liberal claptrap

Because unless you did, you have no license to complain.

People who didn't vote because they feel their vote didn't matter and then it turned out it didn't don't have license to express their opinions? The type of folksy expression that you repeated assumes that all people who don't vote are not interested in having their opinions heard when it comes to selecting a candidate and thus shouldn't expect to have their opinions heard in the public sphere.

The problem with that notion is that the U.S. has a system that leads to a percentage of people feeling disenfranchised, depending on where they live. As far as federal options go: They could know with confidence that they will either be voting for or against their state in the presidential race, they could know with confidence that they live in a gerrymandered distinct where the same would be true of the vote for the House of Representatives, and maybe no Senate seat is open for them to vote in during a given election or, if it is, maybe it's not competitive. There are plenty of people who don't bother to vote because one or more of these things are true in their case and, to them, going to to the poll has symbolic value only. That doesn't mean they should be denied their voice as well and whether one agrees with that or not, technically they do have license to complain; I believe you call that license the Constitution.

People also have trouble getting to polls due to work commitments because voting does not occur on a national holiday and not all states allow early voting. But, sure, let's go around telling people, who prioritized feeding their family over voting and potentially feel disenfranchised because things are set up in such a way where they have to make that choice, that they shouldn't have a voice either.

And why are you even assuming the people who you see complain might not have voted and thus think it's valid to pull out that expression anyway? It's like if someone starting telling me that they thought broccoli tasted terrible and in my reply I said; "You know, if you've never tasted broccoli you don't have license to say it tastes poorly." Yeah, okay, a percentage of people complain about the "taste" of food when they've never actually tasted it but I'd be a jerk if I went around repeating that line without first knowing if they were in that category or not because my behavior would denote that I was being arrogantly presumptive.

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