Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
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For me, the problem with voting for the Green party is that there will never be 3 viable parties in the country, so it's really a symbolic vote, and that's fine, but I think it's the worst of 3 potential symbolic votes, the other two being writing in Sanders, and leaving the ballot blank for president and voting for down ballot races.
What we saw in 2016 is that everyone just added Clinton's vote totals to the Green Party vote totals and concluded that if Stein hadn't "split the vote" Clinton would have won. As hilarious as it is to watch that, they really are dumb enough to believe it, so they're not learning the right lesson. It's a similar issue with writing in Sanders, in that case the assumption is that anyone writing in Sanders is a fanatic who would never vote for anyone else anyway, and that's not really true, I'd vote for any progressive. Another problem with that is that Sanders is widely expected to endorse Biden, and at that point he's dead to me as a candidate, would never vote for him again if he betrayed his platform like that.
So that leaves the last option - not voting for president and just voting down ballot. I think this is the right way to send a message. Neither candidate is acceptable, the end. Your symbolic vote gets aggregated with principled voters of other political stripes as well, it's not like the Gary Johnson / Jill Stein thing last time.
What makes Biden unacceptable? That he will work with Bernie to advance his goals as possible? That he will get more liberal judges on the courts? That he will protect a womans right to choose? That he will address environmental issues such as climate change? Or that he would restore/increase funding to public schools? And advance progressive causes like equal rights, protect minorities, progressive tax reform, protect Social Security and medicare, increase health care, etc?
Is there anything there that you're opposed to? Or are you hoping to keep burning down America under Trump because you're butthurt the people didn't vote for Bernie?
