"Anti-war voters in battleground states should vote for Harris to prevent a Trump victory.

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6 every vote sends a message.

Weyoun 6

@evan You can name an instance where voting for a third party in the US changed policy?

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6

Evan Prodromou (@[email protected])

I do not consent to instruction via Socratic method.

CoSocial (cosocial.ca)

Weyoun 6

@evan I'm asking for evidence backing up your statement.

Weyoun 6

@evan for example, in 1992 Perot got 19% of the vote. I cite that as evidence that voting third party changes neither politics nor policy.

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6 well, as a unit, every single vote conveys information to election officials about your preferences for who should govern and which policies should be in place. Voting is communications.

In their aggregate, vote counts convey information to political analysts, journalists, strategists, activists, and policy makers at home and abroad.

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6 it sounds like you think "sending a message" means sending a message to a very specific set of people and having a very specific outcome. I think that's a pretty narrow way to think about voting.

Weyoun 6

@evan I have not ever seen that be the case. The winner of an election never alters course in favor of the losers. Now, if those voters engage the political system after the election, that can be effective communication. But the votes themselves have no value outside choosing the winner, again, in my experience.

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6 you don't think Perot's agenda had any influence whatsoever on the 1990s political trend on spending cuts? Contract With America, welfare cuts, etc.? Just coincidentally aligned?

Evan Prodromou

@weyoun6 you have just given an example, citing Perot's 19%. We are aware of it today and think about it as a way to understand American politics of the time. At least one message was sent and received.

Weyoun 6

@evan it is likely we have different meanings for "sending a message". If voting "sends a message" that does not affect politics or policy I would not consider that communication.

Oliphantom Menace

@weyoun6 @evan I sent a message in 2016. My message was, "Hey, Minnesota is a really close state and Clinton only won by 10k votes, which is shockingly close for a liberal state, and you Democrats should really pay attention and start listening to the left wing of your base unless you want to keep losing elections."

You know what "message" the DNC got from that?

Russia hacked our elections, and it's all the fault of those damned Bernie Bros.

Notice how my message was nuanced, and would have required the Dems to do literally any introspection at all, and make changes to their behavior, to the status quo?

Notice how the message they took from my contextless vote made it someone else's fault, and required them to make absolutely no changes at all and in fact they pushed themselves farther to the Right?

That's what happens.

The truth is, you can't control what message you send with a vote at all.

Oliphantom Menace

@weyoun6 @evan "Should we appeal more to the left?"

"Nah, they didn't really vote for us in the last election. Let's try to appeal to more crossover Republican voters."

DeepSpace🔺9

@weyoun6 @oliphant @evan

Democrats have shamed me and attacked me for years because I vote Green. They have done this as Dems marched to the right, alienating me further each election cycle. I have had close friends tell me what a disappointment I am to them for not VBNMW. Meanwhile, I grew up in a democratic family who are now 75% Republican.

Dems are the new Republicans. We need a strong left, strong unions, and anti corporate anti fash sentiment to mainstream.

Oliphantom Menace

@mishi @weyoun6 @evan Dems are the new Republicans, but Republicans are the new Nazis, and the electoral college ensures that no matter what, only one of those two are actually capable of winning a Presidential election.

DeepSpace🔺9

@oliphant @weyoun6 @evan

Yep. The left has stayed in the same place but the GOP has marched so far to the far right that they are now a Nazi party. Democrats have always (in my 55 year lifetime) cozied up to corporate interests, prioritizing capitalism over the well-being of human beings.

Both parties have lost sight of people. Neither offers healthcare. Both support more jails and prisons, not cheap housing. Both parties take us to a dark place.

Oliphantom Menace

@mishi @weyoun6 @evan But they pick federal judges, with lifetime appointments, pretty differently.

So that's where I'm at.

Jonathan Glick

@evan yes, but strongly disagree (the majority) might mean two very opposite answers

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@Jonathanglick @evan
One of the statements that I don't like in this poll is the assumption that Harris is not an anti-war candidate.

She and Biden are now literally trying to forcibly deescalate the situation in Israel/Gaza, while Netanyahu is holding out for a Trump victory so he can ignore whatever demands Biden makes.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@evan @weyoun6
As someone who worked in politics, I can tell you this is a misconception. Political candidates don't really know who is voting for the third party, or whether there is even a way to get those people to vote for them: many people vote for third parties on the basis of straight up misinformation, or general dissatisfaction with the two-party system (which we really do need to get rid of, and which we will be able to undermine under Kamala Harris but not under Trump), so it isn't seen as viable to chase those voters at this point.

To give an example of misinformation, Putin has poured a huge amount of money into Jill Stein, who has been actively and purposefully misrepresenting the Biden/Harris policy on Gaza in an attempt to get Trump elected for what seems to be nothing more than narcissism?

People shouldn't vote for Jill Stein. Her own party allies are demanding she stepped down at this point, and she really doesn't deserve any more attention than that.