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)
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)