2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.
My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.
I just want to say that your vote for the federal office does matter even if you live in a non-competitive state. Some states allocate a percentage of their electoral votes rather than all or nothing but even if yours does not, voting still adds a data point that says I support this person instead of that person. There have been several times where a candidate has won the presidency without winning the most votes but it was always very close to 50%. If everybody that had a preference voted and the outcome was 55% this guy / 45% the other guy and the other guy won… that could be a real driver for change to the electoral college system.
My state is winner take all.
If my vote does not affect outcome put only expresses support, I am voting for somebody actually good (often from the Green Party).
Even if it was 55/45, nothing would change. The Senate would be very close, if not in favor of the candidate who got 45%. The House would probably also be close, because the legislatures of the states that voted for the 45% candidate would still gerrymander. The only change could come from the states that voted for the 55%. If they gave all of their votes to whoever won the national popular vote, nothing would change. If they did proportional allocation, then it would get even worse.
My vote does not matter.