A whole swath of GOP voters appears firmly committed to not voting for Trump in November.
Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.
It’s an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it’s a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.
“I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”
“I can’t morally support the lesser of 2 evils”
Yes you can. Not voting/third party voting helps the Republican party. This is a mathematical fact. Every single person who doesn’t vote for Joe Biden and could is supporting Donald Trump. If you’re an eligible voter you can only influence the election in one of two directions. There is no “sitting out” option. It does not exist. Not voting does not remove your influence on the results, it simply lessens the impact.
Biden is not my first choice by any means, but this is the reality of the situation. If you think it could be fixed by electing Republicans to power I would be very interested in hearing how the fuck that would work.
Exactly. Spread this message far and wide! While our voting system needs reform and “first past the post” is less democratic than ranked choice and other methods, Donald Trump is an existential threat to our country and needs to be stopped now. Vote. That’s our current system! Then we can tackle voting reform, but you can be damn sure that will be impossible under a 2nd Trump presidency. But I know people hate hearing that things take time or can’t be done right away…
Not voting is ultimately voting for whoever wins the election.
Oh good, it’s this argument again. I’ve really never heard a statement that is more damaging to a conversation with an intent to sway votership than this one.
A vote for candidate C is not a vote for candidate B, but for the sake of the argument let’s assume it is. It’s possible to model an election using game theory, and it can be done in a few different ways. First I’m going to try is a 1 dimensional approach from the perspective of candidate A. A vote for candidate A is worth 1 point. A vote for candidate B is worth -1 point. A vote for any other candidate is worth 0 points. This is actually a fairly accurate model of how a winner takes all election system works. I’ll also play it from candidate B’s perspective to illustrate something.
There are 300 votes for candidate A There are 340 votes for candidate B There are 20 votes for candidate C from constituents who claim to be from party A There are 60 votes for candidate C from constituents who claim to be from party b
Candidate A: -40 Candidate B: 40
Interestingly, people who voted for candidate C do not show up in the final results at all and they hurt/helped each candidate equally. The only people whose votes actually had any real bearing on the election in this model were the people who turned out to vote for candidates A and B. I’ll let people draw their own conclusions from this thought experiment.
The real argument to make here however is that Biden is not the lesser of two evils and has in fact done a lot of good for the country in his term, or at least attempted to. The more important thing then voting for Biden is that people show up with an intent to put as many good senators and representatives in office as possible each election until we can get enough people in office to allow them presidential agenda to actually be able to do anything. Also to vote in your local elections for similar reasons.
The only goal for anyone who values what little democracy we have left is that Donald Trump does not get reelected. Period.
The only vote that helps that goal is for Biden.
There’s nothing to debate here, unless you’re an accelerationist. And in that case I’d just like to remind folks that revolution is brutal, not fun and exciting.
A secondary goal is to convince people who are on the fence about voting for trump to vote for literally anyone else.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention that the above statement is a much better argument AND is mathematically provable using the same method I used above (any vote not for candidate A becomes a -1 or a -2.)
It’s a much better statement to use when trying to sway voter opinion.
Also definitely the more important point I’m making above is that Biden is NOT the lesser of two evils. The moves he’s made have not been the biggest or the best but a lot of that’s in part because he needs a solid base of good Congress people working alongside him to accomplish any real progress on any of the initiatives he’s been pushing. The President does not make laws, though having the correct President in office does lower the bar at getting good laws passed. If a good law never crosses his desk because we have a bunch of regressives in office like we currently do, not a lot it’s going to happen.
In the US, only one of the two major parties will get elected as president. That means that either Trump or Biden will be elected barring one of them being incapacitated in some way before the election.
So you’re saying that between Biden and Trump, Biden is as evil, or more evil than Trump?
Holy crap no. I’m saying Biden has been actively good (to my surprise, but I digress) and to not want to vote for him “being the lesser of two evils” shows a disconnect from reality on par with the current state of the Republican everything.
A huge chunk of that ‘good’ never coming to light is a combination of media just never talking about it, and conservatives and regressives in Congress actively blocking his efforts (the most well known instance of this being the student loan debt forgiveness)
This thread is about people who refuse to vote for biden because he is the lesser of two scrolls, my original point was that giving people retoric like “a vote not for Biden is a vote for Trump” is a bad faith argument, and using more grounded statements like “voting for Biden is the best way to ensure we don’t get another term of Trump.”
Meanwhile it’s also with pointing out to the third party people who refuse to vote for Biden as the lesser of two evils that Biden is in fact not even an evil, and that he actively tried to do a lot of good. If we can stack congress with same congress people who have better things to given than people’s genitals age bedrooms and some decent bills make their way across his desk, he’s probably not going to veto them.
Some of the people using this argument are probably Bernie bros who are butthurt over Bernie stepping down in 2020 and the DNCs antics back in 2016. It’s probably worth mentioning that right now Bernie can do a lot more good in the Senate than he can in the oval office, since we have a president who wouldn’t block his policies. If Trump or Haley get into office that’s not going to be the case and refusing to vote for Biden over that hurts their favorite politicians agenda a lot.
Agreed. We can go back to a more nuanced discussion of voters choice and freedom of speech when we’re not actively barreling towards autocracy. If you don’t draw the line somewhere, you’re simply saying you don’t see a need for one.
False, If it is a mathematical fact prove it.
Also false. You are relying on the faulty assumption that there either candidate is entitled to your vote.
False. You are not forced to vote for anyone.
I agree with your overall point, but could you make your point without spouting blatantly false information that is just the party line.
In what world does : Not voting ≠ voting for someone else.
Holy shit this guy is dense af.
hmm, kinda seems like a personal attack. I wonder if the rules say anything about that.
You need to take into account that instead of not voting, you could have voted for the other candidate.
Simple example:
7 voters, 2 candidates, A and B. 3 will vote for A no matter what, 4 oppose A. If 1 voter doesn’t vote, there will be a tie of 3-3. If 2 don’t vote, A will win 3-2. If everyone votes, B will win 4-3.
Exactly, voting for someone is helping them get into office. Therefore, voting for candidate C is helping Candidate C. It does not help Candidate A or B. Similarly, voting for candidate B does not help candidate C or A.
In your first example with a tie, 3 voters chose to help candidate A, 3 voters to help candidate B. 1 person chose to help no one by not voting. That 1 person did not help A or B. Trying to argue otherwise is nonsense. It’s like saying by not downvoting a post with a misleading headline I am supporting it.
I would agree that not voting does usually hurt the democratic party, but that doesn’t mean it is always the case.
Ehat a weird hill you choose to die for.
Ok, I didn’t take third party voting into account, the example only works if the options are A, B or not voting. But if there was a third option with any chances of winning, things would look different anyway.
The case with the tie is included for the sake of completeness but it’s unlikely to happen, especially if there is more than one person choosing not to vote.
“But if there was a third option with any chances of winning, things would look different anyway.”
Aye, there’s the rub.
ROFL! Hilarious!
edit: i’m saying ive heard it, not that it’s something i agree with
i have heard the argument “with a democrat as president, the left is asleep”
i.e. there were no major protests during biden’s presidency that involved burning dumpsters…
When things are less bad people complain less?
well, the idea ive heard, is with a democratic president, they still do evil shit like destroy the environment and arm genocidal regimes… but the left is placated by a few concessions and symbolic gestures…
while under a replication president, they start actually disrupting things, organizing, and making changes…
i think there’s some truth in it, but it’s a stupid strategy…
there is definitely better punk rock under republican presidents, though…
always a silver lining ;)
Yeah and when the Republicans have a president they use trucks to run over peaceful protests, among other things.
yes
That stance only works if the foundations of the government are strong enough to ensure an eventual return to the status quo. We used to be able to safely assume that the pendulum would always swing back.
However we have learned that our foundations are not quite as stable as we all thought. We have learned that it’s based on a series of “gentleman agreements” that can just be ignored with no repurcussion.
And the next time the conservatives get to the white house – at least under the current political climate – it just might be the spark that launches the US into full-blown fascism. And we’re not coming back from that.
i agree with you… i was just saying something i’ve heard
And it always has been. For some reason people don’t seem to get this out of the stories of our founding fathers. Democracy has always been based on good faith at some level.
The founding fathers looked at monarchy and saw that it was eventually bad for everyone. Just ask Charles I or Richard III or Louis XVI (a little late) or James II.
Their aim was to spread power in order to make something more stable that would serve everyone better. But all the rules they made up relied heavily on good faith.
Politicians used to be aware of this and respect it. They’d hold differing opinions, but they both played by most of the rules, and would still meet at the DC bars at the end of the day. This is the main source of the idea that “they’re all the same”.
Newt Gingrich was the beginning of the end of bipartisanship in Washington. CSpam had starting airing Congress on television. Newt used this as a platform to win the game. He disregarded much of the Washington political etiquette in favor of using effectively propaganda to win elections for Republicans. He was Fox News before it was formalized into a news corporation.
We’ve broken enough of the good faith rules that it’s hard to get back. Obama made a real attempt at bipartisanship, and look where that got him. Dems are tired of getting run over by clinging to the old ideas of good faith, and Republicans abandoned it long ago.
In the old days this would eventually be resolved by the King’s army of 8000 men going against a rebellious army of 5000 men, and then having a large portion of the King’s army turn against the king whose head would soon roll.
We’ve forgotten how painful having family members die over politicial fights used to be, and we’re looking to repeat that history. It’s a coin flip whether we come back from this and establish good faith and mutual respect or we effectively end the era of the United States of America.
Forward progress in the world is a very recent thing. We’re not entitled to it. We’re about a month of empty grocery store shelves from going back to an agrarian society and feudalism.