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jfv wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 12:52 pm I have a bad feeling we're going to be dealing with a lot of folks who want to vote for a third party in 2024.

This is already sizing up to be a problem in Arizona.

biscuitdough wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 10:13 pm

jfv wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 12:52 pm I have a bad feeling we're going to be dealing with a lot of folks who want to vote for a third party in 2024.

This is already sizing up to be a problem in Arizona.

I figure it would be centrist Republicans and progressive Democrats that would peel off. But maybe some people just don't want to go for another four years with one of these octogenarians and they're willing to blow everything up to use a vote as some form of protest.

losthighway wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 10:45 pm

biscuitdough wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 10:13 pm

jfv wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 12:52 pm I have a bad feeling we're going to be dealing with a lot of folks who want to vote for a third party in 2024.

This is already sizing up to be a problem in Arizona.

I figure it would be centrist Republicans and progressive Democrats that would peel off. But maybe some people just don't want to go for another four years with one of these octogenarians and they're willing to blow everything up to use a vote as some form of protest.

The Green Party helped give us Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016.

I love much of what the Green Party stands for. But unfortunately in our crazy system, I believe that voting blue is the only way to achieve any progressive goals.

I'd like to see Jesse Ventura and Marianne Williamson compete with Biden for the nomination. With debates and all.

InMySoul77 wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 11:54 pm I believe that voting blue is the only way to achieve any progressive goals.

But isn’t this the real problem? For at least the past 3 elections I will have been faced with options that I can barely even contemplate, but I am told that it’s all building blocks to “progress”. How much longer is one supposed to wait to make a move? Perhaps I’m alone, but I’m pretty sure we’re backsliding into a morass of economic decay, environmental degredation, and cold war era armament which leaves the next generation less hope than we had. I am not encouraged to keep biding my time. But rest easy, the wife will no doubt make me cast a protest vote in favor of fucking Weekend at Bernies.

I don't really see much difference between wanting Trump to win, and not wanting Trump to win but still helping him to win.

Unless you think Trump winning is better than Trump losing, don't help him win. There are primary races, there are ways to pull Democrats to the left. There is Congress, who actually write the laws. Letting Trump win will do nothing but unleash a fuckton of misery. This is a binary choice. Voting third party is vanity. This is way too important to fuck up.

zorg wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 12:29 am

InMySoul77 wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 11:54 pm I believe that voting blue is the only way to achieve any progressive goals.

But isn’t this the real problem? For at least the past 3 elections I will have been faced with options that I can barely even contemplate, but I am told that it’s all building blocks to “progress”. How much longer is one supposed to wait to make a move? Perhaps I’m alone, but I’m pretty sure we’re backsliding into a morass of economic decay, environmental degredation, and cold war era armament which leaves the next generation less hope than we had. I am not encouraged to keep biding my time. But rest easy, the wife will no doubt make me cast a protest vote in favor of fucking Weekend at Bernies.

I hear you, man. The lesser of two evils stuff we're forced into here is endlessly frustrating. And not building towards the kind of big change we need. (Yet).

But I agree with Anthony: Stopping the GOP is our first task right now.

zorg wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 12:29 am the wife will no doubt make me

I think I see the problem

InMySoul77 wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 5:23 am But I agree with Anthony: Stopping the GOP is our first task right now.

I think we're all preaching to the choir.

We have to worry about the significant number of people in the GOP who voted for Biden in 2020. They may not again.

A statistic to consider:

Clinton won 45% of suburban votes in 2016
Biden won 54% of suburban votes in 2020

(Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... 0-victory/)

Approximately half of Americans live in suburbs; full of a lot of moderate democrats, moderate republicans, and independents.

Why did Clinton do badly in the suburbs? She was unlikable, some people voted for Trump thinking he would soften up as president (they were wrong), and the libertarians nominated a moderate who was an Aleppo-gaffe away from getting closer to 10% of the vote (could also point to Jill Stein, but Gary Johnson took triple the number of votes away compared to Stein, and all of those votes should have been in play for the democrats).

Why did Biden do much better in the suburbs? More likable, and Trump showed he was even more divisive as president. Everyone was very passionate for or against Trump, so few wanted to spend their vote on a third-party candidate.

Really worried about these votes. The Biden administration is, unfortunately, not doing very well right now in the eyes of many.

Another thing to consider: a lot of those votes may be balancing on a knife's edge, and could swing drastically at the last moment, like if the FBI announces they are reopening the e-mail investigation on Clinton a week before the election.

Anglo Saxon politics are in an incredibly difficult place.

In the US and UK the supposed progressive left parties are just 1970s Conservatives with some social liberalism when it’s electorally convenient. The other options is now far right lunatics.

It’s really grim, as someone getting a bit longer in the tooth and very much on the left (in an economic sense. I don’t really think identitarian politics are a “left/right” discussion.

We’re pretty much screwed.