I don’t agree with saying anything but voting for joe biden is totally equivalent to voting for trump, which is being said a lot… I don’t see why.
Not voting or voting 3rd party can cause a spoiler effect. But obviously that effect is less than directly voting for the worse guy. Mathematically they aren’t the same.
It is causing a lot of conflict to try and place a moral obligation on strategic voting specifically.
Everyone who is about to yell at me: I’ll probably vote strategically, that is my plan. I just don’t agree with all this hatred for 3rd parties.
3rd parties aren’t bad, but our system punishes people for supporting them. It would be best if we could say “I’d like the 3rd party to be in charge, but if not them, then at least Biden.” In that case, I would totally support 3rd party candidates.
But if we ever want ranked choice voting, it’s going to be implemented by democrats, not republicans.
I agree with all that. Your point about ranked choice is why I personally think state elections are more important than presidential at the moment, and is one of the major reasons I have for still voting democrat.
I think when it comes to telling other people how to vote, people should be more careful to not accidentally encourage hopelessness and voter apathy by the way they phrase it.
You’re right, but the people beating their chests all over the internet about taking some kind of moral high ground or voting with their conscience also should be mindful that many of us will be the first people strung up on the wall if Trump’s fascist vision comes to pass, so we’re more than a little uneasy at how cavalier they are about the dangerous situation we’re currently in. People should place whatever vote they think will keep Trump as far away from power as physically possible. Right now all signs are pointing to his counterpart from the other major party, because none of the 3rd party candidates have either the campaign infrastructure or the policy chops to carry them through to the finish line. So if it turns out that best option is Joe Biden, so be it. If it’s not, so be it. But in either case the singular goal should be to keep Trump away from DC. Everything else is just white noise.
I heard that same song and dance 20 years ago. Just replace “Trump” with “Bush”. At the end of the day, no Democrat is ever going to say “Hey, you know what? This election actually isn’t very important, so vote for whoever you want!”
If Biden wants my vote, he has to earn it, and that starts with not endorsing genocide.
I’m not going to argue against what you think you heard 20 years ago, except to say that if you don’t believe Trump is the single most dangerous candidate to ever run for the presidency, then you go into 2024 more optimistic than me. I pray for our health and safety in 2025, and if his next coup attempt succeeds where the last one failed, I pray that we’ll survive the bloodshed after the fall.
You can rest in the knowledge that if Trump either wins or there’s a successful coup he likely won’t control the entire country for very long because it will escalate to a civil war very quickly when California, Michigan, New York, Washington, and the other blue states tell him to fuck off
Don’t get me wrong it will still be horrific for all of us, but i dont think most blue states will be willing to fall in line so readily after his first term and the dictatorial shit he’s been mask off about recently
Yeah, remember when how the people who voted for Nader got us Bush, who ignored reports of a terror attack before 9/11 and got us into an unnecessary 10-year war in Iraq causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in expenses for the US government, which was then translated into “We don’t have money to stop veterans from freezing to death in their homes, stop complaining”?
Definitely not a big deal, definitely just a nice little politics as usual moment. Who cares about Red Team or Blue Team, Both Sides Bad!
And if you don’t think Trump, who attempted an outright autocoup, is worse, I have a bridge in fucking Brooklyn to sell you.
I’m not sure why anyone would expect trump to not also fund the genocide of Palestinians.
Bluntly, the policy differences between the two are insufficient, but the behavior of trump supporters themselves is part of my considerations. Having trump as president for 4 years inspired incredibly fucked up behavior from conservatives.
You’re right, that the net impact is exactly half of voting for trump instead - in that you only reduce biden’s vote, as opposed to increasing trump’s.
In less consequential elections, I absolute agree that voting for the candidate you want is key. But the risk here of a bad candidate is not just a shit period of government, but a genuinely significant risk of incurring a coup.
If you assume a default vote of “any viable candidate other than trump”, you still move in the same direction as voting for trump instead if you vote for a 3rd party candidate.
In countries with a healthier (not two party) system, this is typically the point where the centrist and left parties tend to form an electoral alliance to avoid the disaster candidate. That doesn’t really work for presidential elections though, so individual votes need to take on that same role to minimise the risk.
I can only accept that as an argument for why strategic voting is smart. It doesn’t make sense to me as an argument for saying voting for the candidate you want is morally wrong in contexts where it could cause a spoiler effect. This is where people are blurring the line that bothers me.
I don’t agree with saying anything but voting for joe biden is totally equivalent to voting for trump, which is being said a lot… I don’t see why.
Not voting or voting 3rd party can cause a spoiler effect. But obviously that effect is less than directly voting for the worse guy. Mathematically they aren’t the same.
It is causing a lot of conflict to try and place a moral obligation on strategic voting specifically.
Everyone who is about to yell at me: I’ll probably vote strategically, that is my plan. I just don’t agree with all this hatred for 3rd parties.
3rd parties aren’t bad, but our system punishes people for supporting them. It would be best if we could say “I’d like the 3rd party to be in charge, but if not them, then at least Biden.” In that case, I would totally support 3rd party candidates.
But if we ever want ranked choice voting, it’s going to be implemented by democrats, not republicans.
I agree with all that. Your point about ranked choice is why I personally think state elections are more important than presidential at the moment, and is one of the major reasons I have for still voting democrat.
I think when it comes to telling other people how to vote, people should be more careful to not accidentally encourage hopelessness and voter apathy by the way they phrase it.
You’re right, but the people beating their chests all over the internet about taking some kind of moral high ground or voting with their conscience also should be mindful that many of us will be the first people strung up on the wall if Trump’s fascist vision comes to pass, so we’re more than a little uneasy at how cavalier they are about the dangerous situation we’re currently in. People should place whatever vote they think will keep Trump as far away from power as physically possible. Right now all signs are pointing to his counterpart from the other major party, because none of the 3rd party candidates have either the campaign infrastructure or the policy chops to carry them through to the finish line. So if it turns out that best option is Joe Biden, so be it. If it’s not, so be it. But in either case the singular goal should be to keep Trump away from DC. Everything else is just white noise.
I heard that same song and dance 20 years ago. Just replace “Trump” with “Bush”. At the end of the day, no Democrat is ever going to say “Hey, you know what? This election actually isn’t very important, so vote for whoever you want!”
If Biden wants my vote, he has to earn it, and that starts with not endorsing genocide.
I’m not going to argue against what you think you heard 20 years ago, except to say that if you don’t believe Trump is the single most dangerous candidate to ever run for the presidency, then you go into 2024 more optimistic than me. I pray for our health and safety in 2025, and if his next coup attempt succeeds where the last one failed, I pray that we’ll survive the bloodshed after the fall.
You can rest in the knowledge that if Trump either wins or there’s a successful coup he likely won’t control the entire country for very long because it will escalate to a civil war very quickly when California, Michigan, New York, Washington, and the other blue states tell him to fuck off
Don’t get me wrong it will still be horrific for all of us, but i dont think most blue states will be willing to fall in line so readily after his first term and the dictatorial shit he’s been mask off about recently
Yeah, remember when how the people who voted for Nader got us Bush, who ignored reports of a terror attack before 9/11 and got us into an unnecessary 10-year war in Iraq causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in expenses for the US government, which was then translated into “We don’t have money to stop veterans from freezing to death in their homes, stop complaining”?
Definitely not a big deal, definitely just a nice little politics as usual moment. Who cares about Red Team or Blue Team, Both Sides Bad!
And if you don’t think Trump, who attempted an outright autocoup, is worse, I have a bridge in fucking Brooklyn to sell you.
That was a failure of the left to unite behind Nader. If he had gotten enough votes, he would’ve won.
Words escape me.
Yes, that’s generally how elections work. Generally, also, a candidates wishes to have a realistic path to getting enough votes as well.
Democrats don’t want to lose power, either. It’s only going to be implemented by a popular movement, regardless of who’s in power.
If voting “strategically” means voting for genocide… What is the strategy, exactly?
I’m not sure why anyone would expect trump to not also fund the genocide of Palestinians.
Bluntly, the policy differences between the two are insufficient, but the behavior of trump supporters themselves is part of my considerations. Having trump as president for 4 years inspired incredibly fucked up behavior from conservatives.
You’re right, that the net impact is exactly half of voting for trump instead - in that you only reduce biden’s vote, as opposed to increasing trump’s.
In less consequential elections, I absolute agree that voting for the candidate you want is key. But the risk here of a bad candidate is not just a shit period of government, but a genuinely significant risk of incurring a coup.
If you assume a default vote of “any viable candidate other than trump”, you still move in the same direction as voting for trump instead if you vote for a 3rd party candidate.
In countries with a healthier (not two party) system, this is typically the point where the centrist and left parties tend to form an electoral alliance to avoid the disaster candidate. That doesn’t really work for presidential elections though, so individual votes need to take on that same role to minimise the risk.
I can only accept that as an argument for why strategic voting is smart. It doesn’t make sense to me as an argument for saying voting for the candidate you want is morally wrong in contexts where it could cause a spoiler effect. This is where people are blurring the line that bothers me.
“At least I voted my conscience! Nothing morally wrong with that!” - voter as they watch minorities herded into camps
Every single election I can remember has been THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIMES!!!11!!eleven!
And yet the idea that someone could coup the US has gone from unthinkable to genuinely feasible in one election
That would be a systemic problem that isn’t going to be fixed by simply electing a president.