Would I be a bad person if I said I don’t want to vote for either of the evils, and I’m going to vote for Williamson? Or West? I genuinely feel guilty voting for either side and I hate that feeling.
EDIT: Ok then, I will do the right thing, not for Biden’s sake, or that asshole Drumpf, but for us, the american people who are caught in the middle of this shit. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.
As someone who voted third party in the 2016 election, take it from me that you will feel more guilty if you know your vote could have helped prevent the fascist party from gaining power. The presidency is not the office to try to vote on morals, save that for state and local elections that decide things like state benefits programs, distributions of funds, and public works. The federal government is where you will want to vote for the people who are protecting your right to vote in the first place, and that is done by ensuring that the fascist party can’t get a majority or otherwise control a branch of the government.
If the Supreme Court were made up different, maybe, but ending up with an R president just gives them room to pack more courts and see a whole bunch more rights get removed.
Wanting to? No. Actually doing…it’s a little more nuanced for me.
I think that, unless you have reason to believe (beyond just desire to believe) that a 3rd party candidate has a chance to win the general election but you vote for them anyway, yes…you’re a (mildly) bad person.
What do I mean by “has a chance?” Are they on the ballot in enough places to conceivably win the electoral college? Are they polling beyond the single digits anywhere? Do they have enough money to get unengaged voters to at least recognize their name on the ballot?
If you’re deliberately casting a vote for a candidate that can’t win in a two-party system during. normal (meaning there is no extreme candidate running for either party) election, then you are de facto voting for the incumbent (if there is one) as incumbents generally win. I think most rational people would agree that this is (once again), not a normal election. I hesitate to even use the word “normal” because I don’t know if I’ll even get to vote in another normal election. Im 40 to give you an idea of where i think we are right now.
In a normal election, you have 2 viable, good faith candidates. Folks who know enough to be competent and are generally in step with the majority of citizens regatding the soul of our country. Yes, there’s policy differences, and those differences can have HUGE impacts on folks’ well-being…but its not on the level of things like dissolving alliances (as a right-wing example) or nationalizing industries (as a left-wing example). Who do I think have been normal presidents? I’d say Bush Sr. and Clinton were pretty “normal” presidents. They both made mistakes, but nothing on the level of changing a national identity. Bush Jr., I think, would have been a normal president in normal times, but he was vastly ill-equipped for the circumstances of his time in power. His incompetence/dereliction (whatever you want to call it) scarred the soul of this nation. Obama was more normal…again, lots I didn’t agree with there, and some huge accomplishments, but on a policy front, pretty normal. Biden is pretty normal. Trump is not. Of every president in my memory, I can not remember a single one who thought of the office of president solely as a means for personal enrichment. The man has no capacity for empathy or understanding and no desire to try and learn either. He is the only president who didn’t appear to age a decade in their first term because of the weight of the responsibility of the office because he is the only one who never took the job seriously.
Voting for Biden is going to feel unpleasant this year, for sure. But if Biden wins, I have 0 concern about whether there’ll be elections at all in 2028. I don’t think Trump is likely to destroy American democracy, but i don’t think it’s a non-zero value either. The folks backing him learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t…where the seams in our systems are… and they’re telling us how they plan to exploit those seams if he wins to avoid anyone gumming up the fascism machine next time.
Would I be a bad person if I said I don’t want to vote for either of the evils, and I’m going to vote for Williamson? Or West? I genuinely feel guilty voting for either side and I hate that feeling.
EDIT: Ok then, I will do the right thing, not for Biden’s sake, or that asshole Drumpf, but for us, the american people who are caught in the middle of this shit. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.
As someone who voted third party in the 2016 election, take it from me that you will feel more guilty if you know your vote could have helped prevent the fascist party from gaining power. The presidency is not the office to try to vote on morals, save that for state and local elections that decide things like state benefits programs, distributions of funds, and public works. The federal government is where you will want to vote for the people who are protecting your right to vote in the first place, and that is done by ensuring that the fascist party can’t get a majority or otherwise control a branch of the government.
If the Supreme Court were made up different, maybe, but ending up with an R president just gives them room to pack more courts and see a whole bunch more rights get removed.
Wanting to? No. Actually doing…it’s a little more nuanced for me.
I think that, unless you have reason to believe (beyond just desire to believe) that a 3rd party candidate has a chance to win the general election but you vote for them anyway, yes…you’re a (mildly) bad person.
What do I mean by “has a chance?” Are they on the ballot in enough places to conceivably win the electoral college? Are they polling beyond the single digits anywhere? Do they have enough money to get unengaged voters to at least recognize their name on the ballot?
If you’re deliberately casting a vote for a candidate that can’t win in a two-party system during. normal (meaning there is no extreme candidate running for either party) election, then you are de facto voting for the incumbent (if there is one) as incumbents generally win. I think most rational people would agree that this is (once again), not a normal election. I hesitate to even use the word “normal” because I don’t know if I’ll even get to vote in another normal election. Im 40 to give you an idea of where i think we are right now.
In a normal election, you have 2 viable, good faith candidates. Folks who know enough to be competent and are generally in step with the majority of citizens regatding the soul of our country. Yes, there’s policy differences, and those differences can have HUGE impacts on folks’ well-being…but its not on the level of things like dissolving alliances (as a right-wing example) or nationalizing industries (as a left-wing example). Who do I think have been normal presidents? I’d say Bush Sr. and Clinton were pretty “normal” presidents. They both made mistakes, but nothing on the level of changing a national identity. Bush Jr., I think, would have been a normal president in normal times, but he was vastly ill-equipped for the circumstances of his time in power. His incompetence/dereliction (whatever you want to call it) scarred the soul of this nation. Obama was more normal…again, lots I didn’t agree with there, and some huge accomplishments, but on a policy front, pretty normal. Biden is pretty normal. Trump is not. Of every president in my memory, I can not remember a single one who thought of the office of president solely as a means for personal enrichment. The man has no capacity for empathy or understanding and no desire to try and learn either. He is the only president who didn’t appear to age a decade in their first term because of the weight of the responsibility of the office because he is the only one who never took the job seriously.
Voting for Biden is going to feel unpleasant this year, for sure. But if Biden wins, I have 0 concern about whether there’ll be elections at all in 2028. I don’t think Trump is likely to destroy American democracy, but i don’t think it’s a non-zero value either. The folks backing him learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t…where the seams in our systems are… and they’re telling us how they plan to exploit those seams if he wins to avoid anyone gumming up the fascism machine next time.