Canada is and hopefully always will be a true ally and friend of the UK.

I don’t know how many times I can restate that the “both sides bad” argument does not make sense to anti-Trump sentiment. Yes the Democrats are shitty, yes they do bad things, but in a choice between that and exactly that but 10x worse I literally cannot wrap my head around this smug superiority of not-ascribing to either side trolling. You do know that undermining Democrats is getting Republicans more power and enacting more of the things you’re against?

I understand your point, sorry for a belaboured metaphor, it just helps me think.

Here’s my counterpoint: If both options are the same outcome then what is there? Wait for violent, government-toppling civil war before anything changes? If it is institutionalized oppression, both-sides etc, then I can only assume you don’t see the current administration as any different to the previous one, or any future DNC? If you think Biden was equivalent to Trump in terms of ‘just a nice face on a chainsaw wielding madman’, then you have no change in political stance now that Trump is in power and reshaping the constitution to allow indefinite rule? Both sides bad means it hasn’t become worse since the party change, as it was always going to be this bad no matter who won?

Follow the logic, I think it sounds grossly myopic.

I can see where you’re coming from, I’ll try to summarise with metaphor and will likely sound asinine but here goes:

If I’m a hitchhiker and I see a suspicious car pull over and offer me a ride, even in the wrong direction, I’m going to take it over the driver that stops, gets out with a chainsaw and runs towards me screaming “go back to your own country”, where you’re focusing on how this first option is a very bad option. I’m not in disagreement that it’s a bad option. It is most definitely a broken, non-functional option. It is however not the lunatic with a chainsaw, which I take as an incredible positive argument for it.

I hope I see an America that does gain enough awareness to mobilize and dismantle the systemic oppression you’re talking about. I, personally, would have voted in the party that doesn’t disappear journalists and critics, burns books and refutes facts, I would have rather taken up arms against a politician I could convince of right and wrong than a unified front devoted to evil, but that’s my heady optimism getting in the way.

A friend of mine said of the Bush administration that it “had to happen” to show Americans how bad it gets when you let these snakes get power, and no one would vote Republican again after they witnessed the shitshow in action. I think they were optimistic too.

While I do absolutely agree, the commenters here not marshalling every effort and yes, even compromising on issues, to get the lesser of two evils elected I can’t help but see as a poorly thought out excuse. Have your disagreement over policy AFTER you prevent the catastrophe.

The US had Turbo racist Hitler Satan running a platform of oppression to supplement and fund oligarch dictator fascism for the foreseeable never ending infinite term regime and some didn’t vote for the literal only option to stop that happening because of some infantile dream that dissenting 3rd candidate voices will matter to either side that has and always will govern. I find the moral grandstanding utterly absurd in the context of a 2 outcome race, yet here we are.

They do have faux-democracy, they do have the illusion of representation, they are at the mercy of lobbyists and corporate corruption and bribery, but only one of the two political choices has ever taken those discussions and attempted improvements. Only one side was ever trying to regulate and debate these things, but go and see where naive optimism gets you. You’re all planning where to put your beach towels in front of a tsunami.

That’s the essence of proportional representation, you get to say a quantifiable amount of approval. However, in a two party ‘someone -will- win’ type system, voting for one party is directly equivalent to voting against the other. Abstaining from voting has absolutely no effect (if 98% of voters abstained, the remaining 2% would still decide the leader)

Agreed! Not singling you at all, I made a comment that intended to be more a generalised dismay at the mindset of not voting for the opposition to facism because of high ground morality.

I agree on two party systems being more insidious against true democracy, but even so having half a country agree to such tyranny isn’t something democratic processes can fix, only voter mobilization.

Muh democracy!

proceeds to not vote against the singular largest threat to democracy in almost a century.

You really showed people how to make a difference now that… Trump is in?

I don’t like hoping that someone suffers a spinal injury in a car accident only to be told it’s their fault, and if they’d chosen not to become disabled they’d be able to walk and live free from constant unbearable pain, yet here I am.