Actual analyses done on this topic by Pew, Breugel, and National Affairs suggest this effect is largely not true. When considering the entire electorate, a significant number of non-voters lean Republican or are politically unaffiliated and would not support the democratic party.
Further research indicates that, despite popular belief, higher voter turnout does not consistently benefit either party across the board. Over the past 70 years, there has been no strong correlation between increases in turnout and the Democratic vote share in presidential or midterm elections. This suggests that while higher turnout could marginally favor Democrats, it might not drastically alter outcomes.
Democrats could gain some advantage from 100% turnout due to the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups, but the overall impact would likely be less substantial than expected, as the partisan balance among non-voters is more evenly distributed than commonly thought.
The notion that 100% voter turnout would deliver sweeping political control for Democrats is just a comforting illusion—one that feeds into the fantasy that everyone secretly agrees with you. Both parties indulge in this kind of wishful thinking, convinced that non-voters would tip the scales in their favor if only they showed up.
The truth is that America is fiercely divided, and non-voters are just as politically varied as regular voters. Believing otherwise is just a way to avoid confronting how split the country really is.
Where meme?
These new Star Wars films are wild.
80% of Americans don’t support gun control. American Political parties are coalitions among themselves. Even if Ds won by 20 points they won’t have the support to do things like implement nationalized healthcare or overturning the 2nd Amendment.
“80% of Americans don’t support gun control” is pretty laughably wrong, considering the numbers actually paint a much different picture. According to Pew and APMRL, 58% of Americans want stricter gun laws, and nearly everyone—86%—supports universal background checks. 86%. Not exactly a fringe opinion, is it?
Also, the idea that no one’s on board with any gun control measures conveniently ignores the fact that a majority of Republicans even support some restrictions like keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses. It’s almost like you made this number up.
Sure, not every gun control proposal gets broad support—take things like an assault weapons ban, which has more partisan splits—but even there, almost three-quarters of Americans are on board with requiring licensing and testing, just like with cars. So, trying to paint gun control as some sort of massively unpopular idea just falls flat.
You would have to define “gun control”. As I’m sure that more than 20% of Americans would be in favor of incarcerated prisoners not being allowed to carry guns, which is a form of “gun control”.
Forgive my ignorance please, I’m not an american. I see these posts often on reddit and lemmy, but shouldn’t these posts be displayed on tiktok, billboards, or anywhere that those poeple who don’t vote frequent? Is there any stat at all to show whether such posts work?
shouldn’t these posts be displayed on tiktok, billboards, or anywhere that those poeple who don’t vote frequent?
No. This is all just preaching to the choir for karma.
There is no karma on Lemmy
Yes there is. It’s just more self gratifying and less purposeful though.
People still vote based on “in-group” logic and moral opinions whether comments add to discussions or not. People still act superior on here for feeling they have support when getting upvotes.
Pay no attention to them, they want people to vote for someone who supports genocide. They know they’re losing so they’re doing everything and anything they can right now, just tune them out.
Love seeing bullshit like this downvoted. It goes to show rust commoner sense and an adherence to reality stand up again propagandist bullshit.
Both support genocide, it’s not just the democrats.
A LOT of the time spent being an adult is about making choices where only bad ones are available. You don’t have to like one or the other but you have to be grown enough to recognize the difference between an orange hippo flinging shit around and someone who you can trust won’t be taking an actual shit at the table during a meeting with heads of state
So your solution is to let Trump win and make everyone but the rich pay for that genocide, probably destroy us democracy, while all this will change nothing for Palestine ?
Dude there are 2 options in the us both support genocide just one of them wants to deport every immigrant and put in a ton of awful policies And genuinely is a threat to democracy pick the better option and vote
There’s no point arguing with MAGA about who to vote for. Just point, laugh, and move on. It’s the 11th hour. They’re not going to stop now.
one of them wants to deport every immigrant
They both deport the same amounts of immigrants: https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/yearbook/2019/table39 Obama deported more than Trump
a threat to democracy
You just admitted that you don’t have democracy two seconds ago. You can’t say “I have no choice but to let my rulers commit genocide in my name” and two seconds later say “We have a democracy worth defending”
Have you not heard their new plans for deportation its going to be wayyy worse than he was when he was in office.
At least there are 2 shitty options versus none
I’m voting Democrat like I always do. I remember being the only non-right wing senior citizen looking person at my polling place for Hilary Clinton when no one showed up. Not with any hope, just so I can say I voted against gleeful hatred.
I’m just pissed that I will never, ever get a vote against market capitalism, as it controls both parties on economic policy and we only get a vote on how to manage the social issue symptoms it causes.
If you keep the left in power your can steer them left, if the right gets in power you reset your progress to 0
Resetting to 0 is a best case scenario
Could you walk me through steering them left when they’re in power? Over the years the democrats seem to only get more right wing. The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote, and if I guarantee my vote to you regardless of what you have done in the past or are currently doing, what incentive do you have to change course in a way that I like?
The Dems seek out the people who actually vote.
If the Left stays home every election, the Dems have no reason to listen to them.
Clearly they’ll just voter shame and we’ll end up exactly where we are. I’d argue the reason we are where we are is exactly that reason.
The Dems need all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and Senate to do anything. And they’ve only had that for 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 years. That’s why they keep going to the center to find voters, because they need all 3 and basically never get it. So how do you get them to go left? By giving them consistent and overwhelming victories.
It works the same way the Republicans have been steered further right while not in power. When Democrats have to worry about moderates, they move to the right. If they only have to worry about liberals, they can support and back more progressive positions. If they don’t, they are more likely to be primaried.
See also: the Tea Party takeover of the GOP which pushed them further down the path to the current fascism.
The thing is, I always thought that you steer politicians through your vote
To some extent, yes. However the amount of steering you can do this way is rather limited, since a vote only indicates a preference of one candidate over the other.
For example, if you decide to vote Republican out of protest, Democrats might conclude that you like republican policies, and to win your vote back, they need to move even further right. If you decide to stay home and not vote, you don’t really give any information to democrats what they actually need to do. They may decide that you are an unlikely voter in any case, and focus towards those folks most likely to turn out (that’s generally older white conservative folks).
One option is to vote for some leftist third party. This sends a pretty clear message about what policies you like. The problem is that, apart from the messaging, your vote is almost certainly wasted. You are in effect helping your enemy win in the short term.
The other option is to engage politically outside of just voting. Most people have been convinced by establishment politicians that your only influence is your vote. This is not true. Protests, activism, grassroots movements, local politics are all effective ways to steer your preferred party in your preferred direction. This does require substantially more effort.
When the Republicans win, the Democrats hear “move right”. It’s as simple as that.
“I’m not going to vote because democrats aren’t communist which makes them basically republicans” - average Lemmy.ml user
Jk it’s actually something more like “I’m not going to vote because I’m European”
Eastern European specifically.
Even more specific?
As east as you can get in Europe :)
Do you not think genocide is a good reason to not vote for someone else? As far as red lines go, that’s a pretty good one.
it is more like genocide vs genocide + whole bunch of other human rights violations.
if you are not planning to overthrow the government by revolution then there is no way to go from these two options to an “ideologically perfect” (whatever that means) government in just one election cycle, needs to be done in smaller steps.
Withholding your vote until genocide is taken off the table pressures her to give in to their demands, though. There’s no universal constant saying we need to have a genocide. Either she loves genocide, or she’s supporting it because she’s worried she won’t get the votes without it. If it’s the second one, and I hope it is, then the Uncommitted movement is simply doing the same thing to establish their own power, and for a better reason: to save the lives of their friends, family, aid workers, doctors, and journalists.
For me it’s the genocide.
So you’re gonna do nothing about it. Cool.
Both sides support Israel, one side has advocated and has vocal members who advocate against the genocide. The other side is for the genocide and thinks they should go further.
But you’re right, both sides, etc etc, Sit out.
But I thought Russians were voting in us elections? 🤔
I remember when dems had the presidency and both houses and did nothing stated here.
They need all 3 for more than 4 out of every 24 fucking years.
Manchin and Sinema don’t count. Fuck them.
I think they mean Obama’s first 2 years
That’s more complicated than a simple meme. If you have a party with 1/4 far left, 1/2 moderately left, and 1/4 basically moderate conservatives, it doesn’t matter that you have a majority, those moderate conservatives will still hold up any progress, but that’s not the fault of the other 3/4 of the party.
So what are people voting blue for exactly?
To negate the DINO’s
Our voter turnout is shameful. And oh man, the primary elections turnout… (Chefs kiss) Abysmal.
I agree wry everything you said, except please don’t say “chef’s kiss”.
Here’s the chef from the muppets to get rid of my shudder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UerBCXHKJ5s
That’s right reader. YOU are responsible for this nightmare. If only you
recycled your plastics more,used a non plastic straw, shouted at your peers to vote, you could have prevented this hell hole. So hold yourself personally responsible and then push that anxiety and stress onto others without any nuance. Cause if you can prove your moral goodness maybe the world might be heaven without any work other than checking a box.This is not really at all accurate math and it won’t change the people happily voting the other way. Or the Electoral College. Or the ridiculous amount of bribes, corruption and party politics.
I hate this photo for so many reasons and I also think voting should be a mandatory holiday. I just refuse to pretend that this idea that it would fix everything because you yelled at enough people to
pray harder, vote more.kids are force fed the bible
Well that can’t be true
Republicans are strongly against feeding children after allThis is assuming that the dems are anything but Captialist lapdogs, and willing to do any of this. They will not I am sorry to tell you that
This is assuming that the dems are anything but Captialist lapdogs
It assumes Dems are in the majority at a uniform distribution. As though an extra 10M Californians voting for Harris will bend the needle on a race in Ohio or North Carolina or Texas.
Nevermind the “You get a supermajority and can pass anything you want!” is a scenario we already had in 2009. And what happened? Big bank bailouts. Lukewarm regulations. A bloated Pentagon churning out failed project after failed project to the tune of trillions. No DC statehood. No SCOTUS majority. No gun control. No immigration reform. No Single Payer. No Abortion enshrinement.
Republicans only hold power because you let them hold power
True! But only for the leadership of the party. When grassroot Dems turnout in droves, the senior leadership takes office on a platform of Bipartisanship and Cooperation. When grassroot Dems collapse in exhaustion and despair, suddenly you’ve got a Unitary Executive and a Simple Majority in the House and Senate and a SCOTUS that can tear up the Social Contract at its leisure all stacked in the favor of Republicans.
What does happen if Harris wins big in November? Do Democrats get anything they were promised over the last 30 years? Or do we get a Democratic President more fixated on going to war with Iran and “balancing the budget” on the backs of SS/Medicare than offering an improved quality of life for American residents?
They only held a supermajority in the Senate for 72 days. The Minnesota seat was disputed and another democrat died of a tumor. Plus, enshrinement was not important back then as RvW wasn’t considered to be in danger.
no matter what time it is going to be the second, agian the Democrats are not beholden to the people, they know who’s intrests they serve and they lerch farther to the right each election
Your opinion is not welcome on Lemmy!
Get out of here! Downvoted.
#VoteKamala
I did:
I will give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that voting simply isn’t convenient or accessible to them.
Offer voting by phone, website, or app, and then see what the numbers look like.
I’m Canadian, and the last time I voted it was at a place that you basically needed to drive to. And take time off work to get to. Super inconvenient, despite my motivating to vote being high.
If it were an option by phone or website, I’m sure far more people would, because they don’t have to disrupt their lives for something that takes 5 seconds to do.
I should be able to vote by texting a phone number. Remember how they used to do American idol voting by texting a number. It should be something like that.
At what turnout does nancy pelosi break bank insider trading?
