Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

MellowDem

(5,018 posts)
Fri Mar 25, 2016, 06:07 PM Mar 2016

If it's a "privilege" to vote for...

a candidate you respect, trust, and most agree with on the issues, if it's a sign you live in relative luxury to be able to vote in such a way, guess what, it's not you who is privileged, it's the system that is fucked up.

Imagine a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and multiple parties. Sanders and Clinton could form a coalition in such a hypothetical. People could vote for more than two choices! Is this hedonism possible? Would the privilege levels be too high?

I'm going to vote for Clinton in the general even though I think she's a moderate conservative who has thrown various demographics under the bus when it suited her because I'm a pragmatist, not because I'm underprivileged. I'm not forgoing a privilege by voting this way, I'm reinforcing it by voting for someone that will maintain the status quo very well.

Having only two choices in a democracy is a lack of privilege, IMHO, and for the principled that just won't vote, I'm not going to blame them, I'm going to blame the fucked up system we're in, one I'm endorsing by voting for Clinton and the Democratic establishment, who, as far as I can tell, would never want to see a multi party system and who are thrilled at the idea of supporters of a moderately conservative, status quo, infinitely privileged candidate lecturing others on their "privilege" for not voting the lesser of two evils.

Seriously? It's bad enough I feel like this is my best choice in this system, by to lay down this "privilege" gauntlet just seems like the ultimate irony in how to defend privilege and the status quo.

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»2016 Postmortem»If it's a "privilege" to ...