Vote First, Argue Later: The Truth About ‘Both Sides’ debates

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Dragging the Overton Window to the left, whether leftists like it or not.

Voter turnout midterms is the whole ballgame, and there’s a particular breed of self-styled leftist and anarchist who has decided that the most urgent political work available to them right now is talking Democrats out of voting anyway. You’ve seen them. “Both sides are the same.” “The whole system needs to come down.” “Voting is a corporate distraction.” They say it with total confidence, usually followed by a logical fallacy or two when you push back, and if you push a little harder, by name-calling.

I’ve been on the other end of enough of these conversations now to notice the pattern, and I want to walk through it plainly, because the pattern matters more than any individual argument they’re making.

The tell is always the same question

Ask one of them a simple, specific question: what’s the plan, what replaces the current system, and how exactly do you get there?

Watch what happens. It’s rarely a plan. It’s usually a retreat into vibes, a reference to some vague future uprising, or an abrupt pivot to questioning your loyalty. Push a little further and you’ll often get told you’re “brainwashed,” a “statist,” or that you “just don’t understand” because you’re too old, too compromised, or too invested in a broken system to see clearly.

I find that last one particularly funny, honestly. I’ve lived through Watergate, Vietnam, the moon landing, The Cold War, Duck and Cover Drills, 9/11, Iran-Contra. I went through my own share of ideological phases in my twenties too — flirted with a few flavors of radical politics myself, actually, so I recognize the shape of this argument because I used to make versions of it. The difference is I eventually had to answer the same question I’m asking now: then what? A lot of the loudest voices telling me I don’t understand anything have never had to sit with that question for more than five minutes.

Voter turnout midterms math: notice who they never say this to

Here’s the actual tell, though, and it’s not subtle once you see it: these are the same people who almost never go after MAGA diehards with anywhere near this same energy. Ask them to show you where they’ve had this identical argument, with this identical intensity, with a Trump supporter. Watch them scramble to invent one on the spot. “Well, I posted some memes to a group.” Yeah, revolutionary stuff there Che Guevara.

That’s not a coincidence. If your entire political project only ever seems to expend energy talking one side out of participating in elections — the same elections where voter turnout midterms numbers are the single biggest lever either party has — that’s not neutrality. That’s a side. And it’s worth asking, plainly and without hostility, whether some meaningful percentage of the loudest “both sides” voices online are doing exactly what they appear to be doing: working to depress Democratic turnout, whether they’d ever admit that to themselves or not. And if you don’t think elections and the democratic process is important or changes anything just look at the billions of dollars, and the extent that the current administration is willing to go to keep you from voting. Its not the Dems threatening Martial Law, to send ICE agents to intimidate at poling places, and fighting to restrict mail in voting and demanding to see and purge voters roles. THAT should be your biggest clue that “Both Sides” are NOT “the same”.

Voter turnout midterms is not a distraction

Here’s the actual math, and it’s not abstract. This is what voter turnout midterms numbers actually look like:

At 40% voter turnout, Democrats lose. At 60% turnout, Democrats win most of the time. At 65% turnout, Democrats win nearly every time. At 70% turnout, Democrats get a real congressional majority — enough to actually pass policy. At 80% turnout, Democrats get a supermajority — enough to pass the big stuff: gun laws, banking reform, healthcare.

[Insert the “DEMOCRATS: At 40% voter turnout you lose…” graphic here]

Republicans do not hold power because they’re more popular. They hold power, disproportionately, because voter turnout midterms numbers are lower than they need to be — and every “don’t bother voting, it’s all rigged anyway” post that talks one more disillusioned progressive out of showing up is doing quiet, direct work for the other side, regardless of what its author believes about themselves. I don’t think that many of the self-styled “Leftists” making these arguments have ever really thought about that, or thought through WHO and WHAT really benefits from their fits of edgelord outrage and posturing.

“Harm reduction doesn’t work” and other things people say right before contradicting themselves

You’ll get the vocabulary eventually — it’s usually fresh out of whatever “Leftism 101” Facebook group someone just joined. “That’s just harm reduction, and harm reduction doesn’t work.” “You’re selling us out for another corporate sellout.” Here’s the actual answer to that: harm reduction is not a consolation prize, it’s a description of literally every incremental political and legal victory that has ever been won by anyone, ever. Every voting rights expansion, every labor protection, every civil rights law was harm reduction relative to what came before it, and organizers pursued it anyway because refusing to reduce harm while waiting for total victory is not principle. It’s just harm, undefended.

And no candidate is going to be perfect. None of them will match your values exactly. That’s not a flaw in democracy — that’s what democracy actually is: a process of building the closest available coalition to your actual values, not a vending machine that dispenses your ideal government if you insert the correct opinion.

I’ll take the lesser evil everytime. I’m not Cthulhu.

Voting and burning it all down are not mutually exclusive

Here’s the part that I think actually gets lost in all of this, and it matters: agreeing that the system needs fundamental change does not require you to sit out elections while you wait for that change to happen. These are not opposing choices. You can vote for the candidate who most closely matches your values on a Tuesday morning and go organize, protest, agitate, and hold every single one of those same politicians accountable for the rest of the week. Nothing about casting a ballot obligates you to stop pushing. Nothing about pushing requires you to abstain from the ballot.

This is also, genuinely, how you actually move the country’s politics — not through a single dramatic uprising, but by dragging the Overton window back toward the center, and eventually further left, by actually occupying the seats that voter turnout midterms results determine who fills. Every additional seat held by someone who represents your values instead of someone who doesn’t is a small, real shift in what’s politically possible to say, propose, and pass. That’s not glamorous. It’s also not optional if you actually want different outcomes instead of just a different vocabulary for describing the same outcomes.

And to be clear: none of this means unconditional loyalty to Democrats either. Vote for them, and then hold them accountable exactly as hard as you’d hold anyone else — that’s not a contradiction, that’s the job.

Voter turnout midterms: so here’s what I’d actually say to them

I like a lot of these people, for what it’s worth. I recognize the energy, and some of it comes from a real place. But I’ve also seen what the other side actually has on the table — organized militias, a federal government willing to deploy ICE and private contractors against its own citizens, a legal system already bent toward protecting power rather than checking it. A movement built entirely out of online rhetoric and no electoral participation is not going to outlast that, no matter how righteous it feels in the moment. And they can outspend George Soros 100 to 1.

So tell them what I tell them: I’m with you on wanting real change. I’m still going to go vote. In the meantime, come back to me with an actual plan — not a slogan, an actual sequence of steps that ends somewhere real — or just admit you haven’t thought that far yet.

That question tends to end the conversation fast. Which tells you almost everything you need to know about how much thought was behind the argument in the first place. They often start spewing purity test and telling you that “You can’t be trusted with the plan” because you are simply asking valid questions and offering legitimate criticisms.

The bottom line is that anyone trying to talk you out of voting is doing it to benefit the worst of the worst: The Trump admin, whether they know it or not.

Voter turnout midterms is how this actually gets decided. Vote in the midterms. Then keep fighting for everything else, exactly as hard as you already were.

About Post Author

Chrome Tuna

bobscutler@gmail.com

https://chrometuna.com

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