I don't get how it is privileged when we are forced with choices that don't serve the masses but only the donors, corporations, and politicians, which also are exploiting, killing and slaughtering people at home and abroad.
Holding your vote ransom is the only logical move. Votes should be earned, politicians aren't entitled to them.!!! If only the Dems functioned as an actual party, then you'd see possibility of primary protest votes on a bigger scale. For example, imagine there was a voter coalition across swing states deciding to vote only if the political party commits to withdrawing support for Israel.
Dems are getting so caught up in shaming 3rd party voters that they lose sight of the real, although small, political power they could potentially have through voting, much less things outside of voting.
Yes you are forced with only 2 realistic choices. Yes, politicians are nowhere remotely close to ideal. Welcome to reality.
Does not voting prevent a candidate from being put in power? No. You're going to end up with one of the two anyway, and not abstaining from voting could result in whichever candidate is worse being put in power.
Primaries and protests are the most optimal scenarios to try and force a shift in policy within a party. Abstaining from voting in a general election is just shooting yourself in the foot and then pretending you did something useful.
As anyone with a functioning brain should be able to logically deduce,
there is no such thing as 'both sides are the same.'
That is a completely delusional argument with no basis in reality.
If someone were to take the time to actually research the policies, track records, ... they would always end up disliking one candidate more than the other. The only possible way someone could end up at a 'both sides are the same' view is if they are
extremely dumb and ignorant or unwilling to do some basic research.
Thus the logical option is to vote for whichever option comes closest to your preferences. People who abstain from voting in general elections and think they're doing anything other than pointlessly grandstanding are privileged morons living in a fantasy land. If the options aren't a mythical politician that meets their ideals, they throw the baby out with the bathwater with no regard for the consequences it might pose to themselves or others.
This principle applies to
any election and has nothing inherently to do with Trump but the abstaining argument enters a whole new level of dumb when you take into account that Trump tried to stage a coup and eliminate the concept of elections altogether last time.
The privilege comes from abstainers clearly not caring about potentially screwing over both themselves and others if it happens to contribute to the victory of a candidate that is the furthest from your ideal views. If that happens to include Supreme Court appointments, the impact could last for decades far beyond the president's terms.
An obvious example would be the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
