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So you don’t like Trump or Harris – here’s why it’s still best to vote for one of them
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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politics
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"Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike."
^ THIS!
In a Presidential election, whoever gets the most votes wins.
If "Not Trump" is split between 5 candidates, and Trump gets the most votes, he wins.
Here's a scenario:
Trump - 40%
Harris - 35%
Kennedy - 15%
Oliver - 5%
Stein - 3%
West - 2%
Trump wins. Even though 60% of the voting public don't want him. The "Not Trump" vote failed to coalesce under one candidate enough to block him from winning.
This is what I keep saying. It's like my scenario with the Class President. A Nerd and a Jock are running. 51 kids are nerds and don't want the Jock. 49 kids are jocks and don't want the Nerd. Pretty clear that the Nerd wins, because more people don't want the Jock than the Nerd, right? Wrong. If the Jock can peel just THREE votes off from the nerd coalition, the Jocks win it and D&D night is cancelled.
Now re-read that and replace nerds with Liberals, jocks with Conservatives, and 'D&D night is cancelled' with 'Project 2025 is shoved down our throats.' Then...vote with your fucking head and not your fucking heart!
It's like this, but Jocks' votes are worth more than Nerds'.
Definitely. I tried to keep the scenario simple to make it easy to understand, but there is truth in the statement that the jocks have some fingers on the scale of Democracy. I suspect there's more nerds than jocks. We just have to make sure they all turn out to vote because the cheerleader that is the jock's politician is pulling out ALL the dirty tricks.
On the other side of the Atlantic there's usually two rounds, unless someone gets >50% of the vote in the first round.
The second round takes the top two candidates and then people choose between them.
Well I mean I don't know of all European countries but this is fairly common afaik.
It doesn't work that way in US Presidential elections.
Yeah. I know.
The US doesn't have a direct presidential election. You have the electoral college, ie an indirect election.
Correct, but even state by state, if you have multiple people running and nobody hits 50%, Presidential elections are not subject to a run-off election like we saw in the Georgia Senate race.
In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?
Because we're able to discuss hypothetical things without being literal to prove a point.
That would be fine, if that's what was happening, but it's not. The commentor that i responded to, as well as the article that we are all responding to, use this "hypothetical" situation where third party voters all prefer Harris over Trump to justify a chastisement of those third party votes. There is no basis for this assumption presented in the article or within the comments in this thread.
E: added the word "be" to the 1st sentence.
Well, if hypothetically, I was forced to vote, and thn for only one of these 2 parties only... well, I'm not a rich white guy, I'm not racist, misogynistic, don't believe sharpies change weather... and, I don't want to find out just how close he would be to starting the next Nazi party. That narrows my options down a bit.
I mean.. thanks for the input, but you're just one person. I too would choose Harris over Trump if i was forced to choose between the two. But your and my personal choices to not a general consensus make. I wouldn't argue that the majority of 3rd party voters would do likewise without some proof.
.. none of this addresses that third party voters may find it more important to vote against BOTH parties than to vote against their least favorite of the two, either.. but i've raised that point elsewhere.
If you just don't understand the concept of hypotheticals, you may be on the spectrum, fyi
Don't use being on the spectrum as an insult. It is unbecoming.
I don't think hypothetical means what you think it means. Either that or you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is arguing.
The article is implies that 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump voters if it came down to a choice between the two. That is not a hypothetical, that is an unsubstantianted assumption.
It's not an insult, I'm being serious. The hypothetical is the vote totals given in the comment you responded to. In that hypothetical scenario, voting for your perfect candidate gets your least favorite candidate elected. You seem unable to consider it as a standalone scenario that may or may not be similar to real life voter tallies. That's a common indicator of neurodivergence.
Whether they would prefer Harris or not is irrelevant, they don't want Trump. There is only 1 candidate who can beat the Republican candidate and it's not an Independent/Libertarian/Green candidate.
I don't understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don't want Trump.
This doesn't make any sense.
"don't want Trump" in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is "why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?"
I'll try to make it simple then:
They aren't pro-Harris, they're anti-Trump.
Problem: "Not Trump" is not a candidate, so splitting the not Trump vote allows Trump to win.
If people really, REALLY, REALLY do not want Trump, there's only one answer and that's to support the Democratic candidate who happens to be Harris.
Why Harris? Because she has more support than any other "Not Trump" candidate.
I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn't matter). My question remains. I'll rephrase it:
Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?
Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.
Because if they were interested in voting for Trump, they'd be voting for Trump. When the choice is Trump vs. Not Trump, Not Trump wins. Even in 2016 that was true.
What the other person is saying is that you are splitting voters in three categories: pro-Trump, pro-Harris, anti-Trump. But that third group obviosuly doesn't like either of the two main candidates, not just Trump. And if forced to vote for one of them, there's no reason to assume all will pick Harris.
Nope. Harris doesn't enter into it. There are two sides, Pro Trump and Anti Trump.
If you want Anti Trump to win, you have to pull behind one candidate. Splitting it 5 ways guarantees Anti Trump cannot win.
There is only one candidate who happens to be at the same level as Trump, the Democratic candidate.
Which means holding your nose and voting for Harris, failing to do so gets you Trump. You don't have to be Pro Harris at all, you just have to hate Trump more.
Ok, I get what you are saying, but it sounds biased the way you're wording it. You could've just as well said Pro Harris and Anti Harris. Trump is the only one who can realistically beat Harris, so if you're Anti Harris you should vote Trump, even if you're not Pro Trump.
So yeah, if you're Anti Trump you should vote Harris and if you're Anti Harris you should vote Trump. If you're Anti both of them then tough luck because the electoral system in the US doesn't care about you. One of them will be president no matter what you do, so if you want any control over which one, then vote for one of them even if you hate both.
Agreed.
Would it be nicer if we lived in a multi party system? Probably. Do we? No. Voting as though we are is not useful (maybe unless you live in a state that you are 100% certain can not be flipped).
If you hate one candidate even slightly less than the other, for example because the former has not yet stated that they want to punish colleges that allow pro Palestine demonstrations, vote for that first one.
Harris isn't the threat to the American system of government that Trump is.
A poll in which "First choice is someone other than Trump" beats "Trump" would indicate that "Trump" has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.
A poll in which "Anybody but Trump" beats "Trump" would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.
Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i've been asking for in this thread.
Trump has stronger negative polling in the general population than Harris so it's not as absurd as you're making out. Trump is also much more strongly polarising and always has been.
I am not saying it's absurd. I am asking for data.
You're using an over-used debating technique where you cast doubt on others by demanding proof of any claims you don't like but letting statements you agree with stand unchallenged.
It's not so far away from trumps habit of calling anything that he doesn't like fake news.
You're painting yourself as a neutral who is just asking for information, when in fact you're heavily partisan. It's misleading.
Actually what i'm doing is pointing out a glaring logical flaw in the article that is the subject of this post. The fact that others are willing to accept the conclusions drawn by the unsupported claim of this article is worrisome. It speaks to a lack of critical thinking and a wiillingness accept illogical arguments simply because they fit with ones world view. It is fairly absurd to me that i need to spell this out.
And i have reaponded to you elsewhere with plenty of data that supports me. Unfortunately no one else in this thread has attempted to do the same in support of the article's claim. Not one single person.
I would be entertained to hear how exactly you think i am partisan. I am, in fact, one of these braindead third party voters that everyone in this thread is raging against. About as far from a partisan as one can get.
And you, and everyone else here, has had ample time and opportunity to provide any bit of data that you like to show that i am wrong. But y'all consistently turn to attacks against me or my character instead. And that right there, my friend, is a true Trump tactic.
If you are right then show the data.
Me:
You: condescending waffle and deflection. Also you:
When I point out your asymmetric proof demands you just repeat them.
I have responded in good faith to each of your criticisms. I have provided polling data when you asked. I have not once waffled.. what do you think that means, exactly?
I continue to await anyones data driven response to my initial question. "Why are we assuming that all of the third party votes would go to Harris if they were forced to choose between her and Trump?"
If you have no real input to add then just stop responding.
...and there it is.
Are you pretending that you and i are not engaged elsewhere in this comment section where i continue to post data and you continue to post none? Of course i continue to await your data. What else can i do?
I do this in the interest of an open discussion, despite the absurdity of a) an article giving bold directives to a group of people which are completely based an assertion made within the same article, b) the article giving zero support for this assertion, c) me asking for someone to please back up the assertion, and then d) you and others retorting with "no, you first."
This actually made me chuckle. It's like you can't help yourself.
It's silly to boast about data that doesn't even add up! It's nonsense data! You claim 3.5% of the country are non-Democrat Trump haters, and conclude that they must all be Republicans because there are 8.5% of the country who are Republican Trump haters!
Each non-Democrat Trump haters is three Republican Trump haters so the third party voters can't hate Trump?!?!
This is the data you're so proud of quoting! It's so obviously BS because, and I'm surprised that I have to point it out to you a third time, one people can't be three people. Your math isn't mathing.
I've addeessed this every time you've stated it. Rather than continue two threads i am going to link to my response from the other one where i adress it once again. https://lemmy.world/comment/12887849
No, you've repeated it every time once stated it. You require proof of statements you disagree with and are uncritical of statements you agree with. It's called confirmation bias and it's very, very normal.
The difference with you is that you act like you think that believe what you believe because you carefully and neutrally analysed the data and drew only logical conclusions from it. [But we saw where you concluded that 3.5% of Americans were trump hating non democrats and that since 8.5% of Americans were trump hating republicans and that number is bigger, all the trump hating non democrats must be republicans and none of them could possibly be third party, and once you finally understood that you had made a big mistake (because each of the non democrats had to be approximately three republicans), you didn't admit that your argument was flawed, you didn't reconsider your position, you doubled down and just edited the numbers for one and found another poll that was slightly less inconsistent because it only requires 7 non democrats to be 8 republicans which for some reason you now think is logical because, what? 7 and 8 are so close?]
So no, you're not deciding what you believe is true from what the data tell you, you're frantically trying to find data, any data, that looks even slightly consistent with your pre-conceived opinion, and not even applying basic critical thinking whilst doing it.
So no, I don't respect your call for proof because your double standards on what constitutes proof are stark and no amount of data or logical thinking can ever cause you to rethink. It's a fools errand for me to start engaging with your logic-free gish gallop.
You sound like you're scared that you won't be able to find any good data that supports you.
This is a mischaracterization of the conclusions i made. I have made it clear that i only need to argue for it being possible that half or more of the 3% third partiers could be in favor of Trump over Harris. Of course many of them favor Harris. You find me where i said otherwise. I double dog date you. Im fact, it was the original article that made the preposterous unsupported claim that almost all third partiers are closet-aupportera of one side or the other. My argument this entire time has been that this claim is BS unless someone can provide support for it.
Since you keep skipping over all of my points in order to get to the part where you criticize me as quickly as possible i am going to ask you exactly one question this time. Please answer.
What exactly is the range of percentages for anti-Trump Republicans that you would accept to be in support of my conclusion?
Well, I'm going to ask you a question that you have been ducking for over twelve hours: can one person be three, or were your reasoning, logic, and conclusions based on misuse of inconsistent and unreliable polling data?
Your attempt to get me to take part in a rehash of the same logic with different data is futile. Your logic is nonsense.
So you're not willing to answer my question?
I have answered all of yours and responded in good faith to each of your less than civil comments. In fact, i have already answered the very question you just re-asked.
Are you willing to answer my question, or should we let it drop?
Are you willing to admit that polling data is unreliable and that it's nonsense to do arithmetic on results from separate pools? If not, there's no basis for engaging with you because you'll just repeat the same nonsense with poll after poll until you luck out on one that is less obviously misleading.
How on earth did you miss the part where i just explained in detail that making claims about what the polls show was something presented by someone on your side of the argument. I am literally here showing how the polls, whether you think they are wortheless or not, do not show what that person was claiming. If your complaint is with polls in general why are you huffing and puffing at me and not at that person. Could it be because that person just so happens to be arguing something that you'd like to be true and i am not?
Because the other person didn't do insane arithmetic between polls in a way that counted some people as three people then defend it three times before backing down, and then refuse to admit for another 24 hours that their logic was flawed.
The other person did no arithmetic at all. Nor did they provide any data at all. But you know what they did do? They claimed that the polling data supported the idea that third partiers support Harris over Trump. And they claimed that a couple very specific types of polling data supported this claim. You know which types? Yep, the exact ones i pulled polling data for. So, critisize the choice of those specific polls all you want, and go on about how i shouldn't compare two polls of disparate groups of people (which was one of my own points before you latched onto it, you're welcome), but in the end you're only making my case for me that the commenter who said the polls support their claim is wrong.
Since then you have: A) misinterpretted my original comment in which i linked the polls, B) repeated your "1 = 3 = magical math" argument, and most recently, C) cast aspersions on all polling data.
We are past (A). I have addressed (B) multiple times and until you answer my question about the exact percentage range that you would accept as proof, i will consider your argument defeated. Now (C) i am in complete agreement on, but polling data being unreliable only helps my argument. I.e. if polls are unreliable then why was the other commenter stating that polling data would prove them right? If polling is unreliable then what basis does the article have for claiming that third partiers prefer Harris over Trump?
No, no, no. I have asked you a very specific question which you have refused to answer. This is not what me backing down looks like.
Oh, sorry, I thought you had backed down from this:
I mean initially you stood by it, then you said the data was approximate then you found another survey where the numbers were closer (4% rather than 8.5%, but still with a magical 7 non-democrats being 8 republicans), then I thought you accepted that you couldn't do arithmetic with data from different polls, but here you are recanting your admission?
Lol. "Give me a precise percentage to use in my meaningless poll arithmetic or you're definitely wrong." isn't as convincing as you think it is. I shall not participate in your illogical nonsense.