claim 1: “voting doesn’t change anything”
Never forget the recent case of Kris Mayes, who refuses to uphold the Arizona supreme court’s sweeping ban of abortion.
Kris Mayes only won her 2022 election by 280 votes. Voting changes things.
claim 2: “but genocide joe”
Yep. Hold that fucker’s feet to the fire. He has blood on his hands
But trump has promised to be indisputably worse. I won’t tell you how to vote. I just encourage you to vote. You’re not radical for ditching the only miniscule right the state has granted you to do some small aid for your neighbors.
That's irrelevant to the discussion at hand of "is not voting effective?"
In places where Democrats are going to chase votes: if shifting right will get them 50 votes from people who would have voted Republican, and shifting left would get them 99 votes from people who wouldn't have voted, they're going to shift right. Not voting makes your voice less important.
In places where Democrats aren't chasing votes (such as Alabama), not voting doesn't get you more say in politics. In fact, it very much can get you less when Democrats ignore that state. In 2020 Trump won 60% of the vote in Alabama, but only 40% of eligible voters voted for him. How many Democrats didn't vote because "it doesn't matter anyway" sending the message to both Democrats and Republicans that their opinion doesn't matter because they aren't going to vote anyway?
In 2018, Democrats spent north of $250M in Tennessee and South Carolina to lose Senate seats by double digits.
Nevermind the billions Hillary vaporized by going all in on Iowa.
Okay, cool story. I fail to see the relevance to the topic at hand.