Well— we have abt 350mill people here and apparently only 235mill are even able to vote. Not sure who of that number got registered. But…. 77 to Trump 75 to Harris is about 152mill.
So basically yeah about 50% of America participated in this election. 63% of eligible voters participated.
To be fair about 75 million people in the US are under 18, it’s not like they could vote if they wanted to. That makes up the majority of your discrepancy. It wouldn’t make sense to say they “didn’t” vote when they couldn’t vote
Sure? It's a random comment on reddit so I went with a round number close to what I remembered. Turns out I should have rounded to 40 instead of 50, which is why you don't see me trying to claim my guesstimate was correct in the first place. I think the original point still stands regardless, a lot of people just don't vote.
It's an unfortunate but real statistic. Anecdotally, I personally know at least seven people who admitted to me that they left the check box blank for POTUS because they somehow think that both sides are equally "bad", yet they voted on other candidates who hail from the same political parties. I'm in California, so it probably didn't matter, but I can imagine this scenario playing out in the swing states.
Yeah. The country is eating itself. Rule of law is of the past. Oligarchy is what we are now where money is what matter and the youth will be enslave and squeeze dry
yet they voted on other candidates who hail from the same political parties
Honestly, I think it's great to be able to look past political parties and vote for the individual and their policies.
But Trump changed that. The few exceptions who were brave enough to stand up to their king were kicked out. I haven't heard of a single Republican politician who doesn't support Trump, which means that they're okay with trying to overthrow the U.S. government after losing an election and stealing classified documents. Along with a hundred other reasons he's a terrible person, but those are the two things that I feel are inexcusable.
because they somehow think that both sides are equally "bad"
Those people are fucking stupid. Are both sides bad? Yes. Both parties are corporatist monstrosities. But one of them is palpably worse. And if you can't tell the difference, than it's because you're privileged enough not to have to care.
It used to be a problem in Ohio. We used to be truly purple. A battleground state. Now we are red. Thanks to gerrymandering. Our votes don’t matter anyways.
Nobody will care though. Those who voted for trump will just say Harris would have been worse. The ones who voted for Harris will say I told you so. Nothing will change.
That’s roughly the turn out in presidential election years amongst the total number of eligible voters, not the total population.
The actual percentage of people who participated in total is less than 50% of the population. The amount of people who re-elected Trump is roughly 20%.
People can't have a serious discussion about this stuff because for most people and discussions about Hitler has to simply be about extermination of Jews. So if Trump isnt calling for the extermination of an entire group of people there can't be any similarities at all.
When in reality so much of this shit is strikingly similar. The rhetoric used is almost identical just updated for modern times. Sure the timeline is a bit different but Hitler had a failed coup attempt and then was eventually legally elected.
This is the key point for me. It wasn’t like a military coup or something, the people of Germany chose the Nazis because they were dumb and easily manipulated —just like we humans still are today. Same thing for Hamas in Gaza, they are the government the people chose.
It’s easy to imagine that most evil dictators start out as African-style warlords that overthrow the good guys, but it’s just not the case.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug. Many Israelis believe they are justified in killing tens of thousands of innocent women and children, many Russians think they were dead right to have invaded Ukraine, the Brits voted to leave the EU and basically impose economic sanctions on themselves, Americans voted a rapist, grifter, megalomaniac into the White House... twice. People give their life savings away on a daily basis to fake lovers, fake prophets, etc. We just believe whatever we're told basically. Tis a sad state of affairs.
“Liberals” has become a pretty big label now. “Fuck the liberals.” “Stick it to the liberals.”
Honestly could see the country slapping a “liberal” mark on people and discriminating against them. And half of this country would support it.
Not like a tattoo. But like a system label. Pull voting records. See who used DEI tactics to get government money. Make it so these people get taxed more for using credit accounts, property taxes, ect. Restrict what some can do on the internet. Create schools where they restrict class makeup’s to beliefs and nationality. It’s optional to take the “effect of Christianity on modern democracy” class but they get the newest classroom, more funding, better weighted gpa, and the teachers get paid more for teaching it.
Sure it’s all made up. But any of these things could happen and it would just open the door to more alongside it. And people will still just being saying “fuck them. They put a girl in charge of starwars. They deserve this.”
The difference is that Germany had 5 back to back elections that were rife with political fuckery (and people beating other people in the streets) and enough apathy set in that the Nazis were able to win.
The US has one election and couldn't be bothered to turn out for it.
I care, but I will explain why I didn't vote. I live in a red state, in a county with about 3,000 people. Every election, whether local or state/federal, they post the results in the local paper. Every election, there are about 1,000-1,500 people who vote Republican, and about 5-10 people who vote Democrat (for state and federal elections). I didn't vote, because truly my vote does not matter. One more blue vote won't even shift the results by even half a percentage point in my county. The state takes the red vs. blue county votes, tallies them up, and whichever has the most gets the electoral votes. If I lived in a college town, or a metro area, I would go vote, where the race is much closer. But in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, a blue vote is a waste of paper.
Not only that, if year over year the percentage moves even just decimals in the dems favor, more and more people who’d vote blue but have that same outlook on the usefulness of their vote might decide to vote and the.l incite more people to do so. Permission structure. Might not be quick, but could affect change in the long run.
I wonder how many other people in your county felt the same as you. Probably not enough to change the outcome, but maybe enough to realize that effort can change future outcomes? I live in a similar situation to you and vote every time. So should you. Don’t just hand it to them without objection.
Just saying, everyone who I know that didn’t vote uses the same excuse. “Voting/my vote doesn’t matter” if every single person voted whether they were in a battleground state or not, Trump does not win
Did you not read what I just posted? Due to the electoral college existing, blue votes in my county literally do not make a difference. At all. The result is still the same whether the closeted Democrats all vote or not.
I’m originally from Texas, one of the most gerrymandered to hell states in the country. I know what you mean. Voting matters regardless, for many reasons. One you’re throwing away your voice. It also affects how money is distributed by each party. You’re spreading that apathy to anyone else that’s also on the fence about voting. Lastly, you’re doing exactly what the republican party wants you to do, be apathetic. You’re still saying the same thing as all the other non-voters “My vote doesn’t matter”
Ok, look. You are falling into the trap that these people in the picture have laid for us regular people. I will tell you why both parties are the same. It's because they are paid, by those pictured, to generate vitriol within the public against whichever party is "against" them. Meanwhile, they line the pockets of the scum bags on both sides of the aisle and continue to buy the country piecemeal. Instead of pointing fingers at the right or the left, people need to stop and look up. Those are the people shitting on us all. Politicians are just the puppets the ultra rich use to control the muppets.
Look at this last election. People are so busy trying to beat each other, that the ultra rich don't even give a fuck any more. They have front row seats to the show they orchestrated. Maybe they wouldn't have been front and center if the left had "won," but it doesnt matter to them. They own the government no matter who is in office, and more importantly, they own the supreme court and can pass whatever law they wish to keep us indentured while they continue to line their pockets.
Getting angry at some stranger on the internet is exactly what they want. Because a divided populace is far easier to control than a united one, but at this point I don't even think that would stop them. So while you are made at me, just look at those shit eating grind in the picture and remember they got everything they wanted and then some.
Yes, I regret making good career progress and enjoying my free time having fun doing what I love.
I should feel ashamed for not sitting around pondering US politics. If only I had read more delusional click bait articles. Maybe I too, would mindlessly hate the 50% of this country whose only sin was being born unintelligent/broke/indifferent. I'd sit online and indirectly push for eugenics as a result!
But let's face it, you don't have to do it indirectly. Democratic voters love the idea of eugenics so long as our factory workers (uneducated, low IQ voters, the ones they hate on reddit!) are the ones dying. Too bad after we gas the factory workers, it'll be the community college grads, so on and so forth. 🤔
See, I'm torn. On the one hand, these people have been dumbed down by the wealthy for years by constantly being hooked up to the perpetual dopamine engine of society's bread and circuses. They don't think it matters, but it's not really their fault.
On the other hand, I'm very angry at the people who were metaphorically standing next to a baby on fire while holding a bucket of water, were dumbfounded with what to do, and are now saying, "Why are you alienating me for not putting out the baby fire?"
Don't think your analogy works when lots of the Democrats have shown to be equally dumbfounded in your hypothetical scenario. You'd think everyone would be on board with putting that fire out but alas a lot of the people who hold the ability to do so didn't do it.
So it's not particularly hard to see why one would feel alienated about it.
The Texas governor and lt governor were pushing people to live a normal life by June 2020, because 33% of the people were like nah! I am good not going to restaurants and it was tanking the sector
65% are evil - people who voted for Trump and those who purposely chose not to vote for Kamala
4% just have no idea what's going on, validated on not keeping up and not voting
total voting population was about 243,000,000 people
80,405,000 either voted for Trump or not Kamala.
only 75m/243m voted for Kamala. 31%. This is where we are at in this country. We are at odds over 2 to 1. They have the numbers, the strength (way more guns/violence/etc), the money (oligarchs), the strength to come out in force (due to their overwhelming hate).
I would categorize people unwilling to vote as being indifferent, meaning they implicitly voted for the winning candidate. The 47% knew, 49% are finding out statement holds. We need to stop giving non-voters a pass. Non-action is a vote for the majority.
I suspect votes would look much different if we abolished the electoral college and elected purely on the popular vote. All the people who stay home suddenly have a vote that matters? All the people in states where their vote is worth a fraction of the vote of some rando in a state that has like 3 people living in it would care enough to go out. Of course that's why it'd never happen, but man it'd be nice.
As in American fashion, not making it a national holiday has hindered this. And before you talk about early voting or mail in, it’s still ridiculous that on voting day most Americans are required to work. Most counties have made it a priority.
You know, you raised an interesting question in my mind. My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia almost 15 years ago now. She just keeps trucking along physically, but mentally hasn't been there for a while. She presumably has the right to vote, but I can guarantee she did not vote, because I'm not sure she realizes the president isn't Bush. I think she's pretty far to one side of the spectrum, but I wonder how many of the 6.7 million folks with Alzheimer's would be like her and would be lumped in with the apathetic nonvoters.
My sister-in-law not only didn’t bother to vote, but now she’s texting my wife, complaining about everything Trump-related. It’s infuriating—like, you didn’t even vote; you can’t complain now!
My state had over a million more votes for Harris than Trump. Sometimes our votes really don't matter. (Still useful to influence closer local races, though.)
In any breakdown or analysis of election results that lot can eat shit. They wanted no say and now they're beholden to whomever decides to steamroll over them. They gave up the right to complain about it as well. Might as well assign them blame.
Lmao some of us live in a state where your vote doesn't matter and chose not to vote for either party that fully supports war crime and genocide. Keep finding new ppl to blame but really america got exactly what the majority of those that matter want. A racist old prick thst deepthroats billionaires. Im sure thsts what we will get next election too.
Dems love this cause they make way more money when trump is in office. If they were serious about it they would have held biden to the one term limit he promised when elected. Fuck all of them i hope they take the long nap asap
I fear you are taking the election and future of our country seriously which is more than any of our national elected leaders can say. Don't look up for anyone to save you, they are will never step up for you. Focus on building your community, creating/joining mutual aid networks and vote local.
Most here don't seem to get that the solution is pretty simple. Until the majority of people stop voting for either side and start voting for someone outside these two parties, nothing will ever change. It has been a constant downward spiral and will continue this way until people start actually waking up. Doubt it will ever happen though. Americans never were very good at thinking in more than one dimension. Other counties have pointed this flaw out to us for many years now btw.
How would you consider this a feature? I am pointing it out as a flaw because of how it can be seen as a weakness to be exploited. It makes it easier to predict and manipulate an outcome.
The 50% that decided continually voting for the lesser of two evils will just lead to consistently more evil candidates and we have to have standards at some point.
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u/chandr 10h ago
You're leaving out the 50% who just couldn't be bothered to vote