this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
400 points (81.9% liked)
Political Memes
5879 readers
3049 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Sitting out has definitely been a form of protest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott
Hell democracy is measured by political votes, a nation with low voter turn out are considered non democratic.
The Montgomery bus boycott didn't start with sitting out. It started with Rosa Parks sitting in.
Not to mention the easily understood fact that an economic boycott - one which causes direct material consequences - has absolutely no relation to some sort of "political boycott", which causes zero consequences against anyone in power.
Yes? Congratulations, you are therefore contributing to our continued democratic decline.
This same argument can be used with electoral protest. It would be disingenuous to say none voting in protest materialised from nothing.
I don't see your point. If people aren't voting then that is a symptom and not a cause. I think also a nuanced lens helps with this. People not voting isn't binary. some knowingly protest, some are seeing the slow encroachment of inequality and just couldn't care less which leader will continue to fuck them over.
Not voting is absolutely both a symptom and a cause. How do you think we got here, if not by voting for the people who won the elections for the past century, and by not voting for the people who lost the elections?
The reason the Republicans won is that billionaires are funding campaign, popularism is on the rise, class consciousness is low.
This is not a good counterexample. A boycott has immediate financial consequences for the boycotted company/industry. No such pressure is generated by sitting out an election.
In fact, a central strategy of the right wing in the United States is to reduce overall voter turnout, which is achieved either by restricting access to voting or by discouraging voter participation. By sitting out the vote you did exactly what the right wing wanted you to do.