Resisting Drumpf is an ante. The ongoing shared work is a better platform and better aligned community-based organizing.
For national offices, think of all the ways a united, pluralist coalition is helpful, esp. for judicial and other appointments, regulatory enforcement. Think of how it embodies the tolerance and diversity that we elect governments to protect.
We can imagine exceptional situations that voting for Jill Stein is enough to help resist Drumpf and fascism. In a red state, maybe itâs the best option for rallying allies.
In most places in this election year, voting for someone other than HRC looks like socialists and communists splitting their 1932 Reichstag vote.
Letâs not make the mistake of thinking our politcal work is finished after voting for POTUS.
There are many, many regional and local progressive struggles that need help.
As mentioned above, I was one of those Nader voters who had the impression that there was little difference between Gore and Bush or their respective parties. The Dems whole-hearted embrace of neoliberalism in the early 90s meant that voters now had a choice between centre-right and crazy-right.
I underestimated the level of that crazy.
With the exception of that unproductive jab at the end of your post, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Putting this in bold because THIS THIS THIS cannot be said enough. Sanders has already emboldened some left-leaning Dems (yes, they exist!) and we need those people in office if we want anything remotely âprogressiveâ to be passed. And that includesâespecially includesâSupreme Court justice nominations.
I donât think you were creating a risk, but those of us who do stats wouldâve probably pointed out that we know exactly when our votes make differences (once in my life, over twenty years ago, in a very small county election, and Iâm not sure I was smart enough then to make a good judgement call anyway) and are the opposite of idiots.
We had to lower our standards VERY far to reach this point. Good governance low standards does not make. (Hence the awful mess weâre in where we have the least cost effective healthcare system in the world, still have war, and still several empty houses for every homeless person)
Why? If Americans actually did vote for the lesser of two evils as a matter of course, they wouldnât have picked Bush over Gore and Kerry, and wouldnât have picked Clinton over Sanders now.
As somehow who generally does endorse voting for lesser evils, I would advise that having dropped that opportunity, people should look at what their particular region is like. Is there much chance Trump might win there, but maybe Clinton could beat him? Then you should probably vote for her. Is there not so much? Then vote for the best person you can â and thatâs strategic too, because the less Clinton thinks she can take progressives for granted, the better. Either way youâd want to promote better candidates for next time, so that maybe we can actually get enough votes for a lesser evil than Clinton, as almost happened here.
Maybe there are better strategies out there, but does this one really deserve all the sneers it gets? People talk like voting for the lesser evil is what brought us to this point, but in fact whatâs really been happening is anything but â voting for the candidate who seems experienced, or presidential, or good to have a beer with, or unafraid to be racist. Americans opt for the greater evil at least half the time.
What has always been a thing to be avoided is finding yourself in a situation where your choice is between 2 evils. Once youâre in that situation, actually voting for the lesser one is basic minimax optimization and common sense.
Well, itâs an individual thing and on average, Americans (arguably humans) clearly arenât qualified to make these judgement calls.
Weâre in the middle of a big experiment that proves that as a species weâre largely incapable of representative democracyâŚand thatâs okay, thatâs just one of hundreds of types of governance and the sooner we get over this âthree wolves and a sheep arguing over whatâs for dinnerâ system the better. I understand itâs all we have NOW, but that doesnât mean Iâm going to give it any more respect as a system than it deservesâŚwhich is very, very little.
This is only true in the statistically rare situations in which oneâs vote actually does make a difference (which is why the more important battles are at the primary level)
If Iâm not in a situation where one vote makes the difference (and I never have been) then voting is an ideology or something I do to feel good and nothing more.
Nonetheless, itâs a pretty awful system if we have to work so hard and spend so much money to accomplish so little.
Who thought we should all be able to vote on what rights strangers donât have? Thatâs POISON.
This is not a new point, but just as a reminder: I have never had to vote directly for a lesser evil candidate.
Australian preferential voting works. My ballots are normally along the lines of:
Greens.
2)-5) Assorted local left Independents.
Corrupt centre left mainstream party (ALP)
Corrupt centre right mainstream party (Liberal/National Coalition)
8)-10) Assorted racist/theocratic far-right bigots
And, thanks to public funding of elections, voting for a losing candidate is not pointless. Electoral funding is based upon the proportion of the vote received by that party at the previous election.
The broken-ness of the US electoral system is not some inevitable bug of democracy. It is a deliberately created and actively maintained feature.
The key is ensuring that future generations will know the results of these experiments. Judging by the cyclical history of human civilization, this knowledge apparently has a shelf life.
I think thereâs also a huge prioritization/effort issue that has to be factored in.
Weâre fundamentally lazy and tend to get worked up and then promptly forget about it once things stabilize again. If weâre going to do anything that makes things better itâs going to have to be the path of least resistance.
Bernie Sanders is the only true progressive in the race. If heâs voting for Hillary Clinton, then heâs just another neoliberal stooge, bought and paid for by the corporatocracy. Thatâs why Iâm going to cast a protest write-in vote for Bernie Sanders, to remind Hillary and her corporatist lackey Bernie Sanders that she doesnât own the votes of real progressives like me and Bernie Sanders.
Oh, I donât know. I would say that all the issues where she has agreed (and voted) with progressives like Sanders and Warren are pretty good reasons to vote for her. If you include her newfound progressive positions on TPP, fracking, bank regulation, etc during the campaign, then these are also reasons to vote for her, even if your confidence in her commitment to these positions is relatively low.
[quote]
Clinton is dishonest, even for a politician.[/quote]
I think sheâs pretty good by âpoliticianâ standards. Ignoring the FOX parallel universe allegations, sheâs certainly more honest than nearly 100% of Republican politicians, so even if you believe that nearly all Democratic politicians are more honest than she is (I donât) that makes her average, not extreme.
Anyone who has read my posts on the âWhy (** *** ***)â threads can see all my issues with Clinton, but honesty is not one of them, thatâs all Rush Limbaugh/Ann Coulter stuff.
