MaiOtaku U.S. Election Poll

@thesailingteacup There's a lot of moralising in that post. Things I think ought to be said: 1) With the amount of foul play Trump's going to be engaging in with the votes, *every* vote is going to be necessary to boot him out. I also agree that the dems should work more to engage people who don't already vote, but it's a bit late for that right now and they've got to work with what they've got. 2) It is quite evident that while the leadership of the democrats are despicable people who will cause harm to people, they will at the very least maintain the institutions of democracy, or at least the semblance that yet remains in the US. Trump will not do that, because Trump is an outright fascist. Progressive, liberal, or even socialist ideals will absolutely be stamped out (with violence) by a Trump presidency. Biden will not do that to anywhere *near* the same degree. They are not equivalent (although again they're both awful). 3) So I've not seen any Secular Talk or the Humanist Report, but the Rising is *not* a good show to be recommending. Some of the stuff Saager has been allowed to say, without being adequately challenged by Krystal Ball, is very dangerous fascist rhetoric. 4) On the Biden being unfit for office thing, my only response is that even were he to be wheeled into the White House on life support he would still do less harm than Trump, who on top of appearing to be suffering from some advanced form of dementia is also a narcissist with no psychological capacity to empathise with anyone. 5) People with a view towards maximising good outcomes in a system while it exists are not themselves directly personally responsible for that system. I'm sure there are many people who would vote to change the electoral system if given the chance. The system exists with or without people's explicit approval (and it only cares about the implicit approval of the American people as a whole, not individually). It does not care what anyone's principles are, it cares who gets the most votes in the distribution deemed correct by the system (indeed, it doesn't even care about the popular vote, as I understand it). And currently not only is it so obscenely gerrymandered to disproportionately favour the two main parties, there is also the problem of inertia. Small parties will get less votes because they are small and not run with the kind of capital needed to succeed electorally in the US system. Voting third party is not some magical get-out clause. You still exist under the same system, and it does not care how you respond. One of the two biggest parties will win anyway. Therefore, in choosing to vote third party within the current system and political climate, you have resigned yourself to not actually being able to realise any of your ideals. If I were to moralise, I would say that that is arguably far, far worse, and a desire to be seen to remain pure or untainted out of a detached sense of arrogance, that one is somehow above it all. But as I said, I do actually sympathise greatly with your frustration, and I hate neoliberalism every bit as much as you do. Though right now the priority *has* to be fighting against fascism. Voter apathy is indeed a big problem, and must be fixed. But that is not going to be fixed right now. There isn't enough time to engage with the voterbase. That's the kind of thing that requires *years* of positive campaigning. And *right now*, fascists need to be thrown out of the white house. And after that point, the people can be shown Biden and Harris' sorry excuse for an attempt at governance, and see that it won't fix nearly enough, and they'll begin to see that neoliberalism itself is wholly insufficient. At which point, the people on the actual left who did get involved in the Democrats, and have actual solutions to the problems society is facing will be able to appeal more and more to the American people.

Looks like we have some solid arguments. I will say in hindsight I should have put Independent as an option but it is what it is.

You stated that "voting third party can make it so that on the ballot you have members that represent you in elections to come." If you like 3rd party candidates then you can vote for them. You then go on to say that "I'm not saying I would vote any third party." But perhaps if a 3rd party candidate checks all the political boxes necessary then you will vote for him/her? Here in lays the illogical inconsistency with the following that you have stated. "This year more progressive candidates won seats of office than any other term in our history." Progressive candidates within the democratic party are not 3rd party. Progressive candidates are democrats running to the left of centrist corporate democrats. Progressive candidates within the democratic party are not a 3rd party. It's analogous to republicans voting for tea party candidates. The tea party is not a 3rd party.The tea party is a far right wing group within the republican party. Just as progressives are a far left wing group within the democratic party. Voting for the more progressive wing of the democratic party is a completely different argument then voting for someone in a 3rd party. You then stated that if I thought that "the measly 1-5% that vote 3rd party are really taking away from you why not go after the people who will actually change history". No, I do not think that the measly % that 3rd party takes is taking away from me. Nor did I ever state or imply that. What are 3rd party taking away from me? I am no liberal. I am no conservative. I am also no middle of the road let's all get along and sing kumbaya centrist. If I had to politically define myself. I would put on my engineering cap on. Efficient implementations for the best solutions to humanities problem. Whether the best solutions came from the extreme right. The extreme left. The middle ground. Or perhaps a completely new solutions that requires orthogonal thinking to the line segment of the left vs right. I am in favor for the most efficient well thought out system that gets the job done. The implementation can come from the right, left, middle, a mixture of all of them or a completely new way of thinking. Well, that is my political thoughts from my humanist perspective and not my nihilistic side. Then for the question that you made,"why not go after the people who will actually change history?" That is a question for 3rd party. There are millions of people that the 3rd party could reach out to. But for whatever reason. Millions of people do not vote. Whether it because their lazy; they have work, kids, and are unable to vote; they simply do not care. There are hundreds of reasons that people decide not to vote. But my argument still stands. It would take millions voting for a third party to actually swing the election towards a third party. That is the political reality. A single person voting for a third party isn't changing anything. 3rd party has a lot of ground to cover. Maybe in some distant future. 3rd party is will achieve their goals. But the current political reality is that at least for the presidential level. 3rd party is an afterthought and irrelevant. You said "voting for Biden should be illegal." If voting for Biden is ilegal, then anyone that votes for Biden should be jailed or fined. Did you mean to say " Biden should legally not be allowed to run." If a person does not hold certain criteria then that person shouldn't be allowed to run. Questioning presidential candidates cognitive functions is a completely valid point. But stating that "voting for Biden should be illegal." Is not a valid point. You want to fine or jail people because they voted for a certain person? Please clarify this point. As for the hill Secular Talk, Humanist Report, and The Hill Rising. I very aware of all of them. I seldom watch political talk shows. I do not really like conclusions spoon fed into me. I sometimes like to hear different political perspectives. But I like to arrive at my own conclusions. I do not care if you are mad at me. I do not care if you like me. I do not care if you hate me. How we feel in this conversation is irrelevant to me. Reasonable logical exchange of ideas is what is most interesting to me. I didn't address all your points. A lot of what you said were opinionated fluff that would requires a book to retort too. I'll pass on that for now. @thesailingteacup

Playing the 2 party game just delays a rapid response to the problem. I don't think my vote is going to make a difference, but I expect to make a point with it at the very least.

It would appear Republicans have taken the lead. I suppose MaiOtaku is surprisingly conservative, hehe! - Maybe I will make a separate poll just listing all the 3rd party candidates to see if there are more independent voters. I am curious to see how many.

if string theory is real then in some universe this is how the election was decided https://i.imgur.com/1Zf5fZt.jpg