Soooo no other solutions? Gotcha, I’ll stick with the plan to vote Biden and let Harris take over if he steps down.
So as an individual you have 4 options:
1- vote for Biden: democrats maintain the current path as that’s literally what’s happening now
2- vote Trump: either they maintain their current path or democrats have to pivot
3- vote third party: if that party gets enough votes one of the main parties will catwr to the messaging of that party to take those voters in the next cycle as it’s an easy win
4- don’t vote: if enough people don’t vote they’ll cater more to them next cycle but that’s harder to aim in the direction you’d want to promote.
Is that a good enough breakdown? So if I were to rank my options I’d go for 3,4,2,1
You’ve said that choosing options 3, or 4 will send a message to change party opinions for the next cycle. But the message it sends is ambiguous at best. It could be interpreted to mean that people are unhappy with the system and demand change; but it could also mean that people are indifferent, or disengaged, or ill-informed, or have been prevented / dissuaded from exercising their right to vote. Or perhaps it could be interpreted on policy grounds: perhaps votes are unhappy with genocide… or perhaps not, perhaps they are war-hungry. Perhaps want stricter rules to control anti-social behaviour … or the opposite.
If you don’t vote at all, your message is basically just noise. It communicates nothing, because whatever message you think it sends it could also be sending the opposite. Voting third-party would be less bad, except that many third parties are exist disingenuously as a tactical way to split votes, to increase the change of victory for the party of opposite values to what the third party purports to represent.
If lets say 10% of people vote for the green party. We know that what people want relates to their messaging and they’d try and take voters away from them as it’s easier than taking republicans or people that refuse to vote since you know what the green party stands for. That’s different than voting for the social democrats and so on.
You can’t lump options 3 and 4 together like that.
Not voting sends the message that people are dissatisfied or feel disenfranchised. Now if the Democrats win they won’t care to change. Or even if they nearly win. But if they loose badly they’ll have to cater to these voters. And thus a pivot would be in order. But like we’re both said, not voting harder to take get a party to move in that direction
What are the chances enough people voting decide in the next 4 months to vote 3rd party or sit out moreso than vote Biden/Trump?
