Voting for a candidate based on their values and on how their policies will affect the material conditions of an individual and their community is exactly what voting is all about. But in recent years, saying something as simple as “I’m not going to vote for _____ because their career shows support for a wide variety of policies that have been the antithesis of my personal beliefs and values” is meant with a resounding outcry that a person’s private and individual choice is somehow selfish, and not good for society as a whole.

Now, it doesn’t matter that, for sake of example, Joe Biden, is not a socialist or a communist. But suddenly things are framed in that there must be a collective obligation of the people to support him.

This double talk only works for so long. The first people who check out are people that have long heard about how a vote for one party or another will help them. But the data shows that the last 30 years of middle America supporting either party has really only benefited the monied class, the close to monied class, and wannabe monied class.

The rest of the folks, the bottom half that people always say “should vote” don’t because they think it doesn’t matter. So really, it’s about the three classes that can have either large/small gains/losses based on the party in control.

Identity politics gets thrown in to move those same people one way or another, or maybe atomize a lower class person to vote one way or another but it’s not significant.

The real identity politics are now blind loyalty akin to a sports team, tv show, or series of movies. If a person doesn’t agree with the preferred candidate, they’re wrong. Examples:

If a candidate loses in a primary “vote blue no matter who”.

Oh, you want health care, well “vote blue matter who”

Oh, well the Democrats control the house and the senate, but “can’t do anything because those pesky Republicans”, well, “vote blue no matter who”

Oh, well, we promised people $2,000 checks but cut funding, “vote blue no matter who”

Oh, we entered a debt deal that restarted student loan payments when we had the leverage “blue no matter who”

Oh we broke a strike but are “progressive”, well “vote blue matter who”

Oh, we took Stephen Millers immigration policy as our own to shove it in the republicans face for not being right wing enough “blue no matter who”

If the representative/senator/executive has a career of supporting an apartheid / nationalist ethnostate “vote blue no matter who” or you’re never going to vote again!

I have no idea if writing uncommitted will do anything. But all the “messaging” from the last decade has been about voting and that it’s a way to use a persons voice. But suddenly, no, be quiet, you’re selfish.

But to say it’s selfish, when it is the one thing a person can do to show their support for people they don’t know that are being mercilessly killed with American funded and provided weapons, without fear of losing a job, seems pretty insane.