Your attempt at rationalization to feel better about your choice doesn't change reality.
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- Thread starter Team Alucard
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Your attempt at rationalization to feel better about your choice doesn't change reality.
Strong this. The freakout in this thread is laughable.
Optically however, it certainly isn't going to help Clinton with Sanders' supporters. I think they are betting that fear of Trump will push then to Hillary over any objections to Kaine, however superficial.
"Trump's evil, but I'm ok doing nothing."
Well yes - that's pretty important at this point in the game. Especially seeing as her favorability took a hit after the FBI investigation (which I agree she shouldn't have been indicted - please don't start on that). Not only will the republicans use that against her, they will use this against her as well. Clearly not all of America is as pro Hillary as GAF is, and it will clearly affect her, regardless of whatever juvenile insults you decide to fling at people.
If you believe democrats will be the only people voting third party, then it would certainly help Trump's chances of being elected. However, I think Cruz's statements resonated with a lot of republicans, and they too are dealing with the struggle of voting third party, sitting out the election, or sucking it up and voting Trump like many democrats are with Hillary.
And it should be Hillary and her campaign's job to get people to support her and feel good about doing so. This "get in line and vote for Hillary or you have no right to talk about xyx/don't support minorities/don't support women's rights" etc. etc. rhetoric is vile.
So you are actively telling people you plan telling yourself there was no need to vote if the person you don't want to win, wins, and it's all everyone else's doing? I'm not sure how that's going to help you feel better.
Father_Brain
Banned
While I can see that this particular criticism of Kaine might be overblown, the notion of "a vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump" is nonsense for most of the country.
That's literally how our voting system works though...
I think he means most solidly blue states or solidly red states aren't going to be swayed by third-party voters.
Yes but those states are still colored by a vote ratio. One less vote for either affects the other.
It's mathematically incorrect. Switching from red to blue (or vice versa) is twice as harmful to your preferred candidate as voting 3rd or sitting out.
They're colored by a winner-take-all system. All votes for the winner beyond the one the creates the plurality by definition do not affect the outcome.
I understand your position, and I agree that the Dems forced many of us into a shitty situation. I don't like Hillary at all.
However, this is not a normal election where we can afford to protest this through a third party vote. The stakes are too high: there is a monster who knows nothing and seems to care even less for how to actually run a country, and seems hell-bent on leading via childish urges alone. Perhaps even more importantly, this election will decide the forseeable future of the Supreme Court.
There are so many human rights issues that are potentially going to be decided over the next decades, and we have a chance to change every one of them by getting a majority left SC. This appointment will have consequences that reach far beyond this four-year term.
So it doesn't matter whose fault it is. What matters is what happens next.
User Name Here
Member
Well no. And to be honest, I just saw an opportunity for a joke post and went with what I said.
CitizenVectron
Member
It depends. If you weren't planning on voting, then a vote for a 3rd party is not a vote for trump. But if you were going to vote for Clinton and now are voting for a 3rd party, then you are reducing the threshold of votes Trump needs to win by 1, which is effectively a vote for Trump, mathematically. Switching from Clinton to Trump gives Trump a net of 2 votes since you are depriving Clinton of 1 and giving 1 to Trump.
But it all depends on your original intentions.
Already Torn
Banned
How do you figure? Hillary needs more votes than Trump to win, and nobody else is gonna win. It's pretty intuitive.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
But... the optics
UnemployedVillain
Member
I hate that word so much
jack_package_200
Banned
Optics belongs with Establishment in bottom of a trash bin
Father_Brain
Banned
I'm referring to the Electoral College. Most of us live in states where the outcome is effectively predetermined in favor of either Clinton or Trump, and the third-party/write-in vote is too marginal to make any difference.
I would advise anyone living in an actual swing state to vote for Clinton, whatever their qualms (though I still place most of the onus on Clinton and her campaign to win Sanders supporters over). I would advise anyone else to weigh the candidates and their actual platforms/records, and then vote their conscience.
And I'd like to remind them that there are going to be more things on the ballot than President.
Muppet of a Man
Member
I'd say we need a parliamentary system, actually. Would do us the most good.
It's a red state trrending purple, of course it is.
I've lived in both VA (red) and MD (blue). Regulatory overkill is a real thing.
Team Alucard
Banned
Are you surprised? The Democrats don't really care about labor anymore, at least not on the national level.
More like VA's state legislature has been republican for the past 15 years.
Father_Brain
Banned
...I don't see how that contradicts what I said?
Please stop lying.
They have just passed a platform with a massive increase in the minimum wage and it includes the following paragraph:
https://www.demconvention.com/wp-co...emocratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf
I'm going to keep calling you out, by the way.
Team Alucard
Banned
Because Bernie Sanders (not a mainstream Democrat) pressured them into doing so.
Its meaningless lip service.
And_Gignac
Member
I know Clinton is cynical, but I don't think she is dumb. Let's see what he actually says or what his new positions will be.
I don't think he will make a sharp contrast. I hope so.
I don't think he will make a sharp contrast. I hope so.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
i mean if you want to get formal theoretic about it, you can create a utility function (utility functions are basically scores of how happy we are with a choice and how we compare choices we face):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_voting
Benefit of voting = (Difference in utility between a Clinton presidency and a Trump presidency) * (probability that you cast the tie-breaking vote that elects Clinton) - Costs of voting + Consumption value of voting
Costs of voting are the time and effort associated with voting, which are very small but non-zero. Consumption value is the good feeling you get from voting, telling people you voted, etc even if your candidate loses.
A vote for Clinton is:
V = pB - C + D
A vote for a third party is:
V' = 0 - C + D + D'
The 0 here is because there is a 0 probability a third party will win, so we needn't compare the relative magnitude of the probability or our preference for the third party to Clinton. D' here is the added consumption value of voting your conscience, helping third parties get funding, etc. Maybe you have a preference for the third party but don't feel any better voting for them, in which case D' is 0--but I think most people feel better about voting for candidates they prefer.
Someone who supporters a third party should vote third party when:
V > V', which happens if and only if D' > pB
They should vote Clinton when:
V' > V, which happens if and only if pB > D'
We can't really parameterize utility units, so B and D' are left unspecified to be specified by the voter. We can parameterize p. The likelihood that you're the deciding vote is either 0 in a non swing-state (in which case this is a moot discussion--if you're mad that a Californian votes for Johnson or Stein, you're just wasting breath) or 1/n in a swing state, where n is the number of voters in that state. Let us take Florida as the decisive state but allow that in the unlikely scenario that Trump loses Florida but runs the gamut on other swing states, he'd win. In Florida in 2012 there were 8.3 million voters. So p = 1/8,300,000 or 1 * 10^-7, which rounds to 0. The smallest swing-ish state is maybe Ohio, which had 5.4 million voters, so p = 2 * 10^-7, which rounds to 0.
Let us grant that B is unusually large in this election, because Trump would make an unusually bad president. But are the units of p and D' so large that they are able to make up for the tiny magnitude of p? That seems a little dramatic, even if you are a member of a group targeted for animus by Trump. We can probably make inferences about utility magnitude by considering how people respond to other very unlikely events. Should you not swim in a swimming pool during a lightning storm? You should not. But should you wake up every day scared that you might die in a lightning strike? Do you build your life around lightning strikes? Around Zika? Around dying in a car crash? Probably not, right. So that implies something about our utility calculus; the magnitude of our global maximum B, the difference between life and death, is fairly small compared with the magnitude of p.
So I would argue that a formal model of voting would suggest that someone who has even a small preference of voting for a third party should probably vote for a third party... if you're thinking "what the hell is this rabbit hole he's going down with this fancy math and Wikipedia links", then maybe it was a mistake to make this a numbers game instead of just discussing it conceptually.
Overall, I think it is the case that people worry a great deal too much about third party voters. First, most third party voters are basically ideological schizophrenics; analysis of Nader voter downballot activity in Florida suggests that Nader drew votes from both presidential candidates (perhaps Gore a little more, but a lot less than most people thought)--setting aside the fact that it's not clear Gore actually "lost" Florida (i.e. if a slightly different count was used, we wouldn't be blaming Nader voters for costing Gore the presidency, another forum would be blaming Nader voters for costing Bush the presidency); analysis of Perot voters using public opinion data was I believe similarly inconclusive. Most of the people threatening to vote third party won't vote at all. Most of them who do vote will come back to one of the major two parties. That's without getting into the argument that no one owes anyone a duty of any particular vote, and if a third party somehow bleeds off 10 or 20% it's probably due to a big structural failure to court voters--which does deserve some consideration even if you also resent the electoral result. Also, as we saw from the morning after "I had no idea what I was voting for" Brexit people, if you want to blame someone, probably start with the people who literally have no idea where or who they are rather than the people who just have preferences you disagree with.
I agree that it is worth asking third party voters to consider a strategic vote, and in a world where just this forum thread were voting it'd make a lot of sense to expect compromise. But given the number of voters in any state of a US election I think it's foolish to worry too much about this problem in any large scale.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
2012 platform:
https://www.democrats.org/party-platform
This is great, and I just wanted to point out that I appreciated the post
I think the main thing people ignore when being outraged at third party candidates is the negative/positive utility of casting the vote to someone.
This is largely why (passions aside, sometimes it's hard to avoid it) I'd rather connect directly to the policies that makes someone vote for a third party in the first place, rather than making the "you should be a rational voter with ZERO direct utility from the act of voting for a protest candidate". I freely admit that I often fail at this.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
dude if you're just going to spend the next 5 months saying "it doesn't matter what Democrats say because secretly they mean the opposite", I can make it a tag and you don't need to waste your effort typing it.
This is how politics works for people with no actual beliefs, people who base their vote on tribalism and emotion. No one's policies matter to you. If they're good, they're lies.
jack_package_200
Banned
metalslimer
Member
From a Trump supporter, this is hilarious
lol, that avatar. Did people love Bernie for his anti-science views?
wesleyshark
Banned
This is Hillary we are talking about
CrimsonCommie
Member
Honestly this guy doesn't seem much worse than Biden who helped overcrowd our prisons.
And_Gignac
Member
Aaronology
Member
Irrelevant. Your posts suggest you lack the necessary critical thinking skills to objectively analyze your available options. There are exactly two platforms with the power to affect change in this cycle. One, if elected, will catastrophically retard Progressivism for an entire generation in this country. In the face of this, the degree to which the other option advances progressive causes is actually pretty moot.
This is not "Project Guilt" or an attempt to shame you into doing something you do not want. How you feel about this political reality is completely immaterial. I am simply telling you what the viable options are for any voter who considers themselves progressive. Whether or not you fall in that group will be determined by what you do this November, not by flowery words on a message board.
Then by all means, Manakel, detail the ways in which voting for a candidate other than Hillary Rodham Clinton will actively affect change and further Progressivism in the United States this November.
I'll wait.
I am not replying to this.
googleplex
Member
Sorry, but this shit doesn't fly. You're basically trying to abdicating responsibility if a racist, xenophobic, white nationalist becomes president. Taking your ball and going home, and trying to wash your hands of the whole thing shows a disturbing lack of empathy for the millions of Americans that will be directly effected if Thrump becomes president.
jack_package_200
Banned
Damn you Melkr and your three dimensional chess mind games.
Glad you joined the winning team tho
Roberto Larcos
Member
Do you know what socialism is?
thestopsign
Member
GAF is significantly more put together than most places actually. You just have to be prepared to backup whatever opinion you bring forward if you don't want to be called out on bullshit, which is atypical on the internet.
jack_package_200
Banned
That and mods actually enforce rules here. Being a troll is not acceptable or saying horrible hateful things is not cool here.
Already Torn
Banned
I think you mean to say that free speech isn't tolerated if you don't support the liberal agenda! It's worse than Twitter!
GiantEnemyGoomba
Member
Are you joking? If the Supreme Court were currently more Republican controlled, same sex marriage still wouldn't be legal. Not to mention what it would also mean for abortion rights.
Meh. If it was something Truly disgusting like being anti black or LGBT, I'd agree to not pick him 100%, but here?
People will be a little mad, then get over it. The fact is that no matter who she picks, except for Ryan, is going to be to the right of her, especially those that in a swing state.
People will be a little mad, then get over it. The fact is that no matter who she picks, except for Ryan, is going to be to the right of her, especially those that in a swing state.
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