Senate Going Postal: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

This isn't true. You can avoid choosing. More on this later.*****************

We already did this in 2016. More people chose to not vote in 2016 than chose to vote either Hillary or Trump. Your analogy isn't inspiring people to choose, it's actively pushing them toward walking away. It's the kind of rhetoric that inspires people to quit politics. You want people to choose Biden, but the results are the opposite of that which you desire. Maybe you should drop it.

A lot of people are choosing a bullet, or death by drugs/alcohol instead. Deaths by despair are higher than ever and on the rise. Maybe we should give people a reality that doesn't make them want to die, that doesn't make them want to choose death, instead of offering them death or a **** sandwich.

Why would you offer death to people? Don't you know they might choose it?

Not voting and walking away from politics altogether would save me a lot of time, energy, stress, and frustration, and would be much better for my health. I'd be a much happier person if I went back to not following politics at all.

I can't stop one from winning, but I can choose to opt out and stop caring. At that point, I don't have to justify or explain anything. I'm out. It's only people who are still involved that might worry about why people are opting out.

There is truth in what you say. Even so.

Almost everyone I know would choose death. For a lot of people, life already isn't worth living, and they would take the easy way out if offered to them. A lot of people are hanging by a thread and it wouldn't take much to get them to accept death. It takes even less, practically nothing at all, to get people to accept not voting.

We really shouldn't be offering people poison. They just might take it.

Personally? If I were actually in that situation, I'd tell the person with the gun to shoot me. I wouldn't make any effort to fight or run away. I would embrace death as a final release from the suffering of being faced with such choices. My family would be hurt, but they'd understand. They'd all make the same choice.



*****************

Oh, there's no one holding a gun? I won't die if I don't choose? Great! I choose neither. I choose to not vote. Bye. Good luck getting people to choose between a **** sandwich and poison without putting a gun to their head.

If society is offering people a choice between poison and a **** sandwich, then society has completely failed them. It's not the people offered that choice that have failed, it's the people who are offering them that choice. It's not the people offered that choice that need to explain themselves or justify anything.

No one choosing suicide, no one choosing to opt out, needs to explain anything, it's those that choose to carry on that are left feeling devastated, feeling some need for a post-mortem, some need to understand.

Does everyone remember how they felt when Trump won? How could this happen, right? How many people who weren't even paying attention do you think felt that way? I'm guessing a lot of apolitical people didn't give a ****.

You people are the ****ing worst at this. You don't understand non-voters at all and you have no idea of how to even talk to them. You should ****ing quit trying, because every time you speak on it, you make it worse.

This is one of the reasons I respect immigrants. They're strong. Not everyone is that strong or motivated, though. Ninety million people weren't motivated to vote in 2016.

 

Unless you vote for Trump, you will be as well.

 

No no no no no no, you still don't get it, there is no "bye" , you won't magically disappear, if you vote, you'll either get Biden or Trump. If you don't vote, you'll still either get Biden or Trump. Asking me to drop it won't change this obvious truth.


EDIT Perhaps this new perspective might serve to make the point: not voting is equivalent to giving half the vote to each candidate.

 

I'm going to tell you to stop here for your own good, because you're about to enter the world of truth tables and logic gates and you don't want to be here.

 

Don't ****ing tell me what I don't get. I've chosen not to vote before. I know exactly what happens. It's you who doesn't get it. It's you who doesn't see that not choosing has its own value, even though someone else chooses for you. Have you ever heard the phrase "dealer's choice"? It's a thing for people who don't care. Ever heard of ignorance is bliss?

What if I don't ****ing care if I get Trump? What relevance does your "truth" have then? What good is your "obvious truth" if it drives people away from the voting booth? Look at you. You don't even care if your tactics have the opposite effect you intend. You don't care that you, personally, are actively driving people away from voting. You're just like E&B. You are the worst.

I don't get to say bye? Ninety million people did it last time. Watch me do it. I've done it before.

You still get Biden or Trump!

Don't care. Enjoy four more years of Trump while I tune it out.

Really effective way to get people to vote for Biden.

 

Since we don't know each other, it doesn't really matter whether you like me or not. My points of view will remain the same.

It is still a choice. Not voting is equivalent to deciding that the two candidates are the same, which is pretty much what I am opposing here.

You... don't care? This is where we're at?

 

Sure disengagement is always an option. But I do think his argument is an effective counter to arguments like Vivec's. If your primary concern is really reinforcing the social safety net. . .there are clearly better ways to do that than not voting. Similarly, a Trump victory clearly works against your goal in the way other outcomes do not.

 

A Biden victory also works against these goals. Yes I'm aware of your cope arguments as to how Biden didn't really mean to say that "nothing will fundamentally change" or how he didn't mean that he doesn't care about millennial whining, etc, but frankly dealing with your newsspeak is emotionally exhausting.

 

The judiciary moving further right will disproportionally affect minority and working-class communities and individuals negatively.

 

I also have few Iranian coworkers whose lives became significantly more complicated because of the new immigration laws.

 

Also, critically, failure to add new expansions of policy is not as bad as actively seeking to degrade those that exist. It is untenable for you to try and elide this very fundamental difference, Vivec.

 

I think he's better than Trump blah blah tortured analogy, but Biden spent most of his career wanting to "degrade" bedrock U.S. social programs and I doubt he's abandoned that mindset.

 

Do you think it has anything to do with me not liking you? I like you fine. Do you think it has anything to do with your point of view? I don't care how you view it. It's not about you, it's about what you do. It wasn't about E&B either, it was about what he was doing.

It has to do with the posts you choose to make. No one is forcing you to try the absolute worst tactics to persuade people to vote Biden. You're choosing to do that all on your own, just like E&B. I guess I can't do anything other than ask you to stop. I just don't know why you'd keep it up when the people you're trying to persuade have repeatedly told you it's not only not working, but having the opposite effect.

Where I'm at is you personally driving me toward apathy with your posts. Again, it's your choice how you respond to that.

The point was, I don't care if I get Trump, so that's not going to work to persuade me. It's not going to work on a lot of people. It didn't work last time. So whatcha gonna do? Keep yapping on about getting Trump even though people don't care?

Ninety million didn't vote. Trying to force them to choose between a **** sandwich and poison isn't going to inspire them to vote.

More honesty here: my life hasn't really changed under Trump. My family's lives haven't changed. Nothing has fundamentally changed. If anything, my family has been better off under Trump. My sisters didn't have healthcare under Obama, and they don't have it under Trump. The difference? Trump doesn't make them pay a penalty.

I'm not one of you twitter followers who hangs on every stupid word Trump says. I don't give a **** about the latest Trump scandal. I'm not on the 24/7 Trump news cycle. Neither is anyone else I know. That Trump said an immoral thing doesn't have much affect on us because it doesn't actually affect our lives.

See: this is a better way of persuading people than offering them poison and **** sandwiches. It doesn't affect me at all, but at least you're offering me something positive instead of two negatives. Do the former more often, the latter never again.

 

I’m not going to give a defense of Biden, because there isn’t one. He doesn’t deserve my vote, but he’s getting it anyway.

What the Trump administration and the entire party that has remade itself in his image has done in the past 4 years terrifies me, what they intend to do with the next 4 terrify me even more.

Biden is awful but he’s awful in a way that is intrinsically tied to the status quo. We will get more chances to stop the neoliberals. The same cannot be said of Trump and his fascist ilk.

 

@CT-867-5309 I don't work for Biden's campaign and frankly I am quite disgusted both by him and by the vast majority of the Democratic party, so you can't expect me to inspire you into voting for him. In fact, I'm not even trying to even persuade you, since it's pretty clear at this point that most people have already made up their mind.
I have already made my case in several posts about why, specifically, Biden could be better than Trump even for progressive goals.

Concerning the apathy, it is not I the one who makes you become apathetic, but rather the reality in which we live. Faithfully describing a depressing political environment will inevitably sound, indeed, depressing, but you can't blame me for that.

 

I will always associate it with Spinal Tap. If the 2020 US election was an album this is how I would review it.

language warning

Spoiler

 

@3sm1r I plan to vote for either the Green candidate or write in Bernie. I do think that voting matters, and that's the maximum value I can get out of it, for my own politics. Democrats are fond of blaming Ralph Nader for 2000, but the flip side is that many of those Green votes were attainable for a Democrat. They were the easiest people to persuade. A few thoughts:

1. It's deeply ironic that the two parties tell voters the presidential elections are the most important occasions for them to vote, when individual voters' greatest influence is at the municipal and county level where they are part of a smaller electorate. Every four years the party faithful roll around trying to guilt-trip people into voting but many of them probably skip the more affectable ones themselves.
2. The "dilution" of a single anonymous ballot's power across massive nationwide elections means that outlier votes for third party are more impactful than those for a main party, because they indicate a vote that is undeniably available, but hasn't been won. The votes for a main party tell us little about degree of political support from the people who cast them, some are die-hard believers, many are disinterested loyalists.
3. Loyalists will usually say that the choice itself is an ethical challenge that every voter is accountable for, but this is a childish notion. It ultimately boils down to the impossible scenario of the entire election hinging on one single vote, which could be yours. This is Santa Claus-style silliness that should just as quickly condemn you for choosing to drive your car because your contribution to air pollution might be the critical dose which poisons an expectant mother, or many. We don't know the impact our votes (including the ones we withhold) will have, it's a gamble.

 

You're just going to get elections where the choices are terrible. The only case for voting for a terrible candidate that I can see is the issue of judicial appointments. Presidents have set terms, legislation can be repealed or re-written, but SC appointments are for life. I remember quite a few people who voted Hilary for this very reason. It's probably the only reason why I would vote for Biden if I had a vote in the US (assuming his office would make better appointments than Trump).

 

@Glitterstimm I absolutely agree that the presidential elections are overrated with respect to all other elections, and in fact the grassroots' power can be massively effective there. However, this is for me yet another argument in Biden's favor. In order to get progressive legislations passed there will always be the need for massive pressure from the bottom up, as Bernie always says. So, once you get the right people in Congress, and in the executive branch at county/municipal level, it might be easier to achieve results if the person at the top of the hierarchical pyramid is Biden rather than Trump.

 

@3sm1r I think it will be much easier for progressive/leftist movements to influence the Democratic party if Trump wins than if Biden does, actually I'm 100% certain of it. A Pelosi-led House will not bow to leftist interests in the first two years of a Biden administration, and I doubt the Democrats would have control of either body after 2022. It's just not realistic to believe we could have influence on a Biden administration, it would be wasted time while the GOP regroups.

 

@Glitterstimm here we really disagree. Historically, allowing fascism to grow in order to speed up an anti-establishment revolution has proven to be a failing strategy.
If you increase the number of AOC kind of Congress members, even Pelosi will have no choice but to adapt. But whatever accomplishment would just be killed with Trump as president. He just showed it when he vetoed the war power resolution.
I believe that if you manage to flip the Senate and get Biden as POTUS a lot of good things can come out.

 

Just to be clear, the assertion here is that a Democratic administration is less likely to bow to public pressure for left-wing policies by their more left-wing colleagues and constituents than Round 2 of Trump?

 

Liberal pundits have been warning of a fascist takeover for three years now, it hasn't happened and it won't happen under Trump, at least not in a third-world dictator kind of way. Trump isn't a real fascist any more than Reagan or Bush were. Regarding AOC and Pelosi, the Democrats are trying their damnedest to stop insurgent candidates entering congress and their job will be much easier with a president to take their side. A Biden defeat would facilitate a broader generational transition.

No, Round 2 Trump will not bow to left-wing pressure, the Democratic leadership might, more so than under a Biden administration.

 

I don't follow then?