Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Mike Rhodes's avatar

I'm a registered Independent who didn't vote once between the 1992 and 2016 elections. I'm in Illinois which is about as blue and as it gets. It's also filled with more open corruption than most with 6 governors (from both parties) indicted on criminal charges.

Prior to '92, I tended to vote against whichever candidate was currently under investigation, so my vote could go to either party based on the race. I voted for Clinton in '92 because I was sick of Reaganomics after 12 years.

From '92 to '16, I subscribed to the George Carlin theory of voting: if you vote, you have no right to complain. "I, who did not vote, who did not leave his house on election day, have every right to complain about the mess you made that I had nothing to do with."

That's not to say I didn't have opinions, but they were far from mainstream. I took a "Who should I vote for?" quiz in 2000 during the primaries, and the results were a toss-up between Bill Bradley and John McCain, who both lost their primaries.

What I've seen since 2001 was a Republican party that has lost their damn minds, that keeps pushing further and further right.

2016 changed everything. We all expected when the primaries began that it would be Clinton vs Bush II, here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Jon Stewart quit the Daily Show in part because he didn't want to cover the same race all over again.

And the Republican voters ignored every candidate with any modicum of competence to bring about the Idiocracy. I knew there was no chance Hillary would lose Illinois, but I voted like me life depended on it. The Idiocracy still won.

And Republican office holders embraced it.

Since '16 I have voted straight Dem, though I am still registered Independent. In '24 I may vote in the Republican primary to try to limit the damage they can do. I may even go back to Carlin's philosophy if the country keep insisting on flushing itself down the shitter.

But, unless the parties switch alignments like they did in the 60s, I cannot imagine a circumstance in which I will vote *for* a Republican ever again.

Expand full comment
Trump_Loves_Putin's avatar

Given the level of ineptitude and laziness Trump displayed in the past four years, I'm astonished at the number of votes he received.

Of course, I still can't get past his 2016 win.

Outside of the obvious Trump supporters, the only thing I can figure is that many of his voters must just accept at face value the constant stream of lies that he and various radical right wing propaganda outlets spew.

It may be dangerously erroneous however to assume that Trump's support is only from white racist types.

https://www.theguardian.com...

Expand full comment
277 more comments...

No posts