I agree with you, except the time to register that particular complaint is during the primaries. And midterm elections. And town hall meetings. And Sunday dinners with family. And around the water cooler at work. Literally all the time, you should be expressing that opinion, and fighting for better options, forever, except on the actual election day.
Once there are two choices on the ballot, your selection is binary. You are choosing between two options, or you are choosing to not participate. That’s the absolute least effective moment to complain about how bad the options are. At best it will have zero effect on the course of history, and at worst we can end up with (gestures broadly at the current state of affairs).
I agree that was a massive fuckup. But that doesn’t change the names on the ballot, and in the end you had two choices. If you were mad Biden didn’t step down, or that the DNC circumvented the will of the people, or that they are so frog-shit incompetent that they couldn’t find a better candidate than Harris, all of those are valid complaints.
None of those things are a reason to vote for Trump.
Also, I’m not sure you know what “gloating” means.
It wasn’t. They were never going to give the people a voice.
But that doesn’t change the names on the ballot, and in the end you had two choices.
Why do centrists keep trying to convince me to vote for the candidate I voted for in an election that is already over?
If you were mad Biden didn’t step down, or that the DNC circumvented the will of the people, or that they are so frog-shit incompetent that they couldn’t find a better candidate than Harris, all of those are valid complaints.
Nice of you to admit that those are valid concerns. Before calling me a trumper for having them:
None of those things are a reason to vote for Trump.
Also, I’m not sure you know what “gloating” means.
I’m sure you know what gaslighting means, since you’re doing it here. Well, you were like “the primaries are where you have a voice” knowing damned well that the party made sure that only netanyahu had a voice in the primaries.
Fuck Harris. You’re supporting a political strategy that enabled fascism to take over the United States. Jill Stein is a russian asset, and you want to say I’m gaslighting you?
Biden promised he would be a one term president. That was a main talking point of his first run.
He promised he would cancel all student loans. Dems had a majority for two years and he couldn’t or didnt want to get it done.
The democrats have long been a party of corporate boot lickers. People were already getting tired of that 12 years ago.
The DNC again didnt really hold any sort of fair primary or give their voters much choice, for the third election in a row. They basically just re-ran the Hillary campaign. 4th or 5th if you want to be more cynical and talk about how they were pretty against Obama until he drummed up the giant swell of support that he did. They also campaigned with people most dems detested and thought were the worst humans on earth until trump 1.0 rolled around. They ignored their entire base and continuously have ignored the rural areas.
GENOCIDE. that was pretty big for most people. It was obvious to anyone paying any attention in the first two weeks of the war what Israel was doing. Biden fully endorsed and funded it. That quite rightly pissed off a lot of people.
If you dont draw the line at genocide, you really cant draw the line at democracy.
Even now dems are barely putting up a fight against Trump. Theyre more interested in shafting the progressive wing of their own party and keeping their positions.
All of that combined led to an increased sense of “what the fuck are we voting for you for if all youre doing is keeping the status quo the same and shafting everyone at a slower pace”
Immediately after Jan 6th they should have locked up every single person involved, and they would have been fully able to do it. They again let them off easy, the same way the north let the south off easy after the Civil War.
I one hundred percent agree with everything you said. Biden is a lying piece of shit, the DNC is awful, Harris completely fucked up, and Israel is engaged in genocide. Draw your line wherever you like, it doesn’t matter if both candidates are on the other side of it.
But my point stands that the time to complain about those things is anytime besides the election day. There wasn’t a viable candidate on the ballot who opposed the genocide in Israel. You had to choose between the lesser of two evils, and one evil was significantly worse than the other.
The thing is that was their entire campaign. They didnt give a fuck about anyone or anything. They just sat there and said “hey im not that guy” with absolutely zero plan on how to be anything other than a milque toast version of that guy.
No one was turned on by that. No one wanted that. They assumed their base would just come out and vote for them no matter what they did. Then they pulled a shocked Pikachu face and started blaming everyone except themselves when it happened, and they still do. It is the party and the politicians job to be on the side of the people and win their votes. If they do such a fucking shit ob at it that a demented shit wearing paedo can win above them, then they need to take a good long hard look at themselves in the mirror. And through all words they’ve said and all actions they’ve taken since, it seems very very clear that they are not doing it at all
I 100% agree with you, and I fully blame Biden, Harris, and the DNC for enabling Trump. I also blame Clinton for her fuck ups in 2016, and I blame Biden and the congressional democrats for bot doing more when they had the opportunities.
Democrats suck.
Republicans are worse.
This isn’t a thought experiment. People have died because Trump won. People have had their entire lives ruined. People have suffered. People have lost their income sources. People have lost their homes. People have lost their families.
Because Trump won.
Some of that might have happened if Harris had won, but it would not have been as bad as it currently is. Pardons have been issued. SCOTUS precendents have been written. Generations of Americans will be un-fucking our legal, economic, and regulatory systems, if America even survives. Not since the Civil War has America been closer to total collapse.
Choices have consequences. Sometimes the options both suck, and you have to pick which one sucks less. Political progress is the slow boring of hard boards. It requires constant vigilance, diligence, commitment, competence, and care. That’s why, historically and currently, the most successful political movements are led by religious zealots or despotic narcissists. Compromise, nuance, and empathy will slow you down, but that’s not a reason to abandon your principles. Principles guide you in your choices, but election day is the last step in a long process. Your choices are limited hy the trajectory of previous years of hard work.
I agree with what you’ve said too, but again, I think the dems would have done a lot of this either way. Not as callously, not as absurdly, but they had a chance to lock up trump, Pence, McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., and chose not to do it in order to protect themselves. Biden had more deportations than trump did in his first term. We just didnt hear about it. Are you telling me every single one of those people were guilty of whatever crime? Or that families weren’t torn apart?
I agree that it wouldnt be as bad as it currently is, but they were both trending in that direction. Genocide would have continued at the same pace. People were losing their homes and families while the rich buy up all estates for dimes and dollars under the dems too.
You say “compromise, nuance, and empathy will slow you down, but thats not a reason to abandon your principles”. I would argue that a lot of people were refusing to abandon their principles - namely genocide being bad and promises being broken, and the democratic party showed theirs - namely corporate welfare, money, and lip service to the middle and lower classes. The thing was, those principles were not the same.
The immediate response and the response ever since from Dems has been to blame every sort of minority they could (Arab Americans, black americans, millenials, latinos), while refusing to countenance the fact that those groups still did by and large vote majority for dems. The people who didnt were white men and women. On top of that, they keep talking about how the voters were wrong and cost them, rather than focusing on what they did wrong, which everyone was shouting from the rooftops.
Things were not great before Trump. Thats why he won the first term, in addition to the DNC shooting themselves in the foot and doing all they could to stop Bernie. Biden stabilized some stuff, but didnt do much for anyone, and things got worse from the first trump term. Its not like everything was sunshine and roses while the dems were in charge. And even if they do come back in charge, they fucked themselves by allowing the Republicans to stack every single court in the country. Again, that level of incompetence cannot be real - either they are fully incapable of planning anything, or they were okay with it happening.
GENOCIDE. that was pretty big for most people. It was obvious to anyone paying any attention in the first two weeks of the war what Israel was doing. Biden fully endorsed and funded it. That quite rightly pissed off a lot of people.
Yeah this one really bothers me. It seems like there were a lot of abstainers and protest voters based on this one issue. As if Trump winning was going to make anything better.
Voting in a general election in a first past the post system is always the lesser of two evils. Hold your nose and cast the ballot.
Which part? The fact that only two candidates were actually viable options? Or the fact that (at least) one of the candidates wanted you to think you could vote for a third party and not vote against your own interests?
Two candidates on the ballot were viable whether you voted for them or not. If you didn’t vote for one of those two candidates, you voted against your own interests by not voting for your preferred candidate. If you did not have a preferred candidate during the presidential election, you weren’t paying attention.
The only way to change that is to change the voting mechanism. FPTP makes the lesser-evil strategy the only rational one.
Lesser-evil + direct-action your way to a civilized voting mechanism, like ranked choice or something. Best case scenario we can do it mostly electorally. Worst case scenario it’s mostly direct action. It’s probably gonna be a combination of the two: lesser evil to minimize the hostility, then direct action to actually do the work.
Yeah, the US desperately needs a voting system overhaul so we can actually have more than two options. Unfortunately neither party wants to allow new competition so it’s not going to happen until we make it happen.
And explaining how a different voting system would even work is complicated enough that most Americans’ eyes glaze over before you’re even done explaining how our current system works.
It would be nice, however, to not feel like I must choose between the lesser of two evils every damn time I vote.
But that’s the thing: the lesser of two evils IS what you choose.
Until the perfect candidate emerges, runs, and wins the last election we’ll ever really need - ha! - EVERY choice is a choice between two imperfect options, and you’re choosing between those two evils.
But this is how we improve things: we vote for the better one. And then we do it again and again each time, picking the lesser evil no matter whom, until we move that sociopolitical window closer to the ideal and we get better and better options. We don’t do this if we spite-vote for the worst option because the better option is still imperfect, or else we get the setback like America will have for decades.
What do we do if we continue to vote for the lesser evil for decades, but the sociopolitical window keeps moving further from the ideal, and our options keep getting worse?
It would be nice, however, to not feel like I must choose between the lesser of two evils every damn time I vote.
I agree with you, except the time to register that particular complaint is during the primaries. And midterm elections. And town hall meetings. And Sunday dinners with family. And around the water cooler at work. Literally all the time, you should be expressing that opinion, and fighting for better options, forever, except on the actual election day.
Once there are two choices on the ballot, your selection is binary. You are choosing between two options, or you are choosing to not participate. That’s the absolute least effective moment to complain about how bad the options are. At best it will have zero effect on the course of history, and at worst we can end up with (gestures broadly at the current state of affairs).
Keep gloating that the party didn’t have those.
I agree that was a massive fuckup. But that doesn’t change the names on the ballot, and in the end you had two choices. If you were mad Biden didn’t step down, or that the DNC circumvented the will of the people, or that they are so frog-shit incompetent that they couldn’t find a better candidate than Harris, all of those are valid complaints.
None of those things are a reason to vote for Trump.
Also, I’m not sure you know what “gloating” means.
It wasn’t. They were never going to give the people a voice.
Why do centrists keep trying to convince me to vote for the candidate I voted for in an election that is already over?
Nice of you to admit that those are valid concerns. Before calling me a trumper for having them:
I’m sure you know what gaslighting means, since you’re doing it here. Well, you were like “the primaries are where you have a voice” knowing damned well that the party made sure that only netanyahu had a voice in the primaries.
Like. You. Wanted.
Lol you think I’m a centrist. Bitch, please.
You’re needlessly carrying water for harris, so yeah.
Fuck Harris. You’re supporting a political strategy that enabled fascism to take over the United States. Jill Stein is a russian asset, and you want to say I’m gaslighting you?
The political strategy harris employed did that. It’s why she lost.
Well, you’re bringing up jill stein for no fucking reason.
I think the issue here was manifold in a sense
Biden promised he would be a one term president. That was a main talking point of his first run.
He promised he would cancel all student loans. Dems had a majority for two years and he couldn’t or didnt want to get it done.
The democrats have long been a party of corporate boot lickers. People were already getting tired of that 12 years ago.
The DNC again didnt really hold any sort of fair primary or give their voters much choice, for the third election in a row. They basically just re-ran the Hillary campaign. 4th or 5th if you want to be more cynical and talk about how they were pretty against Obama until he drummed up the giant swell of support that he did. They also campaigned with people most dems detested and thought were the worst humans on earth until trump 1.0 rolled around. They ignored their entire base and continuously have ignored the rural areas.
GENOCIDE. that was pretty big for most people. It was obvious to anyone paying any attention in the first two weeks of the war what Israel was doing. Biden fully endorsed and funded it. That quite rightly pissed off a lot of people.
If you dont draw the line at genocide, you really cant draw the line at democracy.
Even now dems are barely putting up a fight against Trump. Theyre more interested in shafting the progressive wing of their own party and keeping their positions.
All of that combined led to an increased sense of “what the fuck are we voting for you for if all youre doing is keeping the status quo the same and shafting everyone at a slower pace”
Immediately after Jan 6th they should have locked up every single person involved, and they would have been fully able to do it. They again let them off easy, the same way the north let the south off easy after the Civil War.
I one hundred percent agree with everything you said. Biden is a lying piece of shit, the DNC is awful, Harris completely fucked up, and Israel is engaged in genocide. Draw your line wherever you like, it doesn’t matter if both candidates are on the other side of it.
But my point stands that the time to complain about those things is anytime besides the election day. There wasn’t a viable candidate on the ballot who opposed the genocide in Israel. You had to choose between the lesser of two evils, and one evil was significantly worse than the other.
The thing is that was their entire campaign. They didnt give a fuck about anyone or anything. They just sat there and said “hey im not that guy” with absolutely zero plan on how to be anything other than a milque toast version of that guy.
No one was turned on by that. No one wanted that. They assumed their base would just come out and vote for them no matter what they did. Then they pulled a shocked Pikachu face and started blaming everyone except themselves when it happened, and they still do. It is the party and the politicians job to be on the side of the people and win their votes. If they do such a fucking shit ob at it that a demented shit wearing paedo can win above them, then they need to take a good long hard look at themselves in the mirror. And through all words they’ve said and all actions they’ve taken since, it seems very very clear that they are not doing it at all
I 100% agree with you, and I fully blame Biden, Harris, and the DNC for enabling Trump. I also blame Clinton for her fuck ups in 2016, and I blame Biden and the congressional democrats for bot doing more when they had the opportunities.
Democrats suck.
Republicans are worse.
This isn’t a thought experiment. People have died because Trump won. People have had their entire lives ruined. People have suffered. People have lost their income sources. People have lost their homes. People have lost their families.
Because Trump won.
Some of that might have happened if Harris had won, but it would not have been as bad as it currently is. Pardons have been issued. SCOTUS precendents have been written. Generations of Americans will be un-fucking our legal, economic, and regulatory systems, if America even survives. Not since the Civil War has America been closer to total collapse.
Choices have consequences. Sometimes the options both suck, and you have to pick which one sucks less. Political progress is the slow boring of hard boards. It requires constant vigilance, diligence, commitment, competence, and care. That’s why, historically and currently, the most successful political movements are led by religious zealots or despotic narcissists. Compromise, nuance, and empathy will slow you down, but that’s not a reason to abandon your principles. Principles guide you in your choices, but election day is the last step in a long process. Your choices are limited hy the trajectory of previous years of hard work.
I agree with what you’ve said too, but again, I think the dems would have done a lot of this either way. Not as callously, not as absurdly, but they had a chance to lock up trump, Pence, McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., and chose not to do it in order to protect themselves. Biden had more deportations than trump did in his first term. We just didnt hear about it. Are you telling me every single one of those people were guilty of whatever crime? Or that families weren’t torn apart?
I agree that it wouldnt be as bad as it currently is, but they were both trending in that direction. Genocide would have continued at the same pace. People were losing their homes and families while the rich buy up all estates for dimes and dollars under the dems too.
You say “compromise, nuance, and empathy will slow you down, but thats not a reason to abandon your principles”. I would argue that a lot of people were refusing to abandon their principles - namely genocide being bad and promises being broken, and the democratic party showed theirs - namely corporate welfare, money, and lip service to the middle and lower classes. The thing was, those principles were not the same.
The immediate response and the response ever since from Dems has been to blame every sort of minority they could (Arab Americans, black americans, millenials, latinos), while refusing to countenance the fact that those groups still did by and large vote majority for dems. The people who didnt were white men and women. On top of that, they keep talking about how the voters were wrong and cost them, rather than focusing on what they did wrong, which everyone was shouting from the rooftops.
Things were not great before Trump. Thats why he won the first term, in addition to the DNC shooting themselves in the foot and doing all they could to stop Bernie. Biden stabilized some stuff, but didnt do much for anyone, and things got worse from the first trump term. Its not like everything was sunshine and roses while the dems were in charge. And even if they do come back in charge, they fucked themselves by allowing the Republicans to stack every single court in the country. Again, that level of incompetence cannot be real - either they are fully incapable of planning anything, or they were okay with it happening.
Phew. Good thing they voted to avoid that.
You’re just happy they didn’t have an option to.
Yeah this one really bothers me. It seems like there were a lot of abstainers and protest voters based on this one issue. As if Trump winning was going to make anything better.
Voting in a general election in a first past the post system is always the lesser of two evils. Hold your nose and cast the ballot.
The real truth.
This is such a good comment. Like [email protected]
My ballot had more than two options.
It might have looked that way, but sadly it really didn’t. One of the two choices wanted you to believe that lie.
What makes you think so?
Which part? The fact that only two candidates were actually viable options? Or the fact that (at least) one of the candidates wanted you to think you could vote for a third party and not vote against your own interests?
No one is viable if you don’t vote for them. Why would I want to vote against my own interests?
Two candidates on the ballot were viable whether you voted for them or not. If you didn’t vote for one of those two candidates, you voted against your own interests by not voting for your preferred candidate. If you did not have a preferred candidate during the presidential election, you weren’t paying attention.
My preferred candidate was Jill Stein.
The only way to change that is to change the voting mechanism. FPTP makes the lesser-evil strategy the only rational one.
Lesser-evil + direct-action your way to a civilized voting mechanism, like ranked choice or something. Best case scenario we can do it mostly electorally. Worst case scenario it’s mostly direct action. It’s probably gonna be a combination of the two: lesser evil to minimize the hostility, then direct action to actually do the work.
Yeah, the US desperately needs a voting system overhaul so we can actually have more than two options. Unfortunately neither party wants to allow new competition so it’s not going to happen until we make it happen. And explaining how a different voting system would even work is complicated enough that most Americans’ eyes glaze over before you’re even done explaining how our current system works.
“You list the candidates in the order of your preference, with your favourite one first. Your vote isn’t wasted if you put a third party first.”
But that’s the thing: the lesser of two evils IS what you choose.
Until the perfect candidate emerges, runs, and wins the last election we’ll ever really need - ha! - EVERY choice is a choice between two imperfect options, and you’re choosing between those two evils.
But this is how we improve things: we vote for the better one. And then we do it again and again each time, picking the lesser evil no matter whom, until we move that sociopolitical window closer to the ideal and we get better and better options. We don’t do this if we spite-vote for the worst option because the better option is still imperfect, or else we get the setback like America will have for decades.
What do we do if we continue to vote for the lesser evil for decades, but the sociopolitical window keeps moving further from the ideal, and our options keep getting worse?
rejoice that voting for the lesser evil works as intended.
Why would you vote for evil?
Because not voting for evil isn’t going to stop evil from getting elected, so might as well at least try for the lesser evil.
You’re voting to get somebody elected, not to stop somebody else from being elected.
Says who? There is one seat. By filling that seat with person A, you prevent person B from filling it. It’s a very simple concept.
It is a very simple concept. You are voting FOR somebody to fill that seat.
Yes. It is a single occupancy seat. When you vote FOR someone to fill that seat, you are voting AGAINST anyone else filling that seat.