Skip to main content


The real message is "Vote Biden whether you like him or not" of course, and, without casting any specific judgment on this particular person, I will endlessly despair these common neutral voting exhortations. #USPol #Election2020

Vote.
This particular person is an ~excellent~ left wing writer, who's insights and commentary I value very much. Her best known piece was a profile of Rachel Doezal which she wrote for The Stranger.

She later resigned from the Stranger when they published some TERF nonsense. She's a good comrade.

When I see properly left wing black women saying to vote for Biden, this, to me, is a strong endorsement that can't be lightly cast aside.
I'm whole-heartedly ready to believe everything you said as this tweet was reshared by a friend of mine, and this is also why I added the disclaimer about this particular person that I didn't think any less of because of this tweet.
That’s a choice. Enjoy your endless despair, I guess.
@Brad Koehn ☑️ I can assure you it isn't a choice. That's why I keep a tight social media timeline and only consume news laundered through trusted follows.
Of course it's a choice. You choose how to view the world; you do so in the previous clause of the same sentence.
@Brad Koehn ☑️ Let me be clearer then: Since I can't choose how I feel when I see neutral voting encouragements (and other centrist/conservative gimmicks), I chose to limit how often I'm potentially exposed to them by curating my social media follows to like-minded individuals.
This binary election system is just a problem.
The specific word for it is "First-past-the-post".
BTW: When I say the origin of all evil is this antique presidential system, then some people will be mad at me, I guess? 😁
Yes but some people will always be mad at you.
Weird to pick a tweet that is a single word "Vote" and imply that it means Vote Biden. People not voting is how America got into this mess. All politics are local is the old saying, and if you think national-level voting is bad, people are even worse at voting in their locals. We need people to vote period. Not just once every 4 years on one singular national issue. We need people to vote every year (My district in Virginia has a County-wide vote twice a year every single year, you can imagine how few people show up in the summer in an off year). So yes, people should vote in the national election that's coming up. But people need to vote more period. So I 100% agree with that tweet: Vote.
@Paco Hope While I agree with your larger sentiment, this tweet was published a month before Election Day on a presidential election year, so yes, I and people replying to the tweet perfectly got the message it was about the presidential election.

Beyond that, what anybody really wants when they exhort people to vote is to vote for people they would prefer. There's no point telling people to vote only to find out they voted for the candidate you didn't want, nobody would be happy with that outcome except the people who have nothing to lose having either candidate elected (= centrists).

Again, in this particular case, I understand there might be several other factors leading to this precise and careful wording. But I've seen the same message from people I don't believe needed to be as careful and it always rings hollow to me for the reason above.
That kind of broad brush thinking won't benefit you or anyone else. The idea that "anybody who says X means Y" is a pointless leap to a conclusion that can't help you or anyone else. Especially when it's a cynical interpretation of what they're saying. I am the exception to your rule. If way more people participated in a democracy, it would look different. I want people to vote, even if it's for the other party. Consider how many people don't care and don't show up. Are their views being heard? For the same reason we need to defeat gerrymandering we need to get more people voting. When the will of all the people is more clearly and frequently expressed, extreme candidates won't win enough votes. Most people are in the centre on most issues, but a ton of people don't make their views known at all. These centrist and moderate non-voters are safely ignored by radical candidates because they don't vote. If they voted, then the extreme candidates would have a harder time succeeding.
@Paco Hope I disagree with almost everything you said except notably fighting gerrymandering, but since neither of us can provide accurate data regarding the different points you raised, I guess we'll have to leave it at that.