Agree wholeheartedly. There's no good-faith reason you would ever try to convince someone to not vote. None.
Centrist Democrats love to interpret any dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party as encouragement to not vote at best and overt support for Trump at worst.
I have every expectation that this will be the standard by which this rule is implemented.
You can criticize and make jokes about 46 without discouraging voter turnout. They are just alot harder than making em about 45 who jokes write themselves.
Of course I can. That doesn't stop centrist Democrats from making accusations in bad faith because they want to silence criticism.
Funny, i see much more bitching about nonexistent centrist dems than actual centrist dems on here. What i do see a lot of is apologists expaining why discussing the merits of not voting is actually for the best and not playing directly into the kremlins plans.
Thank you for the demonstration.
This rule will result in a slippery slope where any post critical of Biden will be be removed, resulting in an echo chamber of like-minded individuals with little engagement and discourse. It has the potential to stifle and eventually kill the community.
Seriously any criticism of Biden and the clowns come out to tell me I should fear Trump is gonna accomplish everything he wants on day one, but Biden can’t do most of what he promised because? You ask for a third party and get accused of dissuading voters from voting. I see Biden “supporters” calling him Hitler lite, and asking well if not Biden then who? Like believing the DNC tale is exactly how these clowns can make someone as unpalatable as Biden seem decent. And the best part is they will always say its no competition and I should be happy for the crumbs of the promises Biden kept because in contrast you better believe Trump is gonna keep all his promises 🙄🤣🤣🤣
It’s certainly easy to support this move when it applies to “discouraging voting”, but it gets murkier for posts about “discouraging voting for a certain candidate”.
The example given was one seemingly implying “X is bad - but you think Y is better??” If the net implication is “don’t vote”, then the concern is valid, but if it’s “Vote for a third party, likelihood be damned”, it does sound more valid. That said, I have yet to see memes positively highlighting a valid third party from front runners.
I’d definitely like a return to elections where we decide which candidate is best, not which is least worse.
Informed voting is what's important. Voting in-and-of-itself doesn't contribute to a healthy democracy. To the contrary, mindless voting almost killed democracy multiple times recently.
To that end, I disagree with the notion that everyone should vote: filling your ballot on name recognition or in accordance with some preacher's orders or some shit is dangerous, and if that's you, then you absolutely should not vote!
Dig. Get at least some basic info on the people on your ballot. Consider the secondary and tertiary effects of any proposed policy; consider how it could back fire, etc. Once you actually understand what you're voting on, THEN vote. But if you won't take the time to do that, just showing up isn't doing any kind of civic duty.
It's not misinformed voting that caused Trump's ascension to power. Participation was abysmally low (55% of the adult population). I don't think Trump, or any other far-right lunatic, can win an election without voter apathy.
Do not reinforce stereotypes that some people should not be allowed to vote because they're too stupid. It is sterile and dangerous.
I don't think his point is that people should not be allowed to vote.
True, but the undemocratic idea that voting should be left to "informed" people (who decides who's informed, or how do you make sure people are impartially informed, anyway?), is still dangerous. The idea that a part of the population is too dumb to take part in democracy is a core motivation of eugenism.
Don't discourage people voting against their interest from voting. You need their vote to dislodge autocrats. You need to convince them instead. If you believe in democracy, that is.
I think it goes more for people who are uninformed and don't want to vote anyway, but are forced to make a bad decision off the top of their heads. My country has mandatory voting and I see this happen quite a lot, we have the exact same problems.
In that sense encouraging someone to vote won't really matter if their decision is uninformed and can even be detrimental because people do willingly vote for these autocrats when they rightfully see no real option.
The first step is not voting but to encourage people to be politically engaged not with ideas but their surroundings and immediate material needs, and teach them how they can check in on the powerful. They can be coopted by bad actors all along this journey too.
Discouraging someone to vote, though? Eh, by all means vote if you want but I don't think voting really works that much at all because the system is completely broken in most places, and I will always point this out. If that counts as discouraging then here I am.
I can say these problems happen simply because most powerful people fucking us over are not elected, and they can and do choose which politicians will be on the ballot for us to fight over. Always have that in mind.
Not voting is a vote of no confidence.
similar deliberative body indicate that they no longer support a leader, government,etc.
Voting is a choice. Not voting is a choice. If you take away the choice of not voting, while only allowing two candidates that a vast majority of Americans don’t want, then can you really call it a democracy?
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself. That is the purpose of social forums, to discuss ideas.
A forum is a public meeting place for open discussions. This rule is the policing of thought, and the antithesis of a forum.
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself.
...It would be kind of interesting if the amount of people voting plummeted so much so that it removed almost any sense of considering the results legitimate and representative of the populace whatsoever. So far as I'm aware I don't know of any democracies that have a sort of minimal threshold explicitly set to account for and address such a situation...They all seem to presume sufficient civic participation and confidence in their institutions that their citizens wouldn't simply not participate/vote en masse.
I think part of the reasoning for that being that if things have gotten that bad, surely the citizenry wouldn't simply not vote, they'd actively be overthrowing the institutions they had lost confidence in.
Oh yes, of course! Its why antifazcist groups should welcome fascist speakers to engage in open, honest debate.
Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal
No, the reason for the mess is a system deliberately designed to benefit a handful of people at the expense of the rest. Blaming those who don't participate in the system for the system is an absurd little act of mental gymnastics (as well as a service to the aforementioned handful of people, by buying in to the division they sow for the sake of distracting us from them, who are actually responsible).
Should people vote? If they want to. Will it change anything? No. Because the choice is an illusion, as is "democracy".
Perhaps if you actually let people have the conversation instead of shutting it down because confronting the actual depth of the problem makes you too uncomfortable, we might reach a point where we can be rid of this rigged system and build one that is actually "by the people, for the people", because that sure as fuck isn't the case at the moment. Maybe the real issue here is for you to consider with yourself why you're so invested in defending the status quo..
https://libcom.org/article/capitalist-democracy-illusion-choice
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
E: having seen the example you've given, I'm outa here anyway, new rule or not, would love to know if you mod any other communities so that I can block those too. 👍
Oh look at that, they're also the mod of like a third of lemmy.world including news and world news. Such unbias, very discussion.
I support the change
Super in favor of this one! Barely just got on lemmy and all ive done is engage the bad faith actors in hopes of leaving some trace of sanity for the more impressionable to find.
This very thread is full of, "but cant you see how this rule change could turn authoritarian," and "what u claim to have witnessed isnt real, its all just butthurt democrats and no one is actually actively trying to suppress voting." To the lurkers, take note of the accounts that seem to do nothing but post about why voting is useless, why any complaints about biden are as relevant as complaints about dorito mussolini, or why russian imperial interests arent actually imeperial bc the west only ever lies, a fact unique to the west exclusively.
Good. Apathy is a tool of the oppressors utilized on those who think they're being 'rebellious'.
You don’t have to burn the memes; just remove them
In favor of this rule
I fundamentally disagree with the underlying assumptions of this change, but understand its rationale, especially during an election year.
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