r/votingtheory • u/yayredd1t • Feb 04 '26

Unpopular Opinion: Voting is useless and stop defending it

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0 Upvotes

27% Upvoted

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11

u/Norwester77 Feb 04 '26

Sometimes opinions are unpopular for good reasons.

-5

u/yayredd1t Feb 04 '26

Any counterargument or just the usual "I am better than you because I believe in Santa Claus" ?

2

u/Drachefly Feb 05 '26

A) The character is being wrong in both of the first two panels. They do do things. If you pay any attention, you can tell the difference, even. Yes, government is less responsive than would be ideal. But it is at least basically responsive.

B) even if it's unlikely to change the outcome, expected value is actually not very low. For instance, https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/

1

u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

Congratulations on being the first commenter that actually has an argumented response as opposed to just being angry at me :-).

May I point out that the comic is just tongue in cheek.. the post itself contains my actual argumentation. I just notice a couple of people focused only on the comic, not sure if you have clicked on the post or just react to the comic?

Anyway, just to point out that both of your arguments A) and B) focus on that voting for Democrats or Republicans would change something. As in, if you vote Republicans enough, policy would move towards their views (or incredibly your vote may even swing the election towards them!).

However you completely forget one important thing: Both parties (and all parties that have any chance of winning) will only have tabled issues that are not important to the elite.

The elite just throw in issues they dont care about, and let you fight it out. You think they care about whether you are allowed to abort your baby or can use the women's toilet? Or whether you can say the n-word or whether police brutality is out of hand?

They don't. The things they care about are not made an issue in the elections. And what they care about is staying rich and powerful.

Even though 90% of voters want to tax billionaires, it will never happen. Even though 90% of voters want money out of politics, it will never happen. Even though 90% of voters want corporate facism to stop, it will never happen.

1

u/Drachefly Feb 05 '26

Yeah, so there's something you have a hard time changing. But that leaves… everything else?

1

u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

Yes. You could vote and then perhaps if you are very lucky, you secure that trans women can use female bathrooms. Or not, if you are on the other side of that issue. (I dont have any view on the topic, just using it as an example).

However, you will see that all of a sudden more issues start popping up. Things you havent even thought about. Carefully designed to make you hate whoever is on the other side of the issue. And drown out issues that are actually important.

You will simply be fighting and fighting for one issue after another. All while every year you have less quality of life and freedom in every way.

So you say "everything else". I say "everything that is not important".

1

u/Drachefly Feb 05 '26

That is one of the least consequential effects of, say, the most recent election. If you focus on the minor culture war things that affect around 0.2% of the population and ignore the major things like maintaining world order, not starting major wars, maintaining pandemic response, then of course voting doesn't seem important.

1

u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

What do you mean? Are you saying that your vote would have helped maintain world order and prevented starting major wars and ensured appropriate pandemic response?

Unfortunately it doesn't. Wars have broken out and been fought despite overwhelming public opinion being against it. Nobody was ok with the pandemic response.

And world order being preserved is an illusion. The thing that is preserved is property rights and business. If you look into the contents of actual trade agreements or treaties between countries around the world, you will find that they are related to investor rights. Not trading or human rights.

2

u/Drachefly Feb 06 '26

Are you saying that your vote would have helped maintain world order and prevented starting major wars and ensured appropriate pandemic response?

Are you suggesting that any president other than Trump would have dismantled the pandemic response force that was specifically made to warn us about things like that? Or that it wouldn't have done anything?

Wars have broken out and been fought despite overwhelming public opinion being against it.

You're mixing up two things: voting, and public opinion after the voting. W didn't give a shit about the protests, but if he hadn't been president in the first place, we wouldn't have gone into Iraq. That was very much a him thing to do.

1

u/yayredd1t Feb 06 '26

I dont know how to quote, but your first question: Yes other presidents may have well done that too. Regardless of what they said before the election. And they may not have done it in the same style. Sometimes you can just defund or reorganize things without actively dismantling it.

On your second statement: No I am not mixing up things. Public opinion should be reflected in policy if voting works appropriately. The US has gone into the Cold War, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Who voted for that? Nobody. Who wanted it after voting? Nobody, but the elite i.e. oil billionaires, military industrial complex billionaires, etc.

I mean, by all means, keep voting. You can even be happy I dont vote because theoretically this makes your vote weigh more. But its a waste of time I am telling you.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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1

u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

I never voted in my life and I survived quite well. I'd say eating my veggies is a lot more important :-).

Yes, someone will always be elected. But whether you vote or not, policy that is important to the elite will never change. So dont waste your time.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

Yes, it must be awful to be in that situation and Im really sorry to hear that. Americans are such great people and it breaks my heart this is happening.

I do realize I am quite priviliged not to experience what you (and yours) are. However I also realize I just have a short head start. Facism is coming for us all (except when you are part of the elite).

I am a firm believer that voting will not stop that. At all. It will only change the form in which the elites take control.

So, although it is very hard, dont blame / distance yourself from the republicans you know. Or from the people that realize politics is a sham. Or whoever thinks ICE is a good thing.

The only way you can stop this is if you keep talking with each other and band together. And forget about voting.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

No problem, of course feel free to vote. Just saying it wont change anything.

You say Harris wont send in ICE? You dont know that. She may also do something similar to consolidate power. My impression is that the democrats control the media more effectively. So they may do something that is more under the radar. Different style but same outcome.

Note also that specifically ICE has been around for years. Although it was not set up by Democrats, it was not disbanded by them either (not Obama nor Biden).

I agree with you that doing things beyond voting like you describe may help. Please keep doing them.

I dont agree with you that a lower turnout leads to a worse leader. I just dont think it matters. Where did you find that statistic?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

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u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

Elected officials never represent the people. Thats what the Princeton research in my initial post concluded. They represent the elites.

I did a bit of googling on RCV and it does look like an interesting way to organize voting.

But in my view, it wont matter how you organize the voting.

Have a read for example into Robert Michel's book. He coined the "Iron Law of Oligarchy", which states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/yayredd1t Feb 05 '26

I like your positive thinking I have to say.. indeed an actual democracy instead of the current republics around the world may be the best way to combat elite power consolidation.

But in the end, I believe that will be corrupted as well. Firstly because people wont understand the consequences of the votes they do, and secondly because they will be brainwashed. Just look at the humanity on Reddit believing that poor billionaires earned their money and deserve not to be taxed.

Probably, it will be argued that a direct democracy shoulds still have some limitations by some sort of constitution, to avoid "majority tyranny". Then that constitution is what will be adapted to ensure property rights, and will be used to block anything avoiding concentration of wealth and power.

In addition, who controls the agenda for the ballots? I.e. what is being voted on.

No, any form of government will eventually be corrupted.

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u/TalksInMaths Apr 19 '26

You can't vote your way out of having two parties within FPTP.

But there are other voting systems that are less prone to two-party degeneracy.