I also miss Warren, but I think Harris could be a good pick for VP. She's shown many times since 2016 during senate hearings that she's not afraid to go on the offensive and fight, which I think...
I also miss Warren, but I think Harris could be a good pick for VP.
She's shown many times since 2016 during senate hearings that she's not afraid to go on the offensive and fight, which I think could be important.
Well to be clear in glad Harris was picked as VP, I put a bet on her because not only does it make sense but I do believe she will be a very healthy addition to the ticket. Warren is my absolute...
Well to be clear in glad Harris was picked as VP, I put a bet on her because not only does it make sense but I do believe she will be a very healthy addition to the ticket.
Warren is my absolute favorite but I did not want her as VP, I wanted her as president. As it is, she can do more good in the Senate than as VP.
Edit: furthermore, Warren is likely to end up as part of Biden's team anyway. A friend is calling on Treasury, which makes a lot of sense and I could see it go that way.
Similar sentiment here for when they where talking about making Whitmer the VP. I think she'd make a great VP, but I'd much rather keep here here in MI for the time being where she's doing a great...
As it is, she can do more good in the Senate than as VP.
Similar sentiment here for when they where talking about making Whitmer the VP. I think she'd make a great VP, but I'd much rather keep here here in MI for the time being where she's doing a great job.
This nomination has been the biggest bet I've won on PredictIt in a long time. I lost big on Super Tuesday and have been crawling my way back out of the hole ever since. It's crazy how little...
This nomination has been the biggest bet I've won on PredictIt in a long time. I lost big on Super Tuesday and have been crawling my way back out of the hole ever since. It's crazy how little election politics have seemed to come up this year with coronavirus (unfortunately) dominating the political conversation.
I wish I could be happy, but I was going to (reluctantly) vote for Biden simply by virtue of the fact that he’s not Donald Trump. Stacy Abrams would have been a better pick to me but I’m sure they...
I wish I could be happy, but I was going to (reluctantly) vote for Biden simply by virtue of the fact that he’s not Donald Trump.
Stacy Abrams would have been a better pick to me but I’m sure they have a magic formula they run all of the potential nominees through and Harris came out on top (I’m only half kidding here).
I'll be voting 3rd party (Green, Hawkins/Walker) to once again give a vote hoping for the 5% barrier to be reached for them. It helps that I'm in Texas and so a dem vote doesn't count here. I'm...
I'll be voting 3rd party (Green, Hawkins/Walker) to once again give a vote hoping for the 5% barrier to be reached for them. It helps that I'm in Texas and so a dem vote doesn't count here.
I'm sure it was determined by their focus groups, polls, magic formula, promised favors to corporate sponsors donors, and the fact that a good chunk of the people that are displeased with a Biden/Harris ticket can't vote because either the guy that wrote the crime bill or the woman that blindly enforced it ensured such.
FiveThirtyEight has Biden averaging less than 1% from Trump right now. It would be surprising if Biden won Texas this year, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Dem votes count very much...
It helps that I'm in Texas and so a dem vote doesn't count here.
FiveThirtyEight has Biden averaging less than 1% from Trump right now. It would be surprising if Biden won Texas this year, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Dem votes count very much this year in more places than might be expected, and I suspect this election will be won on turnout. Your vote is your vote, but don't pretend that it is meaningless or symbolic.
And they adjust the percentages for each state by polls from other states as well. Doesn't mean anything this far from the election with news of the VP pick less than a day old. Lest we forget...
And they adjust the percentages for each state by polls from other states as well. Doesn't mean anything this far from the election with news of the VP pick less than a day old. Lest we forget those same polls from the same site said Clinton had a 21 point lead on Trump too.
We're talking about averages of polls in Texas, not 538's forecast; they aren't the same thing. 538s polling averages never gave Clinton a 21 point lead, especially in Texas. In fact, the polling...
We're talking about averages of polls in Texas, not 538's forecast; they aren't the same thing. 538s polling averages never gave Clinton a 21 point lead, especially in Texas. In fact, the polling average in 2016 wasn't that far from the actual result. 538's average on election day was 48.5 to 44.9 in favor of Clinton (3.6% difference), and the actual popular vote share was 48.2 to 46.1 in favor of Clinton (2.1% difference). 538 stressed over and over again that the polls were well within the margin of error and that the result was far from certain. They also gave Trump a better than 1 in 4 chance of winning, which was much higher than any other publication.
But I say all that to say this: Your vote matters. Even in Texas, and maybe more in Texas this year than in years past.
I'll be brief because I've wasted a lot of breath in the past on people knowingly throwing away their vote. I'm European. I don't get a vote, because I'm not a US citizen. And yet, your vote...
I'll be brief because I've wasted a lot of breath in the past on people knowingly throwing away their vote.
I'm European. I don't get a vote, because I'm not a US citizen. And yet, your vote impacts my life, because of the US's influence over the rest of the world.
When trump wins, or even when he loses without enough margin, this negatively impacts my countries and my continent.
So frankly, reading about how you're going to vote third party, knowing your candidate will lose, knowing you're giving trump more margin, that pisses me off. If you were a trump supporter I would at least understand, but as it is you're just being counterproductive and I have to believe you know that.
You think it's bad that there are thousands in your country who can't vote? How about the hundreds of millions of people in the western world who can't vote in an election that routinely has more impact on them than their national elections?
If you and the rest of the people in the western world don't want US influence then tell your politicians to find the testicular fortitude to tell the US to fuck off. I don't like the global US...
If you and the rest of the people in the western world don't want US influence then tell your politicians to find the testicular fortitude to tell the US to fuck off. I don't like the global US influence in the slightest.
It's also real rich someone that isn't stuck in a undemocratic two party system telling someone that is in one how to vote to maintain the status quo because they can't be bothered to handle their own countries policies.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are actually running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
All of that is correct, in a state that isn't Texas. Now that Biden has picked a VP the regular flawed cycle of "Will Texas turn purple?" news will start as it does every four years. DNC knows the...
All of that is correct, in a state that isn't Texas. Now that Biden has picked a VP the regular flawed cycle of "Will Texas turn purple?" news will start as it does every four years. DNC knows the populated areas are blue, everything else is red, and all they can hope for is the continued dying off of older generations and suburban sprawl.
My vote in state level contests will be determined based on the individual candidates as always, but the presidential vote is going green.
Your vote absolutely matters. Voting for the Green party won't change anything - they have no viable shot at achieving any kind of serious power, and by voting for them, you're sending the signal...
Your vote absolutely matters. Voting for the Green party won't change anything - they have no viable shot at achieving any kind of serious power, and by voting for them, you're sending the signal to the Democratic party that you're not worth targeting, since if you won't vote for them now, when the alternative is Donald Trump, what makes them think you'll vote for them in the future, when the Republicans have a more compelling candidate and the stakes are far lower.
By supporting the Democratic party and voting for progressive candidates in the primaries, you can remake and strengthen a party that actually does have the ability to change things in your image. Nothing the Green party has done since 2016 has moved the political discussion one iota, but Bernie and Biden's meetings and compromises on a unified front? That's moved Biden significantly to the left on policy, and if gets elected and follows through on what he's claiming, we'd have the most progressive candidate in a hell of a long time. That's real, tangible improvement, and it can only be made possible by a strong Democratic party filled with progressives.
Eh. FPTP is really terrible for anyone voting 3rd party, and even if you do live in Texas, the stakes right now are way too high for that. This election will determine who will handle the largest...
Eh. FPTP is really terrible for anyone voting 3rd party, and even if you do live in Texas, the stakes right now are way too high for that.
This election will determine who will handle the largest protests and occasionally riots since the late 60s, greatest recession since the late 20s, largest pandemic since the late 1910s, climate change, likely 2 or potentially even 3 SCOTUS appointments (they're the ones who approved a lot of good things civil rights legislation, Roe v Wade, and federal same-sex marriage, and lots of bad things like Citizens United. The purpose of the court is literally to interpret the US constitution, so they are really important.), a lot of foreign policy stuff and given Trump, maybe even the idea of the separation of powers in any non-partisan way at all.
Mildly offtopic, but will you also vote 3rd party on non-federal seats?
There is always some crisis at every election. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they...
There is always some crisis at every election. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
Mildly offtopic, but will you also vote 3rd party on non-federal seats?
Highly unlikely. One because it is extremely rare here for a 3rd parties (excluding libertarians and even those are typically only found in the rural areas, not cities) to run in non-federal seats. And two because the actual impact felt by elected officials is almost exclusively from the local and state level politicians.
For all non-presidential races I review the candidates positions, responses to questions from the Texas League of Women Voters, etc. and determine who I vote for then. I have a particular interest in law and so I'll review case decisions of elected judges whenever possible. Judges answers to form questions is particularly interesting as you'll find those just playing the "elect me" game and those that respond based on the actual race their in. An example from a couple of years back was a judge race where a question was asked of both candidates that had nothing to do with the race, position, or their duties. The dem candidate gave a very political interview answer, the repub candidate responded something along the lines of "This race is for a family law judge, I do not prosecute criminal cases." If you're hiring someone at a burger joint, you don't ask them their opinion of an electronics store. Checking positions of candidates for Congress and Senate is practically a moot point after all these decades as I can't recall ever voting for a repub congressman or senator.
Not a fan of hers either, but to dismiss an entire party on the actions of a single individual is more asinine than I'm being accused of. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking...
Not a fan of hers either, but to dismiss an entire party on the actions of a single individual is more asinine than I'm being accused of.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who/what the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are actually running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
Hey as an FYI, your post has been marked as noise, not sure why folks thought that was necessary. For what it's worth, my fiance and I, as well as a couple more of my friends are likewise voting...
Hey as an FYI, your post has been marked as noise, not sure why folks thought that was necessary. For what it's worth, my fiance and I, as well as a couple more of my friends are likewise voting third party, and in the beautiful bellwether of Ohio of all places.
Because just like reddit, people here (mostly from reddit) love their downvote button for anything they don't agree with. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green...
Because just like reddit, people here (mostly from reddit) love their downvote button for anything they don't agree with.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
I get the feeling the Libertarian party is flagging right now, in large because a do-nothing congress and inept president who can't actually get what he wants done suits the party's voters pretty...
I get the feeling the Libertarian party is flagging right now, in large because a do-nothing congress and inept president who can't actually get what he wants done suits the party's voters pretty well, all things considered. It's hard to justify a protest vote when things are going your way due to your adversaries own blunders.
Very true. They got a massive surge in 2016 (4.5M votes!) and after I made my comment and went looking to see what Green was actually pushing I checked the libs too and found their offering not...
Very true. They got a massive surge in 2016 (4.5M votes!) and after I made my comment and went looking to see what Green was actually pushing I checked the libs too and found their offering not much better. The idea checking libertarians was if they are serious this year and so close last election I'd be willing to vote for the enemy of my enemy to push them toward 5%.
Incremental change from dems would be acceptable if it wasn't constantly undone by repubs. And the unproven fear that if dems lean too hard left that they'll lose voters. Pull up the libertarian party to the national level and suddenly repubs practically never win another race, dems work is never undone, compromises don't have to be made, and they feel safe going more and more left knowing there's no real challenge from the right any longer as they're stuck in factionalism between right-leaning and hardcore rightwing.
I was actually a part of that big surge, Gary Johnson did pretty well in spite of his veep telling folks to vote for Hilary. I don't think factionalism is a steady state solution though, one party...
I was actually a part of that big surge, Gary Johnson did pretty well in spite of his veep telling folks to vote for Hilary. I don't think factionalism is a steady state solution though, one party will rapidly consume the policies and trappings of the other, leaving it to wither and die, and I'm not sure the GOP is poised to come out a winner. I think the Republican party has basically been soul searching without an answer since the collapse of the moral majority, they just aren't a cultural force anymore. Trump is, but there's no plan that really outlives him, and the majority of his base doesn't like the party.
Eh, there's plenty of other countries that have multiple parties with individual enough stances to stand out. It'd be new here of course. It is always a possibility, but I find it difficult to buy...
Eh, there's plenty of other countries that have multiple parties with individual enough stances to stand out. It'd be new here of course. It is always a possibility, but I find it difficult to buy that big gov't repubs (even if they won't admit it) will actually do what the libertarians want them to do. I could see them saying they will to get some seats back, but not carrying it through will have them lose out the next election. Libs tend to be some of the more politically aware voters I've encountered.
In general, I agree that voting third-party is most likely a wasted vote, but a poorly-written one-paragraph post by some random person on /r/JoeBiden about why you need to vote for Joe Biden...
In general, I agree that voting third-party is most likely a wasted vote, but a poorly-written one-paragraph post by some random person on /r/JoeBiden about why you need to vote for Joe Biden isn't going to change anyone's mind. That's a lot closer to circlejerking than it is to any kind of compelling argument.
Reactionist drivel trying to push to keep the status quo in an obvious populist year. The two party system doesn't work and election reform is long overdue, but being that people in power have a...
I think this is a good article on the topic by Clay Shirky from almost exactly 4 years ago: There’s No Such Thing As A Protest Vote
Reactionist drivel trying to push to keep the status quo in an obvious populist year. The two party system doesn't work and election reform is long overdue, but being that people in power have a nasty little habit of refusing to ever give it up election reform will never happen. So the options are:
Continue on until government collapse and build anew.
Keep voting the same and asking the powers that be to give up their power with the threat that you won't vote for them next time, but continue to do so anyway as they know it's an empty threat.
Vote third party and push their platform until enough disenfranchised voters join you and get them over the arbitrary 5% threshold to be a "major party" on the assumption that the powers that be don't change the law at the last minute to maintain the status quo. At which point you initiate option 1.
Arguing against voting 3rd party is arguing against democratic elections, because a two party system isn't democratic.
If the primary concern in a battle between liberalism va fascism is to burn all your powder on electoral reform, I don’t know what to tell you. It certainly doesn’t sound like you’re serious about...
If the primary concern in a battle between liberalism va fascism is to burn all your powder on electoral reform, I don’t know what to tell you. It certainly doesn’t sound like you’re serious about any of the things you claim to be about.
There’s really no squaring this circle. Either we’re in a crisis point where incrementalism doesn’t work and we need as much change as can be done with urgency, or we have a casual situation where we can sit back and bide our time on procedural issues with the election system hoping that it shakes out into better outcomes sometime in the future maybe. But you can’t simultaneously argue that we need BIG structural change now and also that quixotic third parties full of unserious and unqualified grifters is what deserves energy or resources. That’s just vanity talking.
At some point one needs to acknowledge that the program you’re pushing just doesn’t have enough popular support and your issue is with the voters and the composition of the electorate, not a shadowy cabal of corporate insiders that manage to “cheat” you out of a rightful victory every time.
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so bear with me here. I was a Yang supporter, then a Bernie supporter, and I'm not too excited about Joe Biden. I followed...
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so bear with me here.
I was a Yang supporter, then a Bernie supporter, and I'm not too excited about Joe Biden. I followed the primaries pretty closely, but in the same way someone follows the NBA, that is to say, like team sports. Watching the DNC seemingly coalesce around Biden once the other moderates became nonviable was disheartening. Maybe this is just my biases showing, but it seemed like news coverage around Bernie wasn't giving him the fair shake either with how they framed everything.
So here I am, a disenchanted, left leaning voter. Clearly, I can't vote for Trump, seeing as he's been a foreign policy disaster and most of his stances are antithetical to mine. Prior to this VP announcement, I would only be voting Biden because he is the democratic party nominee, and as much as I dislike the party, their views more closely match mine than the Republican party. I deeply dislike Kamala Harris, as she comes across to me as a self-serving and disingenuous individual. This isn't something that can be backed up with numbers, but I do believe that a person's character is important, especially since this VP is poised to be a fairly influential one (per Biden's words).
So why should I turn out and vote at all?
Like what @AugustusFerdinand said in his/her second point - how would me toeing the line and voting Biden in anyway encourage the DNC to cede power? I won't argue that Bernie would've/should've won. If he really had that much support in the end, he would have. However, for the barely political, it's hard to say how much of someone's political opinion is just what someone else told them it ought to be, and the media being unfair to Bernie (my opinion) definitely doesn't help. Had the media and the DNC given Bernie a fair shake or Yang more proportional coverage, would they have been able to gain more support? Yang was a longshot, but Bernie had a chance.
I haven't decided if I'm going to vote or not yet, but it does seem fairly pointless. If I do vote, it'll be from overseas through a very very blue state anyway. Does it matter?
I'm right there with you in not being the sharpest tool, so not sure if what I say will make sense. First off, I think you did a great job expressing how a lot of people feel, and that's totally...
I'm right there with you in not being the sharpest tool, so not sure if what I say will make sense.
First off, I think you did a great job expressing how a lot of people feel, and that's totally fair.
Now, here's the way I approach our government. The way we're set up right now is for a two party system, it is what it is, and that's the case. Would I like it to change, sure, but that doesn't matter right now. As Tolkien once said "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"
Anyway, with the two party system I say "Hmm do I like Biden more than Trump? Yep, okay I'm voting Biden, done deal."
The important thing with government and elections, and the dirty secret that they don't want you to know, local and down-ballot races are 10000x more important. The president is most likely going to support what the majority of his party supports.
If you want to see change within the DNC, vote for more progressive officials at a state and local level. I spend a lot of time online and so to me the progressive movement of the party seems huge, and there have definitely been some huge advancements recently, but realistically the majority of the party is still more moderate than many young people would like.
Additionally, the time to make your voice heard and to promote the people who's values support is during the primaries, that's the whole point of them. I supported both Warren and Bernie, I thought both would be great picks, but the majority of the Democratic party said no, and so I am going to vote Biden.
Biden, for his part, saw the large support that progressives got during the primary and has moved left on several things. I think people are underplaying the fact that Biden/Harris are running on the most progressive platform ever.
I got a bit off track there, but yes in a country where only like 30% of the population vote, your vote matters, and it's your constitutional right, if you don't use it, you may find it dissapears.
The first thing to remember is that a democracy means doing anything needs more than 50% of the country all agreeing to do a thing. If you want to do stuff that doesn't have that kind of support...
The first thing to remember is that a democracy means doing anything needs more than 50% of the country all agreeing to do a thing. If you want to do stuff that doesn't have that kind of support (like the GOP does), you need to sneak it in bit-by-bit over the course of decades (like the GOP did). A well functioning democracy, ideally, strives to get buy-in from well over 50% of the country before doing things. This is because the purpose of the government is to represent the preferences and interests of all the people in it, even the ones we think are morons. Consequently, it is simply asking too much to be happy with any national level politician, because if they're doing their jobs well they wouldn't be pleasing any single faction that often. This is why I say many peoples' gripes with Biden or "the DNC" actually sound like gripes with the voting public or the composition of the electorate. People just put the blame on "The Democrats" or "The DNC" as a scapegoat because it's a bad look to say "The voters are too stupid to know what's good for them." (Although, candidly, they often are).
The DNC itself is literally just a committee of elected Democrats and their associated staff. It is extremely heterogenous, barely organized, and not especially competent at accomplishing even most of its above board objectives. The idea that it can single-handedly swing races one way or another is just a bit of conspiratorial nonsense that losing campaigns make up so they have something to blame other than their own mistakes. The establishment does exert some influence in the form of providing people connections and resources, but those influences are so minor that if you can't overcome them in a party primary you are simply not equipped to win a general election or deliver on your agenda even if you do. There's nobody there to actually to "cede power." It's not like you're haggling with a specific group of people to play tit-for-tat with. It's just a committee of people with roles in the party. You just have to replace them with people you like more when you get a chance at the next primary. But whether they win or lose the general election, those people are still going to be in charge, whatever message you try to send them. If anything, they'll be even more entrenched in power because Trump will deport all the immigrants and jail all the activists who might have bolstered your numbers.
People coalesced around Biden after dropping out because it was clear he was going to wreck face on Super Tuesday when Clyburn endorsed him. There was no point in candidates like Klobuchar or Buttigieg sticking around at that point so they dropped out. They then did what any smart politician would do and threw an endorsement behind a candidate who reached out to them and said he would support them later if they endorsed. Elizabeth Warren did the same thing to poach Julian Castro and Jay Inslee when they dropped out previously. She even managed to get Delaney to say nice things about her, despite single-handedly ending his career on national television. What you perceived as everyone coalescing around Biden isn't evidence of any kind of corrupt collusion, this is evidence that Joe Biden is an effective politician who can bargain with his adversaries.
This is something that the Sanders campaign was extremely bad at. Post-mortems of his campaign stressed this repeatedly: That they were terrible at media relations, that they didn't pick up the phone or respond to requests for interviews and then complained publicly that they weren't being given a chance to make statements, that they didn't bother reaching out to candidates who had dropped out to even ask for their endorsement afterwards. It's actually a very obnoxious trait of his that he seems to regard playing-to-win as "cheating" or illegitimate when anyone does it but him and acts like people being better than him as politics makes them 'corrupt.' In most cases I think that Bernie is a much better person than most of his staffers or online supporters are, but that particular personality flaw is THE tragic flaw that breaks him time and time again. I wish he'd have learned from it, but I think it's just an issue of an old dog that can't learn. It's most upsetting to me that he seems to have transmitted this mental stumbling-block to the movement he inspired and it's going to knee-cap their effectiveness for the rest of their lives too. Based on my Sanders-stanning Twitter follows, I feel like his 2 presidential runs have imbued a generation of activists with a self-defeating scrub mentality.
I deeply dislike Kamala Harris, as she comes across to me as a self-serving and disingenuous individual.
I will guarantee you that any successful, national politician is some high degree of this. If you don't perceive it in your faves, it's because your faves are good at pandering to you specifically and the ones you notice it more on are focused on pandering to people who are unlike you. Part of politics is being a professional panderer. It's important to not let yourself get hoodwinked because someone happens to be particularly good at working you. They're all like this, if they weren't they wouldn't be successful at getting elected in the first place. You should be most suspicious of the ones who tell you they're not playing this game, because by saying that they're signaling that they're willing to outright lie and not just hedge or obfuscate behind lawyer-phrasing like most of them do. I mean, Klobuchar and Biden were probably the only serious contenders I liked less than Harris in the primary, so it's not like I'm chomping at the bit over this ticket either, but it's still worth giving credit where it's due. They're both extremely capable.
Most of Biden's hardcore supporters see Bernie, for example, as a complete charlatan. Older, politically engaged, middle class Black voters, in particular, have very deep experiences dealing with White people who talked a big game about racial and social justice in the abstract while opposing any measures for affordable housing or better school districts where it counts and he did very little to distance himself from that perception of him. Again this is because Bernie is good at talking to his lane of people, and that lane excludes the people backing Biden.
If I do vote, it'll be from overseas through a very very blue state anyway. Does it matter?
Yes. Downballot races are more important than the presidency and ignoring them has a lot more to do with why the government never seems to work towards anything you want than what flavor of pandering the President does on campaign. More importantly, Trump is not going to concede the election if he loses and the tighter the margin the more likely parts of the government are to support him in doing so. Al Gore won the 2000 election, but the margin was tight enough that the Supreme Court was able to take it for Bush. It was functionally a coup that people don't talk about in those terms because there was enough of a fog of uncertainty to hide the ratfucking.
I agree, but I saw that post recently and it's the first thing that came to mind. That's a great article though, and definitely gets the point across way better.
I agree, but I saw that post recently and it's the first thing that came to mind.
That's a great article though, and definitely gets the point across way better.
Yawn. Echo chamber post that doesn't take into account any bit of reality and instead chooses to insult people. The same crap popped up in 2008 and 2012 saying you're racist if you don't vote...
Yawn. Echo chamber post that doesn't take into account any bit of reality and instead chooses to insult people. The same crap popped up in 2008 and 2012 saying you're racist if you don't vote Obama, sexist in 2016 if you don't vote Clinton, and now they use "privileged" if you don't vote Biden.
Same shit, different year. Every year it's some crisis. Every year it's "wasting your vote". Every year people that don't live in Texas, that have no idea about Texas, that read the same drivel...
I really cannot imagine the selfishness of someone willing to waste their vote for a fringe candidate in a crucial toss-up state that could help decide this election.
Same shit, different year. Every year it's some crisis. Every year it's "wasting your vote". Every year people that don't live in Texas, that have no idea about Texas, that read the same drivel about Texas think that Texas will turn purple. Every year, they're wrong. The two party system doesn't work and election reform is long overdue, but being that people in power have a nasty little habit of refusing to ever give it up, election reform will never happen. So the options are:
Continue on until government collapse and build anew.
Keep voting the same and asking the powers that be to give up their power with the threat that you won't vote for them next time, but continue to do so anyway as they know it's an empty threat because the next time there will be some crisis, there will be someone screaming about wasting votes, blah, blah, blah.
Vote third party and push their platform until enough disenfranchised voters join you and get them over the arbitrary 5% threshold to be a "major party" on the assumption that the powers that be don't change the law at the last minute to maintain the status quo. At which point you initiate option 1.
Arguing against voting 3rd party is arguing against democratic elections, because a two party system isn't democratic. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who and what the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
Jill Stein's insane run in 2016 was enough to peel off voters from Hillary Clinton that if she had not run then the election could have gone the other way. 50k votes made the difference in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Not to mention Jill Stein's grifter tactics of stealing money from her supporters to push a recount that never happened and her connections to the Putin regime.
If there were no 3rd party candidates in 2016 Trump still would have won, because the 4.5 MILLION Libertarian votes wouldn't have gone to Clinton.
I think the biggest point to me that shows the Green Party is nothing but a spoiler party to elect Republican Presidents is that there is virtually no grassroots organizing for the party. If the Green's wanted to be taken seriously, then they should stop focusing on national attention every four years and instead try and build an actual base of support through local and state elections.
That's a gross oversimplification, the green party has been around for 20 years and has 130 local seats. Compared to libertarians who've been around for almost 50 years and only have 100 more seats (although they do have one in the house).
Edit
Said 3.3 million votes, corrected it to 4.5M as I was misremembering 3.3% of the votes as 3.3M.
Do explain how in a state that is red, that will remain red, that will give all of the electoral votes to the red candidate, how a vote that isn't for a blue president elects a republican. Biden...
Do explain how in a state that is red, that will remain red, that will give all of the electoral votes to the red candidate, how a vote that isn't for a blue president elects a republican.
Biden will win regardless of my vote because Texas. is. red. If Biden wanted election reform why didn't he get it passed during the two years of complete dem control with Obama? Could it be because he's a lifetime politician stating what people want to hear and not what he actually wants done?
My "strawman" is in response to your moving of goal posts to support your fantasy of "but what if everyone voted different!"
So you agree that the two party system doesn't work because they've only achieved 130 seats from their grassroots campaigns. Good to hear. It's almost like most people don't pay close attention to politics or politicians, only vote straight ticket, and cannot vote straight ticket for a 3rd party because they're not allowed on the federal stage and you can't consistently convince people that aren't involved in politics at all to pay attention long enough to go through every race instead of that big shiny straight ticket button on the first screen of their voting machine.
As I've already stated, that same article is posted in a new form every year. If you sit in a desert and say it's going to rain every single day you aren't suddenly nostradamus because there are...
As I've already stated, that same article is posted in a new form every year. If you sit in a desert and say it's going to rain every single day you aren't suddenly nostradamus because there are clouds one day.
As the article states those latinos can't vote. And the idea that minorities vote as a block is a huge lie that gets repeated constantly. Trump screaming about walls and deportation still managed to get more latino votes than Romney.
Ted Cruz is an outlier as everyone thinks he's piece of shit but reds vote for him anyway out of fear of the color blue.
In 1996 Dole won 49% and in 1992 Bush won 41%, both still red.
Again, I've already stated polls are too early and none of them have been made since Biden picked Harris. Everyone also seems to ignore that 538 was wrong in almost all of the states that mattered during that election?
So if they were focused on the economic collapse and giving the health insurance companies a massive boost, why should I believe that they are capable of doing more than one thing at a time this go around?
Gotcha, so the 3rd parties should all be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps without any of the advantages of the other parties and if they don't then it's clearly their fault.
And 21 minutes Donald Trump tweets out a canned video attack add. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1293285949917495300 interesting, but a pretty limp response. And the number of hot...
And 21 minutes Donald Trump tweets out a canned video attack add.
It also looks like Trump and family donated to Kamala Harris when she was a candidate for state AG https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1293291871477870601
It also looks like Trump and family donated to Kamala Harris when she was a candidate for state AG
Rich people donate to get access, not because they agree or disagree with anything. This is partly why Warren made a big deal out of not doing those sorts of fundraisers.
Rich people donate to get access, not because they agree or disagree with anything.
This is partly why Warren made a big deal out of not doing those sorts of fundraisers.
It’s a historic choice, with the potential for even more history to be made.
It’s another illustration of the power of Black Americans in the Democratic Party.
It’s another defeat for the party’s left wing.
With Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren losing the nomination contest, many liberal activists pushed Biden to pick Warren as his running mate. They were unsuccessful. Harris has a fairly liberal voting record in the Senate, but she’s not nearly as far to the left as Warren. Harris hasn’t called for the breakup of Facebook, for example, or supported a wealth tax.
We don’t know if Harris will help or hurt Biden win the general election.
Research suggests that the electoral impact of vice presidential candidates is fairly limited. I would expect Harris to follow the same pattern. Harris is a sitting senator who was competent during the debates she participated in during the 2020 Democratic primary process, so she is unlikely to make huge gaffes that raise questions about why Biden selected her.
We don’t know if Harris will boost the ticket with Black voters.
We don’t know how Harris’s selection affects the protest movement that has emerged since the police killing of George Floyd.
Another part of the discourse has been that the selection of a Black woman became more necessary in the wake of the national protests around racial inequality over the last several months. But it’s not clear the Black Lives Matter activists organizing these protests view a Black woman being picked as vice president as a major priority in terms of addressing racial inequality in America (as opposed to, for example, reducing spending on policing.)
We don’t know if Harris is now the most-likely Democratic nominee in 2024.
Expect Trump and his campaign, who have had a hard time casting Biden as an extremist or a radical, to make attacks on Harris with sexist and racist undertones, cast her as an ultra-liberal Californian out of touch with Middle American values and suggest that voting for Biden in November means that Harris will be running the country for 12 years.
Late to the party, but it's interesting some outlets are putting emphasis on Harris's "Indian-ness". Here's an example from the New York Times, Slate and Reuters. I dug up a few articles from a...
Late to the party, but it's interesting some outlets are putting emphasis on Harris's "Indian-ness". Here's an example from the New York Times, Slate and Reuters.
I dug up a few articles from a few months ago where Trump was actually making inroads among Indian Americans (NPR, Politico). Granted, based on the articles, it appears doubtful that Republicans will win the Indian-American vote this cycle. But importantly, it would seem that both parties have a growing interest in this voting bloc.
Indian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in America, so it makes sense both parties are vying for brownie points from this ethnic group. Perhaps the outreach to Indian Americans by the Trump administration tipped the scales to Kamala Harris' nomination. It'll be interesting to say the least how this all plays out come November.
And to be perfectly honest, I'm a little shocked by the seemingly sudden spotlight on Harris' "Indian-ness". I'm reminded of an article about the growing population of South Asians in New York and the people running to represent them. Quoting an Indian American activist:
For years, you’ve had Democrats and the machinery rely heavily on fundraising support from the Indian American community. But when you step out of that lane and run for office, you are certainly met sometimes with a strange resistance about being in the wrong lane,” Patel said. “It was eye-opening for me. You expect that kind of reaction – everything from the coverage and the tropes – from Republicans. But I was naive enough to think that wouldn’t be a reaction you get sometimes from Democrats, from self-avowed progressives.”
r/politicaldiscussion isn't great, because tone is more important than content and so you get a lot of Republicans like "I just think black people should suck it up, and also racism isn't a thing...
r/politicaldiscussion isn't great, because tone is more important than content and so you get a lot of Republicans like "I just think black people should suck it up, and also racism isn't a thing anymore" and because they're polite about it it gets upvoted. Once, I said a significant number of people think that universal healthcare isn't freedom and that needlessly dying because you can't afford healthcare is freedom, and my comment was removed for being low effort, but people in the same thread unironically said the same thing and that was fine.
I'm digging through times I've complained about that sub to friends before I unsubscribed and found some choice comments and threads that were all upvoted:
A comment that said "Stalin sympathizers are dominating reddit"
Lots of Republicans complaining about the 17th amendment because they know the Senate would be even more tilted in their favor otherwise
"there is no gun violence in America"
People openly admitting to being ethnonationalists
" I'm an American and I want Americans to win always. I think that America is the leading superpower and should run the world. You think that America is just another country and its leaders are the same as the leaders of foreign countries."
After Qassem Soleimani was killed: "We live in strange times indeed when people who claim to represent liberty, equality and progression mourn the death of a homophobic, antisemitic, woman oppressing, militant murderer and celebrate an authoritarian regime while attacking the country that represents freedom the most across the world."
There are more, but you get the idea. r/politicaldiscussion is nice in the way that Richard Spencer is nice. Edit: I guess that comparison is a bit extreme, but you get the idea.
Stalin sympathizers are dominating reddit (this one is actually at +0, but it was allowed to stay despite being a bad faith statement) The comment about "there is no gun violence in America" was...
The comment about "there is no gun violence in America" was removed by moderators at some point after I noticed it
This entire thread with some choice takes including "ethnonationalists don't necessarily think any race is inferior nor superior". Most of the shitty comments in this chain are below 0, but they weren't removed. If you think ethnonationalism is a valid political opinion to hold then you're allowing the worst sort of people to hang out in your space.
The comment about I want Americans to win always is at -3, which takes away from my argument, but still, why would you want people like that in your subreddit?
I know this isn't the most convincing post I've ever made, but I spent half an hour digging through pushshift finding these because I blocked r/politicaldiscussion on my computer because it was pissing me off. If you want me to find better examples, I will.
/r/politicaldiscussion is probably the best sub on reddit for political stuff, at least from my experiences with it. It's usually level headed and it has enough diversity of political opinions to...
/r/politicaldiscussion is probably the best sub on reddit for political stuff, at least from my experiences with it. It's usually level headed and it has enough diversity of political opinions to often be interesting. /r/AskALiberal can be quite terrible sometimes, lots of passive-aggressiveness and bad faith overreactions, but policy discussions are usually pretty okay, and their recent series on presidents has been really interesting so far (every week, they post a president's name, and the users discuss that president and what they think of them and their impact on history).
Indeed, mainly because the mods curate all the questions, although they do let through some pretty dense questions for the sake of self-proclaimed impartiality. Another good sub I reccomend is...
Indeed, mainly because the mods curate all the questions, although they do let through some pretty dense questions for the sake of self-proclaimed impartiality.
Another good sub I reccomend is r/trueaskreddit, although it's not as strictly political.
Yay, had a bet on her. This almost makes up for losing the Warren 2020 bet.
... No it doesn't. I miss Warren already :(
I also miss Warren, but I think Harris could be a good pick for VP.
She's shown many times since 2016 during senate hearings that she's not afraid to go on the offensive and fight, which I think could be important.
Well to be clear in glad Harris was picked as VP, I put a bet on her because not only does it make sense but I do believe she will be a very healthy addition to the ticket.
Warren is my absolute favorite but I did not want her as VP, I wanted her as president. As it is, she can do more good in the Senate than as VP.
Edit: furthermore, Warren is likely to end up as part of Biden's team anyway. A friend is calling on Treasury, which makes a lot of sense and I could see it go that way.
Similar sentiment here for when they where talking about making Whitmer the VP. I think she'd make a great VP, but I'd much rather keep here here in MI for the time being where she's doing a great job.
This nomination has been the biggest bet I've won on PredictIt in a long time. I lost big on Super Tuesday and have been crawling my way back out of the hole ever since. It's crazy how little election politics have seemed to come up this year with coronavirus (unfortunately) dominating the political conversation.
I wish I could be happy, but I was going to (reluctantly) vote for Biden simply by virtue of the fact that he’s not Donald Trump.
Stacy Abrams would have been a better pick to me but I’m sure they have a magic formula they run all of the potential nominees through and Harris came out on top (I’m only half kidding here).
Didn't she burn a lot of bridges in Georgia? I remember reading that sentiment from people.
I'll be voting 3rd party (Green, Hawkins/Walker) to once again give a vote hoping for the 5% barrier to be reached for them. It helps that I'm in Texas and so a dem vote doesn't count here.
I'm sure it was determined by their focus groups, polls, magic formula, promised favors to
corporate sponsorsdonors, and the fact that a good chunk of the people that are displeased with a Biden/Harris ticket can't vote because either the guy that wrote the crime bill or the woman that blindly enforced it ensured such.FiveThirtyEight has Biden averaging less than 1% from Trump right now. It would be surprising if Biden won Texas this year, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Dem votes count very much this year in more places than might be expected, and I suspect this election will be won on turnout. Your vote is your vote, but don't pretend that it is meaningless or symbolic.
With nearly none of the recent polls getting better than a C grading, I won't hold my breath.
The polling average accounts for pollster rating.
And they adjust the percentages for each state by polls from other states as well. Doesn't mean anything this far from the election with news of the VP pick less than a day old. Lest we forget those same polls from the same site said Clinton had a 21 point lead on Trump too.
We're talking about averages of polls in Texas, not 538's forecast; they aren't the same thing. 538s polling averages never gave Clinton a 21 point lead, especially in Texas. In fact, the polling average in 2016 wasn't that far from the actual result. 538's average on election day was 48.5 to 44.9 in favor of Clinton (3.6% difference), and the actual popular vote share was 48.2 to 46.1 in favor of Clinton (2.1% difference). 538 stressed over and over again that the polls were well within the margin of error and that the result was far from certain. They also gave Trump a better than 1 in 4 chance of winning, which was much higher than any other publication.
But I say all that to say this: Your vote matters. Even in Texas, and maybe more in Texas this year than in years past.
I'll be brief because I've wasted a lot of breath in the past on people knowingly throwing away their vote.
I'm European. I don't get a vote, because I'm not a US citizen. And yet, your vote impacts my life, because of the US's influence over the rest of the world.
When trump wins, or even when he loses without enough margin, this negatively impacts my countries and my continent.
So frankly, reading about how you're going to vote third party, knowing your candidate will lose, knowing you're giving trump more margin, that pisses me off. If you were a trump supporter I would at least understand, but as it is you're just being counterproductive and I have to believe you know that.
You think it's bad that there are thousands in your country who can't vote? How about the hundreds of millions of people in the western world who can't vote in an election that routinely has more impact on them than their national elections?
Do. Not. Throw. Away. Your. Vote.
If you and the rest of the people in the western world don't want US influence then tell your politicians to find the testicular fortitude to tell the US to fuck off. I don't like the global US influence in the slightest.
It's also real rich someone that isn't stuck in a undemocratic two party system telling someone that is in one how to vote to maintain the status quo because they can't be bothered to handle their own countries policies.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are actually running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
All of that is correct, in a state that isn't Texas. Now that Biden has picked a VP the regular flawed cycle of "Will Texas turn purple?" news will start as it does every four years. DNC knows the populated areas are blue, everything else is red, and all they can hope for is the continued dying off of older generations and suburban sprawl.
My vote in state level contests will be determined based on the individual candidates as always, but the presidential vote is going green.
Your vote absolutely matters. Voting for the Green party won't change anything - they have no viable shot at achieving any kind of serious power, and by voting for them, you're sending the signal to the Democratic party that you're not worth targeting, since if you won't vote for them now, when the alternative is Donald Trump, what makes them think you'll vote for them in the future, when the Republicans have a more compelling candidate and the stakes are far lower.
By supporting the Democratic party and voting for progressive candidates in the primaries, you can remake and strengthen a party that actually does have the ability to change things in your image. Nothing the Green party has done since 2016 has moved the political discussion one iota, but Bernie and Biden's meetings and compromises on a unified front? That's moved Biden significantly to the left on policy, and if gets elected and follows through on what he's claiming, we'd have the most progressive candidate in a hell of a long time. That's real, tangible improvement, and it can only be made possible by a strong Democratic party filled with progressives.
Which is where all of my votes will go, to progressives.
Eh. FPTP is really terrible for anyone voting 3rd party, and even if you do live in Texas, the stakes right now are way too high for that.
This election will determine who will handle the largest protests and occasionally riots since the late 60s, greatest recession since the late 20s, largest pandemic since the late 1910s, climate change, likely 2 or potentially even 3 SCOTUS appointments (they're the ones who approved a lot of good things civil rights legislation, Roe v Wade, and federal same-sex marriage, and lots of bad things like Citizens United. The purpose of the court is literally to interpret the US constitution, so they are really important.), a lot of foreign policy stuff and given Trump, maybe even the idea of the separation of powers in any non-partisan way at all.
Mildly offtopic, but will you also vote 3rd party on non-federal seats?
There is always some crisis at every election. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
Highly unlikely. One because it is extremely rare here for a 3rd parties (excluding libertarians and even those are typically only found in the rural areas, not cities) to run in non-federal seats. And two because the actual impact felt by elected officials is almost exclusively from the local and state level politicians.
For all non-presidential races I review the candidates positions, responses to questions from the Texas League of Women Voters, etc. and determine who I vote for then. I have a particular interest in law and so I'll review case decisions of elected judges whenever possible. Judges answers to form questions is particularly interesting as you'll find those just playing the "elect me" game and those that respond based on the actual race their in. An example from a couple of years back was a judge race where a question was asked of both candidates that had nothing to do with the race, position, or their duties. The dem candidate gave a very political interview answer, the repub candidate responded something along the lines of "This race is for a family law judge, I do not prosecute criminal cases." If you're hiring someone at a burger joint, you don't ask them their opinion of an electronics store. Checking positions of candidates for Congress and Senate is practically a moot point after all these decades as I can't recall ever voting for a repub congressman or senator.
Jill Stein killed the Green party for me. She was legitimately worse than Hilary Clinton.
Not a fan of hers either, but to dismiss an entire party on the actions of a single individual is more asinine than I'm being accused of.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who/what the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are actually running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
Hey as an FYI, your post has been marked as noise, not sure why folks thought that was necessary. For what it's worth, my fiance and I, as well as a couple more of my friends are likewise voting third party, and in the beautiful bellwether of Ohio of all places.
Because just like reddit, people here (mostly from reddit) love their downvote button for anything they don't agree with.
That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
I get the feeling the Libertarian party is flagging right now, in large because a do-nothing congress and inept president who can't actually get what he wants done suits the party's voters pretty well, all things considered. It's hard to justify a protest vote when things are going your way due to your adversaries own blunders.
Very true. They got a massive surge in 2016 (4.5M votes!) and after I made my comment and went looking to see what Green was actually pushing I checked the libs too and found their offering not much better. The idea checking libertarians was if they are serious this year and so close last election I'd be willing to vote for the enemy of my enemy to push them toward 5%.
Incremental change from dems would be acceptable if it wasn't constantly undone by repubs. And the unproven fear that if dems lean too hard left that they'll lose voters. Pull up the libertarian party to the national level and suddenly repubs practically never win another race, dems work is never undone, compromises don't have to be made, and they feel safe going more and more left knowing there's no real challenge from the right any longer as they're stuck in factionalism between right-leaning and hardcore rightwing.
I was actually a part of that big surge, Gary Johnson did pretty well in spite of his veep telling folks to vote for Hilary. I don't think factionalism is a steady state solution though, one party will rapidly consume the policies and trappings of the other, leaving it to wither and die, and I'm not sure the GOP is poised to come out a winner. I think the Republican party has basically been soul searching without an answer since the collapse of the moral majority, they just aren't a cultural force anymore. Trump is, but there's no plan that really outlives him, and the majority of his base doesn't like the party.
Eh, there's plenty of other countries that have multiple parties with individual enough stances to stand out. It'd be new here of course. It is always a possibility, but I find it difficult to buy that big gov't repubs (even if they won't admit it) will actually do what the libertarians want them to do. I could see them saying they will to get some seats back, but not carrying it through will have them lose out the next election. Libs tend to be some of the more politically aware voters I've encountered.
Just going to leave this here
In general, I agree that voting third-party is most likely a wasted vote, but a poorly-written one-paragraph post by some random person on /r/JoeBiden about why you need to vote for Joe Biden isn't going to change anyone's mind. That's a lot closer to circlejerking than it is to any kind of compelling argument.
I think this is a good article on the topic by Clay Shirky from almost exactly 4 years ago: There’s No Such Thing As A Protest Vote
Reactionist drivel trying to push to keep the status quo in an obvious populist year. The two party system doesn't work and election reform is long overdue, but being that people in power have a nasty little habit of refusing to ever give it up election reform will never happen. So the options are:
Continue on until government collapse and build anew.
Keep voting the same and asking the powers that be to give up their power with the threat that you won't vote for them next time, but continue to do so anyway as they know it's an empty threat.
Vote third party and push their platform until enough disenfranchised voters join you and get them over the arbitrary 5% threshold to be a "major party" on the assumption that the powers that be don't change the law at the last minute to maintain the status quo. At which point you initiate option 1.
Arguing against voting 3rd party is arguing against democratic elections, because a two party system isn't democratic.
If the primary concern in a battle between liberalism va fascism is to burn all your powder on electoral reform, I don’t know what to tell you. It certainly doesn’t sound like you’re serious about any of the things you claim to be about.
There’s really no squaring this circle. Either we’re in a crisis point where incrementalism doesn’t work and we need as much change as can be done with urgency, or we have a casual situation where we can sit back and bide our time on procedural issues with the election system hoping that it shakes out into better outcomes sometime in the future maybe. But you can’t simultaneously argue that we need BIG structural change now and also that quixotic third parties full of unserious and unqualified grifters is what deserves energy or resources. That’s just vanity talking.
At some point one needs to acknowledge that the program you’re pushing just doesn’t have enough popular support and your issue is with the voters and the composition of the electorate, not a shadowy cabal of corporate insiders that manage to “cheat” you out of a rightful victory every time.
I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so bear with me here.
I was a Yang supporter, then a Bernie supporter, and I'm not too excited about Joe Biden. I followed the primaries pretty closely, but in the same way someone follows the NBA, that is to say, like team sports. Watching the DNC seemingly coalesce around Biden once the other moderates became nonviable was disheartening. Maybe this is just my biases showing, but it seemed like news coverage around Bernie wasn't giving him the fair shake either with how they framed everything.
So here I am, a disenchanted, left leaning voter. Clearly, I can't vote for Trump, seeing as he's been a foreign policy disaster and most of his stances are antithetical to mine. Prior to this VP announcement, I would only be voting Biden because he is the democratic party nominee, and as much as I dislike the party, their views more closely match mine than the Republican party. I deeply dislike Kamala Harris, as she comes across to me as a self-serving and disingenuous individual. This isn't something that can be backed up with numbers, but I do believe that a person's character is important, especially since this VP is poised to be a fairly influential one (per Biden's words).
So why should I turn out and vote at all?
Like what @AugustusFerdinand said in his/her second point - how would me toeing the line and voting Biden in anyway encourage the DNC to cede power? I won't argue that Bernie would've/should've won. If he really had that much support in the end, he would have. However, for the barely political, it's hard to say how much of someone's political opinion is just what someone else told them it ought to be, and the media being unfair to Bernie (my opinion) definitely doesn't help. Had the media and the DNC given Bernie a fair shake or Yang more proportional coverage, would they have been able to gain more support? Yang was a longshot, but Bernie had a chance.
I haven't decided if I'm going to vote or not yet, but it does seem fairly pointless. If I do vote, it'll be from overseas through a very very blue state anyway. Does it matter?
I'm right there with you in not being the sharpest tool, so not sure if what I say will make sense.
First off, I think you did a great job expressing how a lot of people feel, and that's totally fair.
Now, here's the way I approach our government. The way we're set up right now is for a two party system, it is what it is, and that's the case. Would I like it to change, sure, but that doesn't matter right now. As Tolkien once said "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"
Anyway, with the two party system I say "Hmm do I like Biden more than Trump? Yep, okay I'm voting Biden, done deal."
The important thing with government and elections, and the dirty secret that they don't want you to know, local and down-ballot races are 10000x more important. The president is most likely going to support what the majority of his party supports.
If you want to see change within the DNC, vote for more progressive officials at a state and local level. I spend a lot of time online and so to me the progressive movement of the party seems huge, and there have definitely been some huge advancements recently, but realistically the majority of the party is still more moderate than many young people would like.
Additionally, the time to make your voice heard and to promote the people who's values support is during the primaries, that's the whole point of them. I supported both Warren and Bernie, I thought both would be great picks, but the majority of the Democratic party said no, and so I am going to vote Biden.
Biden, for his part, saw the large support that progressives got during the primary and has moved left on several things. I think people are underplaying the fact that Biden/Harris are running on the most progressive platform ever.
I got a bit off track there, but yes in a country where only like 30% of the population vote, your vote matters, and it's your constitutional right, if you don't use it, you may find it dissapears.
The first thing to remember is that a democracy means doing anything needs more than 50% of the country all agreeing to do a thing. If you want to do stuff that doesn't have that kind of support (like the GOP does), you need to sneak it in bit-by-bit over the course of decades (like the GOP did). A well functioning democracy, ideally, strives to get buy-in from well over 50% of the country before doing things. This is because the purpose of the government is to represent the preferences and interests of all the people in it, even the ones we think are morons. Consequently, it is simply asking too much to be happy with any national level politician, because if they're doing their jobs well they wouldn't be pleasing any single faction that often. This is why I say many peoples' gripes with Biden or "the DNC" actually sound like gripes with the voting public or the composition of the electorate. People just put the blame on "The Democrats" or "The DNC" as a scapegoat because it's a bad look to say "The voters are too stupid to know what's good for them." (Although, candidly, they often are).
The DNC itself is literally just a committee of elected Democrats and their associated staff. It is extremely heterogenous, barely organized, and not especially competent at accomplishing even most of its above board objectives. The idea that it can single-handedly swing races one way or another is just a bit of conspiratorial nonsense that losing campaigns make up so they have something to blame other than their own mistakes. The establishment does exert some influence in the form of providing people connections and resources, but those influences are so minor that if you can't overcome them in a party primary you are simply not equipped to win a general election or deliver on your agenda even if you do. There's nobody there to actually to "cede power." It's not like you're haggling with a specific group of people to play tit-for-tat with. It's just a committee of people with roles in the party. You just have to replace them with people you like more when you get a chance at the next primary. But whether they win or lose the general election, those people are still going to be in charge, whatever message you try to send them. If anything, they'll be even more entrenched in power because Trump will deport all the immigrants and jail all the activists who might have bolstered your numbers.
People coalesced around Biden after dropping out because it was clear he was going to wreck face on Super Tuesday when Clyburn endorsed him. There was no point in candidates like Klobuchar or Buttigieg sticking around at that point so they dropped out. They then did what any smart politician would do and threw an endorsement behind a candidate who reached out to them and said he would support them later if they endorsed. Elizabeth Warren did the same thing to poach Julian Castro and Jay Inslee when they dropped out previously. She even managed to get Delaney to say nice things about her, despite single-handedly ending his career on national television. What you perceived as everyone coalescing around Biden isn't evidence of any kind of corrupt collusion, this is evidence that Joe Biden is an effective politician who can bargain with his adversaries.
This is something that the Sanders campaign was extremely bad at. Post-mortems of his campaign stressed this repeatedly: That they were terrible at media relations, that they didn't pick up the phone or respond to requests for interviews and then complained publicly that they weren't being given a chance to make statements, that they didn't bother reaching out to candidates who had dropped out to even ask for their endorsement afterwards. It's actually a very obnoxious trait of his that he seems to regard playing-to-win as "cheating" or illegitimate when anyone does it but him and acts like people being better than him as politics makes them 'corrupt.' In most cases I think that Bernie is a much better person than most of his staffers or online supporters are, but that particular personality flaw is THE tragic flaw that breaks him time and time again. I wish he'd have learned from it, but I think it's just an issue of an old dog that can't learn. It's most upsetting to me that he seems to have transmitted this mental stumbling-block to the movement he inspired and it's going to knee-cap their effectiveness for the rest of their lives too. Based on my Sanders-stanning Twitter follows, I feel like his 2 presidential runs have imbued a generation of activists with a self-defeating scrub mentality.
I will guarantee you that any successful, national politician is some high degree of this. If you don't perceive it in your faves, it's because your faves are good at pandering to you specifically and the ones you notice it more on are focused on pandering to people who are unlike you. Part of politics is being a professional panderer. It's important to not let yourself get hoodwinked because someone happens to be particularly good at working you. They're all like this, if they weren't they wouldn't be successful at getting elected in the first place. You should be most suspicious of the ones who tell you they're not playing this game, because by saying that they're signaling that they're willing to outright lie and not just hedge or obfuscate behind lawyer-phrasing like most of them do. I mean, Klobuchar and Biden were probably the only serious contenders I liked less than Harris in the primary, so it's not like I'm chomping at the bit over this ticket either, but it's still worth giving credit where it's due. They're both extremely capable.
Most of Biden's hardcore supporters see Bernie, for example, as a complete charlatan. Older, politically engaged, middle class Black voters, in particular, have very deep experiences dealing with White people who talked a big game about racial and social justice in the abstract while opposing any measures for affordable housing or better school districts where it counts and he did very little to distance himself from that perception of him. Again this is because Bernie is good at talking to his lane of people, and that lane excludes the people backing Biden.
Yes. Downballot races are more important than the presidency and ignoring them has a lot more to do with why the government never seems to work towards anything you want than what flavor of pandering the President does on campaign. More importantly, Trump is not going to concede the election if he loses and the tighter the margin the more likely parts of the government are to support him in doing so. Al Gore won the 2000 election, but the margin was tight enough that the Supreme Court was able to take it for Bush. It was functionally a coup that people don't talk about in those terms because there was enough of a fog of uncertainty to hide the ratfucking.
I agree, but I saw that post recently and it's the first thing that came to mind.
That's a great article though, and definitely gets the point across way better.
Yawn. Echo chamber post that doesn't take into account any bit of reality and instead chooses to insult people. The same crap popped up in 2008 and 2012 saying you're racist if you don't vote Obama, sexist in 2016 if you don't vote Clinton, and now they use "privileged" if you don't vote Biden.
Same shit, different year. Every year it's some crisis. Every year it's "wasting your vote". Every year people that don't live in Texas, that have no idea about Texas, that read the same drivel about Texas think that Texas will turn purple. Every year, they're wrong. The two party system doesn't work and election reform is long overdue, but being that people in power have a nasty little habit of refusing to ever give it up, election reform will never happen. So the options are:
Continue on until government collapse and build anew.
Keep voting the same and asking the powers that be to give up their power with the threat that you won't vote for them next time, but continue to do so anyway as they know it's an empty threat because the next time there will be some crisis, there will be someone screaming about wasting votes, blah, blah, blah.
Vote third party and push their platform until enough disenfranchised voters join you and get them over the arbitrary 5% threshold to be a "major party" on the assumption that the powers that be don't change the law at the last minute to maintain the status quo. At which point you initiate option 1.
Arguing against voting 3rd party is arguing against democratic elections, because a two party system isn't democratic. That said, I made that comment prior to actually looking up who and what the Green (and less so Libertarian) parties are running this year and see that they aren't taking this presidential election as one they should realistically compete and just have throw-away candidates [not kidding, this is the actual photo being used for the lib VP pick]. So I'm more likely now to grit my teeth and vote "Slightly Less Racial Injustice than Trump 2020".
If there were no 3rd party candidates in 2016 Trump still would have won, because the 4.5 MILLION Libertarian votes wouldn't have gone to Clinton.
That's a gross oversimplification, the green party has been around for 20 years and has 130 local seats. Compared to libertarians who've been around for almost 50 years and only have 100 more seats (although they do have one in the house).
Edit
Said 3.3 million votes, corrected it to 4.5M as I was misremembering 3.3% of the votes as 3.3M.Do explain how in a state that is red, that will remain red, that will give all of the electoral votes to the red candidate, how a vote that isn't for a blue president elects a republican.
Biden will win regardless of my vote because Texas. is. red. If Biden wanted election reform why didn't he get it passed during the two years of complete dem control with Obama? Could it be because he's a lifetime politician stating what people want to hear and not what he actually wants done?
My "strawman" is in response to your moving of goal posts to support your fantasy of "but what if everyone voted different!"
So you agree that the two party system doesn't work because they've only achieved 130 seats from their grassroots campaigns. Good to hear. It's almost like most people don't pay close attention to politics or politicians, only vote straight ticket, and cannot vote straight ticket for a 3rd party because they're not allowed on the federal stage and you can't consistently convince people that aren't involved in politics at all to pay attention long enough to go through every race instead of that big shiny straight ticket button on the first screen of their voting machine.
As I've already stated, that same article is posted in a new form every year. If you sit in a desert and say it's going to rain every single day you aren't suddenly nostradamus because there are clouds one day.
As the article states those latinos can't vote. And the idea that minorities vote as a block is a huge lie that gets repeated constantly. Trump screaming about walls and deportation still managed to get more latino votes than Romney.
Ted Cruz is an outlier as everyone thinks he's piece of shit but reds vote for him anyway out of fear of the color blue.
In 1996 Dole won 49% and in 1992 Bush won 41%, both still red.
Again, I've already stated polls are too early and none of them have been made since Biden picked Harris. Everyone also seems to ignore that 538 was wrong in almost all of the states that mattered during that election?
So if they were focused on the economic collapse and giving the health insurance companies a massive boost, why should I believe that they are capable of doing more than one thing at a time this go around?
Gotcha, so the 3rd parties should all be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps without any of the advantages of the other parties and if they don't then it's clearly their fault.
Recent thread on Harris: https://tildes.net/~misc/r6q/top_cop_kamala_harriss_record_of_policing_the_police
A lot of good info here.
She's not above reproach by any means, but I also think that the internet took everything and ran to blow everything way up.
And 21 minutes Donald Trump tweets out a canned video attack add.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1293285949917495300
interesting, but a pretty limp response.
And the number of hot takes that are asking if she is even black, are comical.
From CNN:
It also looks like Trump and family donated to Kamala Harris when she was a candidate for state AG
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1293291871477870601
Rich people donate to get access, not because they agree or disagree with anything.
This is partly why Warren made a big deal out of not doing those sorts of fundraisers.
Yep, not much too that in my opinion.
No idea if this belongs here in ~news or somewhere else, but I figure at the very least it's news.
Kamala Harris Is Biden’s VP Pick — Here’s What It Means For The Election And Beyond
Late to the party, but it's interesting some outlets are putting emphasis on Harris's "Indian-ness". Here's an example from the New York Times, Slate and Reuters.
I dug up a few articles from a few months ago where Trump was actually making inroads among Indian Americans (NPR, Politico). Granted, based on the articles, it appears doubtful that Republicans will win the Indian-American vote this cycle. But importantly, it would seem that both parties have a growing interest in this voting bloc.
Indian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in America, so it makes sense both parties are vying for brownie points from this ethnic group. Perhaps the outreach to Indian Americans by the Trump administration tipped the scales to Kamala Harris' nomination. It'll be interesting to say the least how this all plays out come November.
And to be perfectly honest, I'm a little shocked by the seemingly sudden spotlight on Harris' "Indian-ness". I'm reminded of an article about the growing population of South Asians in New York and the people running to represent them. Quoting an Indian American activist:
r/politicaldiscussion megathread
I was reluctant to click on that since the major subreddits are usually a shitshow but /r/politicaldiscussion seems very well moderated.
r/politicaldiscussion isn't great, because tone is more important than content and so you get a lot of Republicans like "I just think black people should suck it up, and also racism isn't a thing anymore" and because they're polite about it it gets upvoted. Once, I said a significant number of people think that universal healthcare isn't freedom and that needlessly dying because you can't afford healthcare is freedom, and my comment was removed for being low effort, but people in the same thread unironically said the same thing and that was fine.
I'm digging through times I've complained about that sub to friends before I unsubscribed and found some choice comments and threads that were all upvoted:
There are more, but you get the idea. r/politicaldiscussion is nice in the way that Richard Spencer is nice. Edit: I guess that comparison is a bit extreme, but you get the idea.
Source? Political discussion (see my comment) isn't perfect, but I don't see stuff like that in there.
I know this isn't the most convincing post I've ever made, but I spent half an hour digging through pushshift finding these because I blocked r/politicaldiscussion on my computer because it was pissing me off. If you want me to find better examples, I will.
/r/politicaldiscussion is probably the best sub on reddit for political stuff, at least from my experiences with it. It's usually level headed and it has enough diversity of political opinions to often be interesting. /r/AskALiberal can be quite terrible sometimes, lots of passive-aggressiveness and bad faith overreactions, but policy discussions are usually pretty okay, and their recent series on presidents has been really interesting so far (every week, they post a president's name, and the users discuss that president and what they think of them and their impact on history).
Indeed, mainly because the mods curate all the questions, although they do let through some pretty dense questions for the sake of self-proclaimed impartiality.
Another good sub I reccomend is r/trueaskreddit, although it's not as strictly political.