Well, I will certainly concede that there is a significant difference between following your own conscience in the privacy of the voting booth and actively trying to persuade others to follow you in voting for a protest candidate. The first, if you are not in a swing State, is harmless, the second might not be and should be avoided. But I wouldn’t consider simply stating your point of view in a forum such as this one to be “active persuasion”.
Right here right now as we are meta discussing the election, that discussion is just what it is, a discussion. However, before the election, the way that I knew that someone was voting third party is because they told me, and they told me because they thought I should as well.
First-term senator, from a left-of-center urban local political background, playing the representation card more than focusing on policy, ostensibly African-American but “not too black,” black parent actually from overseas, grew up partly in yet another country, so clever, so pretty, so respectable, and now…seeking out big-money donors whom populists might have reason to regard with suspicion.
It’s an echo. She even put out books because Obama was a published author. It’s a blatant attempt to get someone kind of like Obama & kind of like Hillary. It is blatantly aping the previous “successful” campaign. And it will work on the well-heeled. But she’s not like Bernie, and that’s where much of the popular base is. Kamala is already the target of the “left,” as in those who have seen actual social-liberal/social-democratic proposals from Bernie & AOC, and won’t settle for Clintonism anymore.
Are you kidding? All Presidential candidates write books, and all of them except the most left-wing seek out big money donors. That’s only slightly less silly than saying that she’s imitating Obama by metabolizing oxygen. And then she also has the nerve to be “clever” and “respectable”? Y’know, until fairly recently, both parties seemed to agree that those were desirable qualities in Presidential candidates.
I disagree that either Obama or Harris based their candidacy on “playing the representation card”, and frankly it reminds me of the sort of thing that Fox News viewers would say.
How does that conspiracy theory work, anyway? After Obama was elected, secretive cabals of big money donors started seeking out potential candidates who had one black parent who was born overseas, because clearly that biographical detail was crucial to Obama’s success?
I personally agree with you that I’d rather have Bernie, but this line of argument is just foolish.
septimus, your questions weren’t insensitive in the slightest!
Y’all keep telling me that a third party vote doesn’t accomplish anything, and in the next line tell me that, because I live in California, my vote still doesn’t accomplish anything. Not true. A Democratic vote from me accomplishes nothing due to the electoral college, whereas a vote for a progressive third party will push them closer to 5% of the popular vote to secure public funding for 2024. Nate Silver’s Tipping Point Index has California way on the D side, past such reliably blue states as New York and Washington. Achieving 5% is something within the realm of possibility. The election hinging on California is not. If my vote mattered to the Democrats, it would be wise for Harris to spend plenty of time campaigning in Los Angeles after the primary. We’ll see if that happens.
My logic has to be taken in the context of the state in which I live, which is why I keep mentioning California over and over. If you want to apply my logic to every state in the union, it’s no longer my logic. When I leave California, I’ll need to reconsider how I’ll vote. Until that happens, I’m not going to worry about it.
No. Democracy is people voting for whomever they feel like for whatever reason they want to, even if you personally disagree.
Are you implying that Clinton was the more exciting candidate? I mean, she did lose. Trump may be vile and incompetent, but he was historically exciting! Erudite’s claim was that Harris might receive support from the far left in a crowded field. I’m saying that I see little excitement for her over here. Among the party establishment and left-center folks, sure, but not among the DSA or the anarchists or the tankies or whomever else falls under “far left”.
If all the people who leaned left outside of the state of California did this, Trump would lose by the exact same margin.
Here you go: Genocides in history - Wikipedia
In all seriousness, please don’t try to explain how terrible things are for trans people to me. I have stories.
If the Democratic Party is so out of touch with the electorate that they lose California, they should probably update their platform. Electoral politics is a two-way street.
A winter snap that sends California to frostbite temperatures but leaves Wisconsin relatively warm is analogous to California being more red than Wisconsin. If that’s the case, the political environment is so radically different than what we’re talking about that this whole conversation is meaningless.
A actual, funded Progressive party would do nothing but ensure the GOp wins the Oval office and the Senate for decades.
How close was the closest they have gotten?
One of the criticisms that I still hear about Hillary is that she campaigned in California. She was even mocked for it right in this very thread just a few posts ago.
As I mentioned, how you vote is one thing. How you advocate to vote is another. third party took enough votes in some key states to put Trump over the top. People were inspired to vote third party by listening to people advocating they vote third party. Many of those advocates were in safe states, but they helped to influence the battle states.
No, democracy requires responsibility on the part of the voters. You are free to use your vote irresponsibly, and use it for whatever reason they want to, but that philosophy causes democracy to fail.
I don’t want an exciting candidate. Trump is “exciting”. When it comes to government, I actually want boring.
A significant failure of democracy comes when the ability to govern takes a far second place to the ability to campaign.
So stop giving them an example to follow.
And one of the reasons things are terrible is because enough people voted third party to allow Trump to be elected.
If california goes red because the majority of california cannot decide between left and far left, leaving the right as the majority loser, but the popular winner, it is not the mainstream party that needs to update its platform.
But people in Wisconsin are not necessarily as aware of the nuance that you are when you vote third party. They just see people supporting the “real progressive”, and badmouthing the mainstream candidate.
I don’t know that I am as pessimistic as that, but for several election cycles, certainly.
The problem with third parties in the USA is that they only attract loons at the national level. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson were even less qualified to be President than Donald Trump. How about Joe Manchik, the spoiler in the special congressional election in Ohio who claimed to be descended from space aliens? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2018/08/09/green-party-candidate-says-he-might-be-part-alien-doesnt-care-if-he-spoils-ohio-election/
3rd party candidates need to be mocked, taunted and derided. That’s probably treating them too kindly.
But, it must feel good to sit upon a cloud and look down at the unwashed masses who sheepishly vote for Republicans or Democrats.
In what way is Gary Johnson less qualified than Trump? He was a two term governor and built a multimillion dollar construction company from the ground up.
3rd parties do OK in Europe , the British PM now is only there because she had to join up with a smaller party to get majority.
In a parliamentary system, there can be a reason to vote for a 3rd party. Although, in the UK with the first past the post system and no proportional representation, it is often better to vote strategically.
There’s only one MP from the Green Party in the UK House of Commons. I will say she’s excellent, even if I don’t always agree with here. Here’s her current campaign to reach out to those who voted to leave the European Union.
Wrong. The poster you’re responding to may not be a Green Party supporter, but let’s use that as a specific example.
Suppose 147,800 votes in California’s 2016 result switched from Clinton to Stein. Which of the following do you thing would be the headline news story? -:
*With 426,500 votes the Green Party won 3% of the California electorate! — Unprecedented!
Hillary’s margin of victory in California was only 4.12 million! Pundits had expected a 4.27 million margin.*
That does not logically follow. If the mainstream are “moderates” without strong ideological hard lines of their own, they can usefully moderate themselves in the direction of the ideologues. If, alternatively, “mainstream liberals” are themselves ideologically opposed to whatever the left is doing, then they can’t expect ideological leftists to vote for them; at that point they are just different parties.
That goes for the relationship of center-right parties to neo-fascists & minarchists, and it goes for the relationship of center-left parties to socialists & Green New Dealers. You have to choose whether to embrace a fringe to get votes, or to deplore them as a threat to civil society.
The funny thing is Kamala Harris has endorsed both Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. There’s not going to be much daylight between her and other progressives. Highlighting small distinctions makes sense in the primary, but if she gets the nomination, nitpickery helps only the right.
The right are going to attack her for being a radical leftist in any case. There is going to be a very clear difference between the Republican and Democrat in the general election. Anyone saying otherwise is either suppressing the vote or deluding themselves.
Ok- you are optimistic, I am pessimistic on this. 
Given that it’s impossible for a third party candidate to win, I’m far less concerned about their actual qualifications. No one denies that Stein is a loon, but a vote for a third party is a vote for a platform. In contrast, I think Marianne Williamson’s platform is amazing, and as it stands now, I would vote for her in the primary if she can convince me that she’s not absolutely bonkers. (I’m aware that she likely is.) To bring this back to Harris, she doesn’t even have a issues section on her website, which makes me think she’s a fairweather progressive.
Johnson was a two-term governor. I’m not a libertarian, but he’s much more qualified than Trump was. Nothing I’ve said should make you think I would support Manchik in Ohio.
I don’t know why you think I’m disdainful of Republican and Democratic voters. Many of the candidates, sure, but the voters are people who have their own personal interests and who are just trying to live their lives, much like me. There are plenty of Democrats and Republicans in my life whom I love dearly, a few of whom worked on the Harris Senate campaign. You’re free to stan Harris all you want, but you’re the only poster who’s snidely painting me as some sort of snob.
The problem is, is that a candidate needs to campaign to the entire country, not just a third of california.
I do expect ideological leftists to support the candidates that represent the left, as to do otherwise, is to assist the opposing party.
And those fringe groups need to decide whether they are going to support the party that more closely approximates their desired policies, or they can choose to allow the party that is diametrically opposed to their desired policies win.
I say we should absolutely listen to anyone on the left side of the line. We all have the same basic goals, and we can only achieve them by working together. But listen to does not mean follow. Take advice does not mean take orders.
Stein is 1%. Johnson is 3%. I expect Johnson’s to be even higher in 2020. You should be elated.
Yeah, that was a huge error on Clinton’s part. (Funnily enough, I voted for her.) My point is that the Democrats shouldn’t care about my vote if they want to win, because California will not be a tipping point state.
This is a thread about Harris. It’s not a pro-Harris or anti-Harris thread. I mentioned that we don’t care for Harris. People asked me why, and then asked how I would vote, which I answered. I’m not telling other people how to vote. You mentioned that what I say will influence how other people vote. Of course it will. Everything anyone says has the potential to influence other people. That’s the point of communication. I presume that people come to The Kamala Harris Thread to have a potentially influential discussion about Kamala Harris. I also have faith that people who read this thread can make their own decisions. Isn’t this The Straight Dope? Would you have preferred that I simply not say anything? Or simply lie? If yes to either, does that apply to every Doper on the right who also doesn’t like Harris?
Hey, you’re the one telling me that I have to vote for the lesser of two evils. It’s funny that democracy works, but only when voters vote like you want them to.
You mentioned that voter suppression harms the less exciting candidate. Now I’m confused.
You seem really down on democracy.
Again, would you rather I simply not speak?
Please don’t explain my life to me.
It seems to be working so far. The Democrats are drifting leftwards.
The people of Wisconsin are real dumdums. Got it.
Someone mentioned that SESTA/FOSTA passed in the Senate 97-2. I want to clarify that, while I think that’s terrible, Harris in particular should be judged far more harshly for her anti-sexwork stance. Most politicians are anti-sexwork as a knee-jerk response. It’s really not a priority for them, and they likely don’t give it much thought. Harris is different. She led the crusade against Backpage despite law enforcement telling her that it would increase trafficking. Again, she views this as a major accomplishment. Many sex workers, a significant portion of whom are POC and trans, have been forced back onto the street where their incomes – not to mention their lives – are at risk. This is a personal issue for me.
If you don’t think you know any sex workers, trust me, you do. You just don’t know it.