# Voters born in the '90s need to get a clue **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 20, 2016, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423 "2016-09-20T07:59:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/141 "2016-09-22T04:59:57Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Here’s a thread from sixteen years ago on this board that I found with a google search where people are ranting about Nader voters, just as an example > [Fuck you Ralph fucking Nader - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=45591) Funny, or maybe just sad, that you apparently didn’t realize what a terrible example this is. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/142 "2016-09-22T05:45:29Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > But it’s certainly arguable that fewer people would end up blown up under someone who wasn’t either a D or R, so saying ‘people might die’ doesn’t really support ‘so you must vote for this candidate who will support the war on certain drugs and the prison-industrial complex, overseas military adventures and the military-industrial complex, wall street and lack of social welfare systems, and so on’. Yes, it’s quite likely Stein or Johnson would lead to less deaths and misery. However, since America has a first past the post voting system and neither major party is in danger of collapsing none of that matters. Trump or Hillary will win. If those are the issues you care about it’s obvious which candidate’s victory is preferable. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/143 "2016-09-22T05:53:03Z")
I would argue that Johnson, if he also had a Libertarian Congress, would cause the most misery of all, more than Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/144 "2016-09-22T06:49:53Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > The problem with the argument of ‘it will be a catastrophe that is your fault if you don’t vote for the PartyA and the PartyB win!’ is that the same people who feel entitled to every not-diehard Party vote have made it in every single election since I was a kid hearing about Reagan vs Mondale. Perot vs Bush vs Clinton got a lot of heat from the right, and Nader vs Bush vs Gore got a lot from the left, and yet we survived all of those elections without things blowing up. …Were you awake in the period between 2000 and 2008? Yeah, we survived the Bush years. They also tanked America’s standing in the world, cost us trillions of dollars, left the middle east even more of a dangerous, intractable mess, and caused untold harm to the country in a great many ways. If you want to make an example of how “it’s okay that third parties play the spoiler”, that is a really fucking shitty example to make. And even that doesn’t really do Trump justice. Bush was a standard politician with a few really bad ideas. Trump is a raving fucking lunatic whose only ideas are completely insane. > [@](#): > > In this particular election I think that Trump actually is actually over-the-top awful enough that I am likely to hold my nose and vote for Clinton. But if one of the moderate Republicans was running against Clinton, there is no way I would seriously consider voting for her, and yet the same people ranting about how the youth are betraying the team here would still be ranting about it. Technically, this is true. To go back to that truck analogy, Clinton would drive over 5 people. A moderate republican would be worse, probably like 7 or 8. Trump would attach a nuke to the truck and drive it into an orphanage. Better is better, and an idealistic vote for a third party is saying, “I don’t need my vote to matter, even in the slightest bit; I have no interest in helping the lesser possible evil when I can help the greater possible evil by campaigning for the impossible good!” ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/145 "2016-09-22T11:48:10Z")
When you insist on all or nothing, you’ll almost always get nothing. It’s a basic fact of life. All the hand-waving sophistry about “the lesser evil is still evil” doesn’t change that basic fact. Some people just don’t seem to get that. And I’m not aiming that at millennials. Many, maybe most, do in fact get that; and some non-millennials who are old enough to know better don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/146 "2016-09-22T11:56:21Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > When you insist on all or nothing, you’ll almost always get nothing. It’s a basic fact of life. All the hand-waving sophistry about “the lesser evil is still evil” doesn’t change that basic fact. I’m stealing this. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/147 "2016-09-22T12:14:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m stealing this. Am I right? Aren’t most of life’s decisions a matter of choosing the lesser evil? No that I consider Hillary Clinton evil, by the way. “Choosing the lesser evil” is a figure of speech that usually isn’t talking about actual evils. Is Hillary Imperfect? Of course she is. Who isn’t? But Trump is evil. So in this case, if we want to be more literal, it’s not a matter of choosing the lesser evil. It’s a matter of choosing between the imperfect and the evil. Or, if you hesitate at calling Trump evil, then it’s a matter of choosing between the imperfect but competent, and the disastrously imperfect and incompetent. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/148 "2016-09-22T13:06:07Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I hate the word “shrill.” But do you genuinely think the complaints about McCain and Romney were of the same caliber as the complaints about Trump? I was going to go back through time via google and find a bunch of examples of “this election is the most important of our lives,” because it seems like every 4 years I’m told that, but it seems that [WaPo already did an article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/28/at-least-once-per-life-the-election-actually-is-the-most-important/) about it for me. So yes, I feel that every major candidate in every major election is painted as _the worst of all time_, and every time I start to buy into it, only to realize like a month later, after the fever wears off, that things weren’t all that bad. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Set that aside: do you genuinely think Trump is no more dangerous than McCain or Romney? > > If you don’t think that, all this business about when people were more shrill is kind of a side issue. I do happen to think that, but maybe I’m just buying into the hype. I mean, there are people out there who are 100% convinced that Obama is the worst president of all time, and that Clinton would somehow be worse. Those people are clearly delusional. Partisan politics is a hell of a drug, maybe we’re all just high. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/149 "2016-09-22T13:13:41Z")
There are always hysterical people who say each new president is the worst ever. But when’s the last time you remember a party’s nominee being opposed by every living president? Or that party’s previous nominee, from just four years earlier, giving a speech that was an absolutely scathing indictment of him? And when’s the last time a presidential nominee had no relevant experience and so little relevant knowledge? And then just blatantly lied over and over, and when called on it doubled down by repeatedly lying and saying it was actually his opponent who was guilty of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_? So, no, I’m sorry: this is unprecedented. (I can’t believe I’m actually having to make the case for this fact.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/150 "2016-09-22T13:22:05Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > One truck is aimed at babies at play. Observers are screaming that I need to help the one with a big D on her chest into the driver’s seat because she’ll only hit five babies instead of ten. Much of the confusion in these threads is due to badly wrong assessments of the comparative efficacies of possible Presidents. **Pantastic** , let me ask you to rank possible Presidents, as I did in the following post. If indeed you find Hillary almost as bad as Trump, we can dispense with further confusion — I’ll just walk away, pitying your ignorance. > [@Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign Discussion](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-clintons-presidential-campaign-discussion/753873/1059): > > On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you estimate the “goodness” for the U.S. of various possible 4-year Presidents? I might come up with something like > Biden 9.0 > Clinton 8.5 > Sanders 6.5 > Christie 5.5 > Kasich 4.2 > Cruz 1.5 > Rubio 1.0 > Trump -3.5 > > (The -3.5 for Trump is optimistic; it assumes he spends much of his term out-of-the-way, or well sedated.) > > Given the enormity of the competence gap between Clinton and Trump, this election is surely the most important of our lifetimes. The U.S.A. is faced with an existential crisis. > > This is not the time to debate whether we like how Hillary combs her hair. Heck, she could confess to felonies and it would still be clear to all rational observers that they should campaign as vigorously for her as possible! ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/151 "2016-09-22T13:33:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So, no, I’m sorry: this is unprecedented. (I can’t believe I’m actually having to make the case for this fact.) Clinton is the worst Democratic candidate in memory. She’s got record setting unfavorable numbers, bested only by Trump himself, and she was being investigated by the FBI during prime campaign months. Both sides can accurately claim that their opponents are historically the worst ever by various measures. I think you can probably pick different measures every election to make that true. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/152 "2016-09-22T13:41:39Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Clinton is the worst Democratic candidate in memory > … Maybe you don’t remember Dukakis. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/153 "2016-09-22T13:54:06Z")
Personally I think any argument about “the most important election in history” needs to include the qualifier “since Lincoln”. That said, I think Clinton vs Trump may truly be the most important (since Lincoln). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423/154 "2016-09-22T16:34:30Z")
Every presidential election is important for Supreme Court purposes. And for other purposes: wars are started or avoided based on who’s president. It’s a bad idea to minimize any election, and a lot of what you’ve seen in the past is people arguing against a “it doesn’t matter which Demopublican gets elected” narrative. **But this one is different**. Qualitatively so. And the responses to it are different. Just today, we have [several dozen senior diplomats openly opposing Trump](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/75-retired-senior-diplomats-sign-letter-opposing-trump-for-president/2016/09/21/5c5dff10-8046-11e6-b002-307601806392_story.html). This isn’t baseball as usual. In 2012, I quietly voiced the idea that if Romney won, he’d do a lot of stuff I disagreed with, but he wouldn’t be the end of the world or anything. Trump is so unhinged that I cannot voice that same idea now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voters-born-in-the-90s-need-to-get-a-clue/766423.md?page=7)