How can this be happening...

[prideandfall]

good for you.

Thanks. It's nice to be appreciated.

By the way, after that rant of yours, I find your screen name quite ironic.

congratulations on noticing the point.

 

[funinspace]

So how is actually voting, albeit for a third party candidate in a presidential race, 'what you get' as compared to someone who doesn't vote but would have preferred HRC?

because i don't vote at all, ever - i am not part of the process, and i have never been, and i never will be.
(consider me a conscientious objector: i think voting is good in the abstract, but within a volunteer voting system in a huge country with an astoundingly inbred naval gazing rigged political system that is "all or nothing" i consider voting to be tacitly endorsing the system, and i don't endorse the system.)
so my vote simply doesn't exist, it's a non-issue, it never would have gone to anyone.
politicians in the US are something that just happens to me, so i'm never particularly excited or upset by them (outside of general philosophical disagreements, i am after all a raging liberal and so the antics of conservatives disgust me) but i'm very bemused by the whole thing and keenly interested in politics.

however, if you're inclined to vote... you're part of the process, and that process is a 'first past the post' system. whomever gets the most votes out of the pool of people who do vote wins, with obvious caveats to that being made for the electoral college system, which is an other completely fucked up pile of bullshit and why i don't vote but that's another derail entirely.

elections in this country are really easy to break down if you just look at history.
of the voting population, as in the chunk of people given to voting every presidential election:
45% vote R
45% vote D
10% vote third party or write in or whatever stupid bullshit nonsense they're up to masturbating in public.

the trick here is that of the 45% who will vote for your party, some stay home if they're indifferent enough, or some may get siphoned off to the 10% pile.
and in a system where 'the biggest bag at the end of the day' wins, that's how you hand a victory to your enemies by being uppity.

so if you vote, you had two choices and two choices only: clinton or trump. one of those two were going to become president. there was never any other option.
and if you vote, you could either put the numbers behind a career politician who's pretty good on the bureaucratic efficiency side but not a very strong liberal candidate, or you can put the numbers behind trump.
if you vote and you didn't vote for clinton you voted for trump - that's how this country's voting system works.

so if you're liberal and you refused to vote clinton because clinton isn't liberal enough, congratulations you voted for trump... and his presidency is what you get.

Obviously, you are free to think yourself as not part of the system. However, I don’t think most people would consider what you wrote above to be a well-reasoned position. You are part of the system, if you are an eligible American voter. That you don’t vote at all, sends a message of complacency with the ‘system’ far more than by voting third party. Voting third party, can be a wasted/thrown vote in a state where the margins are tight, potentially throwing the election to who one might find even worse. However, like in my state voting third party creates no risk that the D candidate won’t get Oregon’s delegates except in very unusual circumstances.

As far as who threw the race last year to Don the Con, I’d say there is little evidence that those who would have considered HRC the lesser evil, caused her to lose by voting third party. I’d say people not voting, like yourself, are far more the reason that HRC didn’t win. It does not matter whether one just couldn’t bother to get off the couch that November, or if one purposely doesn’t register to vote, the impact is the same. I’ll just quote myself regarding those results:

I have no idea how most libertarians would tilt, if they weren’t allowed vote for the LP candidate. FWIW, as a registered LP person I voted for HRC last fall, not that it was in question in my very blue state. I think it would be hard to argue that most libertarians would have shifted to HRC if forced into a Repug/Dum choice. Lots of third party voters vote third party as a way of saying “none of the above”, which is why I am registered LP but often don’t vote that way (I voted for Obama in 08 & Kerry in 04). Removing the only equivalence of “none of the above” would hardly endear libertarians to HRC. I can imagine that Don the Con would work as a substitute middle finger to the usual “none of the above”. I will agree that most of the Stein voters would probably switch over to HRC if it was a binary vote. Using Michigan as an example, the LP got 3.59% of the vote, whereas the Green’s got 1.07%. So, I’d say that Don the Con lost more votes there by third party voters than HRC did. Additionally, HRC probably won New Hampshire largely due to the third party vote. Wisconsin’s results are almost identical to Michigan’s. Pennsylvania is harder to make a guess from the data. Gary Johnson did remarkably well getting 3.28% of the national vote, as they almost have never gotten above 1.1% of the vote. Not that it matters much, but Jill Stein did quite well as the runner up third party garnering 1% of the national vote.

In the end, I think it is pretty clear that the election results were impacted far more by people not bothering to vote, as well as from Russian meddling, and of course HRC being a not very good candidate.

On a trivial side note: Typically, third party or write in voting is only 2-3% of the total. And there is a pool of 5-15% of the voters which swing to either D or R depending on the silly season.

 

[prideandfall]

You are part of the system, if you are an eligible American voter.

in an abstract sense yeah that's true, but there's a difference between simply existing in the system and participating in it.

That you don’t vote at all, sends a message of complacency with the ‘system’ far more than by voting third party.

i completely disagree.
voting just for the masturbation of it when doing so makes zero difference to anything ever means taking part in the system, which means tacitly endorsing it.
if i'd ever voted in my life i could see a philosophical argument for how i paid into it once, and now i'm abstaining and that's an ethical problem.
but i've never even registered, as far as active politics goes i don't and never have existed.

Voting third party, can be a wasted/thrown vote in a state where the margins are tight, potentially throwing the election to who one might find even worse. However, like in my state voting third party creates no risk that the D candidate won’t get Oregon’s delegates except in very unusual circumstances.

right and i get the logistics of that, and also it's god damn stupid... the electoral college is a retarded system, individual votes essentially don't matter even within the broader context of questions about "does one individual in a big group make any difference?"

As far as who threw the race last year to Don the Con, I’d say there is little evidence that those who would have considered HRC the lesser evil, caused her to lose by voting third party.

in a direct way this is true, it wasn't precisely a nader situation, but it comes back to what i said earlier about how the metrics of voting in this country works.

I’d say people not voting, like yourself, are far more the reason that HRC didn’t win. It does not matter whether one just couldn’t bother to get off the couch that November, or if one purposely doesn’t register to vote, the impact is the same. I’ll just quote myself regarding those results:

In the end, I think it is pretty clear that the election results were impacted far more by people not bothering to vote, as well as from Russian meddling, and of course HRC being a not very good candidate.

see this assumes that the bloc of non-voting individuals is a potential untapped market, which is a false assumption.
so of the people eligible to vote in this country it seems about 50-60% of them actually do vote, this has played out fairly consistently in voter turnout for presidential elections for the last 100 years.

so take that group of regular voters, and then every single presidential election it breaks down this like:
45% of them will always vote R no matter what if they vote that year
45% of them will always vote D no matter what if they vote that year
10% of them will vote third party or write-in or are schizophrenic enough to waffle between the parties on a given election

elections in the US are won and lost solely based on which party's 45% shows up the most for a given election.
if one party's candidate is particularly boisterous or charismatic that'll give them a decent bump, and if one party has been in power for a while and the opposition is frothing at the mouth over it that will give the opposition a decent bump.

but elections are always just played within the margin of that 45%... what percentage of that bloc is motivated to go vote, that's what does it. that's what has always done it.
the 40-45% of the eligible voters that don't vote there's really no way to know how the demographics play out on that - maybe it's as evenly split as the voting population, maybe it's like 80% republicans, who knows.
but what i do know is that those who don't take part in the process as a matter of course just aren't part of the equation, so it doesn't matter.
(this assumes that election-to-election the 40-45% of eligible voters who don't vote remains nominally consistent: i'm assuming that most people who vote do so every year, and most people who don't vote don't vote every year. i suppose it's possible the metric could play out differently and there's this enormous rotation demographic shift of people who vote every 4 years but that seems far less likely to me)

 

[Elixir]

see this assumes that the bloc of non-voting individuals is a potential untapped market, which is a false assumption.
so of the people eligible to vote in this country it seems about 50-60% of them actually do vote, this has played out fairly consistently in voter turnout for presidential elections for the last 100 years.

The increase from 50 to 60 is 20% - a YUUUGE number in these terms. And what drives that difference? It's the difference between relative indifference to and actual passion for a candidate. IMHO THAT is why HRC lost, more than anything else. And it's why Bernie would have won had he been nominated by the Dems.

 

[prideandfall]

see this assumes that the bloc of non-voting individuals is a potential untapped market, which is a false assumption.
so of the people eligible to vote in this country it seems about 50-60% of them actually do vote, this has played out fairly consistently in voter turnout for presidential elections for the last 100 years.

The increase from 50 to 60 is 20% - a YUUUGE number in these terms.

well... potentially huge, it depends on where the numbers are coming from, and that's again why the electoral college is such a sack of shit.

trump got about 62,984,825 votes.
clinton got about 65,853,516
so that's 127 million votes. so let's assume the 50% figure, so that's 254 million potential voters. that's about 152 million.
jacking that figure up to 60% would mean 25 million more votes gives or take.

where would those have happened? look at the spread of states, even the close ones... you'd have to assume that clinton would have gotten the majority of the votes in red states and close states to have overcome the difference, and i don't see any evidence to suggest this would be the case.

if you have some evidence btw i'd love to see it - polls or some kind of demographics that show the political leanings of people who don't vote? that would be fascinating.

And what drives that difference? It's the difference between relative indifference to and actual passion for a candidate. IMHO THAT is why HRC lost, more than anything else. And it's why Bernie would have won had he been nominated by the Dems.

right, which comes back around to the thing that i said in like my first post in this thread... that what you're saying basically suggests that presidential elections are popularity contests.

what you're saying is that pitting two very old mostly bald flappy-haired yelling men against each other would have been "better", and that the democrat flappy-haired yelling old man would have won.
i understand the broader point about this being more or less true because that's what politics is in the US, but my original point in my first post in this thread was that i think it's a little hypocritical of a particular strain of sort of intellectual liberal (notably that post here on TFT in the politics forum) who decry politics being a popularity contest when it suits them to slag trump, but then embrace the idea when it suits them to praise bernie or slag clinton.

 

[Elixir]

where would those have happened?

I am of course assuming a lot by putting it that way; it was only meant to illustrate a principle.
HRC, despite her and her party's failings, came awfully close. Some estimates I've seen show that 75-100 thousand votes in critical counties swayed the electoral result. The numbers game is a risky one, but assuming a 50/50 rep/dem split in the total voters, even if Bernie had lost the same voters that HRC lost to Russian fake news, The Comey Letter, Pizzagate etc, bringing out an additional 3-6 million supporters from the 127 million closet would almost certainly have swayed the result. They would have to be awfully strangely distributed to have not made the difference.

what you're saying basically suggests that presidential elections are popularity contests.

Of course they are. Did you ever go to junior high school and elect a class president? Was it ever someone who wasn't "popular"?
That should have been your first clue. A presidential candidate might be popular mainly because they are young or smart or good looking. Or have venerated (by some) wisdom, like Donald Trump. Others are "popular" by virtue of nothing more than their great debate presence and organizing ability. But passion from the electorate is gained by having a vision (no matter how stupid, as long as it promises utopia, or at least improvement) combined with extraordinary oratory skills. Trump's got it, Bernie's got it, HRC... not.

Yes, pitting those two very old mostly bald flappy-haired yelling men against each other would have been "better", and the democrat flappy-haired yelling old man would have won. At this juncture not much would be different though. The federal gov would still be paralyzed unless there were phenomenal coattail effects for Bernie. And the prospects for the Democrats going forward would remain bleaker than the rosy outlook espoused by some as they evince the Trumptastrophe.
I'd like to see Trump gone, not because that will solve anything, but because he's a corrupt, thieving asshole who deserves public humiliation followed by imprisonment of the hopefully short duration of his life.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So how is actually voting, albeit for a third party candidate in a presidential race, 'what you get' as compared to someone who doesn't vote but would have preferred HRC?

because i don't vote at all, ever - i am not part of the process, and i have never been, and i never will be.
(consider me a conscientious objector: i think voting is good in the abstract, but within a volunteer voting system in a huge country with an astoundingly inbred naval gazing rigged political system that is "all or nothing" i consider voting to be tacitly endorsing the system, and i don't endorse the system.)
so my vote simply doesn't exist, it's a non-issue, it never would have gone to anyone.
politicians in the US are something that just happens to me, so i'm never particularly excited or upset by them (outside of general philosophical disagreements, i am after all a raging liberal and so the antics of conservatives disgust me) but i'm very bemused by the whole thing and keenly interested in politics.

however, if you're inclined to vote... you're part of the process, and that process is a 'first past the post' system. whomever gets the most votes out of the pool of people who do vote wins, with obvious caveats to that being made for the electoral college system, which is an other completely fucked up pile of bullshit and why i don't vote but that's another derail entirely.

elections in this country are really easy to break down if you just look at history.
of the voting population, as in the chunk of people given to voting every presidential election:
45% vote R
45% vote D
10% vote third party or write in or whatever stupid bullshit nonsense they're up to masturbating in public.

the trick here is that of the 45% who will vote for your party, some stay home if they're indifferent enough, or some may get siphoned off to the 10% pile.
and in a system where 'the biggest bag at the end of the day' wins, that's how you hand a victory to your enemies by being uppity.

so if you vote, you had two choices and two choices only: clinton or trump. one of those two were going to become president. there was never any other option.
and if you vote, you could either put the numbers behind a career politician who's pretty good on the bureaucratic efficiency side but not a very strong liberal candidate, or you can put the numbers behind trump.
if you vote and you didn't vote for clinton you voted for trump - that's how this country's voting system works.

so if you're liberal and you refused to vote clinton because clinton isn't liberal enough, congratulations you voted for trump... and his presidency is what you get.

Donald Trump won the electoral vote via an aggregate total of 100,000 popular votes (Combined) in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Had 100,000 people who thought they were too good to vote, to vote against the worst Federal Election candidate since Wallace (and maybe ever), he would have lost. But I'm glad those people feel all special inside because they didn't vote for whatever reason. Sure, our country is now spinning its wheels going nowhere with a leader big mouthing about nuclear war, but at least the pretentious can continue feeling pretentious.

 

[ZiprHead]

I hope it makes him feel all warm and fuzzy in the nuclear glow.

 

[Elixir]

I hope it makes him feel all warm and fuzzy in the nuclear glow.

Not too sure about the fuzzy part. It's usual the first to go when temps reach into the thousands of degrees.

 

[Will Wiley]

You had a Democrat candidate who was as Wall Street as they come. So out of touch with ordinary Americans who have suffered long enough.

But yeah...nothing to do with that.

Jesus, are you trying to now say that Trump isn't Wall Street?? There isn't a single issue that I can think of where Trump isn't far far worse than HRC.

People expect Republicans to be wall street fawners.
But Hillary was more interested in Goldman Sachs than she was in long suffering American workers.
You still don't understand it do you?

 

[Elixir]

Hillary was more interested in Goldman Sachs than she was in long suffering American workers.

So said the tangerine terror. But not Cheato himself - no way! He sounded just like WW above during the campaign. But he was, is, and will forever remain an inveterate liar. He has courted GSers Mnuchin, Cohn, Bannon, Donovan, Scaramucci, et al, as he pushes wealthcare plans that would absolutely HAMMER those "long suffering American workers".
Long-suffering workers who were stupid enough to have believed that psychopath will get what they deserve - a good ass-reaming.

 

[Keith&Co.]

People expect Republicans to be wall street fawners.

Um, you can't simultaneously say that Hillary lost because people hated her Wall Street Ties, and say people were okay with Trump's Wall Street Ties. Or, well, you can SAY that, but it's pretty clear you're just saying bullshit.

 

[Elixir]

People expect Republicans to be wall street fawners.

Um, you can't simultaneously say that Hillary lost because people hated her Wall Street Ties, and say people were okay with Trump's Wall Street Ties. Or, well, you can SAY that, but it's pretty clear you're just saying bullshit.

I guess he's trying to say that long suffering workers don't mind being fucked in the ass by Republicans.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Um, you can't simultaneously say that Hillary lost because people hated her Wall Street Ties, and say people were okay with Trump's Wall Street Ties. Or, well, you can SAY that, but it's pretty clear you're just saying bullshit.

I guess he's trying to say that long suffering workers don't mind being fucked in the ass by Republicans.

So, in animal behaviorist terms, registering as a Republican could be called 'presenting.'

 

[Harry Bosch]

Jesus, are you trying to now say that Trump isn't Wall Street?? There isn't a single issue that I can think of where Trump isn't far far worse than HRC.

People expect Republicans to be wall street fawners.
But Hillary was more interested in Goldman Sachs than she was in long suffering American workers.
You still don't understand it do you?

So you supported Trump despite the fact that he's not anti-wall street; you hated HRC because she's not anti-wall street. How does that make any sense? I'm sorry to tell you but no politican on the left can win an election without the socially liberal white collar workers. Working class workers without college education tend to vote based on social issues.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Two great antecedents to the Legend of Donald Trump:
James Thurber's wonderful short story, The Greatest Man in the World, about a public idol named Jacky Smurch who flies around the world solo but is known by insiders to be a bigot, a wretch, and a criminal. Thurber's ending is too perfect for me to spoil.
The 1996 SNL sketch with Alec Baldwin as gubernatorial candidate Henry Buckwell, who ruins his chances for victory by killing Lassie, cursing a baby, wiping his ass on the flag, and finally, wiping his ass on a baby. Compare to Orangey's 2016 boast that he could murder a citizen on 5th Avenue and still not lose his supporters.
I guess a third could be Biblical references to S -- no, I won't go there.