The one valid reason not to vote Dem/Repub this cycle has been to not support genocide, which ultimately supports genocide except the voter can dissociate their vote from the outcome. Other than that, I haven’t seen any other valid arguments to vote 3rd party, particularly when looking at what those candidates would do if they won. Holding the presidency with all of Congress against you means you can’t get anything done, so it’s a waste of 4 years.
The argument of bad faith you’ve made sounds awfully like the beginning of a slippery slope argument.
One important and vocalized point is to hold Democrats accountable for their actions. This isn’t limited to genocide.
Because as things stand, Dems can get away with anything as long as they are marginally less terrible than Republicans. And as the goalposts move every time, situation gets worse and worse.
Voting third party might force Democrats to actually implement changes they propose in order to attract more third party voters to ultimately win the election.
In general I agree that voting can be used to hold candidates accountable for their policies. In this case, I still don’t see how holding the less terrible of the two accountable isn’t tantamount to helping the worse. No one knows why you voted 3rd party, just that you did. If the outcome is that Repubs win, the simplest answer is that most people prefer hard right policies, which is opposite the goals of most 3rd parties (except perhaps libertarianism).
Less terrible of the two is something I think most people would follow unless indoctrinated to think the more viable option is worse. Having constant conversations about holding democrats accountable with nary a peep about how Repubs are worse leans into this viewpoint. At best it’s bad optics. At worst it’s intentional to secure a far right win.
The one valid reason not to vote Dem/Repub this cycle has been to not support genocide, which ultimately supports genocide except the voter can dissociate their vote from the outcome. Other than that, I haven’t seen any other valid arguments to vote 3rd party, particularly when looking at what those candidates would do if they won. Holding the presidency with all of Congress against you means you can’t get anything done, so it’s a waste of 4 years.
The argument of bad faith you’ve made sounds awfully like the beginning of a slippery slope argument.
One important and vocalized point is to hold Democrats accountable for their actions. This isn’t limited to genocide.
Because as things stand, Dems can get away with anything as long as they are marginally less terrible than Republicans. And as the goalposts move every time, situation gets worse and worse.
Voting third party might force Democrats to actually implement changes they propose in order to attract more third party voters to ultimately win the election.
In general I agree that voting can be used to hold candidates accountable for their policies. In this case, I still don’t see how holding the less terrible of the two accountable isn’t tantamount to helping the worse. No one knows why you voted 3rd party, just that you did. If the outcome is that Repubs win, the simplest answer is that most people prefer hard right policies, which is opposite the goals of most 3rd parties (except perhaps libertarianism).
Less terrible of the two is something I think most people would follow unless indoctrinated to think the more viable option is worse. Having constant conversations about holding democrats accountable with nary a peep about how Repubs are worse leans into this viewpoint. At best it’s bad optics. At worst it’s intentional to secure a far right win.