This poster uses an interesting analogy, but still misses the point. Let me spell it out clearly for you, dear reader.
Let’s start off with the scenario. No. You’re not picking which hotdog you’re going to eat. You’re at a picnic dinner, and the organisers have suggested that everyone has a voice in what’s to eat. But they have made a rule! For economies of scale, you aren’t going to get your own personal choice of food. They’re not going to let you request a gourmet hotdog with all the fixings while everyone else orders regular hotdogs. Everyone’s going to get the same food to eat, but a majority vote will decide what is eaten by everyone! So, let’s start with a variation of my favourite example, but use the above scenario. There are 100 people and they are deciding what the main meal for the picnic will be.
You, of course, have the power to say “I want a gourmet hotdog with all the toppings,” but they note that your writein is different than “hotdogs on buns.” So, imagine your picnic has 51 people who want some variation on hotdogs, and 49 people who want some variations on Hamburgers. And a dude dressed up as a green banana starts screaming “we should order exactly what we want!” and convinces you and one other person to vote for your speciality hotdog dish. Meanwhile, a dude with a really badly combed over orange toupee tells the other side “hey, the hotdog lovers are gonna split their vote. I know you all want different types of hamburgers, but if we all vote for one type of hamburger, we got this!”
Result? You vote for gourmet hotdog, the green banana guy votes for hotdog with sliced bananas, and a third guy votes for just the hotdog itself, no bun, and 48 other people vote hotdogs with mayo and mustard. All 49 of the hamburger guys, led by orange toupee man, vote for hamburgers. The final vote is 49 Hamburgers, 48 Hotdogs, and one each of three different hotdog variations. And because Green Banana Man convinced you to stand up for your rights to order exactly what you want rather than voting strategically, the 51 people who were the majority are forced to eat hamburgers because thems the rules.
We’re doing the exact same thing when we vote in the USA (unless you live in Maine or Alaska – more on them later). Your vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West or whoever can result in your 100 person picnic getting Donald Trump, and won’t move the needle if any more than 1 person wants something else (yes, you’d literally have to get 50 people to vote gourmet hotdog if you want to beat the 49 hamburger voters, just like you’d have to convince literally the entire Democratic caucus to unite behind you to beat Trump with Stein). Thus, if you want to actually avoid Donald Trump and the Republican Party making policy the next 4 years, you either have to convince us Stein is better than Trump (they’re doing a lousy job of an uphill task given Stein’s embracing of conspiracy theories and her pro-Russian stances, btw), or you have to vote tactically in the election, just like you have to swallow your desire for gourmet hotdogs and just pick the hotdog option like the 48 other voters, and convince at least the other person besides Green Banana Man in your ‘hotdogs but’ coalition to join in to avoid hamburgers.
Now, there ARE exceptions to this rule. If your picnic decides that you can rank the choices, you can write in ‘Gourmet Hotdog with all the trimmings’ as your first choice, then pick hotdog as your second choice, and your pick for gourmet hotdog won’t get you hamburger. But remember, voting for President is not so simple. For local and State races, please do exactly that. We need more alternatives, for sure. But POTUS requires 270 EVs – should you get Maine to throw in an EV for Green or West or whoever for POTUS, you might be the person who gets a 269/268/1 split thrown to the House where Trump gets picked.
Oh yeah, and I agree with just_another_person, too. It’s not a big deal if you get hamburgers instead of hotdogs at the picnic as most of us will eat either or, but…what would knowing that the hamburgers are poisoned would do to your choice? Especially if the hamburger eaters were so pro-hamburger they’d still vote for eating it knowing it would kill them? Suddenly, voting ‘whatever is most likely to prevent us from eating hamburger at the picnic’ becomes far more important than getting exactly what you want. Even if you get diarrhea off the hotdogs!
This poster uses an interesting analogy, but still misses the point. Let me spell it out clearly for you, dear reader.
Let’s start off with the scenario. No. You’re not picking which hotdog you’re going to eat. You’re at a picnic dinner, and the organisers have suggested that everyone has a voice in what’s to eat. But they have made a rule! For economies of scale, you aren’t going to get your own personal choice of food. They’re not going to let you request a gourmet hotdog with all the fixings while everyone else orders regular hotdogs. Everyone’s going to get the same food to eat, but a majority vote will decide what is eaten by everyone! So, let’s start with a variation of my favourite example, but use the above scenario. There are 100 people and they are deciding what the main meal for the picnic will be.
You, of course, have the power to say “I want a gourmet hotdog with all the toppings,” but they note that your writein is different than “hotdogs on buns.” So, imagine your picnic has 51 people who want some variation on hotdogs, and 49 people who want some variations on Hamburgers. And a dude dressed up as a green banana starts screaming “we should order exactly what we want!” and convinces you and one other person to vote for your speciality hotdog dish. Meanwhile, a dude with a really badly combed over orange toupee tells the other side “hey, the hotdog lovers are gonna split their vote. I know you all want different types of hamburgers, but if we all vote for one type of hamburger, we got this!”
Result? You vote for gourmet hotdog, the green banana guy votes for hotdog with sliced bananas, and a third guy votes for just the hotdog itself, no bun, and 48 other people vote hotdogs with mayo and mustard. All 49 of the hamburger guys, led by orange toupee man, vote for hamburgers. The final vote is 49 Hamburgers, 48 Hotdogs, and one each of three different hotdog variations. And because Green Banana Man convinced you to stand up for your rights to order exactly what you want rather than voting strategically, the 51 people who were the majority are forced to eat hamburgers because thems the rules.
We’re doing the exact same thing when we vote in the USA (unless you live in Maine or Alaska – more on them later). Your vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West or whoever can result in your 100 person picnic getting Donald Trump, and won’t move the needle if any more than 1 person wants something else (yes, you’d literally have to get 50 people to vote gourmet hotdog if you want to beat the 49 hamburger voters, just like you’d have to convince literally the entire Democratic caucus to unite behind you to beat Trump with Stein). Thus, if you want to actually avoid Donald Trump and the Republican Party making policy the next 4 years, you either have to convince us Stein is better than Trump (they’re doing a lousy job of an uphill task given Stein’s embracing of conspiracy theories and her pro-Russian stances, btw), or you have to vote tactically in the election, just like you have to swallow your desire for gourmet hotdogs and just pick the hotdog option like the 48 other voters, and convince at least the other person besides Green Banana Man in your ‘hotdogs but’ coalition to join in to avoid hamburgers.
Now, there ARE exceptions to this rule. If your picnic decides that you can rank the choices, you can write in ‘Gourmet Hotdog with all the trimmings’ as your first choice, then pick hotdog as your second choice, and your pick for gourmet hotdog won’t get you hamburger. But remember, voting for President is not so simple. For local and State races, please do exactly that. We need more alternatives, for sure. But POTUS requires 270 EVs – should you get Maine to throw in an EV for Green or West or whoever for POTUS, you might be the person who gets a 269/268/1 split thrown to the House where Trump gets picked.
Oh yeah, and I agree with just_another_person, too. It’s not a big deal if you get hamburgers instead of hotdogs at the picnic as most of us will eat either or, but…what would knowing that the hamburgers are poisoned would do to your choice? Especially if the hamburger eaters were so pro-hamburger they’d still vote for eating it knowing it would kill them? Suddenly, voting ‘whatever is most likely to prevent us from eating hamburger at the picnic’ becomes far more important than getting exactly what you want. Even if you get diarrhea off the hotdogs!