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Honestly I’m just at the point where I’m sitting back watching this country be torn apart. Everything anyone ever has done is wrong but also maybe it’s right and everyone acts like they know which is which. The country is entirely divided when the war within itself kicks off I’ll be just on my porch watching because I’m done trying to make heads or tails of this mess.
You know what they say, evil happens when good people stand back and let it happen.
I’m not privileged, they just won’t attack me or my family yet. /s
Quote from Eddy Burke, Edmund’s less fancy-worded relative.
Also the lesser evil kills all enthousiam and loses the election.
Which is just fine by the lesser evil wing of the party.
No.
Look at how the system actually works. There are two choices. Both candidates have to compete for all the people who vote. If you sit out the election that doesn’t mean either candidate will try to get your vote; they’ll ignore you and go after the people who do vote.
Someone else came up with this analogy. It’s like the trolley problem except the there’s a third option. The third choice is to throw the switch to “Neither,” but “Neither” isn’t connected and the trolley kills someone anyway.
If 5% of the general election popular vote for POTUS, knowing that the candidate cannot win, still voted for the Green Party platform then what effect would that have upon the Democratic Party platform?
On a five point difficulty scale this is a two. The test gets way harder than this.
If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a tea trolley.
Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn’t vote for the alternative.
All the ‘what if…?’ games in the world isn’t going to change that.
Thank you for the opportunity to teach.
If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a tea trolley.
Minimization.
Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn’t vote for the alternative.
Red herring.
All the ‘what if…?’ games in the world isn’t going to change that.
Minimization.
This is a bit better than typical nonsense because there’s two tactics in a sandwich. Next is usually ad hominem. But, this one may have another trick up their sleeve.
Simply naming fallacies isn’t teaching. The point of learning fallacies isn’t so that you can just name them and feel like you’ve made a point.
“Simply naming fallacies isn’t teaching.”
- yes it is.
“The point of learning fallacies isn’t so that you can just name them and feel like you’ve made a point.”
- yes it is.
I asked a question. I received a fallacy sandwich in return. There’s no point in investing further.
Simply naming fallacies isn’t teaching.
unsupported
The point of learning fallacies isn’t so that you can just name them and feel like you’ve made a point.
strawman
unsupported
How do you not choke on your irony?
With well-reasoned and nuanced principles supported by vast experience.
The point of teaching is sharing knowledge, not just poking holes in whatever argument you can (intentional hyperbole, not strawman)
The point of learning fallacies isn’t so that you can just name them and feel like you’ve made a point.
strawman
Instead of just “strawman, therefore you’re wrong” and leaving it at that, how about you explain what was incorrect in that statement. That way you become more understood, and everyone understands you more.
This isn’t a courtroom debate. This isn’t a debate you “win” or “lose”. This is a debate where everyone should be trying to understand each other, so that everyone ends up better off by the end. This sort of debate is a cooperative thing, not competitive.
The audience I wish to reach doesn’t need their hand held as a child.
None of your assertions have been supported
Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn’t vote for the alternative.
Red herring.
You’re going to have to explain that in detail. Trump got more votes. He won. How is that anything except a cold, hard fact?
Everything you said.
Pompous.
Make your 3rd party an arm of the dems. A coalition of sorts
My friend, what you wrote totally ignores the passage of time. Everything you wrote is true if we only look at one election, and none of it is true if we consider the passage of time and how pressure operates. If the political party is not getting votes, if all of their candidates are losing, either they will disband or they will find different policies to push.
George Carlin did a great job blowing this nonsense apart
If George was alive today he’d be begging people to vote against Trump.
No he wouldn’t, and the video I linked explains clearly why. Maybe watch it and try to comprehend what he’s saying there.
Let me explain something you may not be aware of.
The man was an entertainer. His job was to make people laugh. I can cherry pick his work and come up with all kinds of absurd ideas he put into his act.
If the only argument you can make is based on a comedy routine, then we have nothing more to discuss.
Let me explain something you may not be aware of. Entertainers often say serious things that cannot be said in other mediums. If you don’t understand that Carlin was doing political commentary, and appreciate his insights then you’re a very dim individual indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_George_Carlin_Show
George did a TV show on the FOX network.
I love his stuff, but that doesn’t blind me to the fact that he was primarily an entertainer.
The fact that you thought this was a good argument shows how utterly intellectually impoverished you are.
Yeah bro, the anti war hippie who was challenging the FCC in the 70s would have totally been team corporatocracy. Carlin had several interviews where he talked about how the two party system in America is an illusion of choice and ragged on Bill Clinton for being phony, and that’s the farthest left liberal candidate in like 30 years, a fucking neoliberal.
Yall sound exactly like the conservatives claiming MLK.
Like I said, if you can’t come up with anything except a comedy act, we have nothing to discuss.
Here’s a clip from his early days, proof that he couldn’t possibly have ever changed his thoughts about anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKO8qMJtbng this is from the 90s through the early 2000s, but I imagine you’ll find another reason to dismiss his words to pretend you know what was in his heart was different tho.
For the record, I don’t agree with his defeatist outlook, I think there’s comedians with better takes on American politics, but to pretend Carlin would be blue MAGA just because you wish him to be is ridiculous.
Or as Rush put it, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
You understand how things work! Ignore the apathy trolls. They are trying to silence your vote. Here’s what actually happens if you vote for the lesser of two evils. You’re rights are protected and next time use the primary process to pick someone even better.
Lol. What planet do you live on?
You’re rights are protected and next time use the primary process to pick someone even better.
Oh, Like how we voted for the lesser evil in 2020 and didn’t have a fucking primary in 2024. Don’t tell us to do something that your party makes sure doesn’t happen.
You’re rights are protected
Like how Roe V. Wade was protected when Biden got into office? Like our right to protest the atrocities which our taxes are paying for in Gaza?
You perceive it going the opposite direction of whatever you are.
With no scale this is absolutely meaningless
lol, get this nerd. It’s not meant to be a scientific graph like a Moody diagram for calculating things from, it’s illustrating a concept which it does perfectly.
Ok. So apply this to 2016. The left choice was establishment neoliberal who if had won would have put left leaning judges on the Supreme Court ensuring the court for decades. Since she lost a far right extremist won who captured the judicial branch. I guess this doesn’t count because people didn’t vote for the lesser evil. Or does it?
So the following election again was establishment neoliberalism who won and basically had the most progressive policy’s of the last century. I guess that moved us right?
Next election, let’s see, establishment neoliberal again. Hard to pinpoint if she was more left or less left because she ran a campaign catering to “on the fence conservatives” but was part of a very progressive administration.
Maybe this what happens when you don’t vote for the lesser evil. That’s all I see.
“Joe Biden has the most progressive policies of the last decade” - incredible.
I can think of zero politicians with a further left policy platform than Joe Biden. Think of all his progressive moves, like allowing the overturn of roe vs wade, Joe Biden who railed against school racial integration policies, Joe Biden author of the 94 crime bill, Joe Biden who continued building the wall, pro union Joe Biden who compelled the train unions to accept the companies deal. Joe Biden who lends his support both materially and in influence to right wing governments in Ukraine and Israel, supporting genocide in the latter. Etc etc. A real hero of the people this guy, fly out the red flag.
like allowing the overturn of roe vs wade
Voters did this by not voting lesser evil
Joe Biden who railed against school racial integration policies, Joe Biden author of the 94 crime bill,
This was not part of his presidential administration and not my claim.
pro union Joe Biden who compelled the train unions to accept the companies deal
And went back and got sick days for the union after the deal was signed. Only president to march with the union.
Biden who lends his support both materially and in influence to right wing governments in Ukraine and Israel, supporting genocide in the latter. Etc etc. A real hero of the people this guy, fly out the red flag.
I never made the claim he wasn’t a neoliberal. I only cited the fact that he was the most progressive president we’ve seen in the country for as long as I’ve been alive.
Funny that a lot of people see this shit and immediately go but Dem and Rep, this shit applied for a lot of countries that have more than 2 parties. When the more popular parties are all shit people go with “lesser evil”.
This is true, but it’s also STILL WORSE to vote for the greater evil. You need to change the options available to you to fix this.
It’s also true that you get backlashes normally if the system doesn’t get to far out of wack. FDR wasnt right of Hoover Coolridge and Harding. Sure one can argue overall we were shifting to the right… But we were NEVER going to be left of center so long as the U.S. existed, because the constitution is built on capitalism. Capitalism has a slow decay, can it be fixed? Maybe. Is it fixable now, maybe not. Could we have fixed it if we followed Carter with a closer to center President instead of Reagan, A LOT easier to have done it then… It took 60 years to get taxes on the rich to this point.
I don’t think the constitution is very capitalist tbh
Incidentally that’s also the effect of not voting for the lesser evil, you can just cut out the two steps in the middle then.
So if you don’t vote for the lesser evil it gets salty and joins the evil? Yeah i am not voting for that psycho manipulating abusive shit.
Then they don’t need to worry about your vote and are stuck competing for the remaining voters
Well, they would get my vote if they changed their policies and behaviour. If you vote them no matter what they dont have to fight for it. (Note i am not a US citizen but the same principles apply. I have similar dissapointment with the formerly progressive parties in my country moving to the right)
And we can also observe this empirically with the current election. The Dems were so tone deaf that they thought to compete over Reps not too happy with Trump, fielding people like Dick fucking Cheney as their advocates. Meanwhile they lost a lot of votes they expected to just have secure because they expected the voters to be blindly loyal hence irrelevant to their strategy.
So if you don’t vote for the lesser evil it gets salty and joins the evil?
Not quite. If you don’t vote for the lesser evil, it loses influence, which means the greater evil has it easier to shift things over in their direction and control the narrative. They’ve won after all, so clearly that’s what the voters want. The lesser evil will take cues from this.
(It should also be said that this whole meme only really applies to shitty 2-party systems. In a proper parliamentary democracy, you have more realististic choices than “greater evil” and “lesser evil” and don’t have to play this stupid game at all.)
The two party System is more a consequence of first past the post than the system they are voted into.
If you look at Canada as an example in the last 30 years the parties on the right have amalgamated and have been rewarded for it as the vote splitting on the left is what gets them elected. It’s just a matter of time until the left follow suit and then 🎉 two party system.
Yeah, I agree. FPTP is a horrible system that will inevitably lead to this kind of situation.
The same shit happens in systems with more than two parties. You also have the problem to think about rallying behind the main party on the left or right side vs. one that is closer to your ideals but probably wont become part of the government coalition. In Germany, where i am from, we had 12 out of 16 years under Merkel with a “big coalition” of the conservative CDU and the social democrat SPD. All that happened was the SPD moving more and more to the right. Now we had a coalition that was supposedly progressive but collapsed hard as well as the Green party and liberal party FDP also moving strongly to the right. We now in 2024 have policies among the supposed center/center-left that used to be fringe far right by German standards. This is why voting “tactically” or for “the lesser evil” fails. It gives a false sense of what is demanded by the people.
Also for the narrative control just take the win of Biden in 2020 as a counter example. Despite Trump holding office the Dems managed to win.
I’m also from Germany and I don’t think it’s a similar situation at all. In our system, it’s absolutely possible and doable for a new party to arise and gain influence. You don’t have to vote for the lesser evil, you can find a party that actually suits you and there is a realistic shot of getting it elected if enough people want it to happen. We’ve gotten 2 new parties in parliament over the last decade (I don’t like either of them, but that’s beside the point). And yes, we have a general shift to the right in Germany as well, but that’s more due to the actual attitudes of the population, a generally weak left and things like Russian influence. Contrary to the US, voters can absolutely reverse that trend though.
In a system like the US, that’s almost impossible. Let’s say the democrats split up into left-wing democrats and right-wing democrats. Half of the voter base goes to either party, so 25% of the population votes for each. However, elections are “first past the post”, so even if the left gained a lot of voters and reached, say, 35%, it will be a total victory for the Republican party. Any party that can’t get an absolute majority of votes is powerless. The momentum for a new party to get to power would have to be insane.
Also for the narrative control just take the win of Biden in 2020 as a counter example. Despite Trump holding office the Dems managed to win.
Well, yes, but pretty much exclusively by running on a lesser evil “We’re not Trump” platform. Had the Trump presidency never happened, it could have been way more about actual policy.
also known as
Things move to the right when the right wins. Things move to the left when the left wins. If the center wins, then things don’t move much at all. The lesser evil prevents greater evil
Not sure this makes sense. I think the window shifts right as people continue to vote right.
From the Wikipedia article about the Overton window:
The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it.
You dumb fuck.
Couldn’t you see that people are sick of “the lesser evil” they just let the greater evil win?
I think you need to look at the above the graph and try again, maybe with less f****** around and more using your brain.
Oh well it’s in a doodle on the internet, must be gospel-grade truth.
Is that a thing you have to apply to some formal committee for?
Or do we have to ask you specifically whether or not it qualifies?
Ooh maybe there’s ASCII symbol for it like ® or © ?
In other words, “B-but…”
Meanwhile, Trump takes office <again> in 2 months. Keep polishing that halo tho!
It’s incredible that libs still haven’t figured out that vote shaming doesn’t work. Instead of doing some reflection on why Trump won, there’s just more of the same moralizing happening.
Remember, Trump is so supernaturally evil that everyone has to drop their principles and vote for the blue coloured genocidal fascists, but not so evil that Democrats should have to actually make any effort to win the election.
Exactly, any atrocities that the democrats commit can be absolved by not voting for Trump. It really is a cult isn’t it.
Honestly, Blue MAGA has deified Trump more than red MAGA, they just see him as an evil god rather than benevolent.
Pretty much yeah, he’s the devil of their religion.
Dems lost twice with the same rhetoric. Vote Dems or get trump. I thought they learned from the past, but no, just double down.
I’m beginning to think vote shaming is integral to their worldview.
Voting for lesser evil is important although the lesser evil is still evil
You are 100% correct.
Look at OPs meme and ask the obvious question: “Why is this moving to the right, and not to the left? Aren’t both options equally possible?”
The answer is that it moves to the side that wins elections.
“Why is the right winning elections” is the much much better question to ask. In the meantime, do everything you can to move the center in the other direction one step at a time, and that doesn’t come about by losing elections while standing on principle.
That’s what I’ve always thought, it feels like the dems instead of compromising on ideology they should look for policies that benefit the rural Americans that feel increasingly excluded from the society happening in cities. Just throw them farming subsidies for small to mid sized farms, benefits for undeveloped land, agricultural loans for the energy transition to help them conform to new climate regulations.
Then maybe even throw in benefits for rural fire departments and so on are all democrat ideology policies. When the right becomes unelectable people move left.
Voting for non evil is the way to go. By keeping to vote for the lesser evil, you get it to become more evil while keeping non evil out of power. This is how the system games you.
I think depends on the voting system and the election. US has a really bad system with FPTP voting. In that case tactical voting should be used for governor and president but representatives should be voted by the heart to build up better support for third party candidates.
It’s also very important to vote in primaries and and party national conventions because those votes affect national policies way more than the elections themselves.
US is very presidential heavy but voting in local elections really counts and allows third parties to slowly build up enough support to create a hung parliament where voting system concessions can be made.
I like to think of it in a “market” way. By voting there is a signal into the market, that their is a demand for a certain political direction. So “stocks” with that profile increase in value. This might be individual politicians, specific laws, parties, or general ideology/values.
Politicians want their portfolio to be attractive, so they get more votes. As a result they will adjust their portfolio of political positions accordingly.
If you vote “tactically” you send a false signal into the market. So instead of getting more politicians to represent the ideas you like, you reinforce them in the ideas you don’t like, as that had more buy signals. On the flip side if you send your sell signal, by removing a formally loyal vote from them, you can show them that their portfolio has gotten lopsided.
The difficulty is to think these things longer term. It is not just this election cycle, but 8 years, 12 years maybe even 20 years ahead. The way media and politicians like to represent elections got more and more pointed towards just this single one being the one and only. This is not just a problem in the US, but also countries without FPTP. Also the reporting got less about the specific policies and more about the how and who, turning it into a show of game of thrones, rather than a fight for the best ideas.
That’s all true, by voting for minor parties you do entice the established parties to grab some of their policies. This does not address the fact that in FPTP a fractured ideology loses because of the spoiler effect. If you get 5 parties with 10% vote share. Dems on 20% and Republicans on 30% it’s a Republican win even though their ideology doesn’t resonate with 70% of voters.
You need tactical voting to get the majority of seats in this case also and in a situation where everyone would vote tactically against Republicans they will be pro voter reform since it’ll reduce the power of a united right wing.
Yes! The problem is, non-evil is not currently on the menu. So I think one should limit the rate of evil increase by voting for the lesser evil.
The evil is sowing doubt in people voting. Representatives fail to represent sometimes, or even often. But not voting just means they don’t represent you at all, and don’t care that you exist when they represent you.
If people didn’t show up and vote for their local officials, and state government officials… They have sabotaged their city/county/state/country.
All of these representatives start somewhere. If we don’t follow and support the local ones that are good, they never get a shot at being say a congresswoman who can break the majority of super majority and help move politics in whichever directions we want them.
(Cause guess where they come from if they aren’t politicians moving up… Either A. Rich or B. funded by the rich.)
Yes! This is a form of organization. Which I think is a requirement for getting a more progressive government.
IMO the only way around this problem in the USA is to either (A) get a third party to the point of legitimacy where people will take them seriously be winning seats in the house and senate, and eventually running for the presidency, or (B) win a primary in one of the two major parties. By election day there is nothing to do but vote for the least worst option.
Gotta switch to Approval Voting for single-seat elections and the proportional variant for legislatures.
