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Voting for the lesser evil is still evil
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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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There's false assumptions necessary to reach this conclusion. Typically the false assumption is that the role of a third party is to win. The root cause of making this assumption is often that the scope of evaluation has been limited to one term or cycle.
I'm not convinced that voting for a third party has any positive effect, in one election cycle or over longer time. But I'm open to hearing your perspective.
The false assumption that most make is that one cycle doesn't effect the next.
However, if a third party garners just 5% of the general election vote for POTUS then their platform and higher quality candidate will be on every ballot in the next cycle.
If there's a third choice on every ballot then the the third party platform places tremendous and immediate pressure upon the platforms of the two major parties. The third party doesn't actually win unless the other refuse to compromise. Long term, the continued threat is of greater value than a subsequent victory.
But, the electoral scheme doesn't work unless leftists trust leftists to determine the collective risk of voting third party for the states they reside in. Even Jacobin failed to trust twice.
Things are pretty fucked. Electoral means are slow. I tend to advocate for boycott, strike, and riot (encompassing a wide scope of wisely breaking laws).
I suppose that is a tangible way to affect change under the existing electoral system, so more power to you. I guess, with that in mind, you need to vote third party on an occasion when third party will actually get that 5% threshold, which as you say takes trust.
non sequitur
You weren't really very open to ideas. And, you were the best of the bunch in this thread.
That's needlessly dismissive, I was repeating my understanding of what you'd said
I'm sorry you feel that way. Try something different next time.
You really had no interest in engaging with me did you? Because I basically fully agreed with you in my previous comment and you said I wasn't open to ideas.
You failed to be adequate in either reading comprehension or presentation.
Ad hominem
Learn your fallacies.
OK. I'll assign more benefit of the doubt.
To be moral and ethical in their voting choice, to serve systemic design intent, to serve the practicalities of implementation, an individual need not care about others' votes.
So, it's incorrect to set as a prerequisite a belief in success of a 5% goal to vote for it. Presenting as you did exemplifies the propaganda-fed ego of the neoliberal. The meaning in voting is not to make you feel good about yourself for choosing the bandwagon that wins. All should vote for whom best represents them with reckless disregard for the short-term outcome.
The eventual counterargument to what I'm saying is rooted in utilitarianism: Democracy produces at best mediocre outcomes. The systemic design answer was the electoral college.