First things first: a third party vote isn’t throwing your vote away. Third party votes get tallied just like votes for republicans and democrats and even if the parties and candidates those votes are cast for don’t win, they confer real material gains like ballot presence, mandatory funding, event presence, media coverage and public awareness, like I said.
Second, I am not voting to prove a point. I am voting to make my voice heard. If one of the two major parties hears my voice and decides to adopt some of the positions of a party that I voted for then that’s great, maybe I’ll give them a chance next time.
It is not possible to vote against a candidate. You can only vote for a candidate. There is no second, different colored pen they hand you to fill in the bubble next to the candidate you don’t want to win.
I cant vote against trump, I can only vote for some candidate. My vote will never be interpreted as a vote against trump, it will only ever be interpreted as a vote in support of the candidate I cast it for.
If my vote doesn’t have an impact on the outcome then how can it help or harm either major party?
Your last line perfectly encapsulates your misunderstanding of the situation. You’re an idealist, I get it. But even you have to accept the reality that this year either Biden or Trump will win. That’d the cold hard truth. You can toss your vote in a third pile but it will do nothing to impact the outcome.
If you truly think Trump or Biden are a choice bad, then the only way you can have the most, really any impact, is by choosing between them. The problem is Trump voters do not think about the 3rd party, only Democrats do. So what is happening is the Biden pile and Trump pile may be the same size, but everyone who takes their vote and decides to go 3rd party instead of dem makes Bidens pile smaller. This means every dem vote not for Biden is, in a very real way, helping Trump win.
You can say 3rd party has a chance or your voting for what you believe and that’s it. That’s fine. But realize that you have a chance to impact the election and by voting 3rd party without ranked choice voting you are removing any impact you may have. This could mean letting someone who doesn’t respect democracy into office, and the possibility that you may not get another chance to vote.
It sounds like third party voters such as myself are incredibly powerful, able to change the outcome of elections by multiplying the power their ballots have.
If super powered mega voters like me are so impactful like you say, shouldn’t trump or Biden adopt policy positions that we want so they can get our ssj ballots?
Yes, you are powerful enough to influence the election in the same way Republicans are. Both favor a Republican outcome.
Yes, Trump n Co should adopt those policies but they won’t. They know that what they get from lobbiests and Republicans are more than enough to win. Giving way to policies you want would put their wallet at risk and work against big companies.
As for Democrats they certainly should, but at this point you’re going to what? Show them what you want by voting third party when democracy itself is on the line. Seems like a poor time to cast symbolic votes. At least with Biden you know you’ll be able to vote again. They are also the party that is much more in favor of rank choice voting, a process that would actually enable a 3rd party candidate to win.
If democracy itself is on the line (and worth defending) then why are you trying to get people to vote about it as opposed to do political violence about it?
If democracy is on the line then why is the entire democrat party saying “no no no, it’s bad to try to harm your opponents!”?
If you realized the democrats couldn’t win, would you vote third party, assuming there was one that aligned more with your own politics?
As I said before, my vote isn’t symbolic, it’s an immutable record of what platform a party needs to get my support. I’m not voting as a symbol or to send a message but to record my politics and to get my choice of party the material institutional support that comes with more votes.
Because that’s how democracy works… Civil war is the result of democracy failing. I said it’s at risk, not dead.
If you realized the democrats couldn’t win, would you vote third party, assuming there was one that aligned more with your own politics?
No, %100 not. If they lined up with every single view I had. Because they will not win. Money wins elections right now, that’s the cold hard truth. And 3rd party will never be able to compete. If there was rank choice voting, where the system wasn’t two sided, sure I would. But without that I would at least be able to influence which of the two people we get, and this time I want the one that hasn’t claimed he wants to lock up the other side and admits to wanting to be a dictator. That’s who you are helping by casting a 3rd party vote, you are making the best chance to beat him that much weaker.
Your vote is symbolic. It will not impact this election at all, me and you both know that. And if democracy is on the line and you take this time to “record what your party needs to support,” then you are naive. What you think your party needs to support means nothing if there is not another election. So go ahead, record what you think politicians should platform on; just know that if one side wins, what you think is important doesn’t matter anymore. I’d rather vote for the side that still gives democracy a chance than try to fix it instead of letting it die so I can record my thoughts and feelings.
So it’s wrong to defend democracy with force, you’d never cast a vote for a party other than the democrats, my vote is both meaningless and also super powerful, I should switch over to voting democrat and democracy will die if I don’t.
It’s not wrong to defend it with force but context matters. Are you defending from a foreign policy you don’t like or is it defending against your right to vote. You can fight for democracy but it doesn’t always need to be violent.
Trump recently admitted that if Republicans vote him in, you won’t have to vote again, he’ll “fix it.” So yes, by you not voting for the best chance to stop him you are very powerful. You’re siding with a future that may mean not having to option to vote again, which would lead to violence. But sure, vote for whatever makes you feel good. The rest of us will vote to protect democracy for you to have the right to throw away your vote.
So, again, you believe that trump is an existential threat to democracy but do not believe it’s necessary to defend that democracy with violence.
There are only two possibilities I can come up with, you either don’t actually believe trump is an existential threat to democracy or don’t believe democracy is worth defending.
I guess you could just have never thought about it that hard either.
Is it possible that you think violence is okay if it’s directed against foreigners but not if it’s directed against Americans?
First things first: a third party vote isn’t throwing your vote away. Third party votes get tallied just like votes for republicans and democrats and even if the parties and candidates those votes are cast for don’t win, they confer real material gains like ballot presence, mandatory funding, event presence, media coverage and public awareness, like I said.
Second, I am not voting to prove a point. I am voting to make my voice heard. If one of the two major parties hears my voice and decides to adopt some of the positions of a party that I voted for then that’s great, maybe I’ll give them a chance next time.
It is not possible to vote against a candidate. You can only vote for a candidate. There is no second, different colored pen they hand you to fill in the bubble next to the candidate you don’t want to win.
I cant vote against trump, I can only vote for some candidate. My vote will never be interpreted as a vote against trump, it will only ever be interpreted as a vote in support of the candidate I cast it for.
If my vote doesn’t have an impact on the outcome then how can it help or harm either major party?
Your last line perfectly encapsulates your misunderstanding of the situation. You’re an idealist, I get it. But even you have to accept the reality that this year either Biden or Trump will win. That’d the cold hard truth. You can toss your vote in a third pile but it will do nothing to impact the outcome.
If you truly think Trump or Biden are a choice bad, then the only way you can have the most, really any impact, is by choosing between them. The problem is Trump voters do not think about the 3rd party, only Democrats do. So what is happening is the Biden pile and Trump pile may be the same size, but everyone who takes their vote and decides to go 3rd party instead of dem makes Bidens pile smaller. This means every dem vote not for Biden is, in a very real way, helping Trump win.
You can say 3rd party has a chance or your voting for what you believe and that’s it. That’s fine. But realize that you have a chance to impact the election and by voting 3rd party without ranked choice voting you are removing any impact you may have. This could mean letting someone who doesn’t respect democracy into office, and the possibility that you may not get another chance to vote.
It sounds like third party voters such as myself are incredibly powerful, able to change the outcome of elections by multiplying the power their ballots have.
If super powered mega voters like me are so impactful like you say, shouldn’t trump or Biden adopt policy positions that we want so they can get our ssj ballots?
Yes, you are powerful enough to influence the election in the same way Republicans are. Both favor a Republican outcome.
Yes, Trump n Co should adopt those policies but they won’t. They know that what they get from lobbiests and Republicans are more than enough to win. Giving way to policies you want would put their wallet at risk and work against big companies.
As for Democrats they certainly should, but at this point you’re going to what? Show them what you want by voting third party when democracy itself is on the line. Seems like a poor time to cast symbolic votes. At least with Biden you know you’ll be able to vote again. They are also the party that is much more in favor of rank choice voting, a process that would actually enable a 3rd party candidate to win.
If democracy itself is on the line (and worth defending) then why are you trying to get people to vote about it as opposed to do political violence about it?
If democracy is on the line then why is the entire democrat party saying “no no no, it’s bad to try to harm your opponents!”?
If you realized the democrats couldn’t win, would you vote third party, assuming there was one that aligned more with your own politics?
As I said before, my vote isn’t symbolic, it’s an immutable record of what platform a party needs to get my support. I’m not voting as a symbol or to send a message but to record my politics and to get my choice of party the material institutional support that comes with more votes.
Because that’s how democracy works… Civil war is the result of democracy failing. I said it’s at risk, not dead.
No, %100 not. If they lined up with every single view I had. Because they will not win. Money wins elections right now, that’s the cold hard truth. And 3rd party will never be able to compete. If there was rank choice voting, where the system wasn’t two sided, sure I would. But without that I would at least be able to influence which of the two people we get, and this time I want the one that hasn’t claimed he wants to lock up the other side and admits to wanting to be a dictator. That’s who you are helping by casting a 3rd party vote, you are making the best chance to beat him that much weaker.
Your vote is symbolic. It will not impact this election at all, me and you both know that. And if democracy is on the line and you take this time to “record what your party needs to support,” then you are naive. What you think your party needs to support means nothing if there is not another election. So go ahead, record what you think politicians should platform on; just know that if one side wins, what you think is important doesn’t matter anymore. I’d rather vote for the side that still gives democracy a chance than try to fix it instead of letting it die so I can record my thoughts and feelings.
So it’s wrong to defend democracy with force, you’d never cast a vote for a party other than the democrats, my vote is both meaningless and also super powerful, I should switch over to voting democrat and democracy will die if I don’t.
It’s not wrong to defend it with force but context matters. Are you defending from a foreign policy you don’t like or is it defending against your right to vote. You can fight for democracy but it doesn’t always need to be violent.
Trump recently admitted that if Republicans vote him in, you won’t have to vote again, he’ll “fix it.” So yes, by you not voting for the best chance to stop him you are very powerful. You’re siding with a future that may mean not having to option to vote again, which would lead to violence. But sure, vote for whatever makes you feel good. The rest of us will vote to protect democracy for you to have the right to throw away your vote.
So, again, you believe that trump is an existential threat to democracy but do not believe it’s necessary to defend that democracy with violence.
There are only two possibilities I can come up with, you either don’t actually believe trump is an existential threat to democracy or don’t believe democracy is worth defending.
I guess you could just have never thought about it that hard either.
Is it possible that you think violence is okay if it’s directed against foreigners but not if it’s directed against Americans?