Would we really be better off under President Clinton?

[Guy Chamberlin]

1 hour ago, Redux said:

 

 

Overall, the anti voting voting strategy feels very High School popularity contest to me.

 

Or....the exact opposite. An unfortunate reality in the adult world, where you rarely get exactly what you want, and have to make incremental choices. 

 

The high school popularity contest is more likely to get you the billionaire tv star who promises to make you rich and pretty.

[Enhance]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

So... you are only and ever required to vote for the candidate you feel is best suited for the job, and you're never allowed to make a defensive vote against a particular candidate, and if you do, you're being undemocratic?

 

Help me follow this logic. 

I think my position is pretty clear in that I disagree with the reason you voted for Hillary because it ultimately turns the election into a binary event and is a fundamental affront to the ideals of a democracy. All choices resonated into two outcomes for you - either I voted for Hillary or I voted for Trump, even though I voted for neither. Similar to your position, I'll never be convinced this type of behavior is something we should consider acceptable.

 

All that said, I acknowledge some of what I'm saying is a bit 'pie in the sky,' but I also can't support your viewpoint on this. It's a disappointing situation even if it is representative of the world we live in. I think we should work to take the binary elements out of our elections rather than pick and choose situations where binarism is acceptable. That's what both parties have been doing for a long, long time. The average voter is ultimately the one who has to suffer for it.

[knapplc]

5 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

I'm not seeing where you've once addressed how I helped Trump get elected. All I see are generalities and broad assumptions.

 

I gave an explanation. If you want a good explanation, that's going to cost you extra. 

 

[knapplc]

1 minute ago, Enhance said:

I think my position is pretty clear in that I disagree with the reason you voted for Hillary because it ultimately turns the election into a binary event and is a fundamental affront to the ideals of a democracy. All choices resonated into two outcomes for you - either I voted for Hillary or I voted for Trump, even though I voted for neither. Similar to your position, I'll never be convinced this type of behavior is something we should consider acceptable.

 

All that said, I acknowledge some of what I'm saying is a bit 'pie in the sky,' but I also can't support your viewpoint on this. It's a disappointing situation even if it is representative of the world we live in. I think we should work to take the binary elements out of our elections rather than pick and choose situations where binarism is acceptable. That's what both parties have been doing for a long, long time. The average voter is ultimately the one who has to suffer for it.

 

I never said it was acceptable. It's practical, it's an unfortunate reality, and the result of not enough people thinking this way gave us Trump. 

 

I've never once said I was happy to make that vote, or that anyone else should have been.  It was a sucky choice out of two suck-tastic choices.  The ONLY reason I voted for Hillary is that it was an attempt to keep Trump out of the White House.  That was a necessary thing, I'd do it again, and if that's not Democratic, I'll do an undemocratic thing to save the country if I have to.

[RedDenver]

4 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I gave an explanation.

Where?

 

4 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 If you want a good explanation, that's going to cost you extra. 

How much is it going to cost me? Because I don't have much money. But I do have a very specific set of skills...

 

Spoiler

I know how to type on a keyboard and use a web browser. That's right, be afraid. Be very afraid!

 

[Enhance]

8 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I never said it was acceptable. It's practical, it's an unfortunate reality, and the result of not enough people thinking this way gave us Trump. 

 

I've never once said I was happy to make that vote, or that anyone else should have been.  It was a sucky choice out of two suck-tastic choices.  The ONLY reason I voted for Hillary is that it was an attempt to keep Trump out of the White House.  That was a necessary thing, I'd do it again, and if that's not Democratic, I'll do an undemocratic thing to save the country if I have to.

You didn't explicitly say it was acceptable, but you did say it's a choice you made for this specific election, which suggests some measure of compliance or acceptability. I do see why you view it as practical, though - that's the part of the ridiculousness of this whole thing.

 

I also agree it was a sucky choice and situation to be in. But, I also don't think that justifies the way our elections tend to play out. One of the greatest problems in our country is how tirelessly we have people working to make elections and almost everything we do binary. It wasn't just the final part of this election. It was decision making made throughout the entire process out of fear for the other party's candidate.

[RedDenver]

1 minute ago, Enhance said:

It was decision making made throughout the entire process out of fear for the other party's candidate.

Remember when the media narrative was that we shouldn't vote for Bernie because Hillary had a better chance in the general election? Ahh, good times.

[Guy Chamberlin]

3 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Remember when the media narrative was that we shouldn't vote for Bernie because Hillary had a better chance in the general election? Ahh, good times.

 

If memory serves, that was the Clinton and DNC mantra. The media loved Bernie's maverick insurgency -- it was a better story -- and I remember pollsters validating Sanders viability in the general election. 

[Big Red 40]

I liked a lot of Bernie’s ideas, and would have voted for him over HRC,  though I’m not sure he would have beaten Trump like everyone says . I think he would have definitely been neutered by a republican house/senate and fiercely opposed by the big money boys, if he would have been elected  .

For instance I think his Medicare for all is a good idea, but no way he strolls in there and gets that done.  That would cost  the insurance/pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars and in many cases end their existence . I just can’t see that happening . 

Another intersting question (maybe for another thread?) Would  we be better off if we had President Sanders instead of Trump  ? I’m not so sure . 

[knapplc]

36 minutes ago, Enhance said:

You didn't explicitly say it was acceptable, but you did say it's a choice you made for this specific election, which suggests some measure of compliance or acceptability. I do see why you view it as practical, though - that's the part of the ridiculousness of this whole thing.

 

I also agree it was a sucky choice and situation to be in. But, I also don't think that justifies the way our elections tend to play out. One of the greatest problems in our country is how tirelessly we have people working to make elections and almost everything we do binary. It wasn't just the final part of this election. It was decision making made throughout the entire process out of fear for the other party's candidate.

 

I've never explicitly said chemo was acceptable. It's poison. Sometimes poison is necessary.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

2 hours ago, RedDenver said:

A binary decision has only two possible options. Every election I can remember had more than two candidates on the ballot.

 

 

 

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson appeared on every ballot

 

Evan McMullin, Darrell Lane Castle, Rocky De La Fuente, and Gloria Estela La Riva appared on more than 15 percent of general election ballots.

 

Only two of these candidates had any possibility of winning the election.

 

It was a binary decision. 

[jsneb83]

3 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

Apparently I should have spelled it out, but you didn't have ONLY two choices. You could vote for Stein or McMullin or whomever you want to write in.

 

My point was, with the likelihood of Trump being elected, the only RESPONSIBLE choice was to vote to prevent that. 

 

It's nice to talk philosophically about popular sovereignty and a vote being a voice. A vote is a real thing, and it has consequences.  The consequences of spending your vote however you wished was that you ran the risk of Trump. 

 

Call that whatever you will.  Binary choice. Undemocratic.  Whatever.  It's the reality we faced.  Because enough people didn't make a responsible vote (with all the caveats of freedom and Electoral College and everything wrapped up in there), here we are.

 

If that's a binary constraint, it's not mine. I'm just pointing it out. 

That would only apply to the states where Trump didn't have a majority of the votes. In those deep red states, Trump was already a lock to win (and Clinton in the deep blue states for that matter). So the people who did vote for third party candidates weren't risking anything. Their votes were meaningless as Clinton wouldn't have won those states regardless.

[Redux]

2 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Or....the exact opposite. An unfortunate reality in the adult world, where you rarely get exactly what you want, and have to make incremental choices. 

 

The high school popularity contest is more likely to get you the billionaire tv star who promises to make you rich and pretty.

 

Not winning class president and blaming it on the unpopular kid candidate is more comparable. 

[RedDenver]

1 hour ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson appeared on every ballot

 

Evan McMullin, Darrell Lane Castle, Rocky De La Fuente, and Gloria Estela La Riva appared on more than 15 percent of general election ballots.

 

Only two of these candidates had any possibility of winning the election.

 

It was a binary decision. 

No, even if you are correct and only Trump or Clinton could win, that's a binary outcome, not a binary decision. But the fact that it's a binary outcome is only true if you aren't looking at the circumstances for individual voters, which I'm going to show was only a single outcome in my case. 

 

Because given your premise that only Trump or Clinton could win, I was faced with voting for Clinton, voting for Trump, voting for Stein, or voting for Johnson (ignoring the other candidates for this example). Except my situation is that I live in Colorado and no matter which of those I chose, Clinton would get all the EC delegates from Colorado. So no matter what, my vote would have absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, which means there wasn't actually a binary outcome for who got elected based on my vote - just a single outcome. So instead of basing my vote on an outcome that I could not effect, I chose to base my vote on other factors like one of the third parties getting to 5% for additional federal funds in the next election and the possibility of changing the established parties' policies or candidates, which is why my decision is actually logical and responsible.

[Danny Bateman]

6 hours ago, Fru said:

One reason I believe we'd have been better off with Clinton is that with her, the office of the President would have been held in check since Republicans would have still been in control of Congress and the Senate. 

 

The pathetic, cowardly fealty of the Republican Congress to their god emperor has laid bare exactly who they are. 
 

They've refused to check his power at almost every single turn. They've passed a Russian sanctions bill he's refused to implement. That's it.

 

I don't want to hear about liberals forcing out-of-control big government on people EVER again.