I think there’s less common ground between the Lincoln Project types and the Biden types than most realize, but that’s definitely one possible outcome. It’s still a 3 party system, because half of GOP voters are all-in, full-fat Trumpian Fascists. They’ve been programmed that way for 50 years by the GOP Southern Strategy and subsequent single-issue voting campaigns for Forced Birth, Guns Rights > Human Rights, and Anti-Tax.
6 Likes
I just hope that the party of Trump doesn’t have enough support to win anything if they aren’t part of a larger coalition.
They’ve been programmed that way for 50 years
Racist shitheads can help us win → We can’t win without the racist shitheads → Only a racist shithead can win → Lincoln project: “This isn’t what we wanted at all!”
4 Likes
Bingo.
GOP strategy circa 1970: “Here’s a great election hack: we don’t actually have to govern at all and we can still win if we lock in the Bigot vote!”
Lincoln Project 2020: “Oh, shit, where did all these bigots come from?”
10 Likes
Suppress them, no. Convince courts to throw them out, or Congress to make a ridiculous last minute rule requiring finalized counts 10 minutes after polls close (I hope I’m exaggerating), not impossible.
I doubt that would pass in the current House of Representatives.
And some states have already stopped the push to undermine electors. Pennsylvania.
8 Likes
I agree on the House, but I don’t have enough confidence in the Dem leadership to trust them to maintain even that much spine. I worry more about the courts full of Trump-appointed judges and justices. I won’t be convinced that the election is over until the inauguration.
No election is over before someone wins the vote & takes office.
3 Likes
MA has a ballot measure this year to move to ranked choice voting, and it’s by far the vote I’m most excited about.
1 Like
This. My state electoral college votes will go to Biden. There is essentially zero chance of that not happening. I am truly free to vote for a third party with a clean conscience if I so choose. If I lived in Florida or Ohio I’d be absolutely rabid about not doing that.
2 Likes
No, there isn’t. This is dangerous thinking.
Your conscience may be clean but it doesn’t make it right or wise.
9 Likes
for sure, it’s similar for me. the one reason i will still vote for biden anyway is that each vote this time will serve to shore up the legitimacy of a biden win.
i can envision no scenario – short of patient zero exiting due to health reasons – where there aren’t a zillion lawyers contesting this thing. having the vast majority of popular votes cast for biden in a close electoral decision will help.
the courts, our fellow americans, and the world at large – no hyperbole intended – need to know that all of us want the trump family out and gone.
12 Likes
That’s assuming that all parties involved aren’t bigots to begin with. I kinda think they are.
2 Likes
I understand what you’re saying, and am quite in favor of holding my nose and voting strategically for the lesser of evils. I am also very much in agreement that we need Trump out of office, desperately. (In any case, there’s no 3rd party candidate I agree with much more than Biden, anyway). I’ve said so in these forums multiple times, and sometimes been shouted down for it as well.
But the last times MA voted Republican were Reagan, Eisenhower, and Coolidge (the first two of whom were unusual Republicans in a number of ways, and the latter of whom was Governor of Massachusetts); Hilary Clinton carried the state 2:1 over Trump and Biden’s lead over Trump in polls is even a bit wider. The only way for Trump to get more votes than Biden is for a third party to actually get enough of Biden’s votes to win a plurality in this state (it is even less plausible for multiple third parties to collectively draw enough votes from only Biden to give the state to Trump)… and if we’re postulating that scenario, at this late point in the election cycle, we’ve long since left the realm of things worth worrying about (since the impossibility of third parties winning is the whole premise of the wasted-vote argument (and yes, I do understand that two party dominance is the inevitable consequence of a first-past-the-post voting system)). Either that, or something so momentous has to happen between now and the election to change tens of millions of minds nationwide (I haven’t gotten my mail-in ballot yet, so AFAIK no or almost no MA votes have been cast yet) that anything any of us can say now will have to be completely thrown out the window anyway.
As far as “wise,” I would agree if I lived in almost any other state. But when the local advantage in the polls is more than 6 standard deviations less than a month before election day, I have a hard time calling my thinking dangerous.
But as far as “right” - you don’t get to decide that. Only I own my vote and decide what it means to me and why I cast it the way I do. I extend the same courtesy to you and everyone else, even if I find someone’s choice utterly baffling.
Recognizing the reality that either a Democrat or a Republican will become president doesn’t require letting those groups feel like they own our votes or have a right to them because of a lack of other choices. That path is how we got to neither party fielding candidates that most of the country can like or respect much or agree with on key issues, no matter how different they are (and yes, I agree they are quite different). The threat of blowing everything up by splitting the vote 3 ways is one of the strongest (but self-destructive and dangerous) tools voters have in a world where a lot of the potential for meaningful variation candidates could have gets eliminated by parties, donors, the press, and other factors long before the first primary, let alone the general election. (I will change my thinking immediately the second we abolish the electoral college and move to a national popular vote, btw. Also, MA may move to ranked choice voting after this election, at which point this whole debate becomes moot in this state).
1 Like
People make decisions every single day to pick the lesser of 2 evils. 2 routes to work, both lousy with traffic, you try and pick the one that might have slightly less traffic that day. 2 places to eat lunch near work, neither are great, you pick the better of the 2.
But for some reason when it comes to voting, some people have to take a stand and vote for somebody that has no chance or just skip voting entirely? Get real.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
