If you are set on not voting in the presidential election, I would like to encourage you to still vote (if you didn’t already intend to) and just not vote on that question on the ballot, for two reaons:

1. Local ballot measures and politicians are still quite relevant and your vote is still fairly impactful there relative to the federal election (depending on your state) and

2. it sends a significantly stronger message to both parties that they are putting forward garbage candidates to vote and just abstain from the one question. Not voting is easy to mislabel as voter suppression by the opposition or any number of other misleading causes when voting, just not for Biden or trump is much more clear what you are mad about.

I think the general feeling of disenfranchisement comes from the DNC influence in primaries. Who they throw their weight behind in terms of advertising dollars and publicity makes a big difference in how the primaries go. Also very relevant is which states have their primaries when, as most times the primaries are called before every state has theirs. This is also hearsay and way harder to substantiate, but there are also some that cry foul that there isn’t actually much in place to monitor primaries like there are in standard elections and there is significantly higher potential for fudged numbers and misrepresented results.

Of course I would still love to see more left candidates get the nomination despite that, but it is certainly still possible that I am in the minority in that desire.

For 2024, though, it doesn’t much matter if Biden is who the left wants. When running against a literal fascist, there isn’t really as much room to voice complaints about the alternatives. I voted for Biden in 2020 and will again in 2024 even though he is much further right than my political leaning, and even for those of us on the left who are not happy with how Biden has been doing, there isn’t really room to show that with voting because the alternative is so much worse. In this scenario, votes for Biden can easily be misconstrued as support for Biden which is not really the case

A lot of us live in states that didnt get to vote in the primaries, and a lot of us show up to every election even when neither option really represents our views (albeit one much more than the other). To say we aren’t getting our way cause we aren’t voting, though undoubtedly true for some, is a bad take

This is not even touching on the DNC putting their finger on the scales in the primaries that did happen

While I basically agree on the outcome, I worry that it will lead to more absence of presidential debates which feels problematic in terms of keeping people in echo chambers . I mean I don’t seriously think anyones mind will change but generally hearing it out anyway is…maybe productive? Idk

I mean the majority of us didn’t. But yes let’s hope even less next time. Sorry for stressing our friendship random person from unknown other country, we tried to stop it