Us young people are born to see the disasters everywhere caused by capitalism (the system we live under in which the boss exploits the workers and the workers, who make everything in society, own almost none of it) from famine and genocide, to rising prices to shrinking wages. 

 While capitalism has created previously unseen amounts of wealth, it has also created previously unknown amounts of poverty and misery. And for decades, capitalism has been worsening living conditions across the globe, and is now incapable of bettering humanity. Many young people have come to understand this situation and are speaking out against this corrupt system.​​​​​ Today, politicians of all countries tell the workers and students to vote, in promise of a ‘better future‘.

However, to maintain their power these politicians necessarily must work within this very capitalist system, making them incapable of bettering life for the people. Some candidates attempt to appeal to the youth by posing as ‘progressive’ or even ‘socialist’, but time and time again they show themselves incapable, as with all politicians, of fundamentally altering the conditions of the vast majority of working people. Seeing these unsolvable issues, many youth have came to the conclusion that voting will not solve the errors of our society, with only 23% of youth voting nationwide in 2022 midterms, a raise from 2014 where only 13% of youth voted.  

In this article, we address why the youth should not vote, highlight the fundamentally anti-progressive and anti-people role of all politicians, and how the only solution is revolutionary change!

Every four years, we are targeted to vote through new schemes– ad campaigns, politicians appearing in shows, and the introduction of politicians onto social media. And while the youth shout for a fundamental and revolutionary change, we are offered candidates who can barely hold up a progressive mask to cover their war-mongering parasitic teeth. Whether it is phony pseudo-progressive candidates such as AOC and Bernie who promise our better future, while hypocritically upholding the same capitalist system which necessarily oppresses us. Or whether it is Trump and Desantis, who similarly make claims for wanting to see a better future (just on a nationalist basis rather than a “socially progressive” one). Republicans and Democrats both launch extensive campaigns, spending billions of dollars to attempt to convince youth to vote.

Similarly, there are a plethora of non-profit government organizations such as Rock the Vote and The Civics Center whose sole purpose is to convince children to vote. There are also school clubs and organizations such as the Junior Statesmen of America (JSA) and various forms of Politics Clubs which educate youth only about issues in context to America, and only views change as existing within our own capitalist-electoral system. These clubs attract students with political interest and desire for a better future, yet teach them that change can only come within capitalism and through elections. These clubs also try to convince the youth to enter the very same political system which oppresses us, by telling them to enter congress or senate. 

Understanding how and why children are targeted for voting, brings us to the question of what drives the youth to vote? We have identified two primary reasons:

 1). We want to see the world change but are told that voting is the only way of making it happen/is our only voice.

2). Many young people are pessimistic about the current state of the world, and as many of us don’t think it can change, decide to instead settle for the “next best option” or “lesser of two evils” by voting. 

Capitalist politicians nag young people to vote for a better world while hypocritically reproducing this rotten order day in and day out. We are told to vote if we want to see the world change, so when we vote and nothing happens, we come to believe that change is impossible.

When young people express interest in politics, there is immediately an onslaught of political schemes to attempt to drag us into electoralism (thinking only voting can achieve changes, nothing else can). i.e. politically minded students joining the priorly mentioned “student activist” organizations and from there learn that they must vote. Political engagement, however, has never merely been an issue of voting, and politics has always existed outside of elections. The greatest victories that the working class and the youth have ever seen have never been through elections. Slavery was abolished through the bloodiest war on U.S soil. Basic human rights were won for prisoners in Attica, New York through an uprising which left 33 heroic prisoners killed by the police. And the 8-hour workday was won through the tireless and bloody struggle of hundreds of thousands of workers organized in fighting unions. ​​​​​​​Behind every lasting change for workers, women, Black people, Indigenous people, and the youth, there have been the fighting people at the forefront, and not the corrupt capitalist politicians.

Despite all the pressure to get people to vote, most people in the US who are eligible to vote, do NOT vote.  Why are the Youth Told to Vote?

According to Business Insider, 138 million people voted in the 2016 election, which is just over half of those eligible to vote, a number which cannot account for those ineligible or unwilling to register. 2016, although described as the “most important election in history,” still did not reach the participation levels of 2008. In late November of 2016, after the presidential election, CNN reported that voter turnout had reached a 20 year low, and that this low number did not even reflect the number of people ineligible or nonregistered. So the 20 year low was only considering those who registered to vote, but abstained from voting.

And when you consider those who cannot vote, combined with those eligible to vote but who do not vote, a clearer picture emerges depicting the electoral game. In the first world, the US maintains the lowest voter turnout rate, meaning that it has the highest number of eligible people already abstaining from voting, while having the highest number of voter eligibility.

Despite the 2020 US elections having the highest turnout in the 21st century, the voter participation rate only reached 62.8%. The US’s peak of voter turnout actually coincides with a peak of corruption, during the Gilded Age, a time period notorious for corruption, with wealthy industrialists having massive sway over elections. (sound familiar?) In 1876 about 82% of the eligible voting population turned out to vote, but this was not out of the kindness of their hearts, firstly the eligible voting population was much smaller due to women not having the right to vote and other factors, secondly and most importantly: the voter turnout was this high due to corrupt political interests bribing people to vote for their party in droves. In classic American fashion, our peak of voter turnout actually represented an extremely undemocratic society, in which the rich had massive sway over elections and were able to push the populace to vote to legitimize their power, we can see a lot of parallels between this example and even modern times with lower voter turnout. To this day, the rich interests behind the political parties constantly badger the youth, and working people to get out and vote!

To start off, there are two types of non-voters: 1) The majority of non-voters are working class everyday people who understand that voting won’t fundamentally change anything or alter the problems they face everyday and therefore opt not to vote. 2) The minority of non-voters are people from upper middle class or upper class backgrounds that simply “don’t care” about politics/voting, as long as they are seemingly unaffected they won’t participate, the most participation these people may do is chime in about gas prices or ‘high taxes’. We are explicitly referring to the first type of non-voter in this article, since they are the majority of non-voters. The first type of non-voter genuinely can and does care about the issues they and their community face, but they understand that voting will not change these issues, many of these non-voters are left feeling lost on how to change society for the better.

When we hear about non-voting we have to realize that most non-voters do NOT fall into the second category. Non voters are more likely to be younger, have lower incomes, lower levels of education and identify with neither political party. Non-voters are also more likely to belong to oppressed ethnicities like Black people and Chicano people. Meanwhile voter turnout is higher in older, white, college educated and higher income groups of people. 2020 is an anomaly in the shameful history of American elections, where 66% of those registered to vote did, but that still leaves 80 million NON voters (including those who registered to vote, but didn’t). 

We constantly hear about how democratic America is and how everyone must do their civic responsibility and go vote. However, America is not a genuine democracy – as a 2014 Princeton study helped prove. The study shows how a wealthy few billionaire lobbyists (capitalists who send money to influence politicians voting habits) shape most of American policy.

“When a majority of [American] citizens disagree with economic elites and/or with organized corporate interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.“

This is no surprise considering congress people are allowed to conduct insider trading to rake in money while their constituents they claim to represent suffer. Insider trading is the practice of buying or selling stock with secret knowledge, often obtained by politicians pulling strings behind the scenes.

A 2021 Pew survey conducted among 16,000 adults in 16 first world countries and 2,500 adults in the US shows that 57% of international respondents and 72% of Americans believe that democracy in the US has not been a good example for others to follow in recent years.

As revealed by reports of the Institute for Policy Studies, a US think tank, the combined wealth of US billionaires soared 19-fold between 1990 and 2021, while over this same period, US median wealth only increased 5.37%. The harsh reality in the US is the rich is becoming richer, and the poor poorer.

According to the Federal government’s October 2021 statistics, the middle 60% of US households by income, defined as the “middle class”, saw their combined assets drop to 26.6% of national wealth as of June this year, the lowest in three decades, while the first 1% had a 27% share, surpassing the “middle class”.

The sad reality is that the average American’s vote (including yours) doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of politics, as politics is completely DOMINATED by capitalist money. Our country is a dictatorship of the rich dressed up in a democratic trench coat!

Both Parties are bad and don’t serve the people or the youth

We often hear people say that they are voting for a “lesser of two evils” and their vote is simply “harm reduction.” However, when looking at the 2020 election, we saw that there was no distinction between Trump and Biden. Neither represents democracy, and neither will bring about positive change to the world. 

From 2001-2021, America dropped 337,055 bombs on other countries (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, etc). In 2016 alone, the US dropped 26,172 bombs under Obama. Just six months into Trump’s presidency, the US had already dropped 20,650 bombs. Regardless of the party, all presidents act in service of profit and murder. Over 45,000 bombs were dropped on Gaza within the first 3 months following October 7th. These bombs were dropped with America’s funding, and Biden’s complete support. American tax dollars have sent 317 billion dollars to Israel since its conception, funding the genocide of Palestinians for decades. We can see even more clearly with the war on Gaza, that all candidates, regardless of party, only act with the interests of profit and not the interests of the people.

The living conditions for the people of oppressed countries have never been bettered by the help of American politics. Children today conduct slave labor in the Congo and genocide is committed in Palestine. Millions of women and children suffer and die to build iPhones and cars for the people of the U.S. All of this pain and suffering is condoned and funded by the U.S government, irrespective of whoever is in office. There is no such thing as a “lesser of two evils” for the  millions of people oppressed daily by U.S imperialism.

The best thing voting for a candidate can do is slightly change conditions which better the lives of people in America, for example the passing of laws which have given a few more freedom to Black people, women or queer people. However, these changes did not come simply by voting, rather they came because of the combative organizing of the oppressed. Slavery did not end solely because Lincoln was president, it ended because Black people had been rebelling for centuries, leading to the bloodiest war on U.S soil. The 8-hour workday, another thing we take for granted was won through decades long efforts of striking workers​​​​​​​, during these struggles the government and corporate cronies slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands of workers. Another important thing to note with success won through voting, is that so long as the oppressive system we live under (capitalism) exists, this mildly progressive legislation can be easily overturn. This has been clearly demonstrated by the overturning of Roe v. Wade under the democrat president, Biden. In fact, the Democrats had congressional control multiple times and did nothing to protect abortion rights nationwide.

Can we just vote for a third party instead? 

Oftentimes, when Americans are filling out the election ballot, their dissatisfaction with the Republican/Democratic candidate pushes them into voting for a third party. Some voters assume that choosing a third party candidate who seems promising will change the outlook of American politics. Or, they are apathetic about the political climate and pick the candidate they know the least about. Voters who dislike the two-party system may have hope in the third party, or they choose neither of the typical capitalist parties (Democrat and Republican) and pick the “independent” representative because they view it as rebelling against the system. However, the ideal of a third party candidate swooping in and saving America is an illusion. Since the third party isn’t as well funded by the rich elites, the third party can never win. When you vote for the third party, you are still participating in the corrupted “democratic” elections of the United States.

Some progressives in America believe that voting for a progressive or “left” candidate itself will aid in the construction of socialism in the USA. Socialism is the system which comes after capitalism in which the workers get to control society, instead of the greedy bosses and politicians. However, socialism will not be won at the ballot box. Socialism here will be built through revolutionary movements and organizations constructed by the people, that can form an independent, fighting, working-class non-electoral party that can lead a revolution! Not from elected officials. Looking at American history we can see this reflected. The Civil Rights Act was passed because of combative mass action by Black Americans and allies. It did NOT come out of voting a Democrat for president, but instead out of the intense pressure placed on the capitalist establishment to include Black people into the “democratic system.”

Simply casting a vote for a third party that talks about socialism does not work. Socialism can only be built by working amongst the people to build revolutionary organizations. There is no guarantee that the “socialists” running for president will not become incorporated into the capitalist electoral system. In fact, many candidates have already bent the knee to the capitalist imperialist system, such as Cornel West and Jill Stein who criticize the Palestinian Resistance and say that violence committed by oppressed people fighting back, is as bad as the violence committed by their oppressors! Further, even if a “socialist” were to enter office, not only is there no guarantee that they won’t submit to capitalism, but because of the exploitative nature of capitalism, there is nothing they can do to fix this system. When “progressive” candidates enter office, the most they can do is provide cheaper healthcare, school, housing, etc. But this doesn’t change the fact that we live under capitalism, a system in which the workers are always going to be exploited. Rather, the workers are the only people who can end their own exploitation by rising together against their bosses! Not by voting for someone who will only continue their exploitation. We will only see socialism through mass movements constructed by the people, and all other avenues (such as voting) only seek to divert this revolutionary potential. 

What is the solution to participating in our country’s false democracy?

We have identified the unchangeable flaws that exist within our “democracy.” Change is incapable of coming from within our electoral system, and we must instead organize for change outside of it. There are billions of people today suffering because of U.S imperialism. As the youth living inside a country with such a villainous government, we are in a unique situation in which we must combat it from the inside. We have an obligation to the oppressed people of the world to fight for their liberation, by any means necessary. To acknowledge the myth of US democracy is one thing, but this understanding must be converted into practice. This leaves us with the only solution being to reject the false democracy presented to us by the American government and to not vote at all, and instead organize for revolutionary change!

By voting, we are only justifying the existence of our oppressive electoral system by playing into it. Non-voting is therefore the only solution. Only harm can come from playing into this dangerous electoral system, and we must instead develop revolutionary organizations to combat it! The people are suffering and demanding answers and organization. Keeping in mind the fundamentally corrupt and anti-people character of all politicians, let us work amongst the people, and organize one another to combat this wicked system!

Revolutionaries in Peru, India, and Brazil have seen boycotting the elections as a successful tactic which teaches the people NOT to participate in their old oppressive government, and instead encourages them to work on constructing a new government built by the people, for the people.

The Revolutionary Student Union raises and supports the following slogans:

ELECTIONS NO! REVOLUTION YES!

DON’T VOTE, FIGHT FOR REVOLUTION!

BOYCOTT THE 2024 ELECTIONS!

NO TO THE ONE EVIL WHICH PRETENDS THAT IT IS TWO!