When will be your “this is the last fucking time I’m voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’, then I don’t care after that, let this country burn to the ground”? For me, this is basically it. This is last election I’m going for that " lesser of two evils" bullshit. After that I’m done. It’s just pointless. Let’s hear it.
Uh, never? As an American I can easily recognize that we live in a 2-party political system in which you have 3 real options:
- Vote for the Democrats
- Vote for the Republicans
- Don’t vote / Waste your vote
American politics is a game of tug-of-war. You can spend as much time as you want lamenting that the rope isn’t exactly where you want it to be right now. But the fact is that one party is pulling the rope to the left and the other party is pulling it to the right. If you want the rope to move right you better join the people on the right, and if you want the rope to move to the left you better join the people on the left. And more to the point, if for whatever reason you don’t want to pull (maybe because it seems futile or maybe because you just don’t like the people on your team) then where can you expect it to move other than away from where you want it to be?
There is no politician on Earth who perfectly represents my politics, ideals or philosophy. If I wanted someone who perfectly represented exactly what I want I would get politically active and run for office myself. In lieu of that, what else can I hope for but to vote for the people who happen to be pulling in my direction, or at the very least pulling back against the mob of right-wing fascist criminals.
I don’t think Biden is perfect, but he’s certainly not evil. What’s more, I know exactly what we’re up against when it comes to Trump and the Republicans (who at best are spineless impotent political cowards, and at worst are fascist activists who want to strip people of rights, further rob the working class, deny climate change in the name of profit, destroy what little democracy we have, and weaponize the government against political enemies).
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again for all takers, name any politician who you think would be making more progress on important issues (healthcare, climate, education, transportation, lgbtq rights, women’s rights, the economy, etc.) than Biden right now and I’ll give you at least 3 reasons why they wouldn’t. (Hint: the House, the Senate, the courts, state legislatures, inflation, unstable geopolitics, post-pandemic economic change, etc.) Bernie or Warren could be sitting in the Oval Office today, and we still wouldn’t have universal healthcare (because of Congress), we still wouldn’t have been able to wipe out student debt (because of the courts), we still would have to deal with wars and terrorism overseas (because of aggression from countries like Russia and Iran), and we still would be feeling the effects of inflation (because of decades of low interest rates coupled with pandemic supply chain fuckery).
So yeah, I’m not gonna stop voting for the better candidate of the two, because what the fuck else would any reasonable person do? Pull the rope towards where you want it to go. It’s not hard.
BTW: If you regret that we live within a political reality where we have limited choices and the risks of wasting your vote are high, then you should join the movement to implement more democratic voting systems like Ranked-Choice (aka Instant Runoff) or STAR, as well as reforms to political dark money.
Even still, many of these changes are more likely to happen at a state/local level before anything can happen federally. But that’s just one more good reason to be interested and involved in regional politics also.
also afaik (i’m not american but yknow; can’t escape the intricacies of US politics) changes at the state/local level can often effect federal elections directly… aren’t there some places that do ranked choice voting federally?
Great response!
I too will keep voting for the better choice.
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If you don’t pull you’re actively giving up more rope than anyone. That’s exactly the point.
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Voting a third party is not throwing your vote away. It’s actually often the best way to make your vote matter.
Third parties in the US tend to run on smaller platforms pushing their key issues. Typically, these issues attract voters on one side of the spectrum more than the others: in other words, some third parties attract liberal voters while others attract conservative voters. This means that they compete with one of the major parties more strongly than the other for votes.
Votes for a major party typically do not have a huge effect on the presidential race unless you’re in a swing state. For example, the last time my state voted Republican was 35 years ago, and since then a Democrat has one by more than 10 percentage points. A million Biden voters could have switched their votes to a third party last election and he would have still won my state.
But a million votes for a third party would have been noticed by the Democrats, especially if similar numbers were posted across the US. The Democrats would have had to figure out why they were losing votes, and amend their platform in the future to win those lost voters back.
For example, major work reforms in the early 20th Century (including ending child labor, the 8 hour workday, and the 40 hour workweek) and the focus on the federal budget in the last 30 years have both been due to third parties pushing their pet issues into prominence and forcing the major parties into taking stances on them. A vote for a third party is a warning sign to the major parties that they need to amend their platforms in the future to avoid losing more votes, and that pushes change way faster than blindly voting a single party’s status quo.
Voting a third party is not throwing your vote away. It’s actually often the best way to make your vote matter.
I strongly disagree with this.
Elections are simply a case of math. If you abstain from voting, write in some random name, or otherwise vote for a candidate who is statistically incapable of winning, then there are only still only two outcomes for your vote:
- In the best case scenario, like you’re describing, your vote has no effect on the outcome and your 2nd place candidate happens to win anyway.
- In the worst case scenario, however, vote splitting leads to the well-documented phenomenon known as the spoiler effect. In which case the 3rd most popular candidate, who may not represent anything close to the will of the democratic plurality, will win.
Personally I always plan around the worst case scenario when making important decisions, and so I don’t believe in the concept of the “protest vote”. Especially since so little concrete information can be derived from “reading the tea leaves” of 3rd party votes. (A big part of your premise revolves around the idea that someone out there will somehow get whatever message you’re trying to send by voting for a 3rd party candidate. And that’s obviously a very indirect and abstract form of protest even in the best case scenario. )
Also I think it’s a strech to attribute easily 20th century work reforms to 3rd parties as they exist today considering two points: (1) there was a radical shift in political power, generally towards progressivism, at that time and (2) it can be argued that many of these reforms could be attributed more to labor unions in general than any one political party.
Vote how you want, or not at all, but we can’t escape math in the end. Statistically speaking, a protest vote is at best a benign waste of a vote and at worst the cause of undemocratic election outcomes via the spoiler effect. So I’ll continue to recommend against it, and recommend for more democratic voting systems that are less prone to manipulation and spoilage.
The simple math is that a +/- 500,000 votes for Joe Biden in 2020, who got 81,283,501 total, would have barely noticeable. However, +/- 500,000 votes for Jo Jorgenson, who got 1,865,535, or Howie Hawkins, who got 407,068, would have been much more noteworthy.
Your vote simply has a bigger impact when you’re voting for a smaller candidate.
And yes, third parties do pressure major parties to alter their platforms, and this is well documented. The clearest example is Ross Perot getting 19% of the vote in 1992 and pushing his pet issue (the federal budget) into every election since then, still persisting today over 30 years later.
I really feel sorry for people in the USA.
The worst thing that happened to your country since WW2 was fighting and winning the cold war. The outright rejection of anything even slightly left of centre as communism!!! has destroyed your democracy.
Add in non compulsory voting and I have no idea how you change it.
Being real, it wasn’t the cold war that fucked us. Jim Crow fucked us. Hundreds of years of slavery and racism ruined us. Everything post cold war you’re thinking of goes back to the divide that wants to keep black people down. The side that wants that also wants to keep the gays and women in their place too, but they want the blacks back in their fucking cotton fields first.
When the racists had a setback during the civil rights era, they hid. Everyone else thought they would die off and that was that. But then the southern strategy was enacted, and the fuckers started undoing things slow enough that it didn’t look as bad as it was. Between the racists hiding, and the oligarchs buying anyone they could off, we got to where we are now. In danger of civil war, and with no will on one side to fight it.
This is exactly what fucked us. You breathe next to some idiots and you’re a “communist”. What’s sad is that they don’t even know how to fucking define “communism” or whatever they call you. You ask for fair wages for workers? You’re a communist/socialist. You ask for free/affordable healthcare college? Fuck you you fucking communist. And so on. They just throw it around.
What an enlightening comment. It made me think. Thanks.
when the greater evil doesn’t want me dead just for existing and isn’t trying to destroy democracy
If you choose not to vote, you’re only helping the greater of two evils.
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Exactly. No matter what, there’s always a worse option. Always vote against the worse option.
That then lets the least worse option have no actual policies, make zero substantive change while in office because they know you will always vote for them.
But that is more about FPTP voting and the two party system.
Biden has accomplished more legislation and gained more jobs than any POTUS since FDR. Not too bad.
I am glad you can keep the faith and keep voting but I also understand the OP’s (and a lot of other american’s) ennui.
When it seems the Dems biggest selling point is “Well, at least we are not the GOP” but have little or no actual policies to enrich the lives of the people who vote for them it must be very disheartening for millions of your average citizens when their options are terrible or more of the same with no real improvement.
That’s the thing though, Democrats have superb policies to enrich the lives of people who vote for them, but they fucking suck at selling it.
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, for example, is forecasted to create millions of renewable energy jobs over the next 10 years.. Not to mention, investments in renewable energy help modernize American infrastructure in a variety of ways, and do something or another about U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. And it does more than that! Honestly, the IRA is a huge deal.
And what do people hear? Fox News anchors talking about Bidenomics and high inflation, how his fiscal policy is only destroying America and putting us further into debt. And the Heritage Foundation and AEI.org have economists that present their free market analysis that necessarily demonizes all government “interference” in markets, making it impossible for people to see any value in anything Biden is doing.
And the more liberal media just like…not…doing anything at all. They just play into boring as culture wars, giving fodder to right-wing fools, and convincing normal Americans that the left is removed from reality. The sheer lack of policy discussion on liberal media channels does a disservice to everyone really. It even leaves Biden supporters unable to say what good he’s done.
Possibly controversial opinion, the left needs a Fox News. A station that just unapologetically pushes liberal talking points and pays newsworthiness the same lip service that Fox does. Fuck this holier than thou bullshit we’ve got going on; fight propaganda with better propaganda.
It’s ok, you can stop voting, actually everyone should stop voting, that way there will be no “lesser of two evils”, it will just be the WORST evil taking over.
And you won’t even be allowed to have the free speech rights to get on the internet and bitch about it, because that’s how dictatorships in fascist countries work.
Maybe if Americans knew how good other countries have it, they might stand up and fight for a better nation and DEMAND changes in the laws that govern our elected officials, instead of constantly voting for idiots whose only agenda after getting elected is to destroy America and make it a fucked up theocracy.
You get the country you participate in.
[steps off soap box, turns off spotlight and leaves the building]Never. Just vote. Be a grain of sand on the scales that keeps things from going to absolute shit. It costs you almost nothing, just a tiny amount of time.
You’re probably gonna continue reading doomer posts on the internet, getting grey hairs and high blood pressure
But the one chance you can do something to change things
You just won’t?
I’m just sick of it all.
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That’s fair. I’m just trying to say, consider how you direct that resentment. It might be far healthier in the long run to limit how much you consume news media, rather than swearing off voting
You’re going to be worse than sick of it all when through action or inaction, you allow a proven authoritarian to take power. Then, you will no longer HAVE a choice and you think the government sucks now? You’ve got a rude awakening on the horizon.
Maybe we NEED shit to get majorly worse so people can actually take action and make the change they need themselves? I feel like people are getting complacent with the Democrats’ bullshit argument of “hey, look at us, we are a teeny meeny bit better than the other guys. See? Aaaahhhh. Now stfu and vote for us and be thankful”. I feel like this is their way of not doing much, and doing very little to look better than the other fuckers.
You’re not making sense. You’re “sick of it all” so you want to make things catastrophically worse. It’s at best an ill-considered position, at worst one might think you are spreading a terrible idea on purpose.
I understand your position on what I’m saying. It’s fucked up, I know. Nothing in our politics makes shit of a sense either.
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Not voting is voting for the greater of 2 evils.
Never. That is a position for the naive.
2016 was my year, and that election pretty much slapped me in the face for doing so.
Until the fascist part stops being fascists, I feel morally obligated to vote for the same party for the continued benefit (and rights) of the LGBT+ members of my family.
i, and i’m sure they, appreciate the heck out of that sentiment
The choice is pretty clear cut. Either vote Democrat or help out a convicted rapist/fraudster who also happens to be a Nazi.
Until it actually boils over or we get rid of first past the post (and you’ll need MASSIVE protests to do the latter.)
Fuck accelerationists. They’re either dumbfucks who think their Apocalypse Badass Man fantasies will come true (and contrary to popular belief this person absolutely exists on the left,) or yuppies who know they have an easy out in the form of either a work visa in somewhere like Canada or leeching from a developing country working remotely and not contributing to where they live at all (and so many of these yuppies are self-proclaimed collectivists.) The rest of us are getting out of here in a casket or a refugee boat if it boils over. So how about we take at least a modicum of effort to take care of our society. Voting is the bare minimum.
It always has been, and always will be, voting for the lesser evil. That’s because of the voting system. Single vote, winner take all. Push for ranked choice or some other vote system. Then we can learn if it’s turtles (evil) all the way down.
Then we can learn if it’s turtles (evil) all the way down.
@DeweyOxberger well, as someone who voted to change the electoral system and got what I wanted (the country changed to Mixed Member Proportional voting aka MMP, I can report from the other side…
We have found it’s Winston all the way down.
He’s a populist centrist and a bit of a troll, and he has managed to position himself politically in such a way that waiting for Winston to hammer out deals so we can find out who the government is, is a pretty normal here.
We’re waiting right now for him in fact. The party with the most votes can’t govern without him.
It’s still way better than FPP though.
Any reasonable electoral system will consistently elect people who represent something close to the average will of all the voters. Sounds like the system is working correctly.
I’m not complaining. I like the system.
But it is a quirk that there have been times when almost half the voters voted for either left or centre left, almost half the voters voted for right or centre right, and then we wait around for weeks while Winston (who only got 6% or whatever) decides which half should get to govern.
Same principle as swing states I guess. It’s just amusing that it’s always the same specific person, especially given his personality.
The great thing about MMP is the proportionality often has a moderating effect. It annoys me when the left are in power (Winston won’t let the Green Party get their way on some things) but it feels like a saving grace when the right wing are in power (Winston will also not let the neoliberal libertarians get their way on some things). So it’s working as intended.
