If Gore had prevailed, then the US would not have rushed to start bombing Iraq under false pretenses before the start of summer in 1991. Maybe Gore would have kicked off hostilities post that, difficult to say.
BUT,
the US would have kept the international coalition going in Afghanistan. Possibly with a better outcome (couldn’t have been worse).
Possibly only limited action to neutering Saddam’s army, enforcing no fly zones, and not actually create an anarchistic quagmire.
Iran would still have an enemy on the border and not fund proxies in Hamas, Hezbolla, Houthis
Cynical me thinks that every generation of voters has to learn the lesson the hard way. Yes, there is a material difference. And if you vote for a third party, then it takes two net new voters to make headway (one to cancel throwing away a vote, and one to actually increase the vote for someone that will actually be elected).
No, because voting for Stein or West, or anybody else, means you’re almost certainly going to vote for the other things on the ballot, including a House and (if applicable) Senate race. Not voting means they’re not voting in those races either.
Good point – I was narrowly focusing on the presidential race. I suppose I’ll amend my earlier statement to “Voters for 3rd-party presidential candidates can still go fuck themselves, but if they vote for Dems downballot we’ll allow them some lube.”
If Harris wins a narrow majority, in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, ignoring the House and Senate, then;
Nothing changes for conservatives.
Nothing changes for Republicans.
If Harris wins an overwhelming, undeniable, majority, in the Electoral College, the popular vote, the House, and the Senate then;
Nothing changes for conservatives (because that’s never going to happen anyway).
But the Republican leadership, that isn’t batshit crazy, might see the writing on the wall and realize the only way forward for them as a party is to moderate their positions a least for a few national election cycles.
Being over 60 and knowing Democrats, liberals, and the Left . . . we’re fucked. Being; White, straight, cis, and a bunch of other things, and hearing Death knocking, I don’t have much to worry about no matter who get elected. How folks that aren’t those things can be so short sighted baffles me.
That’s what happened in 2008, and the GOP went full obstructionist, resulting in a resounding comeback just two years later.
Sure, it’s a generation later, but 16 years of batshit crazy have worked out pretty well for them. If they were to lose so overwhelmingly this year (narrator: They won’t) I suspect they’d go even crazier. It will take several consecutive beatdowns before sanity gained back control of the GOP.
This. If you’ve ever spent much time on far left message boards or in the comments sections of Discourse Blog or other lefty news sites, you’ll find an awful lot of people who see anyone to the right of Karl Marx as practically a fascist, MAGA-hat wearing, imperialist pig. To them liberals are just conservatives who support gay marriage and have a somewhat more racially diverse group of friends. A few of those folks are willing to hold their noses and vote for Kamala, simply because the alternative is so much worse. But, many of them see her as just another bourgeois corporatist, and are simply hoping for the whole system to burn down in the hopes that something better rises from the ashes.
And, as we all know, that idea in a number of European countries is what has led to them being the shining examples of Marxist socialism that they are today!
That idea being not simply hoping for the whole system to burn down so that something better rises from the ashes but throwing petrol followed by matches by committing terrorist acts to force their governments further and further to the right and enact draconian responses that, get this, were supported by the folks these idiots were counting on to start the Revolution!
The paranoid Right already believes that the Left is conspiring to freeze them out of the political process via voter fraud so that a radical progressive agenda can be forced upon the USA. Overwhelming defeat at the polls simply reinforces that belief.
I think those people have mostly left the building. Win or lose, the party will double down on the crazy. Next election I fully expect the Republicans to be railing against the shape-shifting Lizard People who are hiding on the back of the moon along with the Mole-Men and the Reverse Vampires.
Folks: I live in New York and they only let me vote once.
By the logic I keep seeing expressed in this thread, I am “throwing my vote away” if I vote for Harris. Because she’s going to carry NY and my vote won’t make any difference.
Oh, is that a misconstrual of what folks were saying? Is it only “throwing my vote away” if I vote for someone who won’t win my state?
It’s not a protest vote when you vote for the candidate you think is the best candidate. It’s a vote, period.
Each of us who has the franchise gets to weild it according to our own sense of responsibility. Not that I’m particularly happy to be living in a world where “pick which of these two twits you want to make all other decisions on your behalf until next time” is considered democracy, but I’m going to use what I’ve got.
And yes, if I were a resident of Arizona or Georgia I might weigh things differently, but I’m still the person who gets to weigh them.