11.2 million. That’s the number of American citizens who rank climate change as their top issue but didn’t vote in the 2024 election, according to research by the Environmental Voter Project. For context, Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024 by less than 2.3 million votes. For a little over a decade, EVP has been [...]Read More... from If So Many Americans Care About Climate, Why Don’t They Vote Like It?
The problem with this argument is that while it might be objectively correct in the short term it’s also objectively self-destructive in the long term. Both for the voter and the candidate.
Because elections are won by turnout. If you don’t turn out your base you don’t win elections. But your strategy eventually murders your own base. They get dejected, they get disillusioned, they get impatient, whatever you want to call it. And you can’t fucking change that. No amount of argument will ever change that. If you keep serving your voters a turd sandwich it doesn’t matter how many giant douches are on the other side. Eventually they stop coming to eat.
And that’s how you lose really big. Which screws over everybody.
The alternative is not running conservative candidates who never do anything for their base. That’s the alternative. You all act like it’s a monolith. That the liberal Democrats have to by some law of nature run these conservative Democrats who never do anything for the people. There’s no law about that. There’s no reason that has to be true. But if they choose to keep doing it they are choosing to lose. Because they’re the only side that are trying to do something that is destined to fail no matter what.
I am not in control of that. The best I can do I sign petitions and vote for the third party when they show up on the ballot in the primaries, and if my candidate doesn’t win then I vote for whoever stands the best chance* against the republican candidate.
Well you can also not advocate for the critically failed and doomed system. You could give that a try. Because while you may not control who they run you sure do support them publicly and audibly telling them no matter who you pick I’ll vote for you no matter how much you screw me I’ll vote for you I’ll vote for you no matter what. And maybe that’s a bad message to send them.
Are voters clustered in the center of the political spectrum like a bell curve or are voters clustered in two camps at the extremes? If it’s the latter, I could see the “don’t vote” strategy working. Otherwise, it’s bound to backfire because the leftmost candidate would need to move so far left to gain your vote that they would cede more voters to the candidate to their immediate right than they gained by moving left and lose the election as a result. They therefore don’t consider you in their choice of policies and move farther right as a result, which seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. This of course assumes a single political axis which isn’t necessarily accurate.
This is literally the opposite of what has been happening. The Dems keep moving right, and giving up voters on the Left. Every election they scream about the Leftists voter base that is both:
A) To small to cater to
B) So large, as to be able to swing elections
And their strategy isn’t because they can’t get Leftist voters, it’s because they’d rather let the Republicans win, then enact Leftist policy.
You would be correct in an utopian world. There people would vote for who they want instead of who they don’t mind.
But this is reality, and because of the semi-2-party system of the US, voting for any third party is just the same as not voting at all.
If you want to change the system, hold rallies between the elections. But don’t use the elections for that. Or you can be sure you will get an other trump.
And how can your long-term plan work if everything gets fucked up so much short-term, that you will never get to the long term plan in the first place?
You’re the one who’s living in the utopian world. I just told you, you can’t fucking change it. Someone who relies on being the lesser of two evils will always eventually lose massively. That is inescapable. You will subdue your own base every single time. You cannot win without your own base. Trump won because of this. Maybe you’ll beat them this time but six or eight years later he’s going to win again, or whoever the new Trump is. And that’s going to be how it works forever. And every single time it’ll get worse and worse and worse. Your strategy is willfully choosing to lose.
The problem with this argument is that while it might be objectively correct in the short term it’s also objectively self-destructive in the long term. Both for the voter and the candidate.
Because elections are won by turnout. If you don’t turn out your base you don’t win elections. But your strategy eventually murders your own base. They get dejected, they get disillusioned, they get impatient, whatever you want to call it. And you can’t fucking change that. No amount of argument will ever change that. If you keep serving your voters a turd sandwich it doesn’t matter how many giant douches are on the other side. Eventually they stop coming to eat.
And that’s how you lose really big. Which screws over everybody.
But what’s the alternative? Not voting? I won’t even consider not voting!
The alternative is not running conservative candidates who never do anything for their base. That’s the alternative. You all act like it’s a monolith. That the liberal Democrats have to by some law of nature run these conservative Democrats who never do anything for the people. There’s no law about that. There’s no reason that has to be true. But if they choose to keep doing it they are choosing to lose. Because they’re the only side that are trying to do something that is destined to fail no matter what.
I am not in control of that. The best I can do I sign petitions and vote for the third party when they show up on the ballot in the primaries, and if my candidate doesn’t win then I vote for whoever stands the best chance* against the republican candidate.
Well you can also not advocate for the critically failed and doomed system. You could give that a try. Because while you may not control who they run you sure do support them publicly and audibly telling them no matter who you pick I’ll vote for you no matter how much you screw me I’ll vote for you I’ll vote for you no matter what. And maybe that’s a bad message to send them.
Are voters clustered in the center of the political spectrum like a bell curve or are voters clustered in two camps at the extremes? If it’s the latter, I could see the “don’t vote” strategy working. Otherwise, it’s bound to backfire because the leftmost candidate would need to move so far left to gain your vote that they would cede more voters to the candidate to their immediate right than they gained by moving left and lose the election as a result. They therefore don’t consider you in their choice of policies and move farther right as a result, which seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. This of course assumes a single political axis which isn’t necessarily accurate.
This is literally the opposite of what has been happening. The Dems keep moving right, and giving up voters on the Left. Every election they scream about the Leftists voter base that is both:
And their strategy isn’t because they can’t get Leftist voters, it’s because they’d rather let the Republicans win, then enact Leftist policy.
You would be correct in an utopian world. There people would vote for who they want instead of who they don’t mind.
But this is reality, and because of the semi-2-party system of the US, voting for any third party is just the same as not voting at all.
If you want to change the system, hold rallies between the elections. But don’t use the elections for that. Or you can be sure you will get an other trump.
And how can your long-term plan work if everything gets fucked up so much short-term, that you will never get to the long term plan in the first place?
You’re the one who’s living in the utopian world. I just told you, you can’t fucking change it. Someone who relies on being the lesser of two evils will always eventually lose massively. That is inescapable. You will subdue your own base every single time. You cannot win without your own base. Trump won because of this. Maybe you’ll beat them this time but six or eight years later he’s going to win again, or whoever the new Trump is. And that’s going to be how it works forever. And every single time it’ll get worse and worse and worse. Your strategy is willfully choosing to lose.