventing us from using a bathroom without risking either arrest or assault, that in the majority of states trans minors can’t access the care they need, and that an increasing amount of the US is just not a place we could really even visit, let alone safely live in. Sure, if that’s true regardless then technically a vote that helps other people is better, but also trying to shame people for not voting in the face of that, rather than the politicians who are happily standing by while these issues get worse and worse to try and hold the votes of those communities hostage, is definitely blaming the wrong people.
And just like this post says, someone being middling on trans issues is also probably very middling on everything else, so really that argument also gets a lot weaker anyway. Plus, even if there existed a theoretical politician who was trying to bring back race segregation while also being a staunch supporter of trans rights for some reason, I still wouldn’t vote for them and I definitely wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to support them.
I say all this as someone who did vote for Harris in the last election, and who is active in mutual aid and activism groups in my area. Personally, I do consider voting to function as harm reduction in some cases, and I care about the issues impacting other marginalized communities plenty. (Also in general people who are a member of at least one marginalized group tend to be much more empathetic to other groups and their issues compared to people who aren’t). But I’ll never blame someone for not voting, whether its because they feel like voting legitimazes a rigged system, that the only options both totally suck and will result in their rights being stripped away regardless, that both options suck for a different marginalized group and they can’t justify support for that issue, they just feel unrepresented or like nothing will really change, or whatever. The blame for those people not voting is entirely in the hands of our government, political system, and the parties/candidates themselves.
If anything, I think the people who always vote for the lesser evil could be argued to be more at fault than the people who don’t show up. If someone knows they’ll have your vote regardless of their positions, as long as they arent quite as bad as the other party, why actually make things better? Making them worse is certainly more lucrative. That said, I definitely don’t think blaming individuals for the bad things a politician does is either fair or productive, and there’s a lot more everyone can and should do if they’re able to that isn’t voting, so spending time arguing about voting for the lesser evil or not isn’t worth it (I say, writing an essay-length comment about voting in response lol).
(Also sorry for the massive wall of text, I just kinda kept writing once I started haha)
Ok, yes, but if both candidates are going to say no anyway then you shouldnt just not vote. You are just as bad as the people who say “this doesn’t affect me so I’m not going to do anything.”
Have some empathy for your community and their other issues. Don’t expect people to care about you if you don’t care about others. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
It goes without saying that I am not necessarily talking about you and I am not making a statement about the community. I am speaking against this abomination of a post that is trying to justify single issue voting by saying they are voting for things that are actually tightly coupled.
I can see the Democratic Party’s ambivalence turning sour. They have demonstrated not caring about us and yet we are expected to support them?
which human rights are you willing to sacrifice so the trans community can survive this genocide? no more of this nonsense
In the same vein though, it’s a lot easier to say “vote for the lesser evil” when you aren’t being directly impacted by that issue. Even if being middle of the road on something like trans rights is better than outright hate, that still doesnt change that like 15+ states are trying to effectively ban trans people from existing in public by preventing us from using a bathroom without risking either arrest or assault, that in the majority of states trans minors can’t access the care they need, and that an increasing amount of the US is just not a place we could really even visit, let alone safely live in. Sure, if that’s true regardless then technically a vote that helps other people is better, but also trying to shame people for not voting in the face of that, rather than the politicians who are happily standing by while these issues get worse and worse to try and hold the votes of those communities hostage, is definitely blaming the wrong people.
And just like this post says, someone being middling on trans issues is also probably very middling on everything else, so really that argument also gets a lot weaker anyway. Plus, even if there existed a theoretical politician who was trying to bring back race segregation while also being a staunch supporter of trans rights for some reason, I still wouldn’t vote for them and I definitely wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to support them.
I say all this as someone who did vote for Harris in the last election, and who is active in mutual aid and activism groups in my area. Personally, I do consider voting to function as harm reduction in some cases, and I care about the issues impacting other marginalized communities plenty. (Also in general people who are a member of at least one marginalized group tend to be much more empathetic to other groups and their issues compared to people who aren’t). But I’ll never blame someone for not voting, whether its because they feel like voting legitimazes a rigged system, that the only options both totally suck and will result in their rights being stripped away regardless, that both options suck for a different marginalized group and they can’t justify support for that issue, they just feel unrepresented or like nothing will really change, or whatever. The blame for those people not voting is entirely in the hands of our government, political system, and the parties/candidates themselves.
If anything, I think the people who always vote for the lesser evil could be argued to be more at fault than the people who don’t show up. If someone knows they’ll have your vote regardless of their positions, as long as they arent quite as bad as the other party, why actually make things better? Making them worse is certainly more lucrative. That said, I definitely don’t think blaming individuals for the bad things a politician does is either fair or productive, and there’s a lot more everyone can and should do if they’re able to that isn’t voting, so spending time arguing about voting for the lesser evil or not isn’t worth it (I say, writing an essay-length comment about voting in response lol).
(Also sorry for the massive wall of text, I just kinda kept writing once I started haha)
Could you give an example of a politician outside Iran who supports trans rights but opposes reproductive healthcare?
Who said anything about not voting? You are making up arguments that the post isn’t making.
That is literally not what “single issue” means.
I tend to vote in the interests of people less fortunate than me.
It’s not hard to have an ounce of empathy or sympathy.