Summary
In an emotional monologue, John Oliver urged undecided and reluctant voters to support Kamala Harris, emphasizing her policies on Medicare, reproductive rights, and poverty reduction.
Addressing frustrations over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, he acknowledged the struggle for many voters yet cited voices like Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, who supports Harris despite reservations.
Oliver warned of the lasting consequences of a second Trump term, including potential Supreme Court shifts.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
Not voting is an act of renouncing your voice and your rights. It’s not a protest. It’s at best complicity with the status quo, and at worst going to support a candidate that will be far far worse for the issues you are “protesting”. You don’t get to complain when you don’t vote. All you get to do is sit down, shut up, and continue your inaction.
Individual politicians and political parties routinely use count a vote as approval. In that way, if no other, voting does serve to support the existing system.
But, even if you believe there must be revolution and the current system CANNOT be reformed, voting is still harm reduction, unless revolution will happen before the results of the election can influence the system.
I saw an anecdote here the other day on why it is important to vote for Harris even if you disagree with Harris politically.
I’m pretty sure the anecdote is fake but the general story goes:
In 2000, someone attended a rally for Al Gore in Florida. They ended up deciding that the democrats didn’t represent their voice. They felt (correctly) that the environment was an important issue and that Gore wasn’t going to do enough to save the environment, so they voted green party instead as a way to punish the Dems and make them see the light.
We all know what happened after, but think of what might have been if just a few thousand Floridians voted for Gore instead of… well, anyone else.
You can “what if” and project this election forever, but I think its important to remember that if shockingly few people voted for Al Gore instead of a third-party candidate, or protest voting, the global war on terror probably would never have happened. Maybe the 2008 housing crisis too. We would likely be reaping the benefits of decades of green energy research, instead of just getting started.
I don’t think that tracks.
The highest turnout in any US election since 1908 was 62% in 2020, and at no point has a party won an election and been like ‘look at all the people who didn’t vote, I guess we don’t have a mandate to govern’
Parties win elections and govern in power with less than 50% of voters backing them all the time, it’s literally the standard. A low turnout will not change the way any party acts once in power.
I never claimed they would use non-voting as a signal for anything, only that they count votes as agreement, not mere tolerance.
The amount and percentage of non-voter signals to most politicians that people tacitly approve of the entire system. After all, if they disapproved of something about it, they would’ve at least bothered to show up and vote, right?
There’s no better “the status quo is fine” indicator than not even giving enough of a shit to show up at the polls (or in some cases return a slip of paper through the mail).
In what world is refusing to participate in a system you see as irreparably broken considered condoning its existence?
For the record, I voted for the lesser fascist because a complete redo of our system will be slightly harder under the rule of greater fascists.
In a world where refusal to participate is indistinguishable from being too lazy, complacent, or satisfied to participate, and that is the one we live in.
Do you think politicians are going to go check why you didn’t vote? It’s basically as if you don’t exist to them.
Na, I like to stand up and shout my inaction and why.
“All you get to do is sit down, shut up, and continue your inaction.”
So how is that any different from what the centrists will be doing? Seems like the same outcome for the peasants either way, especially if you dont live in a swing or red state.