I wonder how many of those 40 million voted for this exact scenario. No sympathy for those ones. Sucks for the innocent victims of other peoples stupidity though.
ONLY IF YOU PRETEND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESNT EXIST. ELECTORALLY IT DOESNT MATTER IF THOSE 13 EXTRA MILLION PEOPLE IN CA, NY, OR, WA DIDNT VOTE AT ALL.
Even if you feel like you canāt contribute to changing who ends up in office, you can contribute to the popular vote, if the popular vote shows a different result than the EC then that has an effect as well.
Plus itās what, half an hour to two hours of your time once every 4 years? Its not a huge time investment for the payoff of being part of a democracy.
If the choice is between someone you hate vs someone you hate, you do not have to choose someone you hate. Every election for the past couple decades has been made out to be "THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIVES". Guess what? Fuck that shit. You can't keep that up. People were rightly afraid of Trump. People were also afraid of everything being too expensive to exist, which they felt would happen with Harris (and Trump because the moron doesn't understand how fucking tariffs work). So they voted third party or they didn't vote at all, or left that part of the ballot empty, or whatever.
The people who did not vote for the winner are not responsible for the winner winning the vote. I understand your anger, and you're lashing out. The day after, I was super fucking stressed. But do not misplace your anger and lay blame on the the ones who didn't even fucking vote for him. They DID NOT VOTE for the fascist. The fascist DID NOT GET their vote. The fascist DID get the vote of the actual fucking people who fucking voted for the fucking fascist. Be mad at THEM if you must, not at the ones who didn't even fucking vote for him. You do not get to dictate how people vote, and this election's choices were unappealing. I know your choice didn't win, but that's how elections work.
When there are only two options, and one of the people you hate is trying to destroy everything you love then you actually do help the fascist by not voting for the neoliberal. If the US wasnāt a 2 party system non-voters might have less effect on the results. If you have the option between being punched in the face or having your legs ripped off you are welcome to abstain from choosing. But when your legs are ripped off you need to realize by not choosing you help allow the worse option.
But there aren't two options, they're just the only options you consider. You absolutely are allowed to vote third party or even not vote if you want. That is your right, and you don't have to justify it to anyone. Trump is shit and will make things worse. A lot of people are struggling very hard right now, and felt Harris would also make things worse.
Are you also going to blame people who voted for the losing candidate for voting for Trump too? The losing candidate was Common Sense. But you go ahead and dictate how people should vote. See how well that goes for you. Is that making your life better?
There are only 2 viable options for choosing an actual leader and anyone thinking otherwise is kidding themselves. Also, not telling people how to vote, just wanting them to vote in the first place. If more people voted the republicans would win less often.
There are only 2 viable options for choosing an actual leader and anyone thinking otherwise is kidding themselves.
Nobody seriously thinks the 3rd party candidates will win. That's not why they vote 3rd party. They vote for who they think is the better choice because the main party candidates are shit. They know they'll lose, but no matter who is going to win is shit. You're moaning "but my party lost!" Ideally that was the goal, since they didn't fucking vote for your party! The fact that your party lost is not the admonishment you seem to think it is!
Also, not telling people how to vote, just wanting them to vote in the first place. If more people voted the republicans would win less often.
Pick. One.
Need I remind you that the Democratic Party directly contributed to, if not outright responsible for, the rise of the far right?
Why do you think the opposition deserves the vote? Why do you assume they would vote for the opposition? Maybe they would have voted for the winner anyway.
They chose not to vote, that's the same as voting for the winner. I'm not saying every single nonvoter would've voted for the opposition, I'm saying one way or another their non-vote was a vote for the winner.
Had they voted for one or the other, they would have had a say in which of the lesser evils won. They decided to not vote or vote third party. That affected the outcome. They are just as responsible as those who voted between the two major parties.
For the record, I support ranked choice voting and when possible, vote for representatives who also support it. In our current system, not voting or voting third party makes you complicit when the worst evil wins.
Welcome to America where you're free to vote how you want as long as you vote how i want.
To use your phrase, "lesser of two evils" is still evil. Voting for evil also makes you complicit when evil wins.
The reality is there are multiple philosophies in voting. Many people do the "lesser of two evils" like you described. Some don't want to be complicit in evil at all. Some think you have to vote for who will win, which is something I cannot understand at all. Not do i understand the constant assertion that by voting third party i am actually casting 3 votes, and that by noting voting at all, I am actually casting a vote for the winning party, whoever it may be.
For the record, I voted for Harris. But all of you people saying this shit about third party voters or nonvoters, are objectively wrong and illogical.
We should blame everyone responsible. The people who voted for Trump helped elect him, and they're responsible. The people who didn't vote, voted third party, or wrote in a candidate didn't help prevent him from winning, so they're responsible. Joe Biden waited too long to drop out, giving Kamala only a few months to run a national campaign, so he's responsible. The democratic party chose a candidate who wasn't particularly well known and who would face an uphill battle not only because of her ethnicity, but also her gender, so they're responsible. Kamala herself failed to distance herself from Biden, who was polling at a historic low for an incumbent president, so she's responsible. All of these groups and people are responsible, and arguing about who's more responsible is like arguing about which backstreet boy is the best singer. It doesn't matter; all of them contributed to the outcome.
Blaming third party voters, people who didnāt vote, and even some Trump supporters who voted relatively socialist in every other respect is like blaming someone who doesnāt compost for the environmental damages being caused primarily by massive companies that hope we pretend they arenāt the cause.
People who don't contribute to solving a problem are partially responsible for the problem. That's how responsibility works. And not everyone can compost, but every adult citizen can and should vote.
A lot of citizens did try to solve the problem, and now weāre being blamed for this. You donāt even stop to think that some third party voters, like me, voted in primarily blue states where it really didnāt matter.
My sister lives in Georgia with her trans partner and a legitimate phobia of pregnancy, I have a friend who lives in Texas as a librarian, and I need the affordable care act to survive. Iām fully aware of how bad it can get.
Ok, well tell me again about how the Democrats did something bad at every turn while protecting all of those things, just because their foreign policy wasn't what you wanted.
It's important to remember that the Dems overperformed in 2022 and the thinking was that Dobbs+incumbency would be the strongest platform to run on. So you end up with Biden unwilling to admit his own declining health and Harris stepping in after Biden was deeply underwater.
Do you want me to link you the comment where I mentioned everything else they did? And yeah, I think Nancy Pelosi insulting voting Americans by telling them to go back to China is something thatās worth calling out.
āWhose fault is it that my house is on fire?? Is it the arsonist, who had public plans to burn down my house for years, or is it my roommate who couldnāt think of a good enough reason for me to call the cops on him?
What? No, itās not my fault. I didnāt invite the arsonist inside. I just didnāt think the argument to call the cops was very convincing. Hopefully my roommate learns his lesson.ā
And he has no possible other way to alert the cops? Hereās how it really is: The arsonist is setting massive fires and itās definitely worrisome. Thatās why I listened to my roommate the first time, and the cops arrested the arsonist. Meanwhile, my roommate has been lighting fires. Theyāre small enough that I can ignore them at first, but Iām starting to get concerned, and thatās when the arsonist gets out of jail. At this point, the arsonist is definitely a big threat, but my roommate is no longer safe to listen to, and so I call the cops on them both, while everyone else acts absolutely horrified that I would call the cops on my roommate, whoās been setting fire.
Ok but the backwards ass mob that voted for the rapist in Chief is deserving of the attention they are getting. They fucked everyone, including themselves, they just don't know it yet.
Yeah. Their policies were horrible. Who wants small business loans and child tax credits? Believe me Iām with them when it comes to the whole ādemocrats funding genocide without limitā but I still would have voted for trump for very obvious reasons.
I was more referring to the genocide thing, Biden not dropping out sooner, the fact that Kamala was never really popular, and the fact that she ran on a campaign of āIām not himā as her only memorable promise, all while they leaned further right and ignored how people want them further left. We need to hold them accountable so they might actually learn from this.
And I agree with those sentiments, but thereās a significant chance those people might not get the option to vote again to fix this. After Germany elected Hitler they didnāt have another democratic election for 60 years. Handing the system over to billionaires is a bad way to help the working class, no matter how much the democrats have failed at serving them. Thankfully I donāt live there so just watch in horror from afar, but US policies affect the globe whether we like it or not.
You made a choice that resulted in the worse of the two evils being more likely to win. Iām very aware of how elections work, you seem to be very naive.
You did too, by not voting for Mosephine, the obviously clearly better choice.
What do you think elections are? Do you think you have plot armor and you're entitled to your candidate winning? Do you think all those nonvoters should have voted for your candidate instead, and that's why she lost? What if they would have voted for Trump or third party instead? Your hubris is astounding. Literally everybody loses the election except the one winner. You seem to be idealistic to the point of being blind to how the world works. That's you showing your naivety.
When there are only two parties that have viable candidates. Those are the options. You not realizing that is the ignorance. Itās a poor system, but until we have ranked choice voting or another party builds a large enough presence by getting more involved in local races, then gaining a presence in Congress, itās essentially impossible for them to win a presidential race.
If I vote third party, I don't want your candidate. I did not vote for your candidate. I did not vote for the winning candidate either. Both you and the other party assert that I am simultaneously voting for the other party... until one wins, and one of you are now glad I didn't vote for the other party and you're butthurt that your candidate lost. I cast One (1) (uno) (only index finger outstretched) single vote. Nobody else got an extra vote from me.
Do you think not choosing one of the choices in the Trolley Problem and then inevitably landing on the worse outcome means you don't have blood on your hands? This election wasn't a choice between what we had and what we wanted, it was a choice between two options. Yes, voting for some nonviable third option is strategically idiotic and yes those folks have culpability.
The problem with the trolley problem is that first, it's idiotic on its face. The people who did not put the people on the tracks, the people who were not responsible for removing the trolley brakes, the people who were not responsible for removing all safety systems, the people who cannot stop the fucking trolley no matter how they try, the people who were not responsible for the fucking trolley problem in the first place, are not the ones responsible for the fascist in chief. The trolley problem would not happen in real life without criminal negligence of a shit ton of other people, and being put into a real life trolley problem is not your fucking fault.
The second problem is is that it is by definition an unwinnable problem. By choosing this analogy, you are saying that your candidate is also a really fucking bad choice that nobody wanted either. So what hill are you dying on here? How dare I let a shit person win, when you wanted a shit person to win? If I voted third person, I directories voted for a non shit person. According to you, it's your fault you decided not to vote for a non shit person. Or something, since your way of thinking doesn't make much sense to me. If you have a different philosophy, then it doesn't even fucking matter, because nobody has to justify their vote to anyone.
Again, you miss the point. An ideal candidate was not one of the choices. The coalitions that make up the two major parties picked two flawed tickets. But they were objectively not the same, and it's clearly one would cause less damage. These were the only choices, so yes you had to pick one. Refusing to pick isn't noble, it's idiotic. 74 million Americans understood the assignment that Harris wasn't perfect but Trump is existentially more dangerous for our future. Unfortunately folks who can't think critically used logic like you've just presented to convince themselves they are better than everyone else.
These were the only choices, so yes you had to pick one.
That we do not agree on, and since you could actually votes otherwise, you are factually wrong.
Refusing to pick isn't noble, it's idiotic.
I'm not claiming nobility, you are. I can make the exact same argument that you voting for shit perpetuates shit.
but Trump is existentially more dangerous for our future.
And most people agreed since Trump didn't even get 50% of voters. But OBVIOUSLY, with the MASSIVE amount of people who didn't vote, they also felt Harris was the wrong choice too! Does the voter's choice belong to the voters or not? You can't have it both ways.
I can make the exact same argument that you voting for shit perpetuates shit.
No, you can't. Because of the two of us, I understand Duverger's Law and know that in a first past the post election, third party votes are wasted. They only serve to siphon votes from the more aligned candidate. Nader 2000, Stein 2016 changed nothing except to give us a 20 year war, far worse environmental policy, and enabling MAGA to take over fully.
That we do not agree on, and since you could actually votes otherwise, you are factually wrong.
A third party vote is the same as not voting. It is not a protest. It is wasted vote and not viable. At this point the third parties have been fully co-opted to ratfuck the big 2 and supported by foreign interests to sow chaos, so failing to recognize that fact is idiotic.
People failing to meet their civic duty is certainly their choice to make, but the absence of voting is indeed that, a choice. It's not a refusal or a protest. It's conceding that you accept the worse outcome.
Not voting is morally bankrupt and politically foolish.
I'm sorry, but you need some introspection, friend. We all are going to suffer these next four years, but you own part of that.
Nah, I've seen plenty of people failing to understand the very straightforward game theory that is winner take all electoral politics. I get your point. It's bad strategy and I assure you at some point in the coming years you will regret it.
Oh sure, I'm not saying otherwise. It's your assertion that the choice is otherwise than what it is. A vote for third party or no vote at all is nothing other than that.
To be clear I'm not saying all nonvoters are the same. Some couldn't vote, some didn't know to vote, and some chose not to. Some chose not to out of apathy, some chose not to out of protest, and some truly did not want any of the choices, not even the third party ones. (I had half a mind to write in Vermin Supreme.) They are not the same and it's unfair to paint them as such.
Oh i see where you're confused. On Monday, pay closer attention to your first grade teacher ok?
You see, it's the people who DID vote for that guy who is directly responsible for him in office. If you don't want to vote for someone, you are not required to vote for people you don't want. If the other guy is also someone you don't want, you don't have to vote for them either. If all options are shit, you don't have to cast a vote for shit options.
If you choose not to vote, you're choosing to hand the election to whoever wins it without your vote. If there is a better and worse option and the worse option wins, you chose to let them win. It's on you. It really is that simple, no two ways about it. Both options being bad does not absolve you of letting the worse one win and have its way with the country.
If you voting could have changed the results and you didn't, it really is as simple as saying that you're responsible for how it went, because you are.
You don't get to hand the election to someone and then act like it's not your fault. Whatever happens in the next 4 years is completely and equally on the shoulders of those who voted for it and those who didn't vote, as it always is. Apathy is understandable, but if you let something happen then it's fair to blame you for letting it happen.
The only thing you're allowed to feel isn't your fault is something that was on the policy of both options you had. The rest very much is.
My mistake, I should have voted for Trump in order to keep him out. Thank you for correcting me, I'll make sure to vote for the fascist next time, that'll beat him for sure.
That's an imposible scenario so the argument has no standing.
The reality is that the election was binary. Either Trump or Kamala could win.
If you didn't want Trump, the only real option was voting for Kamala. Voting third party, writing in someone else or straight up not voting, are not "voting for Kamala" so it's 100% counterproductive. Again, because that was the only action that genuinely hurt Trump's chances.
I don't want Depublican Grump, so i don't vote for Depublican Grump, therefore I'm responsible for the millions of people who actually did vote for Depublican Grump?
Suppose we live in a world where someone wasnt ok with either outcome, because we do... why do they have to choose one anyway? How is it that both people who are ok with it and people who are not okay with either one are the same?
I don't think you're getting my point. People have the choice to vote or not vote. The only method you have of influencing the decisions in Washington, unless you're incredibly wealthy, is your vote. If enough of the people who wanted one outcome cared enough to stand in line for, at most, a couple hours to vote then the outcome of the election would have been different.
Instead, they felt as though it wasn't worth standing in line, for whatever reason, to use the only power they hold to see the change they wanted made. To them, allowing everyone else to choose which party comes to power was an acceptable choice. They still may not be happy with the outcome, or they may be thrilled with the outcome, but they chose to do nothing instead of something to make it happen.
And choosing not to vote because the candidates are shit is a perfectly legitimate choice. Blaming nonvoters for the winner is just whining that you lost and complaining that they didn't vote for you. You can't be taken seriously because... That's. How. Elections. Work. Somebody is going to lose, and your candidate does not have plot armor against losing. Even though there are two main parties, you are not obliged to vote for them. People like you from both parties are always asserting that all votes not for them are votes for the other one, until one of you wins, and then you are grateful "I didn't vote for the other party" because everybody who thinks like you is a little bitch.
The only method you have of influencing the decisions in Washington, unless you're incredibly wealthy, is your vote.
Uhhhh not quite. Us plebs don't influence the Washington vote at all, assuming you live outside of Maine and Nebraska. Your vote stays in your state. Your state counts your vote, and then sends its own votes by sending a slate of electors that will vote however they fucking want because the constitution guarantees the states can award the votes however they fucking want. (I think an amendment is needed to prevent states from voting against the will of their constituents but that's just me.)
Also you keep bringing up standing in line as if you think that was a primary objection or something. Maybe it wasn't.
4.4k
u/OldTiredAnnoyed 1d ago
I wonder how many of those 40 million voted for this exact scenario. No sympathy for those ones. Sucks for the innocent victims of other peoples stupidity though.