"Lesser of two evils" voting

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > "Lesser of two evils" voting

FilthyImp: Sep 30, 2002; Anime Deviant

Mister Fister posted:

When the 2 options are getting punched in the face and shot in the face, is it any wonder why people aren't exactly enthused (even if one is obviously preferable to the other)?

I think it comes down to being removed enough from some of the negatives that you can live with the milquetoast positives that the lesser evil brings.

My buddy absolutely excoriated Clinton for her calculated punditry and, more damning to her, the policies she proposed that had an adverse effect on C/S America and the Middle East. She didn't want whatever progress would be made under the dems to come at the expense of the communities she was involved with.

Which, I get. But the other side is saying some of those communities are monsters who are murderers and rapists and is actively working to get them out of the country as fast and as inhumanely as possible.

You can say that both sides are steaming cauldrons of corruption, but one side is actively working to make that enormously worse. You can bemoan the Clintons skimming from their foundation, or using their political prestige to cozy up to the banker class [and yeah, we should absolutely work for a higher standard], but I like to think she would never appoint a non-qualified campaign donor to a top position like Trump did with DeVos, that the damage done to the State Department wouldn't have happened, that Hillary wouldn't be running off to her estate every other weekend, or positioning her investments to transparently and blatantly make dosh off of her position.

Even the economic argument is starting to fall flat, with the abject raiding of the middle class for 1% profits, or the gall at proposing the dismantling of Subsidized Loans for college-going individuals/letting CHiP expire.

phasmid posted:

Are you implying that half the country wants no healthcare, no jobs and expensive military ventures we can't afford?

I think it's pretty plain that a segment of the voting populace is in favor of "things that help us, but only when it's people like me" and will grind more (for lack of a better word) egalitarian programs to dust to get it.
Whether that's exactly half the country or a portion that helps steer things that way is up for debate.

phasmid posted:

Does someone have a real reason the "lesser of two evils" is a valid argument?

Presumably because the Greater Evil is really loving bad, in my opinion. Like, if you give me a binary choice between Mitt Romney and Joe Arpaio, I'll pull the level for Romney.

I loving hate Romney's economic policies, and I question the kind of people he'd put in charge of the Federal Government (and what kind of knock-on effects that would have down the line), but Arpaio would be demonstrably worse in just about every respect.

quote:

What do you do when one evil says you can only have water and the other says you can only have food?

It takes 10 days to die of thirst, and 30-40 to die of starvation. So water, since that'll have the most immediate effect?

quote:

No one's really explained to me how the parties are helping ordinary people.

When you consider ordinary people it gets complicated, because you can say that Cash to Clunkers helped some people but also say that it was emblematic of a bailout that was too small and too focused on the wrong things. Similarly, you can say that Obama's presidency provided much needed stability, but that stability came at the cost of stagnant wages, the birth of the gig economy, and an overall death of upward mobility or support for those hardest hit. And again you can argue that they didn't move up, but they didn't collapse in on themselves as it looked like 2007-08 wa poised to facilitate.

It's clear the Democratic party's moved to a more centrist, conservative, moderate position economically, and their relationship to labor really needs an overhaul. But they at least give lip service to some of the programs that help the vulnerable in our messed up society (funding PBS, keeping Meals on Wheels working) instead of actively clawing at the dessicated strands of our social net..

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FilthyImp: Sep 30, 2002; Anime Deviant

Teriyaki Koinku posted:

I'm enjoying the discussion so far, but here's a specific question I'd like to propose for the thread: what do you think of the lack of voting in the 2016 US Presidential election? Was it pure laziness?

Comfort and disillusionment.

Unless you were a wedding guest in the ME, there wasn't too much from the Obama presidency that rocked your world. If you were lucky, your 401k started going back up, or you held on to your house, or you were able to get married now or get healthcare. The successor just wasn't energizing enough and the relative stability was taken for granted, since the populace has this feeling that Good Times Keep Rolling and the President has a negligible effect on anything.

With both sides, there was trouble with faith in the institution. The left got burned by Sanders coming up short, the GOP old guard couldn't feel comfortable pulling the lever for Trump.

Cerebral Bore posted:

All of the brain geniouses ITT who are defending lesser evilism are either dumb or liars, because in reality lesser evilism doesn't loving work.

Lesser Evilism would have avoided Gorusch, and would have provided a working Government, and a budget that isn't a giant middle finger.

But you are right that it's the hardest of sells for an election.

I think there's also a recognition that Lesser Evil is unweildy and so mutable that it's troublesome to begin with. Because anyone can pull a policy or position and turn it into The Worst Ever, it becomes this giant nebulous term that changes according to the individual.
(See: Hillary is bad because she doesn't have principals/ no, she's bad because she's a warmonger/ no, she's too in bed with Wall Street/ no, she's Neoliberal)

quote:

So the only logical reason why people make the argument is either because they're completely out of touch or because it lets them feel smugly superior to people who've been driven away from voting by the failures of the parties of less racist neoliberalism.

That sounds more like the extreme Third Party advocates. I'm pretty sure Susan Sarandon feels pretty good about Killery not winning, despite the damage the current administration is doing to everything she's insulated from.

FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Feb 14, 2018

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 19:26

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