In a winner-take-all general election, you have to be a privileged idiot if you choose to either 1) not vote, or 2) vote for a never-going-to-win 3rd party over a candidate who at least partly aligns with your interests.
I think the last election clearly shows the consequences of what happens when people throw away their vote. But perhaps that lesson hasn't quite sunken in.
If you want to be selective, the time to do it is the primary.
What you say is a "positive" observation, not a "normative" ideal. I'm addressing your description of a "winner-take-all" election.
Remember what the Trumpers said as soon as he won the 2016? "You're just angry because we won and you lost . . . " To them, it was like an NFL game or the SPEED channel. "I win, you lose."
Ideally -- normatively -- it isn't supposed to be that way.
First, a bunch of extremists aren't supposed to pick a lunatic candidate to slap 50% of the electorate in the face for having elected a black man to two successive terms. They'll deny it, because only some cohort of those voters are boldly of that attitude and willing to admit it like a KKK group marching through the streets with sheets. Many others would bury the obvious indications.
If they had any respect for the public, they'd elect someone everyone could live with. They could've had Kasich. They could've had Bush. They could've had Rubio. They might even have got away with electing Cruz. For the most part, it's always been that way. And somebody's race isn't a legitimate justification for "not wanting to live with the decision".
The election should be a vehicle for discussing real issues and alternative solutions to those issues. For the rest of it, the public will elect someone they "like". In the end, the winner should acknowledge the views of the losers and attempt to accommodate some of those views into the general policy platform.
Instead, these people just thumbed their nose at the electorate, decided to put kids in cages, chose to build an asinine wall across wildlife refuges and national parks, pursued a policy of discouraging entry to the country by folks of a different religion . . . the list goes on. There is not one, single thing done by Trump so far that is in any way acceptable to the popular majority who would've won except for the Electoral College. Particularly, It was imprudent to select a unilateral policy direction after capturing the White House by the fluke of the Electoral College. They OWED the public an acknowledgement for the popular vote.
Instead, they spit on everyone, and slapped everyone in the face . . . . daily!
For the rest of it, I can't think of a time in my life when I would've voted for an ideologue. The only reason I wouldn't vote for Sanders is acknowledgement that the Trumpers can still vote, and fence-sitters may bolt from Sanders. Otherwise, I'd vote for Sanders just to slap the other side in the face. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. So -- fine! Let's just go totally "Socialist" -- if that's what they're afraid of.
I chose Bloomberg because he seemed like a level head, a practical person, and not starting to slide down the slope of the aging curve. I'll vote for Biden because he's a decent, good person, and apparently he only has moments here and there when you'd wonder about declining brain cells.
And I'll hope that Biden will choose Kamala for AG, because -- YES! -- the Trumpers need be taught a lesson, and Trump needs to serve hard time. That's Justice. They picked a criminal? Then the criminal should do the time!.
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