when will be your last time to vote for the "lesser of two evils"?
when will be your last time to vote for the "lesser of two evils"?
When will be your "this is the last fucking time I'm voting for the 'lesser of two evils', then I don't care after that, let this country burn to the ground"? For me, this is basically it. This is last election I'm going for that " lesser of two evils" bullshit. After that I'm done. It's just pointless. Let's hear it.
Uh, never? As an American I can easily recognize that we live in a 2-party political system in which you have 3 real options:
- Vote for the Democrats
- Vote for the Republicans
- Don't vote / Waste your vote
American politics is a game of tug-of-war. You can spend as much time as you want lamenting that the rope isn't exactly where you want it to be right now. But the fact is that one party is pulling the rope to the left and the other party is pulling it to the right. If you want the rope to move right you better join the people on the right, and if you want the rope to move to the left you better join the people on the left. And more to the point, if for whatever reason you don't want to pull (maybe because it seems futile or maybe because you just don't like the people on your team) then where can you expect it to move other than away from where you want it to be?
There is no politician on Earth who perfectly represents my politics, ideals or philosophy. If I wanted someone who perfectly represented exactly what I want I would get politically active and run for office myself. In lieu of that, what else can I hope for but to vote for the people who happen to be pulling in my direction, or at the very least pulling back against the mob of right-wing fascist criminals.
I don't think Biden is perfect, but he's certainly not evil. What's more, I know exactly what we're up against when it comes to Trump and the Republicans (who at best are spineless impotent political cowards, and at worst are fascist activists who want to strip people of rights, further rob the working class, deny climate change in the name of profit, destroy what little democracy we have, and weaponize the government against political enemies).
I've said this before and I'll say it again for all takers, name any politician who you think would be making more progress on important issues (healthcare, climate, education, transportation, lgbtq rights, women's rights, the economy, etc.) than Biden right now and I'll give you at least 3 reasons why they wouldn't. (Hint: the House, the Senate, the courts, state legislatures, inflation, unstable geopolitics, post-pandemic economic change, etc.) Bernie or Warren could be sitting in the Oval Office today, and we still wouldn't have universal healthcare (because of Congress), we still wouldn't have been able to wipe out student debt (because of the courts), we still would have to deal with wars and terrorism overseas (because of aggression from countries like Russia and Iran), and we still would be feeling the effects of inflation (because of decades of low interest rates coupled with pandemic supply chain fuckery).
So yeah, I'm not gonna stop voting for the better candidate of the two, because what the fuck else would any reasonable person do? Pull the rope towards where you want it to go. It's not hard.
BTW: If you regret that we live within a political reality where we have limited choices and the risks of wasting your vote are high, then you should join the movement to implement more democratic voting systems like Ranked-Choice (aka Instant Runoff) or STAR, as well as reforms to political dark money.
Even still, many of these changes are more likely to happen at a state/local level before anything can happen federally. But that's just one more good reason to be interested and involved in regional politics also.
also afaik (i’m not american but yknow; can’t escape the intricacies of US politics) changes at the state/local level can often effect federal elections directly… aren’t there some places that do ranked choice voting federally?
Great response!
I too will keep voting for the better choice.
Voting a third party is not throwing your vote away. It’s actually often the best way to make your vote matter.
Third parties in the US tend to run on smaller platforms pushing their key issues. Typically, these issues attract voters on one side of the spectrum more than the others: in other words, some third parties attract liberal voters while others attract conservative voters. This means that they compete with one of the major parties more strongly than the other for votes.
Votes for a major party typically do not have a huge effect on the presidential race unless you’re in a swing state. For example, the last time my state voted Republican was 35 years ago, and since then a Democrat has one by more than 10 percentage points. A million Biden voters could have switched their votes to a third party last election and he would have still won my state.
But a million votes for a third party would have been noticed by the Democrats, especially if similar numbers were posted across the US. The Democrats would have had to figure out why they were losing votes, and amend their platform in the future to win those lost voters back.
For example, major work reforms in the early 20th Century (including ending child labor, the 8 hour workday, and the 40 hour workweek) and the focus on the federal budget in the last 30 years have both been due to third parties pushing their pet issues into prominence and forcing the major parties into taking stances on them. A vote for a third party is a warning sign to the major parties that they need to amend their platforms in the future to avoid losing more votes, and that pushes change way faster than blindly voting a single party’s status quo.
Voting a third party is not throwing your vote away. It’s actually often the best way to make your vote matter.
I strongly disagree with this.
Elections are simply a case of math. If you abstain from voting, write in some random name, or otherwise vote for a candidate who is statistically incapable of winning, then there are only still only two outcomes for your vote:
- In the best case scenario, like you're describing, your vote has no effect on the outcome and your 2nd place candidate happens to win anyway.
- In the worst case scenario, however, vote splitting leads to the well-documented phenomenon known as the spoiler effect. In which case the 3rd most popular candidate, who may not represent anything close to the will of the democratic plurality, will win.
Personally I always plan around the worst case scenario when making important decisions, and so I don't believe in the concept of the "protest vote". Especially since so little concrete information can be derived from "reading the tea leaves" of 3rd party votes. (A big part of your premise revolves around the idea that someone out there will somehow get whatever message you're trying to send by voting for a 3rd party candidate. And that's obviously a very indirect and abstract form of protest even in the best case scenario. )
Also I think it's a strech to attribute easily 20th century work reforms to 3rd parties as they exist today considering two points: (1) there was a radical shift in political power, generally towards progressivism, at that time and (2) it can be argued that many of these reforms could be attributed more to labor unions in general than any one political party.
Vote how you want, or not at all, but we can't escape math in the end. Statistically speaking, a protest vote is at best a benign waste of a vote and at worst the cause of undemocratic election outcomes via the spoiler effect. So I'll continue to recommend against it, and recommend for more democratic voting systems that are less prone to manipulation and spoilage.
I really feel sorry for people in the USA.
The worst thing that happened to your country since WW2 was fighting and winning the cold war. The outright rejection of anything even slightly left of centre as communism!!! has destroyed your democracy.
Add in non compulsory voting and I have no idea how you change it.
Being real, it wasn't the cold war that fucked us. Jim Crow fucked us. Hundreds of years of slavery and racism ruined us. Everything post cold war you're thinking of goes back to the divide that wants to keep black people down. The side that wants that also wants to keep the gays and women in their place too, but they want the blacks back in their fucking cotton fields first.
When the racists had a setback during the civil rights era, they hid. Everyone else thought they would die off and that was that. But then the southern strategy was enacted, and the fuckers started undoing things slow enough that it didn't look as bad as it was. Between the racists hiding, and the oligarchs buying anyone they could off, we got to where we are now. In danger of civil war, and with no will on one side to fight it.
This is exactly what fucked us. You breathe next to some idiots and you're a "communist". What's sad is that they don't even know how to fucking define "communism" or whatever they call you. You ask for fair wages for workers? You're a communist/socialist. You ask for free/affordable healthcare college? Fuck you you fucking communist. And so on. They just throw it around.
What an enlightening comment. It made me think. Thanks.
when the greater evil doesn't want me dead just for existing and isn't trying to destroy democracy
It's ok, you can stop voting, actually everyone should stop voting, that way there will be no "lesser of two evils", it will just be the WORST evil taking over.
And you won't even be allowed to have the free speech rights to get on the internet and bitch about it, because that's how dictatorships in fascist countries work.
Maybe if Americans knew how good other countries have it, they might stand up and fight for a better nation and DEMAND changes in the laws that govern our elected officials, instead of constantly voting for idiots whose only agenda after getting elected is to destroy America and make it a fucked up theocracy.
You get the country you participate in.
[steps off soap box, turns off spotlight and leaves the building]You're probably gonna continue reading doomer posts on the internet, getting grey hairs and high blood pressure
But the one chance you can do something to change things
You just won't?
I'm just sick of it all.
Welcome to adulthood.
That's fair. I'm just trying to say, consider how you direct that resentment. It might be far healthier in the long run to limit how much you consume news media, rather than swearing off voting
If you choose not to vote, you're only helping the greater of two evils.
Until it actually boils over or we get rid of first past the post (and you'll need MASSIVE protests to do the latter.)
Fuck accelerationists. They're either dumbfucks who think their Apocalypse Badass Man fantasies will come true (and contrary to popular belief this person absolutely exists on the left,) or yuppies who know they have an easy out in the form of either a work visa in somewhere like Canada or leeching from a developing country working remotely and not contributing to where they live at all (and so many of these yuppies are self-proclaimed collectivists.) The rest of us are getting out of here in a casket or a refugee boat if it boils over. So how about we take at least a modicum of effort to take care of our society. Voting is the bare minimum.
Given the opportunity to vote in its current form, I'll keep voting no matter how evil the lesser of two evils is. By definition it's better than the alternative
When a third party candidate isn’t some kind of batshit crazy, actually exercises greater ethics, and has a chance in hell of winning.
And “last time” is pretty optimistic.
Better question for the "lesser of two evils" crowd: What's the endgame here? In my experience, the strategy is to try to hold together enough of a Democratic voting bloc by browbeating and berating leftists to keep the greater evil out of office, and the result is that politics has marched steadily to the right, Now we're teetering on the edge of fascism, with a Democratic President supporting genocide in another country and breaking strikes like he was ol' Ronnie. We can't go on like this. It can't work forever. Eventually, the threat of a fascist getting into office will be a reality; they only have to win once, and we have to win every time. It could very well be 2024 that they do it.
At what point do we attempt something better? As commentators like Thomas Pikkety have written, there are important issues that transcend the traditional left-right spectrum, that could peel away a lot of working-class voters who feel abandoned by the neo-liberal policies of the Democratic Party.
Do we just keep voting for the lesser evil in the hopes that we can do it long enough for some unforeseen, future political shift to just sort of happen before the lesser evil is also a fascist?
I suppose it'll continue until enough people believe that it's possible for a third party to win.
I think ranked choice voting would make it much simpler to foment that change. People need to be able to trust that breaking from the party line has a real chance of success, but that can't happen without demonstrating support.
If we can't have real ranked choice voting, a third party could build a website to let people coordinate votes according to ranked choice, and hopefully carry the result as a unified bloc to the polls. Have an agreement that if a certain threshold of participation is met, vote for the ranked choice result. Otherwise, lesser of 2 evils.
the way to change the system isn’t through the system… you’re not going to get a 3rd party in a US federal election the way it’s structured right now!
the way you get a 3rd party is to change the game: participate locally to change to ranked choice voting (etc), try and get the NPVIC passed (although that might be a pipe dream for now)
in the meantime, vote for the lesser of 2 evils because real important things are at stake
I remember when an outfit called The New Party tried it back in the 1990’s. They organized locally to push for electoral fusion (allowing candidates to run in on mutltiple party tickets) and alternative vote count systems.
The Democratic Party conspired with the Republican Party to shut down New Party reforms. The two entrenched powers are not about to let third parties become viable. I’m not sure that’s a viable tactic in states that don’t have direct-democracy mechanisms to get around them.
I appreciate this comment so much
I vote third party every time. I don't care if they're more likely to lose, the whole point of a democracy is that we vote honestly and that every voice actually serves as a voice which goes against the herd mentality. So I've never voted for the "lesser of two evils", I've been voting for actual good people every time because they friggin' earned it, not the people who have leveraged into victory based on the fact they have victory in the first place.
This would be perfectly fine with ranked choice voting.
Unfortunately, the US doesn't have that so that's the same as an empty vote. You get to take the "moral high ground" while still actively voting to let the country go to the dumps. Great job.
How is it voting to let the country go to the dumps when in the same logic it's supposedly throwing said vote away? It's neither; I didn't vote for the country to go to the dumps, I voted for the third party candidate, in contrast to people who voted for one of the two main candidates based on peer pressure and more literally voted for the country to go to the dumps. That, I argue, is wasting your vote, because at that point it's not even your own vote. The point of voting is that all votes are holons of the result, not drops in a nebulous mass.
okay but that’s just screaming into the void… they gain nothing from your vote, you gain nothing from your vote… it doesn’t matter how worthy they are, it’s exactly the same in literally every way as not voting
They gain a vote from my vote (a vote like any other, and it's not like one of the leading parties doesn't someday naturally lose as well), and I gain the license to say I acted like a person in this democracy, not the kind of person who "just follows orders" just because the outcome of those who do is the most likely to succeed. I could always "not vote" but I might as well try. To try and fail is better to never try. And I will always vote based on my own genuine thoughts and nobody else's, naturally this means not voting for the two candidates who are the embodiment of taking things for granted. Plus it's not like nobody is tuning in.
Wow, finally, a fucking sane comment. There is hope still then.
2016 was my year, and that election pretty much slapped me in the face for doing so.
Until the fascist part stops being fascists, I feel morally obligated to vote for the same party for the continued benefit (and rights) of the LGBT+ members of my family.
i, and i’m sure they, appreciate the heck out of that sentiment
That would be 12 years ago! I didn't see any acceptable future for me in North America, and immigrated to Vietnam. I integrated reasonably well, and this is my culture now. You could say my last vote was with my feet, labor, and wallet :D
I don't hate the West or anything, in fact I wish you all the best! However I am fully invested in working towards the success of my new country and this part of the world in general.
It always has been, and always will be, voting for the lesser evil. That's because of the voting system. Single vote, winner take all. Push for ranked choice or some other vote system. Then we can learn if it's turtles (evil) all the way down.
Then we can learn if it's turtles (evil) all the way down.
@DeweyOxberger well, as someone who voted to change the electoral system and got what I wanted (the country changed to Mixed Member Proportional voting aka MMP, I can report from the other side...
We have found it's Winston all the way down.
He's a populist centrist and a bit of a troll, and he has managed to position himself politically in such a way that waiting for Winston to hammer out deals so we can find out who the government is, is a pretty normal here.
We're waiting right now for him in fact. The party with the most votes can't govern without him.
It's still way better than FPP though.
We have preferential voting here, so I stick the lesser of two evils in front of the evil party but behind the people I actually want in power.
In the primaries, I tend to vote for the person I want to see in office. In the general election, I tend to vote against the person I don't want in office.
I'm saying "tend to" because sometimes I engage in strategic voting. I run through all the poll numbers I can find before the election. If there's any chance that my preferred "person who has a realistic chance of getting into office" might lose my district/state, then I'll vote for my preferred person.
But if there's no realistic chance that they'll lose my state - like, say I was a Democrat in California, then my vote for the president essentially doesn't matter. I mean, if Biden(Clinton/Obama/whoever) lost California, then there's realistically no way they'd have enough Electoral College votes to become president. So I can vote for whoever I want to for president - and I do.
Sometimes I do it for the money. The FEC has a thing where if a party/candidate gets 5% of the vote, they become eligible for federal matching funds the next election. Realistically, only the Democrats and Republicans benefit at the moment, but I'd like to see the pool expand so sometimes I vote in hopes that a group or person will qualify for matching funds.
And sometimes I do it to send a message. The parties spend a lot of money collecting and parsing data. So say I'm that Californian Democrat voting in 2020, where my vote will make absolutely no difference in who gets elected president, because California (as a voting bloc) is very Democratic. Since in that particular case, it doesn't make a difference in who I vote for for president, I can use my vote to send a pointed message to the Democrats: Hey, look, even in the general election, I voted for (and sometimes wrote in) this other candidate who is very into worker's rights and the environment. These are issues that are important to me, and you should keep that in mind when you're deciding policy.
Again, I don't do that sort of thing when there's even a chance my vote will make a difference. But if my vote isn't going to make a difference, then I'll try to make it count in some other way. I just wish all the people who refuse to vote because "my vote will never make a difference" would also go and vote. Maybe we'd actually get a semi-viable third party, or more influence over party platforms.
I will always vote (but i'm in europe)
I plan to vote, so I will be voting for the lesser of two evils. From now until I die. That's what voting is.
Before I choosing not to vote, I would vote for someone I think deserves the vote most even if the chances of them winning are practically 0.
Everyone hates the candidates and our voting system and they will vehemently defend supporting both.
I'll keep voting for the less evil option until I'm physically unable to vote.
I dunno, pretty much my entire life it's been choosing between degrees of evil in one party and degrees of capitalist greed sucking from another. None of the alternative parties have fielded a candidate I could support either, but that's not the point
The point is that there aren't two evil parties. There's one of those, and one other party that's full of shit, but not evil. Then there's a bunch that are just useless because we have a first past the post system. Not that any of them are exactly bastions of goodness, even the ones that are closer to my views. They're all fucking politicians. Never fully trust anyone that wants that kind of power and authority.
But, let's be clear here. There's only one party that literally courts neo-nazi votes and works to undo not only legal rights, but human rights.
Vote for useful things and voting reform at the local level.
Vote for whatever keeps the system itself functioning at the federal level. If one party's leaders are in bed with "presidents for life" or the authoritarian governments that were ratfucked to make them presidents for life, you are going to end up with a president for life.
Important to note: If enough states enact voting reform at the local level, you no longer need a constitutional amendment to have voting reform that influences the federal level. If you are looking for real change, this is where it is. It is slow and unsexy, but don't bitch about your federal vote meaning nothing if you're not doing anything with your local elections.
2020 was the last time. I'm abstaining until either party can put out a candidate who will actually help me or the American "experiment" reaches its natural conclusion. I really don't care anymore.
The blessing of having MMP is .. you don't have to vote for a lesser evil! You can actually vote for a good option!
I did! And they didn't get in because Money! It's fucking awesome!
Sometimes they get in though, at least it's not structurally completely sewn up like in the US.
During the Iraq War, Kurt Vonnegut was asked about the anti-war protests.. His response was that, during Vietnam, he was part of anti-war protests firing on all cylinders and laser-focused and going to stop that war. He said it was ultimately about as effective as climbing to the top of a ladder and tossing a pie on the ground. This time will be no different.
So I don't know what you're hoping to gain. The 'Ima take my ball and go home' approach didn't work out so well in 2016. Threatening not to vote isn't going to phase anyone in a country where more than half the population doesn't vote anyway. Maybe instead of threats you should work with other people trying to help the people you want elected get elected.
It was 2004.
Voting the lesser evil is a downward spiral of evil. If no candidates can meet the minimum standard, abstain on that race and fill out the rest of the ballot. It sucks, but it sucks a lot less than enabling whichever monster can be slightly less monstrous for the ten months before the election.
You guys were voting based on "lesser of two evils" and not based on who you actually like?
I've always just voted for the guy I like best. I never felt that voting tactically was truthful.
If everyone was like me we'd have a nicer political climate, I think.
I'll keep doing that so you can feel free to join me in doing that until we reach the critical mass point.
That assumes that there are any viable candidates running that we actually like. That's becoming more and more a pipe dream, haven't seen one since Obama.
Basically when I don't feel like there are plans for immediate sweeping terrible decisions that will take decades to undo
When the greater of two evils who might win if I don't isn't a raging narcissistic fascist.
Probably the last time I voted. American democracy is a fucking scam
Don't say that, you're going to be chased out very soon by the "fall in line" mob. They're fucking worse than Republicans. If you don't fall in line, they'll eat you alive.
Nope. Encouraging voting is categorically not worse than the Republicans.
In 2020 I voted 3rd party. No illusion of them winning I just wanted to vote in a way that could help demonstrate to the 2 parties that there's a important segment of Americans that they're overlooking.
If a third party gets enough of a percentile where they could decide if Reps or Dems win we might see them adapt to have policies that cater closer to the desires of that third party.
But what's more important is your local elections. The president is much less important in your life than your governor or mayor is.
The chances of your vote being the one to change the outcome of a large election are extremely small, so it doesn't really matter that much what you do with your ballot. However, if you have the means to influence other people's votes, that might count for something. Therefore, I think it's good to discourage people from voting for the apparent lesser of two evils. If you vote, try to vote as best as you can for your class interests. (Chances are that you belong to the working class.) Don't feel bad about abstaining if the candidates to choose from represent class interests that are counter to yours to the extent that you can barely tell them apart.
imagine how good the world would be if America imported the Australian style Westmister system.
As long as it takes until the youth voting rate matches that of the elderly and we get good options that actually change anything...
But that would rely on us getting out and voting instead of bitching online so I don't have much hope.
I’m with you penguin. I’ll vote for neoliberalism to fend off fascism, but having to vote for genocide in another country to fend off fascism in America is a bitter pill. Biden has year to make amends though, he may turn it around. But he lost a lot of voters over Gaza.
It all boils down to the voting system. FPTP is as systematically focused on emphasizing the "lesser of two evils" as it gets. We need to change that before we can vote with our hearts.
Also, what do you think Trump would have done about Gaza if he was in office? His recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is part of what made all this inevitable.
Three elections ago.
i dont vote. somewhere along the line some dumbass thought it would be a really good idea to pull jury nominees from the voter pool. jury duty is a complete waste of my time, it pays absolute dogshit, and I've never really had much trust in the justice system to begin with - so I am not registered to vote in the state I live in. the week before I plan on leaving for greener pastures, I will register to vote.