this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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In a primary, should I vote for the person I want to win who couldn't possibly win the general election because I'm a weirdo, or the one that everyone says has the best chances to beat the evil fascists? Oh, and what if everyone says I want the fascists to win if I vote for the weirdo?
The primary is when you should vote for candidates you can think about liking. The general is the time for lesser of two evils nonsense.
Yep, I voted for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries. In the general, I voted for the candidate he endorsed. In November, I'll be voting for his endorsed candidate again.
I feel like that endorsement practically came at gunpoint. Biden is a staunch republican compared to bernie. I'll be voting green on principle unless by some miracle a actual decent candidate enters into this one.
But what if by campaigning for the one I like I undercut support for the other one in the general, and therefore cause the greater of two evils to be elected?
You can switch who you campaign for after the nominee is selected.
Why even have a primary if everyone is going to be too afraid to vote for anyone but the most popular candidate? The primaries also serve to inform the nominees and party leadership what policy positions matter to the members. The votes for less popular candidates represent voters who the nominees have to win over before the general election. That can lead to policy changes. For example, I doubt Biden would have championed student loan forgiveness if Sanders hadn't gotten so many primary votes. If you don't vote according to your actual preferences it just reinforces the status quo.
If you're really worried about this, then vote in the primaries the same way you would in the general, so you don't have any doubts.
Or any choice.
Voting is a choice. What do you mean?
When you have only one barely acceptable option, there is no choice. Only coercion.
You must live a privileged life to think that the right to vote is coercion.
You must support genocide to consider it a choice.
Nope.
Three months ago all of you said I supported terrorism because I was standing up for the Palestinian civilians, now because I don't attribute a 70-year-old mutual defense agreement solely to the sitting president of 3 years who's asking that ally to be less aggressive, all of you say I support genocide.
OP asked who they can vote for. That is a choice. They have a choice who they cast their vote for.
I said no such thing.
As long as they don't want Trump and the fascism he promises, they have to vote for Biden and the genocide he enables. You may think voting for genocide under threat of fascism is a choice, but the threat is what makes it coercion.
As far as I'm concerned, calling it a choice just indicates that you would choose to vote for genocide in the absence of such a threat.
Your confusion makes your concern understandable.
Voting for Biden is not a vote for genocide, you're misattributing 70-year Israeli war crimes to a 3-year sitting president asking Israel to be less aggressive and ignoring all of his administration's achievements for women's rights, the environment, infrastructure, jobs, voting rights, and many more.
Go ahead. Ask.
There are many candidates, OP can vote for any candidate they like, that is a choice.
Voting is a choice.
He didn't have to circumvent congress to sell them weapons. His hands weren't tied there.
And the refrain when someone doesn't want to vote for the genocide you support and suggests not participating at all, the refrain unfailingly is "that's the same as voting for Trump." There's no choice.
They won't be voting for genocide by voting for Biden, your nonsensical equivocation of two unrelated events notwithstanding.
Biden is a good presidential candidate with 3 years of successful beneficial domestic and foreign policies, regardless of who he's running against, and Biden happened to be sitting when a terrorist attack occurred against a 70-year mutual defense ally.
If you don't like the false refrain you mentioned, all you have to do is stop spreading it around.
Anyone can vote for Trump if they want to. It's a vote for rape and direct election fraud, but that's the price you pay for participating in a representative democracy.
Everyone gets to vote.
Voting is a choice.
You did a good job of handling this. When I'm faced with such stupid, I cannot even deal with it.
Appreciate it.
I don't always take the high road, but I am satisfied with how this thread turned out.
Unless we're burning it all down and accepting the problems with that Pandora's box then we have to try to fix the system from the inside.
and that is the thinking that got us Trump vs Biden twice in a row with some states not wanting one or the other on the ballots further limiting choices
and this also got us the baby steps that got roe overturned and the thinking that helped us not get the police under control and reformed and so on
dream small, get small
I think you’re supposed to stay home for the primary, then loudly complain about the nominees.
No you’re supposed to cast a vote that doesn’t count and have the superdelegates fuck your shit up.
Then you are supposed to be super surprised that Clinton lost to Trump. And fucked up the government for at least the next 12 years.
Sorry, am I still bitter about that?