US elections: Kang vs. Kodos

[OnionAhaiReborn]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Well, rallies and marches have a lot of other impact - influencing other protesters, increasing awareness in the community, often getting on the news, and often causing major disruptions. I don't see voting having those same kinds of effects. 

Are there any studies that indicate that protest voting actually makes a difference? 

I've never seen any study on the subject, though it's possible one exists. I don't know of any study on the impact of rallies or marches, though, either.

And I'd say Nader got on the news and caused a major disruption.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Bonesy said:

Oh boo fucking hoo. Voting 3rd party is dumb.

How about you stop putting forward scumbags for public office you stupid fucking cunts.

How about you stop chasing ponies and actually learn a thing or two about how the world works? 

[Bonesy]

Hilarious.

Arrogance is SOOOO compelling.

[Kalbear]

OAR, on that note I found this article from the Atlantic on the relative decline of protest as effecting change. It's an opinion piece but a good one. The Occupy movement as well as protests in Brazil and Turkey were mentioned. I thought this quote was pretty good.

Quote

As many have noted, social media can both facilitate and undermine the formation of more effective political parties. We are familiar with the power of social media to identify, recruit, mobilize, and coordinate supporters as well as to fundraise. But we also know that clicktivism and slacktivism undermine real political work by creating the feel-good illusion that clicking “like’’ on a Facebook page or tweeting incendiary messages from the comfort of one’s computer or smartphone is equivalent to the activism that effects change.

 

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Hilarious.

Arrogance is SOOOO compelling.

So is martyrdom.

[Ormond]

2 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Hilarious.

Arrogance is SOOOO compelling.

As if insulting people with bad language was better.  

If people can't discuss the topic of the whether or not it is wise to vote for third party candidates without being personally insulting, my vote is for that topic to be banned. 

[Myshkin]

1 minute ago, Bonesy said:

Hilarious.

Arrogance is SOOOO compelling.

Bonesy man I love you, but you can't keep castigating people for responding to you with the same rhetorical tactics and tone you yourself are using. 

[Shryke]

3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

He lost his home state. He made the egregious error of separating himself from Clinton when his support could've swung the election. He was a miserable campaigner. The fact that Ralph Nader could steal votes from him underlines this. 

Oh, he made big mistakes but he wasn't as miserable a campaign as you were implying imo. He had the media still working against him because DC hated the Clintons. And that even, imo, explains his dumb plan to distance himself from Bill Clinton. He bought into the DC bubble narrative. (Although back then it wasn't as widely understood.)

[Bonesy]

I suppose you're right.

But this "I'm so smart and if you disagree with me then you're an idiot" stuff is exactly how we end up facing a possibility of a Trump presidency.

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Sullen said:

No, that's on the Democratic establishment who couldn't accommodate a broader electorate, they have no one else to blame but themselves. The independent voters kept their integrity and voted for what they believed in, all in the spirit of democracy.

"Kept their integrity"? How much did their "integrity" stop GWB's policies? What you are talking about isn't integrity it's the masturbatory feeling of self-congratulation that comes from ignoring what your actions actually lead to in government.

The "spirit of democracy" is you vote and one candidate wins the election and runs the country (or however your system works but in this case it's one person). So vote to secure the outcome that aligns with your desires the most.

I doubt any Nader voters were wishing they had GWB over Gore.

Quote

The more elections a party loses because independents whose votes they feel entitled to, the more they'll realize they have to adjust their policies if they want to tap into the well of unaffiliated voters who might find independent candidates more attractive. Asking a voter to give up his already relatively silenced voice and vote for something he doesn't believe in or else the "Big bad guy" will take over is anti-democratic to the extreme, it's practically blackmail.

No it's not, it's how democracy works. You get at least a vote (the bare minimum of political engagement you can do) to put into the system and out the other end comes a president to run the country. Vote to achieve the president you want. Sometimes that means voting to get the candidate you like best of the viable ones to win to avoid getting the outcome you want the least. (again, see GW

And look at the GOP for an example of how your whole "the party will realise they have to adjust their policies" thing works in real life. (check out how their pivot to pick up latinos is working out) Plus the whole thing where the idea of the independent voter as some sort of meaningful force is a myth and most people who don't choose to identify as one party or the other vote for one party all the time anyway.

Blaming 3rd party voters isn't BS, it's just noting the connection between their actions and the outcomes of those actions. Ya vote 3rd party, you help the party you least identify with gain power.

[jarl the climber]

Hillary wins the primary unless she gets indicted.

I think Bush getting elected did more for democrats than if Gore had won it. Some of Bush's actions confirmed voters worst fears about the republicans and if Obama was a better party leader the democrats would have held the white house for a generation(they still might).

Good article in the Washington Post today about why the boy blunder Rubio and his campaign have gone no where. Trump is essentially right this guy probably can't run his finger up his ass much less run a presidential campaign.

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I love that we're getting the standard berating of Nader voters- "they're to blame for Bush, who was so terrible he invaded Iraq!"- in the course of being told to vote for a candidate that... supported invading Iraq. But she did it with a (D) next to her name so she gets liberals to make excuses for her.

So you want to compare voting for Nader and Clinton voting for the Iraq War? Sure, ok. I mean, what's your opinion on that vote for the Iraq War again? Is this really the comment you wanted to make on 3rd party voting?

 

Quote

 

On that note, I protested against the Iraq War. Didn't seem to do a whole lot of good, I must admit it. I still think it was worth a shot. It's the same story when it comes to casting a protest vote in a state where your vote will have no effect on the outcome, worth a shot.

 

Actually no since protesting the Iraq War doesn't have any bad outcomes whereas protest voting gets you republicans in office.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

24 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Actually no since protesting the Iraq War doesn't have any bad outcomes whereas protest voting gets you republicans in office.

No it doesn't. I don't live in a swing state. There are no consequences.

So you want to compare voting for Nader and Clinton voting for the Iraq War? Sure, ok. I mean, what's your opinion on that vote for the Iraq War again? Is this really the comment you wanted to make on 3rd party voting?

You are wildly misunderstanding my comment. No, I'm not comparing voting for Nader with Clinton voting for the Iraq War. I'm saying Clinton supported the terrible thing that you're scolding Nader voters for having caused.

[Shryke]

1 minute ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

No it doesn't. I don't live in a swing state. There are no consequences.

In general it does. It's either useless or it's actively harmful to your politics.

[Myshkin]

4 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

No it doesn't. I don't live in a swing state. There are no consequences.

So your position is that casting a protest vote is awesome so long as it doesn't actually affect anything? 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Just now, Shryke said:

In general it does. It's either useless or it's actively harmful to your politics.

No, in general it does not. It's very rare for third party candidates to affect election outcomes. If you can read polls, and know the partisan lean of your state, you can be certain when and if your vote will not change the outcome. Even in 2000, when a third party candidate arguably affected the outcome- it was only in two states. Nader voters in the other 48 states had no impact on Gore's loss at all.

Just now, Myshkin said:

So your position is that casting a protest vote is awesome so long as it doesn't actually affect anything? 

In context what I clearly meant by consequences was Shyrke's example of a negative consequence- getting Republicans elected.

If you want, you can go back and read my posts on this subject where I've stated, repeatedly, my view that I hope third party votes will signal preferences to politicians.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Speaking of protest votes, I think comparing Sanders with Nader is an interesting point.

Sanders realises that if he ran third party, he'd help the Republicans win. So he's done the smart thing, and used the Democratic primary to promote his message, shift the debate, and move Hillary to the left. He'll still almost certainly lose the primary, but he's achieved his goal of a principled stance without being responsible for installing Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House.

Nader ran third party, thereby consciously helping put Bush in the White House. In fact, knowing full well how close the race was, Nader continued to campaign in Florida, rather than sticking to New York and California. Worse, he ran again in 2004, thereby demonstrating that he had learnt absolutely nothing. 

The correct way to go about breaking up the duopoly is to lobby and campaign for a reform of the voting system. But that requires hard work, and too many protest voters simply want a masturbatory fantasy every four years.

[Bonesy]

This "masturbatory fantasy" language is unhelpful.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

13 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The correct way to go about breaking up the duopoly is to lobby and campaign for a reform of the voting system. But that requires hard work, and too many protest voters simply want a masturbatory fantasy every four years.

First of all, I vote in every election, not just every four years. I've volunteered for a few campaigns, including Sanders this year. I am perfectly willing to reform the voting system- radically overhaul it, in fact- which puts me, I expect, in a tiny minority of voters who have ever even considered the issue. I agree that reform is the only thing that can truly break up the two party system- I do not vote third party in the hopes of breaking up the two party system (at best one of the two major parties could be pushed out and made defunct and we'd have a new two-party system). Hard work is not the important obstacle- there is simply no energy around the kind of serious electoral reform required. And it would have to be an enormous amount of energy- we'd need to amend the Constitution. I am convinced it will not happen until our political system produces a serious crisis.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

This "masturbatory fantasy" language is unhelpful.

You just called everyone fucking cunts.