But to many independent voters, it was the “5 die or 1 die” trolley problem, not the “5 die or 0 die.”
To independent voters (many of whom were moderate conservatives) who opposed LGBT, abortion, feminism, DEI, etc., seeing a Democrat being elected would have been a setback of a moderate kind, and seeing Trump elected would have been a big setback. But the Democrat winning would not have been zero setback.
Now you could argue that it still makes more sense to flip the trolley switch anyway. But it was not a “5 die or 0 die” scenario for them.
In other words they aren’t “independent voters”, just dishonest Republicans who supported Trump and hate most Americans, but didn’t even have the guts to say so. They wanted persecution and tyranny and enforced ignorance.
I also have to admit perplexity as to why people are confused about these non voters. They didn’t care. They keep telling you they don’t care. You should listen to them: they don’t care. That’s a big part of who they are, telling the world how much they don’t care and are proud of it.
Your tales of horror and sorrow aren’t going to work. They don’t care.
Oh, they do care; they want as much horror and suffering as possible, they enjoy watching it more than they care about their own life. Otherwise they wouldn’t have decided to commit national suicide with the rest of us.
Cowardice. They know it makes them look bad so they either voted for him and lied about it, or just relied on the fact that doing nothing would get Trump in.
I think our “Independent non-voters” or “non-Pub-non-Dem voters” had a slightly different Trolley problem. I’ll call it the Trump-Trolley problem.
You’re on a trolley. Ahead, there is a fork that goes left or right, and your train will go on one or the other. On the trolley with you, there’s a fat orange man with tiny hands saying that if you put the train on the right fork, he’s gonna blow up the tracks ahead. Also, on the train with you is a woman who laughs a lot and got on the trolley very recently, but seems otherwise normal and seems like she’s trying to help. She is begging you to take the left fork, because she says that is the only way to keep the fat orange man with tiny hands from causing damage.
If you pull the switch to the left, there’s a much higher chance the train will take the left fork. If you pull the switch to the right, there’s a much higher chance the train will take the right fork. If you leave the switch in the middle, you’ve left the train in a 50/50 state as to whether it goes left or right.
Even though you believe the Orange Man is going to destroy the tracks ahead on the right-fork, you decide not to pull the switch because you heard that the laughing woman thinks it’s OK if a transgender person is allowed play catch with boys and girls on the left fork.
There are some people who might argue that the entire train system is so irredeemable, that the orange man blowing up the tracks is the best case. Business as usual was awful and it’s best for the world if we get rid of the railroad. I’m somewhat sympathetic to that argument.
It seems to defy belief for some here, doesn’t it?
But this is not so much a description of the ostensible “Independent Neithers” as it is of the vast number of American adults who if you asked them could not tell you who is their Senator — national OR state — or what is the difference between federal and state laws or WTH was the platform of the candidates running or what are the three branches of government. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, millions of people here believe all the aspects of a good, normal life are some sort of maintenance-free default “rest state” that simply happens naturally and they can let someone else care about who is managing.
Our esteemed maximalist-horror poster of course has their own contrary opinions about this but really, a whole lot of our voting age population ARE just total obliviots who won’t see the bright signs, flashing lights and moving barriers or hear the bells or the very loud locomotive horn and when the train creams them will just say “oh well, that just happens, who knew?”
I’m not really seeing this, except for the last bit. Vote Harris, again at worst she is a politician you disagree with, and you will have some setbacks for the next four years. If you vote Trump, it could literally be the end of American democracy.
If we look at it quite literally, if you vote Harris nobody will die as a result. If you vote Trump, and he fulfills his promises to end all kinds of government programs, let Putin run wild in Ukraine and anywhere else he feels like, end all kinds of environmental policies, then people will literally die as a result.
These were the most baffling idiots of all.
Would Harris be pro Israel? Probably. Though I did hear from a few voters who chose Trump because they saw Harris as anti Israel or somehow not pro Israel enough. Harris, yet again was at worst a politician you disagreed with. She had compassion. Her opinions and positions could be changed by logic and facts.
Trump was a hate-filled toddler. During his first term, he enacted a travel ban that was a defacto Muslim ban. He openly courted Christian conservatives.
So, for pro Palestine voters the choices were-
Vote Harris- a sane and decent human being. Things might not be great for Palestinians with her as President. But they probably will not get worse. They may even get better.
Vote Trump- A hate-filled toddler who has shown that he will discriminate against Muslims and blindly support Israel on behalf of Christian conservatives. Vote Trump, and things will almost certainly get much worse for Palestinians- this includes people literally dying.
Vote for somebody else for President- I have addressed this at least twice in this thread.
Not vote- I have addressed this as well.
Letting the orange man blow up the tracks also involves a lot of people literally dying. The overwhelming majority of those people will be innocent of wrongdoing. OTTOMH the orange man’s chosen agents ended USAID. I admit I have no cite that people died. But, as the primary purpose of USAID was to provide food and medical care for people that couldn’t otherwise afford either, it seems a logical conclusion.
I’m well aware. I was a USAID funded foreign aid worker for 30 years and so was my wife. We are trying to figure out how not to lose our house. And people absolutely died.
My point is: if a third party voter said, “America needs to collapse, but I can’t bring myself to vote Trump, so I will vote third party knowing that I am helping Trump,” I could respect that. It demonstrates a level of awareness and shows that the person has taken a conscious act which in their calculations ultimately helped more people than it harmed.That’s not what most of them say, including the ones in this thread.
IDK in that case why not actually have the courage of your convictions and vote Trump? If Harris had won under this thinking, more people would suffer by continuing to perpetuate America’s system.
I can mostly understand that. If I’m at a party and somebody tells a bigoted joke, I will state that the joke is bigoted and should not be told. At this point, the joke teller usually apologizes and back pedals. Then, I know they are both a bigot and a coward. If they defended their beliefs, they would still be a bigot. But they would have also shown the courage to stand behind their beliefs.