r/politics • u/Hootinger • 16d ago

No Paywall Hakeem Jeffries says Medicare for all is not legislation he currently supports

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/hakeem-jeffries-says-medicare-for-all-is-not-legislation-he-currently-supports-268371525570
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u/Nekrabyte 16d ago

Not to mention in over 40 states being a non voter is EXACTLY the same as being a voter because the electoral college makes votes worth more depending on where you live.  Add 400 million Democrat voters to my state and it would literally change nothing.

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u/illegalcupcakes16 16d ago

This is what has been driving me insane when people go on about the non-voters. Republicans have such a strong super majority in my state that Dems would need to have historical turnout to flip an election. My "vote" went to Trump three times even though I have voted against him three times, and if he runs in 2028 (unconstitutional, but we don't need to pretend they care about that document), it will be four out of four.

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u/elbow8075 South Dakota 16d ago

While I want to choke them, I assume the people on here that blame nonvoters for all their problems are just immature children, no different than the MAGA cheerleading clowns.

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u/Nekrabyte 16d ago

110%. I wish I could upvote you thrice.

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u/OldWorldDesign 15d ago

I assume the people on here that blame nonvoters for all their problems are just immature children

There is a role in those people not participating in probably the most important selection of party officials: primary elections. Not all of these seats are contested, but many are and if more eligible voters actually participated we wouldn't have so many sedentary corporate stooges. In most of the country voter engagement for primaries is below 30%.

That is something to condemn voters for. Having the opportunity to shove off incumbents not doing their job and refusing to participate.

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u/Sea-Initiative-3398 15d ago

It's always been silly to me as it just makes me think there doing the thing centrists often accuse progressives of. of like pie in the sky thinking or whatever.

One cannot mind control the apathetic, one can control how there party appears to the public and comes off as.

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u/lazyFer 16d ago

The non voters in any state could shift the power dynamic of they actually voted...but nope, they do nothing and bitch about both sides while patting themselves on the back for being so whatever they feel makes them superior to others

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u/Nekrabyte 16d ago

Which state are you referring to? Do you have any numbers to back that up? Because my state has voted straight blue for like 40 years, and I fail to see how the election results from my state being exactly the same as they are now would "shift the power dynamic".

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u/OldWorldDesign 15d ago

Do you have any numbers to back that up?

Texas had historically strong voter engagement in the most recent primaries. That 'strong' was 53%, which is pathetic

https://texpolls.com/turnout

A state is lucky to see even 20% vote, so it's no wonder why corporate stooges who do very little get elected when voters don't show up to the primaries to tell the candidates whom they feel is least qualified.

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/press-release/voters-dont-participate-primaries/

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u/bentbrewer 16d ago

Most turnout for any state is around 60%, there are a few with better turnout - very few. If the non voters voted for one party, it would definitely change the winner in all but a very small number of states (these states are either Dem or independent). https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_elections

Non-voting is a vote for the winner. Period.

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u/LordCharidarn2 16d ago

Would it change the winner if all the non-voters voted for the winning party?

Assuming 100% of non-voters would vote for your preferred candidate definitely seems like a way to drive yourself crazy on election night. But you do you.

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u/lazyFer 15d ago

WE DON'T FUCKING KNOW BECAUSE THEY DON'T PARTICIPATE

See? That's the fucking problem. Well, except they still fucking bitch and moan while not actually doing the one fucking thing that gives them a voice.

They've proclaimed to the world IGNORE ME

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u/LordCharidarn2 15d ago

And yet you won’t ignore them. And I don’t see people who claim they didn’t vote bitch and moan, they are probably still as disconnected as they were before, just keeping their heads down and trying to get through the day.

What I do see is a bunch of people bitching and moaning about people who didn’t vote ‘supporting Trump’. Thought experiment for you, if every Trump supporter had decided not to vote last election, would Trump have won the election?

If you say ‘no’, than it seems reasonable that not voting for Trump is not supporting Trump, correct?

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u/lazyFer 15d ago edited 15d ago

I don't give a fuck what non voters want because I see them as idiots that clearly don't understand anything... Just like Republicans.

We are factually in this shit because these non voters couldn't be bothered so they "voted" for whomever the winner was. In this case, Republicans.

Republicans have made it a core fundamental thing to their party to reduce the number of people voting because they do better the fewer people vote. So you can pretend that non voters aren't republicans little bitches, but they are.

Thought experiments like that aren't actually intelligent in any way. You're trying to reframe the argument into something that it isn't and arguing against that... Which is a strawman

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u/Nekrabyte 15d ago

That math doesn't math, my man.

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u/fred11551 Virginia 15d ago

There are more nonvoters in Texas than democratic and Republican voters combined in Texas. Nonvoters absolutely are to blame. They could swing any election they want.

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u/rayword45 16d ago

Every time someone goes off about the non-voters being "just as much to blame" as actual Trump voters, I ask them how the fuck a non-voter in Alabama or Massachusetts is as to blame as a non-voter in Pennsylvania. They NEVER have an answer.

I also point out how their argument doesn't even make mathematical sense.

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u/Unctuous_Robot 15d ago

Harris was a few hundred thousand votes away from winning the electoral college.

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u/rayword45 15d ago

That doesn't change anything about my point that blaming non-voters in states like Alabama or Massachusetts at the same level as non-voters in actual swing states is fucking stupid.

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u/Unctuous_Robot 15d ago

And yet I live in a swing state and your comment is still visible.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/rayword45 16d ago

So does that mean everyone who didn't vote in 2020 is a Biden supporter? Or does this non-logic only go one way?

Also, you clearly missed the entire point of my comment, which is how the electoral college means that your vote is functionally worthless if you live in one of the ~43 non-swing states

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u/fcocyclone Iowa 16d ago

I will say that those people who didn't vote in non-swing states could have at least affected things downballot. A few votes swung the other way would have been huge in blocking things like his "big beautiful bill" that gave huge bonuses to ICE.

Trump is awful but his damage has been multiplied by having a compliant congress

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u/rayword45 15d ago

I largely agree with you, but nobody who writes smug, self-fellating comments about how non-voters are "just as much to blame" as Trump voters are doing so in reference to anything other than the Presidential election.

Based off this singular comment of yours bringing up a salient point that is wholly ignored whenever non-voters are discussed, I'm inclined to believe you're intelligent enough to recognize that.

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u/LordCharidarn2 16d ago

So Choosing to vote for Trump makes you a Trump Supporter. And… not voting for Trump makes you a Trump supporter?

By this logic, isn’t a non-voter also a Harris supporter? Are non-voters voting twice, in your opinion?

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u/Beautiful_Nobody_344 15d ago

It's an odd time to be alive. I'm a Trump supporter because I was too depressed to get out the house to vote, I'm a transphobe because I still listen to Harry Potter on audible, and I'm racist because I say things like "nip it in the bud" (I'm still confused on that one).

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u/carbonqubit 15d ago

It's non-voters or 3rd party ones in swing states who are to blame from a realpolitik perspective. The bigger problem is the Electoral College, which, if dissolved, would allow everyone's vote to be weighted equally.

Someone who lives in Wisconsin has a massive advantage over someone who votes in California because each state gets two senators, and Wisconsin has a much smaller population. It's a fundamentally undemocratic design.

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u/Sea-Initiative-3398 15d ago

It's just stupid in a smug centrist sense too.

Like again, you cannot control every person who votes. What can one control. the policies, how one comes off and so on.

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u/tipjarman 15d ago

400 million? What state is that?

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u/Kanin_usagi 16d ago

There are more things to vote on than just the presidency. Local and state elections are also important, and dumbasses don’t vote for those either

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u/Nekrabyte 16d ago

We were talking about voting for Trump. I vote in every election, including Primaries. That doesn't negate the fact that vote is entire worthless for presidency, which was the topic of the conversation. If we were talking about Congress, I wouldn't have said my vote was worthless in that context. Context my man.

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u/rayword45 16d ago

You know DAMN WELL that when people are raging about non-voters they are specifically referring to the presidential general election.