And so it begins. Nine months still to go before the next US presidential election and already the Republican party favourite and former President Donald Trump is sending eyes rolling skywards with his seemingly outlandish statements.
And yet they will delight many of his supporters.
Suggesting at a rally in South Carolina that he would “encourage” aggressors (for example Russia) “to do whatever the hell they want” with Nato countries that fail to pay their dues has prompted an immediate slap down from the White House. A spokesman called the comment “appalling and unhinged”, saying it was “encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes”.
Nato Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has also responded forcefully, saying: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
That’s the thing though. Biden doesn’t represent my views and voting for him to keep Trump out will be interpreted by the DNC as an endorsement of him and a reason not to change their platform to better suit the electorate. I’ve been doing this lesser-of-two-evils thing for decades now and the outcome keeps getting worse. Maybe it’s just a bad strategy.
The platform of “vote for us or we’ll let the other guy ravage society” is not a compelling platform and rewarding them for running on that platform isn’t going to end well for us. This will turn out for us how paying the Danegeld always does.
You’ll vote lesser of two evils in most elections pretty much until the other side starts putting up reasonable candidates. Blaming Democrats for not giving you decent choice just completely misses the point: The Republicans choosing fascism means they aren’t a viable choice. They are removing choice from the ballot, not Democrats. You’re not being forced into anything by Democrats, they are simply running a platform that you should have the opportunity to disagree with, but you can’t, because the other side is fascism.
But let’s take the approach of “not rewarding them” for putting out shitty candidates (that aren’t fascist). Do you think once the fascists get into power, that Dems will even have the opportunity to change? What is your end game, because not voting for the lesser evil is the acceptance and indifference of either evil, and allows the worst evil to win.
The time for that fight is the primary, local elections, and between election cycles. Refusing to participate at the ballot box because you don’t like the choices you’ve been given is counterproductive, not just pointless.
Maybe it’s a bad strategy, but it may still be the best strategy.
The main point of my post is that even if you don’t like Biden, you should at least be truthful in your complaints about him. If you paint him as worse than he actually is then instead of people holding their nose and voting for him they may just not vote at all, or worse.
Just to elaborate, the only real currency we have with the parties is cold hard cash (where we’re hopelessly outgunned) and votes. Giving away our votes without demanding something in return is selling ourselves short. We will /never/ have any sort of real change or progress if we hold our nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. We will only continue to lose ground as we devalue our votes by giving them away for nothing.
I see what you’re saying and I subscribed to that strategy long ago, but in the long run it’s clearly a losing strategy.
So what’s the winning strategy? Let Trump win instead?
The world isn’t perfect. Holding out for a perfect candidate means never voting, at which point you have nothing to bargain with either.
Go ahead and vote your conscience in the primaries, sure. It’s not such a big deal if you hold out for perfect in those. But in the American election system the actual vote for president is going to be between Trump and Biden. It sucks but you get just those two options there.
There’s a phrase I’m reminded of as it’s used in Australian politics quite often when it comes to our Greens party trying amend Labor legislation:
That is, don’t let your quest for the best possible outcome one prevent you from supporting a lesser outcome. Don’t let wanting a super progressive president prevent you from voting for the mildly progressive president which lets the regressive president end up winning.
I don’t like him in that he’s further down the wrong path than we’ve ever been with a Democrat president. He’s further down that path than Nixon or Bush Sr. Holding our noses isn’t working out for us.
I think that the Democratic Party needs to really grasp that it has to work for its votes and build a platform that genuinely attracts voters instead of talking them for granted. I thought the first Trump incident would drive that home for them, but maybe it will take another. Holding our noses will only tell them that they will reliably get votes as long as they’re not as bad as the other guy.
Getting rid of first-past-the-post and breaking up the stranglehold that the D/R dichotomy has on our government is the best strategy, and is in progress, but it’s slow and resisted by the same parties.
Certainly. But can you get it done before the next election? If not, the choice will be between Biden or Trump.
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Maybe a nation of 330 million people only having two political parties was a bad thing after all?