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How do people feel about the accuracy of polling data? I feel like that has a lot to do with how you approach the situation. If you assume that polling data is accurate, you would almost have to vote for one of the two candidates who are projected to take the majority of votes, but if you feel that polling data is completely inaccurate then you might assume that it is possible for a third party candidate to come from behind to win. From my point of view, American politicians owe almost nothing to their respective bases, because the design of the system only allows for a majority party candidate to win, so a voter's actual choice in the matter is severely restricted.
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Mar 3, 2018 10:53
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:33 |
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twodot posted:Why? Suppose you live in Idaho where the Republican candidate is projecting to win 99.whatever% of the time, do you then almost have to vote Republican? How is voting Democrat or third party different in Idaho where your vote is guaranteed to not matter in any scenario? I mean it would depend on the numbers, but if it were actually 99% Republican .5% Democrat .5% Jill Stein then you'd be justified in doing either. In the last Taipei mayoral election there was a popular independent running, so the opposition party stepped aside and let him go on to beat the incumbent. They realized that only one person can win, and it would be better to have an independent who supported some of their ideas than an opponent who supported none of them. FPTP is always going to be a numbers game. The question that's being asked is really only "which of these two is better?" Would it have made sense in Taipei for all three parties to have duked it out to the finish? Could that have resulted in anything but a win for the incumbent? Main Paineframe posted:We don't "have" to vote for whoever's likely to win. After all, the Dems are happy to tell minority groups to wait and play the long-term game when it comes to their rights, even if it means suffering some losses in the meantime; why shouldn't that be applied to Dems as well? Look at how much more open the Dems are to leftism after losing an election, and how much better a position they'll be in come November? Right now, their biggest weaknesses are self-inflicted: their unwillingness to commit to repealing the tax bill they've been telling us for months was horrible, and the fact that they blatantly threw the Dreamers under the bus. I mean history will ultimately tell whether the Trump administration did more harm than any eventual swing back can undo, we're really like 1/8th of the way through at this point, but don't be super surprised if the Dems run Hillary 2020 or someone very much like her. FPTP elections won't go away and the Dems are there until and unless another party takes their place in the big two. So what do they really have to sweat?
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Mar 3, 2018 18:13
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Potato Salad posted:On issues like DACA (deportation), poverty (functional slavery, missed opportunity), healthcare (death)... there are victims without an "undo" option. You don't have to tell me, I'm a pragmatic lesser of two evils voter. I voted Bernie in the primaries because I thought it would be good to have a president who was left of center one time in my lifetime, and then Hillary in the general because that's how the math worked out. I'm pretty sure Clinton would have been a pretty boring center right continuation of Obama's policies, so I'm feeling pretty justified that her evil would have been lesser than this one. twodot posted:No. How does that work? Earlier you suggested there was some sort of requirement to vote for one of the two parties that have a majority of votes. That implies if it's 99% Republican, you need to vote for Republican. Show your work. There is no second party sharing the majority of votes. The number two is the one that's one bigger than one.
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Mar 3, 2018 18:23
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twodot posted:Ok again, why? Why only consider the top two parties instead of the top 10? We've established it's not "because they can win" because you're fine voting for people who can't possibly win in Republican states. Because in a first past the post system there is only a winner and a runner up.
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Mar 3, 2018 18:28
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Don't vote because your vote doesn't matter and there's literally no way to use a broken system to fix a broken system, so short of a violent uprising, two very similar but marginally different parties will continue to control the United States government.
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Mar 9, 2018 11:59
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Radish posted:In the last month the Democratic leadership has been trying its absolute hardest to convince me that's true. Which continues the fine Democratic tradition of trying way too hard to do things that should be easy.
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Mar 9, 2018 16:21
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VitalSigns posted:Complain about it all you like, if you want to change the turnout numbers you need to change what you're offering people because "we can gently caress you over and you can't do anything about it as long as Republicans are worse" aint working. Is it not? Have campaign donations to either party notably decreased? Is a third party creeping up on the Democrats? Are either of the main parties in danger of being replaced? How is the current system "not working" for the elected class exactly? I mean Democrats aren't in power, that's true, but I'd hazard a guess that they will be in a better position after this year and could potentially take the white House back in 2020. Definitely in 2024. Edit: or they never do again? It'll still be like literal decades before anyone else can overtake them, and then we'll just have a new second party that will get fat and complacent eventually.
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Mar 9, 2018 18:40
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Ytlaya posted:He's talking about whether it's working for the people (like those in this thread) arguing about a lesser-evil approach to voting. Right my point is that as voters, you can choose to vote for the lesser evil for whatever harm reduction that offers, and yes, they will still do the bad things, so that sucks, or you can choose to let the greater evil win and they will do more of the bad things. Or you can vote third party (or not at all), and, this is absolutely key: the greater and lesser evil will not give even the smallest of shits about it. The American voting system doesn't really give you a lot of input into the system.
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Mar 10, 2018 02:24
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, but I think his point is that the people arguing that non-voters (or third party voters or whatever) should vote for the lesser evil aren't accomplishing anything. IF those people really wanted to make Democrats win, they'd focus on changing the Democrats, because a significant percent of people disengaging from the party isn't going to just magically change unless the party itself changes. Yeah, I get that. But what do you do to cause the democrats to change? It would be great if they did, but what pressure can voters exert on them? Voting for the lesser evil won't cause them to change, but neither will voting for a third party or letting Republicans win.
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Mar 10, 2018 02:33
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Kilroy posted:You don't change the Democrats you replace them. And yes, that is hard, but you seem to have this attitude that if it's so hard then it might as well be impossible so why even bother? Okay, so once you've replaced them, what keeps the new party from being exactly as bad. Are we relying on the dewy-eyed optimism and true-hearted courage of the replacement party to keep them from falling into the same trap of needed donations to compete in the modern political arena and therefore becoming an efficient machine to reap those donations? I'm saying that the system is so fundamentally broken that without changing the system you can't really get the outcome that people want when they vote third party, which is a better choice than "less bad than the other guy"
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Mar 10, 2018 11:47
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twodot posted:In addition to what others have said, once we've demonstrated an ability to replace horrible people, not being horrible should just be a self-defense strategy for politicians. Maybe you're right the system is so broken we'll never achieve replacement, but in that scenario it seems talking about voting strategies is totally pointless. Pretty much? I mean, the thing is that lesser of two evils voting has the slimmest smallest tiniest sliver of benefit to the voter. It's not satisfying, and it feels bad. But it's literally the only option the system allows. Everything else is an illusion meant to contain the exact outrage you're feeling. Here's another way to put it, do Democrats tack to the right because they love that ideology? Or do they tack to the right because the right has proven that it has a solid reliable voting block that will accept a near infinite amount of abuse to secure key concessions? More to the point, if Democrats demonstrate exactly the same thing what do you think Republicans will do? On the other hand, if the Left proves that it is fractious, idealistic, and difficult to please, what lesson will elected officials take from that? I mean for Christ's sake, Republicans were going to elect a pedophile because he hates gays or whatever. I want to court the Republican vote and I'm not even running for office.
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Mar 10, 2018 16:36
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Condiv posted:thanks pelosi for driving home the point that voting for the lesser of two evils is a trap that makes sure you'll only ever get to choose between evil and evil As opposed to not voting for the lesser of two evils, which is a trap that makes sure you'll only ever get to choose between evil and evil while the worst one runs the country.
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Apr 27, 2018 10:22
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:33 |
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So if Hillary had won would we have withdrawn from the Iran deal? Is that a big deal yet? Like worse than giving tepid lip service to liberal ideals while being a moderate conservative?
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May 9, 2018 09:07
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