199
So you don’t like Trump or Harris – here’s why it’s still best to vote for one of them
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
199 points (82.0% liked)
politics
19026 readers
2198 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike."
^ THIS!
In a Presidential election, whoever gets the most votes wins.
If "Not Trump" is split between 5 candidates, and Trump gets the most votes, he wins.
Here's a scenario:
Trump - 40%
Harris - 35%
Kennedy - 15%
Oliver - 5%
Stein - 3%
West - 2%
Trump wins. Even though 60% of the voting public don't want him. The "Not Trump" vote failed to coalesce under one candidate enough to block him from winning.
On the other side of the Atlantic there's usually two rounds, unless someone gets >50% of the vote in the first round.
The second round takes the top two candidates and then people choose between them.
Well I mean I don't know of all European countries but this is fairly common afaik.
It doesn't work that way in US Presidential elections.
Yeah. I know.
The US doesn't have a direct presidential election. You have the electoral college, ie an indirect election.
Correct, but even state by state, if you have multiple people running and nobody hits 50%, Presidential elections are not subject to a run-off election like we saw in the Georgia Senate race.
This is what I keep saying. It's like my scenario with the Class President. A Nerd and a Jock are running. 51 kids are nerds and don't want the Jock. 49 kids are jocks and don't want the Nerd. Pretty clear that the Nerd wins, because more people don't want the Jock than the Nerd, right? Wrong. If the Jock can peel just THREE votes off from the nerd coalition, the Jocks win it and D&D night is cancelled.
Now re-read that and replace nerds with Liberals, jocks with Conservatives, and 'D&D night is cancelled' with 'Project 2025 is shoved down our throats.' Then...vote with your fucking head and not your fucking heart!
It's like this, but Jocks' votes are worth more than Nerds'.
Definitely. I tried to keep the scenario simple to make it easy to understand, but there is truth in the statement that the jocks have some fingers on the scale of Democracy. I suspect there's more nerds than jocks. We just have to make sure they all turn out to vote because the cheerleader that is the jock's politician is pulling out ALL the dirty tricks.
In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?
Because we're able to discuss hypothetical things without being literal to prove a point.
That would be fine, if that's what was happening, but it's not. The commentor that i responded to, as well as the article that we are all responding to, use this "hypothetical" situation where third party voters all prefer Harris over Trump to justify a chastisement of those third party votes. There is no basis for this assumption presented in the article or within the comments in this thread.
E: added the word "be" to the 1st sentence.
Well, if hypothetically, I was forced to vote, and thn for only one of these 2 parties only... well, I'm not a rich white guy, I'm not racist, misogynistic, don't believe sharpies change weather... and, I don't want to find out just how close he would be to starting the next Nazi party. That narrows my options down a bit.
I mean.. thanks for the input, but you're just one person. I too would choose Harris over Trump if i was forced to choose between the two. But your and my personal choices to not a general consensus make. I wouldn't argue that the majority of 3rd party voters would do likewise without some proof.
.. none of this addresses that third party voters may find it more important to vote against BOTH parties than to vote against their least favorite of the two, either.. but i've raised that point elsewhere.
If you just don't understand the concept of hypotheticals, you may be on the spectrum, fyi
Don't use being on the spectrum as an insult. It is unbecoming.
I don't think hypothetical means what you think it means. Either that or you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is arguing.
The article is implies that 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump voters if it came down to a choice between the two. That is not a hypothetical, that is an unsubstantianted assumption.
It's not an insult, I'm being serious. The hypothetical is the vote totals given in the comment you responded to. In that hypothetical scenario, voting for your perfect candidate gets your least favorite candidate elected. You seem unable to consider it as a standalone scenario that may or may not be similar to real life voter tallies. That's a common indicator of neurodivergence.
Whether they would prefer Harris or not is irrelevant, they don't want Trump. There is only 1 candidate who can beat the Republican candidate and it's not an Independent/Libertarian/Green candidate.
I don't understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don't want Trump.
This doesn't make any sense.
"don't want Trump" in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is "why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?"
I'll try to make it simple then:
They aren't pro-Harris, they're anti-Trump.
Problem: "Not Trump" is not a candidate, so splitting the not Trump vote allows Trump to win.
If people really, REALLY, REALLY do not want Trump, there's only one answer and that's to support the Democratic candidate who happens to be Harris.
Why Harris? Because she has more support than any other "Not Trump" candidate.
I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn't matter). My question remains. I'll rephrase it:
Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?
Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.
Because if they were interested in voting for Trump, they'd be voting for Trump. When the choice is Trump vs. Not Trump, Not Trump wins. Even in 2016 that was true.
What the other person is saying is that you are splitting voters in three categories: pro-Trump, pro-Harris, anti-Trump. But that third group obviosuly doesn't like either of the two main candidates, not just Trump. And if forced to vote for one of them, there's no reason to assume all will pick Harris.
Nope. Harris doesn't enter into it. There are two sides, Pro Trump and Anti Trump.
If you want Anti Trump to win, you have to pull behind one candidate. Splitting it 5 ways guarantees Anti Trump cannot win.
There is only one candidate who happens to be at the same level as Trump, the Democratic candidate.
Which means holding your nose and voting for Harris, failing to do so gets you Trump. You don't have to be Pro Harris at all, you just have to hate Trump more.
Ok, I get what you are saying, but it sounds biased the way you're wording it. You could've just as well said Pro Harris and Anti Harris. Trump is the only one who can realistically beat Harris, so if you're Anti Harris you should vote Trump, even if you're not Pro Trump.
So yeah, if you're Anti Trump you should vote Harris and if you're Anti Harris you should vote Trump. If you're Anti both of them then tough luck because the electoral system in the US doesn't care about you. One of them will be president no matter what you do, so if you want any control over which one, then vote for one of them even if you hate both.
Agreed.
Would it be nicer if we lived in a multi party system? Probably. Do we? No. Voting as though we are is not useful (maybe unless you live in a state that you are 100% certain can not be flipped).
If you hate one candidate even slightly less than the other, for example because the former has not yet stated that they want to punish colleges that allow pro Palestine demonstrations, vote for that first one.
Harris isn't the threat to the American system of government that Trump is.
A poll in which "First choice is someone other than Trump" beats "Trump" would indicate that "Trump" has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.
A poll in which "Anybody but Trump" beats "Trump" would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.
Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i've been asking for in this thread.
Trump has stronger negative polling in the general population than Harris so it's not as absurd as you're making out. Trump is also much more strongly polarising and always has been.
I am not saying it's absurd. I am asking for data.
You're using an over-used debating technique where you cast doubt on others by demanding proof of any claims you don't like but letting statements you agree with stand unchallenged.
It's not so far away from trumps habit of calling anything that he doesn't like fake news.
You're painting yourself as a neutral who is just asking for information, when in fact you're heavily partisan. It's misleading.
Actually what i'm doing is pointing out a glaring logical flaw in the article that is the subject of this post. The fact that others are willing to accept the conclusions drawn by the unsupported claim of this article is worrisome. It speaks to a lack of critical thinking and a wiillingness accept illogical arguments simply because they fit with ones world view. It is fairly absurd to me that i need to spell this out.
And i have reaponded to you elsewhere with plenty of data that supports me. Unfortunately no one else in this thread has attempted to do the same in support of the article's claim. Not one single person.
I would be entertained to hear how exactly you think i am partisan. I am, in fact, one of these braindead third party voters that everyone in this thread is raging against. About as far from a partisan as one can get.
And you, and everyone else here, has had ample time and opportunity to provide any bit of data that you like to show that i am wrong. But y'all consistently turn to attacks against me or my character instead. And that right there, my friend, is a true Trump tactic.
If you are right then show the data.
Me:
You: condescending waffle and deflection. Also you:
When I point out your asymmetric proof demands you just repeat them.
I have responded in good faith to each of your criticisms. I have provided polling data when you asked. I have not once waffled.. what do you think that means, exactly?
I continue to await anyones data driven response to my initial question. "Why are we assuming that all of the third party votes would go to Harris if they were forced to choose between her and Trump?"
If you have no real input to add then just stop responding.