John Wilkes Booth

i don't really agree with that sentiment tbh

unless you're bitching about something that specifically could've been changed by you voting

in most cases voting is a waste of time and a way for people to entertain the delusion that they live in a society where their opinion holds any sort of significant political sway

let's say for example you live in california and you'd like to see a republican president

you can vote all you want, your vote will never matter because the electoral college + the demographic of cali literally makes it impossible that your vote will count towards electing the next president. cali will inevitably go to the democrats and all of the electoral points of that state will go to the democratic party. all the millions of republican votes in that state are literally cast aside and the entire state is said to support the democratic candidate




if you are an individual democrat voting in cali then your time spent voting is similarly wasted. because the democrats consistently win cali by such a safe margin, it's an incredibly safe bet to assume that the democratic party will take the state regardless of whether you decide to vote or not. it's only when you apply this logic to the population in general that votes seem to matter. if all democrats in cali decided not to vote, then that would have an actual impact on the election. but people aren't ants, and your individual choice to vote or not will have no detectable impact on the decision of others to vote or not, and so for any one individual voter it is very unlikely that their decision to vote or not will have any detectable impact on the actual results of the election.

the same logic applies in the majority of states where the state reliably and consistently goes to one of the two parties. it is only in 'swing states' where votes presumably matter, and even then it only matters so long as you vote for one of the two major parties. if you decide to vote for an independent third party, as briks suggests, then your vote is statistically guaranteed to not matter, regardless of which state you live in.

even to the incredibly marginal extent which some voters in swing states have an actual impact on elections, your impact is still then limited to possibly tipping the scales in favor of one of the two major parties over the other. if you are concerned about some particular issue, such as obamacare or what have you, then this might have some very marginal impact on your life. or it might not. but for the vast majority of issues the two parties are so close to identical in general ideology, when it comes to the lives of your average citizen it really matters very little over all which one rules the country. and it's generally not all that predictable exactly how any one given party is going to pursue policies which might actually impact the life of an average citizen. so voting is similar to playing the lottery or going to vegas and putting your money down on a roulette table.

yet people give a pretty significant amount of their time and energy to learning about 'issues' that mostly exist on the television or in internet articles, while not giving a proportional amount of time to issues in their own lives which have a much more direct impact on their general happiness and prosperity. so in this way politics acts in general as a distraction for people. basically it's a hobby, like watching nature docs or playing disc golf.

the only people who have a real vested interest in trying to sway political policies are the financial elite and the corporations who have the resources to invest in propaganda campaigns which can presumably have some actual measurable influence on policy decisions. as well as politicians and political pundits/intellectuals who actually make their bread and butter by dedicating their lives to politics. for the rest of us it is once again a hobby and a clever way to delude ourselves into the impression that we live in a society where our opinions have any sizable impact or influence on the general direction in which that society progresses.

but tbh i think life in the united states, and most likely in most industrialized/western countries is good and prosperous enough where there is little reason for us to really spend our time 'bitching' about politics or policy decisions. in most cases, if you are unhappy, there are much more direct ways in which you can work to improve that situation than by lending any sort of support to political parties or organizations.

i'm sure there are exceptions to this. like if you live in cali and you are gay and want to get married then sure it makes sense to vote against prop 8. but in general voting and investing yourself emotionally and intellectually in politics is at best a hobby and at worst a complete waste of time & energy.

imo.