Yes; that’s the way it works in 2016 in the USA. This year, there are only two people who have an actual chance to become President. The choice for every voter is: decide which of the two choices fits least-badly with your own values and goals–or opt out and try to convince yourself that opting out is a respectable thing to do.
In this thread we have two screennames stubbornly insisting that in 2016 in the USA, reality has been superseded by a fantasy world in which there are more than two people who have an actual chance to become President:
These assertions are clearly false for the USA in 2016. Presumably the claims are made in an attempt to rationalize away the irresponsibility of failing to vote for the one of two choices (in the 2016 USA) calculated to bring about the best possible outcome, given those two choices.
In some wonderful future in which our American system has changed (to preferential voting, perhaps; or to any system in which third parties are viable), then it will no longer be irresponsible to opt out of choosing between the two people who have an actual chance of becoming President. But in 2016, it certainly remains irresponsible, despite ever so much sophistry expended in the effort to excuse it.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Candidate says ‘x.’ Logic says, ‘if x, then y.’ Claim is candidate believes ‘y,’ and you think the evidence for that claim is the same as Clinton killing Foster?
Even if I assume that meaning for zero evidence, you’re still so far from right you can’t even see right.
If you want to strawman my arguments, knock yourself out.
The major parties try very hard to make this a self a fulfilling prophecy, and they have largely succeeded, mostly by convincing people like you that the other options don’t exist. But nevertheless, there are other options. And if people vote for them, they’ll win. They haven’t because the Dems and Pubs, along with people like you, have made a concerted effort to dismiss their competition as a loony fringe with few supporters.
The Republican Party was founded in 1854. It elected its first President, Lincoln, in 1860. Where would this country be if people like you had been canvassing the streets with propaganda about how the Republican party is a fringe party with an inconsequential and extreme base?
Wait, what? Most of them? Let’s take this one at a time. Which Republicans do you think, with four more years of seasoning, could defeat an incumbent Clinton in 2020? Fiorina? Jindal? Carson? Bush? Graham? Do you really think most of them could pull it off? Or was that an off-the-cuff exaggeration?
From a societal perspective, of course there are other options. From an individual’s perspective, there are not, because of the way we know that other individuals are going to act. If I were you, or a strong supporter of any independents or third parties, I would be spending my time advocating for ranked balloting, resolved with something like Condorcet or Instant Runoff, so individuals can do both: vote for who they think is best, but still indicate a preference for one major-party candidate over the other. Otherwise, it’s way too big of a collective-action nut to crack.
The Whig/Republican analogy is not an especially useful one for our purposes, because it was not as though individual voters coalesced around an Abe Lincoln or a John Fremont; rather, it was disaffected Whig politicians who broke up the party. Some went to the Democrats, others to the Know-Nothings, and the rest formed a new Republican Party. Not to say there was NO grass-roots support going on by individual voters, but bottom-up support wasn’t fundamentally what allowed the new party to win a bunch of states in '56 and win the election four years later; rather, it was the top-down formation of a new party by politicians that made the change and allowed the Republicans to be a force from the beginning.
An appropriate Whig/Republican analogy to today is not Ralph Nader, not Gary Johnson, not a “party” led by people who have no elected officials to speak of at any level; it would be a situation like this: Trump wins the election, 100+ GOP members of Congress decide halfway through his first term that they can’t work with him, jump ship, and form a new party. That party could win seats at the midterms and become a major player in 2020. That party could attract voters right away. But that’s not what you’re talking about.
Look at Bernie Sanders–the quintessential independent, who refused for years to join the Democrats despite having enormous numbers of policies in common with them. Now he runs for president. On an independent ticket? Not hardly. He knew he had no shot at getting anywhere without an actual party to help him out. These 20,000-attendee rallies, these outpourings of support in many states, these super-enthusiastic Bernie or Bust backers, they’re all not happening if he runs as Bernie Sanders, Independent, or Bernie Sanders, Social Democratic Party. To tap into public enthusiasm Sanders has to run as Bernie Sanders, Democrat. Even Sanders doesn’t believe in what you’re arguing.
Look, about half the GOP base are likely to stay home rather than vote for Trump. Some will even vote for Hillary.
Some chunk of the Democratic base will stay home rather than vote for Hillary.
Voting third party is a more productive version of staying home. I think it should be encouraged.
So then do the work from here until election day. Support a third-party run. And if polls show that a serious progressive candidate has a shot in hell of garnering enough support in November to win, you bet your sweet ass I’ll vote for that candidate.
But if November comes and no progressive candidate has, let’s say, a 10% chance of victory according to 538.com, you better believe Clinton gets my vote.
The election season is the equivalent of spending all semester in class. Election day is final exams. You don’t get to do the hard work on the exam; that’s just a test of the work you’ve done up to that point.
This is a self-defeating argument. From an individual’s perspective, your vote isn’t going to change things no matter who you vote for. Hillary Clinton is not going to win the vote in your area by 0-2 votes. She just isn’t. Your vote isn’t going to be the feather that tips the balance in her favour. If you’re going to argue that we shouldn’t vote third party because everyone else is voting for the big two, you should also be arguing that your vote doesn’t matter because everyone else is voting for the big two.
But, again, imagine I’m a Floridian, and you ask me how I voted in 2000, and I bite my lip and dart my eyes from side to side and quietly mumble “Nader”.
If you then say “So it’s because of you, and people like you, that Gore fell 537 votes short of Bush?” – well, some folks would coolly meet your stare and explain that “Bush was my second choice.” Or they’d shrug and say “Well, there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Bush and Gore.”
But as for me, I’d wring my hands and look at you pleadingly and hoarsely cry out about how “We made a horrible mistake! Oh, how it’s gnawed at me, and people like me: we could’ve prevented Dubya’s presidency – but we cast our votes for Nader, when we should have cast our votes for Gore! Our folly cries out to heaven!”
Fortunately, I never have to do that; I can proudly say I voted for Gore. But in a hypothetical where Gore lost because of me and people like me? I’d deeply regret voting the way I had, and I’d work to keep others from making that same mistake, because I wouldn’t – and couldn’t – say “Hey, those votes for Nader from me and people like me, they didn’t matter.”
Both Sanders and Hillary are unacceptable compromises for me – I’m voting for ME! Sure I hate dealing with politicians and I don’t know much about lots of issues, but those things aren’t truly important. What’s important is voting for someone who believes in exactly the same things as myself.
Once elected I’ll stay in bed a lot and let my advisors handle things – but if there’s an issue I care about I will tell those advisors To Accept No Compromise!
My friends think my plan is stupid, and I know my name hasn’t shown up in any presidential preference poll. BUT! If each and every voter will just cast their ballot for the person that best reflects their own views, then my chances are as good as anyone’s!
