28% of Americans rate economic conditions as excellent or good, a 9 percentage point increase from last April. And the share who say economic conditions will be worse a year from now has fallen during this timespan, from 46% to 33%.
Voting for anything but one of the top two parties is pointless, voting for the lesser evil is marginally better than voting for the greater evil, not voting is tacit approval of the greater evil. Please tell me, exactly, how does “not voting for the status quo” improve anything? Not rhetorical. I’m asking.
I need to tell you something: perfect is the mortal enemy of better. Both options are bad. One is objectively worse, if you don’t recognize that I assume you’re just part of Putin’s Geopolitik poisoning of the left, whether you know it or not.
Smugly refusing to participate doesn’t make the options better, it just makes it easier for the worse one to win.
Liberals are the most arrogant people on earth: you think reality bends to your will.
People who can’t make a realistic choice are far worse. When you represent an itty bitty fraction of the populace, you don’t have the right to dictate that policy be far-left. If you choose to not participate or to vote third party under FPTP, you are only hurting yourself by giving up what little influence you had. That’s just how democracy works.
Schrödinger’s Leftist: simultaneously an irrelevant tiny minority with no power, and crucially important to Biden winning, being wholly responsible if Trump wins.
No one is ever wholly responsible if the right wins, obviously. Wins are always based on a broad spectrum coalition, whereas losses are based on a coalition just barely failing. Modern US presidential elections are always close. Still, that doesn’t mean a potential coalition member gets to dictate coalition policy, especially when they’re on the extremes.
Unconditionally voting Blue means I have no influence at all.
Barring the demise of FPTP, you will never get what you want. Instead, politicians just learn you will never vote for them and they should look to more conservative constituencies. That, of course, means policies you don’t like.
No, it really isn’t.
It’s called compromise, and yes it is how a functioning democracy works.
Stop acting like a state propagandist then. Stop suggesting that neo-libs and fascists are identical just because they’re both bad. -10 > -100, even though both are negative.
Lack of nuance is evidence of idiocy or ulterior motives. I was being generous by assuming you had ulterior motives.
Voting for your interests isn’t “refusing to participate”. It’s the bare minimum in a democracy. It sounds like you’ve chosen to participate in a way which is counter to your own interests, and you’re calling out others for not following your flawed logic.
Look, I know that many of the candidates I vote for are long-shot candidates. It’s highly unlikely that they will win. But if I don’t vote for them, then I’m part of the problem. I’m helping to make it even less likely that they win.
Being part of the winning team feels good, but politics isn’t like football or hockey. This is an important civic responsibility.
Sure, if you live in a state where the result is obvious, then yes vote third party. But you know that they’re not going to win, and the only thing that accomplishes is visibility and possibly funding. You know that at the end of the day, the office will be won by one of the big two.
My opposition is to broadly advocating that for everyone. Too many people do live in swing states to be flippantly both-sidesing an election where Project 2025 is on the table.
Do you live in a swing state? Because I don’t. As far as I see it, voting third party won’t have any effect on the election, but might at least signal that I want change. It’s not like the popular vote matters in this country.
The least you can do is not vote for the status quo, but you won’t even do that.
Voting for anything but one of the top two parties is pointless, voting for the lesser evil is marginally better than voting for the greater evil, not voting is tacit approval of the greater evil. Please tell me, exactly, how does “not voting for the status quo” improve anything? Not rhetorical. I’m asking.
Removed by mod
I need to tell you something: perfect is the mortal enemy of better. Both options are bad. One is objectively worse, if you don’t recognize that I assume you’re just part of Putin’s Geopolitik poisoning of the left, whether you know it or not.
Smugly refusing to participate doesn’t make the options better, it just makes it easier for the worse one to win.
Removed by mod
People who can’t make a realistic choice are far worse. When you represent an itty bitty fraction of the populace, you don’t have the right to dictate that policy be far-left. If you choose to not participate or to vote third party under FPTP, you are only hurting yourself by giving up what little influence you had. That’s just how democracy works.
Removed by mod
No one is ever wholly responsible if the right wins, obviously. Wins are always based on a broad spectrum coalition, whereas losses are based on a coalition just barely failing. Modern US presidential elections are always close. Still, that doesn’t mean a potential coalition member gets to dictate coalition policy, especially when they’re on the extremes.
Barring the demise of FPTP, you will never get what you want. Instead, politicians just learn you will never vote for them and they should look to more conservative constituencies. That, of course, means policies you don’t like.
It’s called compromise, and yes it is how a functioning democracy works.
Removed by mod
Stop acting like a state propagandist then. Stop suggesting that neo-libs and fascists are identical just because they’re both bad. -10 > -100, even though both are negative.
Lack of nuance is evidence of idiocy or ulterior motives. I was being generous by assuming you had ulterior motives.
Removed by mod
Ironic.
Removed by mod
Voting for your interests isn’t “refusing to participate”. It’s the bare minimum in a democracy. It sounds like you’ve chosen to participate in a way which is counter to your own interests, and you’re calling out others for not following your flawed logic.
Look, I know that many of the candidates I vote for are long-shot candidates. It’s highly unlikely that they will win. But if I don’t vote for them, then I’m part of the problem. I’m helping to make it even less likely that they win.
Being part of the winning team feels good, but politics isn’t like football or hockey. This is an important civic responsibility.
Sure, if you live in a state where the result is obvious, then yes vote third party. But you know that they’re not going to win, and the only thing that accomplishes is visibility and possibly funding. You know that at the end of the day, the office will be won by one of the big two.
My opposition is to broadly advocating that for everyone. Too many people do live in swing states to be flippantly both-sidesing an election where Project 2025 is on the table.
Do you live in a swing state?
I do
Do you live in a swing state? Because I don’t. As far as I see it, voting third party won’t have any effect on the election, but might at least signal that I want change. It’s not like the popular vote matters in this country.
I live in a blue state. Using that same logic, voting for Biden here is pointless, because the state’s going to go to Biden anyway.