U.S. Election: It's Gonna Be a Huge Thread, It's Gonna Be the Best Thread!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 5/8/2016 at 11:43 PM, lokisnow said:

Trump laid out the attack line today that Clinton was "an enabler" of her husbands sexual misconduct. 

Because all women are ultimately responsible for their spouse's infidelity. And also all women are supposed to stand in solidarity with the person their spouse cheated on them with. 

Hope this one blows up in trumps face, but the national media will probably take his side. We had posters I this thread pushing this narrative hard many months ago. It is still as disgusting as it was then.

As Dr. Pepper pointed out, we were talking about the potential of it being used against Clinton, not whether or not it was right or ethical to do so. Imo it was rather obvious that it was coming if Trump was the nominee. As I've said several times now, Trump's only path to victory is to drag Clinton down into the mud and depress the turnout of her likely supporters. And you should be prepared for a lot more of this. I'd bet that within the next two weeks Trump will bring up that 40 year old case where Clinton had to defend a guy she though was guilty of raping a 12 year old. Trump will bring up ALL her dirty laundry, regardless if it's a fair attack or not. Don't be caught off guard in the future.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Mandy said:

haha we'll see. I think you guys are giving people entirely too much credit. People in the south tend to vote against their interests out of religious extremism and ignorance and I've personally heard several people tell me they think Trump is "a good Christian".  But we'll see.

Didn't you hear? Nobody reads the bible more than Trump.

[Mauvka]

I view voting to be as much about voicing one's view as it is about electing a specific candidate.  At the end of the day, majority of the country lives in states that are a lock for one party alien which case, why bother voting at all, if not to send a message. 

 So while voting third party may not have any chance of electing that candidate, if enough voters choose to support a third party over the D or R, the main parties will take notice.  It sends a very clear message that you are someone who will take the time to vote, and also that neither of the main candidates earned your support. 

[Jace, Extat]

That's a very cute opinion to have.

No one can hear you, no one cares.

[The guy from the Vale]

10 minutes ago, Mauvka said:

I view voting to be as much about voicing one's view as it is about electing a specific candidate.  At the end of the day, majority of the country lives in states that are a lock for one party alien which case, why bother voting at all, if not to send a message. 

 So while voting third party may not have any chance of electing that candidate, if enough voters choose to support a third party over the D or R, the main parties will take notice.  It sends a very clear message that you are someone who will take the time to vote, and also that neither of the main candidates earned your support. 

Well, yes, but that "clear message" will, in a first past the post system, lead to the worse evil being elected. And you're assuming the parties will react by taking the positions you want, instead of taking even less palatable position as a consequence.

[BloodRider]

14 minutes ago, Mauvka said:

I view voting to be as much about voicing one's view as it is about electing a specific candidate.  At the end of the day, majority of the country lives in states that are a lock for one party alien which case, why bother voting at all, if not to send a message. 

Another way to get your voice heard is the vote for the viable candidate that comes closer to your view.Again, picking on Texas, if Texas were to turn purple, then your voice would be heard loud and clear over all the write ins.

By contrast, do you honestly think people go back and look at how votes write in candidates got to make decisions on the party's direction?

[Maithanet]

26 minutes ago, Mauvka said:

So while voting third party may not have any chance of electing that candidate, if enough voters choose to support a third party over the D or R, the main parties will take notice.  It sends a very clear message that you are someone who will take the time to vote, and also that neither of the main candidates earned your support. 

In 2012, 51.1% of voters voted for Obama (65.9 million).  47.2% or 60.9 million voters chose Romney.  The libertarian and green parties combined for 1.3% of the vote, 1.7 million people.  All other candidates amounted for 0.4% of the vote, or ~ 450,000 voters.

What "very clear message", would you say, that the 450k people who voted for other candidates made?  I honestly don't know.  I have no idea what the platform of Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom Party) is, but she got 67,000 votes.  That's a lot of votes, and yet it made no difference that anyone can see - they are so obscure that virtually no one has ever heard of them. 

If, hypothetically, the number of people voting outside of those four main parties doubled from 450k to 900k, what would be the result?  Is it nothing?  Because to me, it looks like nothing.  By all means let me know if you think it has an actual impact. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

By contrast, do you honestly think people go back and look at how votes write in candidates got to make decisions on the party's direction?

I hear the Big Bird/Elmo ticket is coming on strong. 

[Kalbear]

Writing in a candidate being an announcement that you aren't going to stand for the way things are would be a lot more useful if your votes weren't anonymous. As it stands, the message that is received is that some people - and they have no real idea who - decided to vote in a way that no one got.

It gives the same information to Republican and Democratic supporters too. They have no idea if you would have voted for their candidate if you did do something special. They have no idea how the rest of your vote went. They can't tell if a vote for Sanders means you also downvoted a whole bunch of other progressive candidates or if you just went in and wrote in 'FUCK YEAH BERNIE SANDERS FEEL THE BERN WOO'. And most of the time, who is the write-in is completely ignored unless it's a close ballot, because that requires individual counting to determine and that isn't done unless there's a challenge to the ballot.

So it really doesn't send much of a message. In many cases it is equivalent to not marking your ballot at all. There are a whole of way more effective ways to send a message. If you care - and for most people I cynically think that the answer is 'I don't' - consider doing them. Consider writing your congressperson. Consider writing your local representative. Consider going to your city or state council meeting and opening an issue on the floor (which you can actually do!). This online activism that makes people think that they're doing something meaningful though? It's just happy bullshit that changes nothing. 

[Swordfish]

19 hours ago, Kalbear said:

You can do all sorts of things. Equating this to doing something because it's really meaningful, however...that's sort of the rub, isn't it? It might mean a lot to you to vote for Bernie Sanders, who isn't running in the general. Will it mean a lot to the result of the election? Will it change anything? 

This is the circliest of all circular logic.

'Third party votes are a waste because not enough people vote third party.  It would only be meaningful if more people voted third party, so that is why no one should vote third party.'

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

'Third party votes are a waste because not enough people vote third party.  It would only be meaningful if more people voted third party, so that is why no one should vote third party.'

We've had this conversation before.  If you want to vote third party, do it from the ground up.  Third parties win local elections pretty regularly, and in some states with well established third parties, they can win at the state level as well.  If you want to vote third party and have it matter, that is how you do it.

[Swordfish]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

We've had this conversation before.  If you want to vote third party, do it from the ground up.  Third parties win local elections pretty regularly, and in some states with well established third parties, they can win at the state level as well.  If you want to vote third party and have it matter, that is how you do it.

That is certainly one approach.  But it is not the only possible approach.

 

 

[The guy from the Vale]

It's the only approach where you don't shoot your own foot via the spoiler effect though.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

That is certainly one approach.  But it is not the only possible approach.

It is the approach you need to take if you want a third party candidate to win.  If you don't care whether your candidate ever wins, then you can vote 3rd party for President every single election.  You can also go to the gym once every four years and see if you can bench 500 lbs. 

[Swordfish]

3 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

It's the only approach where you don't shoot your own foot via the spoiler effect though.

 

 

As opposed to shooting your own foot via the 'supporting the status quo effect' you mean?

I don't consider a vote for a candidate I prefer to be shooting my own foot, so....... there's that.....

 

 

[Swordfish]

6 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

It is the approach you need to take if you want a third party candidate to win.  If you don't care whether your candidate ever wins, then you can vote 3rd party for President every single election.  You can also go to the gym once every four years and see if you can bench 500 lbs. 

No.  It really isn't.  The libertarian party has ballot access in something like 35 states now.  

The way that third party candidates win is this:  people stop voting for candidates they don't want because 'the guy i want can't win'.  That is the whole point about how circular that logic is.

People are becoming disenfranchised with the garbage candidates they are being served up.  Having third party options out there and accessible is the only way in which you are going to get meaningful long term change, whether that change is an actual third party candidate winning, or a better selection of candidates from the two major parties.  

Continuing to support the status quo with the only thing that really matters, your votes, is the very definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Voting third party can have other unintended consequences. That's how we got a Governor that could beat up all the other Governors. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=my+governor+can+beat+up+your+governor&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=963&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJn8jxitDMAhVnyoMKHRiOCvcQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=0lfCxZyRPkazRM%3A

[Swordfish]

51 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Voting third party can have other unintended consequences. That's how we got a Governor that could beat up all the other Governors. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=my+governor+can+beat+up+your+governor&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=963&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJn8jxitDMAhVnyoMKHRiOCvcQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=0lfCxZyRPkazRM%3A

Holding your nose and voting for one of the big two because 'it's the lesser of two evils' also has a lot of negative unintended consequences.  

Which should be painfully obvious to anyone who hasn't been asleep for the last year.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Voting third party can have other unintended consequences. That's how we got a Governor that could beat up all the other Governors. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=my+governor+can+beat+up+your+governor&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=963&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJn8jxitDMAhVnyoMKHRiOCvcQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=0lfCxZyRPkazRM%3A

Ventura won running as a third party. I'm pretty sure his winning was a fully intended consequence of the people who voted for him. And you know, on some issues, I like Ventura a lot more than I do Clinton or Obama. 

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

People are becoming disenfranchised with the garbage candidates they are being served up.  Having third party options out there and accessible is the only way in which you are going to get meaningful long term change, whether that change is an actual third party candidate winning, or a better selection of candidates from the two major parties.  Continuing to support the existing system with the only thing that really matters, your votes, is the very definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

But this is changing your whole argument.  If the problem is that you want one of the two major parties to run candidates that better represent you and your interests, then the key is to vote and be active in the primaries.  Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul both definitely had a chance to win their party nominations, they just didn't get enough votes.  If they had gotten enough primary support to win the nomination, they would have a very good chance at the presidency.

If your political preferences are such that no candidates within the two "big tent" political parties are sufficiently close to you that you could vote for them for president, then there is a good chance that your views are not sufficiently popular nationally to win the presidency anyway.  Which goes back to my statement that you should be focusing on local races, which are actually winnable.