Where I have lived for my adult life in 3 significantly different parts of the country, it is true that my vote would have not at all affected the outcome on nearly all election positions I could vote for.

This was true multiple elections in a row. Whether my vote merely reaffirmed what was clearly going to happen regardless, or if mine was a waste since it was clearly not going to matter. In the vast majority of elections I did or could have voted in, I have looked after the fact and seen how my contribution, or lack of, Did. Not. Fucking. Matter.

Also most options I am presented with most of the time are uninspiring or downright evil.

As for effecting change. That's a waste of time. I learned that early on. Everyone has their viewpoints and beliefs and the vast majority will not be swayed. They either will not change, or were already on your side.

Its not my responsibility to "solve" America's 250 years of lies.

So have fun on your high horse as you highlight one cherry-picked recent primary result for one city in a country filled with 90,000 governments and countless elected positions.

I'm getting lots of downvotes. The Principal Skinner meme comes to mind.

Is the Democratic Party at fault?

No, the millions of people who didn't want to vote for the Democratic Party are to blame.

That's an unproveable negative, and a strawman. An easy enough target for a crappy argument.

Theres a fire in my kitchen, but the fire extinguisher is only going to stop like 25% of the damage, so I'm committed to not stopping the fire.

To be clear, I also don't support the fire. But the fire extinguisher is:

• filled with chemicals
• makes a huge mess
• costs money to recharge
• may cause other damage from overspray

So the best thing for me and my kitchen is to do nothing until they make a "fix my kitchen" spray.

That's not what I said, why bother replying if you didn't read my comment?

How would I not know the political views of my husband?

Can't find those comments now. But I'd happily invite you to go into any tankie instance and talk about Russia or the CCP being communist, especially where people are ranting about the evils of capitalism, and see what happens.

Nope. This time, everyone knew what voting for Trump meant, so they're either irredeemably evil or irredeemably stupid (or both).

Man you'd think. Some ppl just use politics to hide shitty behavior. Polis don't mean shit. See how friendly and helpful they are to strangers. Ppl thank can't offer anything.

I think a lot of us in the US have had this experience some time in the last 10 years. A work colleague or relative you don't know that well. People tend to avoid talking about politics directly, and often the euphemism (as seen here)bis ambiguous enough that it's a coin toss for what it actually means.

Unless some politician had a recent shitstorm and no other politician was in hot water currently, I would probably ask who it was they wouldn’t vote for because I would have no clue. The same would apply if instead of a single person, it was about a single party, unless an especially bad one had popped up that election, I simply wouldn’t know which party they were talking about. I don’t even think I’d be suspicious, I’d be too busy being confused or curious.

For context, we currently have more than a dozen parties represented in government and half a dozen that didn’t get enough votes this time around, but are big enough to be recognizable and sometimes getting representatives in government.

Maybe if everyone..........

But they won't. You know that, I know that, random raccoons in dumpsters know that.

It's not really unprovable when we know that on average less than 50% of eligible voters actually vote.

It will never cease to amaze me when these people blame the voters, instead of blaming the people with the power, the platform, and the money for where we are today.

Implies my vote would have changed the outcome. But it wouldn't have, and didn't in some past cases. So no, you're fucking dead wrong.

Is that what you've observed? What we've seen is that not holding political parties accountable for their past actions leads to them ignoring everyone except their donors.

I'm committed to not stopping the fire.

There's a difference between being "committed to not stop the fire" and recognizing my tools at my disposal don't work for me.

A better version of your example is more like my single fire extinguisher might help me with some of my fire, but it turns out my neighbors lit the whole fucking neighborhood on fire, so rather than fighting my little fire and exhausting myself pointlessly, I chose to walk out and acknowledge I can't make a difference here.

If anything I should move out of the neighborhood but that's a luxury I don't have.

Yeah, not communicating enough with your spouse to know their political beliefs would be a major red flag. That in itself should be the final nail in the coffin.

It's possible that his views were conflicted.

I have family whose politics I understand pretty well, and I don't know who they voted for. What I do know is that they were torn between: "Trump's blatant antisemitism is a danger to us here in America" and "Trump is good for Israel".

The majority of Americans in general regardless of age didn't vote at all. I think I understand what you were trying to say either that or you were just being ageist