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Republicans and Conservatives - are you going to vote Libertarian?

Are you going to vote Libertarian?

  • Yes

  • Maybe

  • No

  • I don't vote

  • Bacon

  • Pork chops

Results are only viewable after voting.
Charmonium

Charmonium

Lifer
Given the fact that Trump has unfavorables of about 70%, are you one of those repubs who is ready to jump ship?
 
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I'm a registered Republican who is voting Libertarian, but unless my primary choice becomes the nominee I almost always do. So I probably don't count.
 
No. As much as I dislike Trump, a vote for a third party candidate is essentially a vote for hildebeast, and that ain't happening.
 
PokerGuy said:
No. As much as I dislike Trump, a vote for a third party candidate is essentially a vote for hildebeast, and that ain't happening.
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If we continually vote for the lesser evil, at what point must we admit that we just like voting for evil?

Much as I dislike the Hildabeast, I can't think of a single fault she possesses that is not present in Trump in at least equal proportions. True, he's not Hillary Clinton - but neither is Hillary Donald Trump.

Sonikku said:
Not a Republican, but I voted Bacon.

Bacon is the kind of bipartisanship we can all get behind. 🙂
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Bad enough we get screwed by POTUS without being tempted to eat it too.
 
I keep being called a liberal by people on this board, but I'm more likely to vote for the Libertarian over Hilary because I just want more parties in the game already. It could be the one chance to bring compromise back into the political process. Get L's their needed % to be taken seriously and next time maybe Greens or some other group gets their % and pretty soon the D's and R's have to figure their shit out. We can all benefit from that.
 
werepossum said:
If we continually vote for the lesser evil, at what point must we admit that we just like voting for evil?
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I agree, that's the dilemma. We keep voting for the lesser evil and end up with crap in govt. At the same time, I know a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for hildebeast. I don't like Trump, but I'll probably end up holding my nose and voting for him.

Much as I dislike the Hildabeast, I can't think of a single fault she possesses that is not present in Trump in at least equal proportions. True, he's not Hillary Clinton - but neither is Hillary Donald Trump.
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There is one major overriding difference: the next president will likely get to appoint 3 (or more) scotus justices and thus heavily influence the country for much longer than the presidential terms. We already know hildabeast is going to appoint SJW garbage. With Trump there's still the possibility that he could appoint someone decent. That alone is reason enough to pick him over her.
 
jackstar7 said:
I keep being called a liberal by people on this board, but I'm more likely to vote for the Libertarian over Hilary because I just want more parties in the game already. It could be the one chance to bring compromise back into the political process. Get L's their needed % to be taken seriously and next time maybe Greens or some other group gets their % and pretty soon the D's and R's have to figure their shit out. We can all benefit from that.
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There is no possibility of there being a third party in American Politics without major overhaul of the electoral process. It is not a matter of will, it is a matter of math. Our first past the bar system guarantees only two parties.

The best you can do is swap which two parties are in contention. If enough people decide to switch to the Libertarian party then the Democrats will win every election until the Libertarian and Republicans unite their forces either by people abandoning one of them or actually combining into a single party. Then what ever that new party is will have the ability to gain enough support to challenge the Dems again.

Here is an example of why: (these numbers are just for example, and are fully pulled from my ass)

We start with the Dems and Repubs having about 40% of the voters each.
The other parties have 3% collectively.
That last 7% sways back and forth between D and R deciding the major elections.

Let's say a bunch of the Repub base is pissed off at the nominee and decide to switch to the Lib party. About half of them move over. Just for ease we are going to say that the Lib party is able to get the entire 3% of third party voters.

Now the Repubs have 20% of voters.
The Libs have 23% of the voters.
The Dems have 40% of the voters.

No matter where that 7% of swing voters vote the Dems win by a hefty margin.

Play around with these numbers and you will see that it takes an unrealistically large number of swing voters to make it so that there can be a 3rd party.
 
PokerGuy said:
I agree, that's the dilemma. We keep voting for the lesser evil and end up with crap in govt. At the same time, I know a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for hildebeast. I don't like Trump, but I'll probably end up holding my nose and voting for him.
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You might have to accept some hardship to fix the problems. It is the unwillingness to do that that has let us get to this state to begin with. Keep voting against people and you will never have someone to vote for. The parties are going to make sure that there is always someone you should vote against.

There is one major overriding difference: the next president will likely get to appoint 3 (or more) scotus justices and thus heavily influence the country for much longer than the presidential terms. We already know hildabeast is going to appoint SJW garbage. With Trump there's still the possibility that he could appoint someone decent. That alone is reason enough to pick him over her.
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I guess that would be a real problem if you think justice is a bad thing.
 
If we had a more parliamentary system where factions had to unite to have a majority in Congress, we would have a different political landscape. But we don't. So we would have to fundamentally change the way govt works (or doesn't work) in order to get more viewpoints in the mix.
 
SMOGZINN said:
There is no possibility of there being a third party in American Politics without major overhaul of the electoral process. It is not a matter of will, it is a matter of math. Our first past the bar system guarantees only two parties.

The best you can do is swap which two parties are in contention. If enough people decide to switch to the Libertarian party then the Democrats will win every election until the Libertarian and Republicans unite their forces either by people abandoning one of them or actually combining into a single party. Then what ever that new party is will have the ability to gain enough support to challenge the Dems again.

Here is an example of why: (these numbers are just for example, and are fully pulled from my ass)

We start with the Dems and Repubs having about 40% of the voters each.
The other parties have 3% collectively.
That last 7% sways back and forth between D and R deciding the major elections.

Let's say a bunch of the Repub base is pissed off at the nominee and decide to switch to the Lib party. About half of them move over. Just for ease we are going to say that the Lib party is able to get the entire 3% of third party voters.

Now the Repubs have 20% of voters.
The Libs have 23% of the voters.
The Dems have 40% of the voters.

No matter where that 7% of swing voters vote the Dems win by a hefty margin.

Play around with these numbers and you will see that it takes an unrealistically large number of swing voters to make it so that there can be a 3rd party.
Click to expand...

I speculate that if a third party gained legitimacy, it could pull from both Ds and Rs and overall shake things up so that both "major" parties have to start dealing with the people who don't care for team sports and want to address more than wedge issues.

I also think that any third party needs to start with local elections and grow out to a national stage, but everyone want to skip the line and think they can have a "fair" chance. Really though, I just want more parties on the stage. It will force people from their false dichotomies and sad binary thinking about issues.

I am, perhaps unrealistically, optimistic.
 
I'm voting Johnson. I know a lot of others that are as well. We need 15% in national poles to be in the debates. He is at 11 and over 15 in some states already. Let's see what happens when our views are not squashed by the media, and we have actual exposure.
 
werepossum said:
If we continually vote for the lesser evil, at what point must we admit that we just like voting for evil?

Much as I dislike the Hildabeast, I can't think of a single fault she possesses that is not present in Trump in at least equal proportions. True, he's not Hillary Clinton - but neither is Hillary Donald Trump.
Click to expand...

You consider Romney and Obama... Bush, Kerry, and Gore, to be evil? You certainly didn't get (or wouldn't have gotten) everything you want with any of these candidates, but isn't that sort of what Democracy is? Compromise?
 
It's very possible, I don't care for Trump or Hillary.

Too bad I can't vote against Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton again. Guess I'll have to wait 2 more years.
 
SMOGZINN said:
Play around with these numbers and you will see that it takes an unrealistically large number of swing voters to make it so that there can be a 3rd party.
Click to expand...
You are correct that our system forces us to two parties in the long run. But, your numbers in your example can use improvement. http://www.gallup.com/poll/188096/democratic-republican-identification-near-historical-lows.aspx

There are enough independent voters already (42%, top graph). The problem now is getting that critical mass to switch. A truly viable 3rd party candidate at a time where one party hates their candidate (such as Trump), could pick up enough to actually win.

But, if you look at the lower graph the democrat leaning people are at 45%. So the third party would essentially need all of the republicans to switch over. Which is too large of a hurdle to be realistic at the moment.
 
The problem that I see is that there isn't enough Liberarian / republican overlap issues. Other than the 2nd amendment, they are few and far between. There are a lot more libertarian / liberal overlap issues but they aren't likely to join up this election.
 
Bacon, but would have voted smoked spare ribs if given the chance.

If there isn't a strong 3rd party this election cycle with the two nominees we have, this pretty much settles that we will never have a 3rd party unless the Rs or Ds implode.

I think our Constitution makes this impractical anyway given the electoral college and the role of the House if there isn't a clear winner. 3rd party will always be spoilers.
 
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