You’re completely failing to see that people refusing to vote are not people who “don’t give enough of a fuck”. Sure, there are apathetic people out there, but it’s a gross simplification to think only people who care vote. Or that people who vote care. For many, that’s their one and only participation in participative democracy.

Would you argue that Alan Moore, who wrote Watchmen, V for Vendetta and other cult and politically relevant graphic novels, does not “give enough of a fuck to use his voice”?

OK, I think you missed all the points I made. Never mind.

Oh shut up already, voting systems all over the place have been messed up for ages (Electoral college? First past the post?), proper blank voting (obviously) denied or defanged, opportunities to create alternatives denied years ago, usually by existing parties which are often so entrenched and converging to the right anyway that simplifying to “you can’t complain if you didn’t vote” sounds like the moralising of a first year uni student discovering PolSci.

I vote against shitty candidates and in local elections. I’m under no illusion about its effect and fully respect election boycott and those who refuse to vote.

If you’re not happy about the results of an election, the first to blame are those who voted for the shitty candidate and their policies, not those who said thanks, but none of the above.

I fear at this point the two are not even incompatible.

The blessed generation.