this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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So, what do you think will happen if you continue to encourage people who dislike both candidates to abstain from voting?
One of the two candidates will win, and one of the two candidates will take office in January. Hopefully they are both the same person.
It sucks that the choice is "who is less bad". But that's US politics for you. Not voting for the less bad is not going to make anything better.
I'm not saying that either. I told you to use your right how you see fit. It is not my place to tell you how to vote, nor is it my place to negatively pressure strangers into voting for my preference. I think everyone should vote. I'm also saying that promising votes to politicians regardless of their actions indicate that their actions won't hurt their chances.
You have to choose your words more carefully. There's a lot of astroshitting all over the place. Should expect no less, if the primary races and 2016 and 2020 were any indication.
I agree "vote blue no matter who" is potentially dangerous. However at this current juncture, it really doesn't matter. Republicans can't be allowed to have control of another branch. They've shown their hand, and are pulling no punches. Straight up lies, exaggerations, and accusations fueling a culture war in a strategy to get to 270 with as little a popular vote as possible.
If we could win by more than the slimmest margins, there'd be a hell of a lot more room for division within the party.
Ideally the Dems would win so hard that the Republicans would be forced to change or go extinct. And ideally, the Republican party would lose so badly for so long that they cease to be relevant and the Dems split into two parties.
Why 48% of the country votes against this is mind boggling.
Paradoxically, people somehow think that voting for a third party will make the Dems change their platform n
Not sure how that's supposed to work. The more people that vote for a third party, the less people vote for the main party. That could make the result 48-47-5 with Trump still winning, and the Dems have no way to move the needle, because now they have no office. Or it could make it 28 third party, 30 Biden, and 42 Trump. Either way Trump wins.
Third party votes take votes away from the most aligned primary party and ultimately makes the outcome less desirable. The only way they can be effective is when the aligned party already has a very comfortable lead, and even then its risky.
I also think it's incredibly arrogant to think that a third party could come completely out of left field and score the highest office in the land while holding few (if any) state and local offices.
so-called primary parties don't own the votes, so voting for a so-called third party doesn't take them away. it's up to politicians to earn votes.
You don't understand how FPTP works. It is designed to penalize people for voting for a third party (because it will always devolve to two parties. They may occasionally change, but it starts at the bottom, not at the oval office).
This "lesser of two evils" is a consequence of that. No one candidate is going to be best aligned with the majority of people. When there are two candidates, one will be more aligned than the other.
When a third candidate enters, they have to be closer to one of the two, and attracts voters that were more closely aligned with the primary party candidate.
So if you've got a close FPTP race, you could easily take a race that would otherwise be 51/49, make it 47/49/4, and even though the majority of people were more closely aligned with Candidate A, because some of them went for C, candidate B won instead.
Therefore, it's foolish to abstain because you disagree with all candidates, because somebody is going to win no matter what. And it is foolish to vote for a third party, because they will not win, they will only detract from the closely aligned party, which in turn favors the less-aligned party.
you don't have proof of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2018/09/13/game-theory-in-voting-duvergers-law/
divergers law is a useless tautology, not a natural law
That's very true and likely going to lead to a very nasty future once this is thoroughly exploited. But I don't think that just "there should be something better" might help. Also, there might exist unsolvable problems, and if this is one of those we're in a very bad position, indeed
That's also part of my point. Voting will not get us out of this problem. We need to pressure politicians, we need to protest, we need to organize, and we need to implement more successful alternatives to the status quo. We will never avoid fascism if the only thing we do is vote. Right now the best way to pressure the better candidate is to make him believe, right up until election day, that he will lose.
Studies show that even in states that still do a plurality vote but encourage 3rd party voters see higher overall turnout and generally favor democratic candidates. The only ones disaffecting voters are the ones pushing the narrative of "a vote for x is a vote for y".
You're actually putting stock into polls for the most unpredictable election the country as seen?
The time to pressure the candidate is during the primaries. The general election is waaay past that point.
Did you vote in the primaries?
Yes.
Primaries are also a thing, generally. By all means, do more than vote.
But voting is the bare minimum.