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Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

I mean, it's cliche but vote! Use your right to vote and vote in people who will hold those who abuse their power accountable.

If everyone who was allowed to vote actually voted, I think there's a reasonably high chance we'd have better politicians. As it stands, there's this pretend "virtue" from a bunch of pseudo-intellectual morons who think they're cool by abstaining from their right to vote, and dedicate a lot of time trying to convince people that their votes don't matter.

Cynicism is always tempting but ultimately lazy; if they votes didn't matter then there wouldn't be politicians wasting their time trying to make it hard or impossible for you to vote.

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Voting is important, but your voice doesn't stop there. Take to the streets. Block some roads. Occupy some buildings.

The Serbians did that for two years straight, until their government resigned and called for new elections. Look at videos from a protest: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1jc29fk/breathtakin...

If a much poorer country with (for now!) much worse repression can do it, what's your excuse, Americans?

Politics isn't just the ballot box every couple of years. Politics is always and everywhere.

I don't disagree with anything you said. I'm just saying that voting is something that's a right given to US citizens [1] that is woefully underutilized. Only about half of those eligible bother voting! If you don't like the current state of politics, you should at the very least do the minimal effort to participate in our republic.

That is, of course, the minimal thing, but I think we'd have way better elections if people just used this fundamental right.

[1] Yes yes I know about disenfranchisement for felonies and the like, you don't need to lecture me.

Blocking roads seems like a very fast way to have people turn on you and your cause. It might be effective in some places, but in much of America I think it's counter productive.

It's counter productive because what roads are you going to block? Cities are Blue, even in Texas.

There were larger protests at ICE concentration camps but ICE made it clear that they'd use deadly force to disperse them. From the Left, the worry was that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act to suspend elections, deploy the military, etc.

"Calling for new elections" is a regular process in a parliamentary system, and so protestors can pressure a government into that. The US runs on a fixed election schedule and change doesn't happen outside of that (Congressmen and Senators resigning en masse is a pure fantasy).

Sure, you can't have the exact same outcome. But you sure can force change in ways that are feasible in your system. The problem is the lack of even trying.

When the government is shooting citizens in the face, disenfranchising voters, dismantling election committees, and encouraging militant groups to show up to polling places and intimidate vote counters, all while claiming every election they've been a part of was rigged against them, it's natural for people to look outside of voting to make an impact.

I will be voting, like I always have, but I live in a state where that's easy to do. This administration is testing the limits of what people will put up with.

I'm not saying you vote instead of doing other things. I'm just saying that this right is really underutilized and anyone who can vote should.

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