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General News The probability of a TRUMP presidency

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by danbriate69, Oct 8, 2016.

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  1. sldanlm

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    Just wanted to correct this: She never called independent voters "deplorables."

    Clinton Says Half of Trump Supporters Are

    Having gotten to meet and listen to a few die hard Trump supporters (not merely people who are are going to hold their nose and vote for him), the only thing that is factually wrong with the statement is the "half" part. That doesn't mean it's a good idea politically to say certain things that might be used by your opponent, regardless of whether it's true or not. A few things that Trump said are factually true, but the same rule still applies. I told someone at the time it came out though that this wasn't going to be a big deal in the long term, that if comments affect the outcome it will be Trumps comments, not hers. I told someone in July that Trumps biggest enemy has been and will continue to be his own mouth.

    I can't prove it, but I have a feeling something else will happen or come out that will be so bad for him, even his running mate will leave him.
     
    #41 sldanlm, Oct 11, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2016
  2. RainbowGreen

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    I do believe Trump ruined his chances for presidency. His comment about women seemed to have been the last straw.

    However, I don't think Clinton is any better.

    Here's my fears about each candidate:

    Trump:
    -Not supportive of LGBT
    -Wants to get rid of all Obamacare
    -Doesn't do anything about gun control
    -Wants to get involved in Middle East
    -Will probably ruin the States' relationships with other countries, especially Mexico
    -Wants to run the country like a business
    -Talked about bankrupting the country, making the US dollar worthless and causing another worldwide recession
    -His comments about Muslims parallels the ones Hitler had about Jews
    etc.

    Clinton:
    -Untrustworthy
    -Might start war with Russia, which could lead to WW3
    -We don't know what she really thinks
    -Not fit to handle important information
    -Is a crook and ruined Bernie's chances
    etc.

    Well, this doesn't seem to good wherever you look now, does it? Honestly, this is not my elections, but it will affect the entire world regardless. It is very worrying to think about.
     
  3. Austin

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    Exactly. She called Bernie supporters 'basement dwellers' (among other things). She called trump's supporters 'deplorables.'
     
  4. anthracite

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    What I don't understand is why you do tactical voting. I mean, rational people should actually be the majority and these people would only vote for one in order to fend off the other.

    So why don't rational people vote what they want, so an alternative party? Without the alternative party you end up either with a psychopath or a narcisst.
     
  5. Aussie792

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    Because a sufficiently large number of people believe that the alternative candidates are neither desirable nor capable of assuming the presidency, and consequently genuinely do only want either Republicans or Democrats in office.

    The United States does not have sophisticated political parties outside of the Democrats and the Republicans. There aren't a plethora of policy-rich candidates to choose from. In most elections there are two. In this, there's only really one.

    I'm also not quite sure you should really base your views of politicians on armchair diagnoses - it's not going to lead to very deep knowledge of politics or any capacity to engage maturely in politics.
     
    #45 Aussie792, Oct 12, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2016
  6. A Republican

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    Independents have been polled to prefer him over her, so yes she indirectly called them deplorables.

    He usually has issues once every two months. The latest was about something said years ago and secondly ever since appointing Bannon he's been well off. It's not a feeling that something will happen, it's you feeling that you want something to happen.

     
  7. RainbowGreen

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    Well, okay, I'll explain myself.

    If Trump wants to vote judges who want to overrun gay marriage, sorry, but that's not really supportive. Being better than other candidates is not necessarily being supportive.

    The healthcare system is completely fucked. Getting rid of all the things Obama did to make it better won't really help much. Sure, it's not the best thing ever created and it could certainly be improved, but scraping it altogether is excessive.

    For the gun control thing, no, this is not a good thing. Every other first world country has SOME regulation. I don't care what the second amendment says, it was written in a time where guns could only shoot once before needing to be recharged with gun powder. At least prevent criminals and mentally ill people from buying them, for fuck's sake. I don't even want to visit the United States anymore because there's a gun shooting every day. There is a BIG problem here.

    Trump said many times that he wants to fight ISIS. How wants to do it, however, has not been said. Depending on his strategy, that could lead to trouble.

    Sorry, but he has very stupid ideas, like building the walls on his borders. If he insists on it, he could very well get the cold shoulder. Many international leaders have already said that they have doubts about him and/or see him as a joke. Also, if he does cause another recession, he should not be expecting any applause from the rest of the world.

    He says it like a business man and if ideas mirror what you would do in a business. However, it doesn't work that way for a country. His bankruptcy idea would be a great example.

    If you think another worldwide recession would be fun, then you're in the minority. Since 2008, everything costs more and many people lost their houses/jobs. I'm not even in the United States and never had a say in the matter, but it affects me regardless.

    For the last one, please, you're just closing your eyes here. He wants to identify them pretty much like the stars the Jews had to wear. He also said he wanted to ban them entirely at some point.
     
  8. DarkWater

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    Who cares. The world is doomed either way. America is gonna eventually blow up the moon to liberate it. LOLOLOL
     
  9. Blackbirdz

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    This is a non sequitur. What you describe is not "voting in one's own interest" it is "voting in someone else's interest".

    I think you need to read what you just wrote here and then re-examine it in the context of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Sanders did not win in the primaries, but votes that were cast toward his candidacy were hardly wasted votes. He was the more progressive candidate, and during the course of the primary season, he forced Clinton to the left on several issues. This past summer, Sanders won several concessions in the language of the Democratic party platform over issues that include the $15 minimum wage, reform of the criminal justice system, Wall Street reform, among others (click here for more comprehensive list). Clinton had to change the language of her own campaign in order to secure her victory in the primaries. And none of this would have been possible if people hadn't voted and donated to the losing candidate. So, I disagree strongly with your assertion that a vote that does not transfer is a vote that has no impact.

    You don't know that. In fact, I'm sure that's not true. Nader voters were polled on who they would have voted for had Nader not run, and some of those people would have voted for Bush. So, that settles that.

    This is a fallacious cause-and-effect you're pushing. You conveniently omitted the fact that the number of registered Democrats that voted for Bush outnumbered the number of Nader voters in Florida. As I already explained in a previous post, Nader is not responsible for Gore's loss in the 2000 election. That is a myth that has been propagated in order to discredit 3rd party candidates. And a fine piece of brainwashing it is.

    Here's the thing. You don't get to tell other voters what their political interests are. Personally, I think that if Hillary Clinton is the candidate that best represents your political interests, then you should go ahead and vote for her. And if Trump best represents your interests, then you should vote for him. But if you are voting for Clinton because she is the lesser evil, or because you think your vote wouldn't matter unless you vote for the candidate that's going to win even though she doesn't represent your political interests, then I think that it is sad. It is sad because a vote that does not represent your values or interests is truly a wasted vote. If you are not voting your values, then you are not participating in a democratic election.
     
    #49 Blackbirdz, Oct 12, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2016
  10. AwesomGaytheist

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    At this point, Donald Trump is at the equivalent of being down by four touchdowns at the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. The game is all but over, and many Trump supporters seem to be in the first two stages of grief: Denial, and anger.
     
  11. Aussie792

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    No, it's a question of what practical outcomes directly result from your vote. That is a matter of one's own interest. Between the two serious candidates, one will have economic policies which benefit you more than the other's, they will have education policies you prefer more than the other's, they will pursue tax reform and expenditure differently, with measurable impacts on your tax burden and access to public services.

    Choosing between those in a world where only two candidates can win and only one candidate is going to be elected is very much a matter of your own interest, even if you sympathise with a third party.

    Remember the context of my post. Swing-state voters alone are the ones I'm pleading to. I'm not concerned about a New Yorker voting for Stein (though I would happily give reasons why I think she's anti-intellectual garbage for the politically lazy). I am scared about a Floridian who votes for Stein.

    Clinton feasibly might prioritise climate change more (not substantively, but in how often and how seriously she brings it up as a topic) if she sees voters absorbing an explicitly Green message.

    But if Green voters end up throwing the election to Trump by delivering him Florida, then that would obliterate any hope for their platform. It would result in a president who does not act on climate change, who would discourage cooperation with China and India in reaching carbon emission reduction targets collectively and so on.

    Additionally, if you want substantive policy change (and that is a phrase antithetical to the US Greens), I would encourage you to engage more actively and more frequently in the political sphere than casting a vote every second year (or as most young radicals do, only once every four years).

    For someone who patronisingly accused me of a non-sequitur and fallacious argument, that is just so manifestly untrue.

    Some of them might have voted for Bush, yes. But that doesn't change the fact that there is an objectively closer link between Gore's and Nader's policies and their worldview than between Nader's and Bush's. It is intuitively true that more Nader voters would have decided to go with Gore than Bush if the majority were voting based on policy or even a vibe of policy.

    They agreed on climate change, on environmental regulations and on signature public expenditure to a relatively similar extent. There is no way you can prove that a larger number of Nader voters would have voted for Bush than for Gore.

    Given we can only make a deduction, your "some [very small number out of all] Nader voters said they'd have gone for Bush" is far less convincing than the logical appeal Gore had to Nader voters.

    I find it amazing that, having chosen to quote me so extensively, you deliberately left one one of my most important points and acted as if I had omitted it. So let's refresh your memory:

    Let me flesh this out.

    When I say it was Democratic defectors' prerogative to vote for Bush, it falls very much within your argument of voting one's conscience. Those voters no longer had confidence in a Democratic president. They thought Bush was the superior candidate. They voted accordingly. A consequence of that was the Bush presidency, but they at least did so willingly and knowingly.

    Nader voters, for the most part, thought nothing of the sort. Nader voters, as I've explained and you've so weakly attempted to dismiss, were largely more aligned with Gore than with Bush. They were not making a decision in their best interests to allow the president they most disagreed with to take power rather than the president they marginally disagreed with. The worst part about it was that they just had no reason to throw the election to Bush, unlike the true defectors. They were voting irrationally and out of the desire to feel and appear principled, not because they actually wanted progressive policy to get implemented.

    Tactical voting would have resulted in years of policy Nader voters would have been much, much happier with than the Bush era. That is an undeniable truth. A Clinton presidency is something Stein voters would generally be happier with than a Trump presidency.

    But if you want to condone a tantrum that leads to Trump, go ahead and say that nobody has responsibility.

    I think I am in a position to advise people whose interests are best served by which candidate. There are very objective measures to do so. The laws proposed, the discourse the respective candidates encourage and the legitimacy their supporters feel in either expressing tolerant or hateful values, depending on who wins, are very easy to demonstrate to be in somebody's interest or against their self-interest.

    We fundamentally disagree about the purpose of democracy. I believe that no candidate will be perfect to any voter. With that in mind, I believe that the choice is not about expressing your values (there are so many ways to do that with less disastrous outcomes) but to choose the candidate most likely to implement policies which align more closely with your principles than their opponent's policies do. There are so many ways to express principles and values that don't throw the entire world into peril.

    Clinton is not guaranteed to win. Too many people wanting to vote for third-party candidates frame their language as if she is bound to be the victor and that their votes are protests against her arrogance. But that's not certain. That's so far from certain if enough swing-state voters don't buttress her chances. The reason I want to persuade swing-state voters to support Clinton is not because I think your votes don't matter. It's because they matter too much not to use as strategically as possible in actually deciding who will be president and who will implement the best policies out of the two who stand a chance.

    In no world should a principled, centre-left or left-wing voter ever consider a vote that permits Donald Trump to become president. That hurts too many people, encourages racist and misogynistic discourse and results in policies worlds apart from the policies about which those voters idealise.

    Voting is more than just a statement of personal belief. It is also a very real choice that impacts people's lives through law and public discourse. Voting is so substantive and consequential that you mustn't ignore that neglecting to vote for Clinton in a swing-state can result in someone who is by every measure temperamentally, intellectually and in terms of experience unfit to occupy the White House.
     
    #51 Aussie792, Oct 12, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2016
  12. AwesomGaytheist

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    I must say that I stand corrected. Donald Trump isn't the Titanic; the Republican Party is the Titanic and Donald Trump was merely the iceberg. The GOP is a sinking ship with only enough lifeboats for half the people on board. Only all the lifeboats have already left the ship, and now desperate Republicans are jumping into the frigid sea, hoping their lifejackets will save them.
     
  13. Blonde Explorer

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    danbriate69 Funny how you just "joined" , to me you sound exactly like a Clinton plant. BTW you do not understand the 14th amendment. Let me give you the real information on it. (By all means fact check me as well as I do know what I am talking about) The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. CIVIL WAR has been over a long time Dan! The USA is the only Country to allow illegals to claim citizenship by being born there. I will not waste my time debating with someone so up the Clintons buttocks they can not see the truth. As I stated I feel you are a Clinton plant with more lies and propaganda. If you would open a book and your mind you would see all the illegal, immoral and despicable things Mrs. Clinton has done over the decades. against the American people. I pray Mr. Trump wins!
     
  14. AwesomGaytheist

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    No, actually pretty much every country in the world grants birthright citizenship to any person born within its confines.
     
    #54 AwesomGaytheist, Oct 12, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2016
  15. AlamoCity

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    The US is not alone in having unrestricted jus soli (latin for right of the soil, as opposed to jus sanguinis right of the blood). (Actually, the US has both; I could have been born anywhere in the world and the moment I popped out I would have been a natural-born US citizen thanks to my parents; see: Ted Cruz).

    The Fourteenth Amendment does state, "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Constitutional scholars, jurists, the courts and the Congressional Research Office all agree on the meaning. Even going back to the early debates and the implications of the relatively vague (read: broad) implications

    While I am personally not opposed to perhaps somewhat limiting how birthright citizenship is granted (if you wanna talk about "anchor babies," there is actually a big business in China's elite to get pregnant mothers into the US so their children can be US citizens Asian anchor babies;: Wealthy Chinese come to Southern California to give birth - LA Times), it would and should take an Amendment to the Constitution to change an Amendment to the Constitution.

    After the experiment of Prohibition occurred (Eighteenth Amendment) it wasn't a congressional law that later made alcohol legal again. It was another Amendment to the Constitution: the Twenty-first Amendment. What many of y'all forget is that a constitutional amendment is by definition the supreme law of the land, above all of the "normal" laws Congress can pass. You want to amend the 14th Amendment? Pass an amendment. What's funny is that when certain conservative circles want to get around the 14th Amendment, they seem to have no trouble trampling with the mechanisms of the constitutional process some so hypocritically claim to love. It should and is by definition harder to change the US Constitution. And yes, it's been a long time since the Civil War. Y'all have had nearly 150 years to make a change. But, it did take 100 years to actually protect the right of black citizens to vote and whatnot; maybe you can get your wish of ending unrestricted jus soli in about another 100 years after the Civil Rights Act. Say.. 2064?
     
  16. Browncoat

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    He would appear to be on the Bill Cosby trend now...
     
  17. sldanlm

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    The last polling data that I saw that addressed this issue said that Stein was polling at 1 %, Johnson 8%. That same poll however said that if you took the two candidates away, Clinton got an additional 6%, Trump an additional 1% When I talk to people generally about third parties, most of the people that talk about voting for a third party candidate don't even know exactly what they stand for, they just know they don't like the two larger party candidates. Most of those people end up voting either for the Republican or Democratic candidates anyway, because they're afraid if they don't, they'll be responsible for the worst candidate (whoever that is) getting elected.

    First off, it doesn't matter in the court of public opinion if it was 11 years ago. Both campaigns are using things Clinton or Trump did in TV ads, in some cases from 40 years ago. Political dirt is more effective when it's video or audio than mere accusation. Secondly, you are way off base in saying I want something to happen or come out to derail his campaign. I have no personal interest in wanting to see his campaign rerailed. Even if I did, he's doing that fine all by himself. There's even a couple of things he's said that I agree with, up to a point. There's an old saying, "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." I hate the fact that the two campaigns are engaged in mudslinging and personal issues more than political issues. I've just seen the way other campaigns have happened in the past and am a realist. There's a reason for the term "October surprise." Bush jr. had negative things come out about him 2 days before his first election, from decades previous, for example. In one case a reporter even admitted sitting on a story until near the election for maximum effect.

    Those time frames are probably going to become a thing of the past, with people voting up to 30 days early. The dirt is going to have to come out earlier. Also the dirt is going to have to be different than what's already out there. Earlier today I heard one allegation of Trump touching a women that was 30 years old. That's not going to get any traction politically, plus Trump denied it and there's no proof yet. It's going to take something more serious or more recent, or a different thing altogether.

    ---------- Post added 13th Oct 2016 at 05:03 AM ----------

    Seriously? As someone who has been sexually harassed by men, and had a friend almost raped after being drugged, there is a world of difference between the the things Trump did, (the things we know about so far that is) and what Cosby is accused of doing. Not a defense of Trump in any way, just pointing out the difference.
     
    #57 sldanlm, Oct 13, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2016
  18. Solid Snake

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    For the sake of everyone's personal safety, I can only hope Trump wins.

    Remember that Hillary Clinton is not your friend. If she wins, the terrorist attacks are only going to get worse. Not only is she planning to take away civil rights under the guise of activism, open the floodgates for more attacks, as well as disarm the public, recent information has surfaced showing she's funding ISIS. This will most likely spark a civil war. She'll also further indebt the country by investing in useless education programs that won't get anyone hired, as well as go to war with Russia. America will be destroyed from inside and out, and it will become another third world country.

    I strongly advise everyone to arm themselves. Stock up on weapons and ammunition, as these will be highly valuable and hard to acquire down the road.
     
  19. Solid Snake

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    I guess since Godwin's law seems to be popular in this thread, I thought I might as well play that card too:

    [YOUTUBE]mZYjgicQOJU[/YOUTUBE]
     
  20. Blackbirdz

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    You're still not getting it. You are describing what you think is in peoples' best interest. Here's a newsflash - you don't get to decide that for people. Voting one's own interests means to vote for the candidate whose platform, background, and character best represent your own ideals. It's not about surrendering to the will of the majority and only voting for the candidate that other people are telling you to vote for.

    You look at third-party votes as a failure of the electorate to correctly assess the practical outcomes of their choices. But that's where you make your mistake. As long as these voters are voting their own interests, they are doing what they are supposed to do. And if a third-party candidate happens to cause the Democrats to lose some of their liberal voter base, or likewise, cause the Republicans to lose some of their conservative voter base, then that has a practical outcome. The outcome is that defection to alternative candidates serves as a signal to these major political parties that they must either shift their platform to win back their voter base or else risk losing in the next election.

    Bernie Sanders is an example of how this kind of thing plays out. He was heavily courted to run on the Green party ticket as a 3rd party candidate and could have easily sunk Clinton's chances by splitting the liberal vote. He chose not to. Instead, he secured concessions in the language of the Democratic party platform in exchange for his support of Clinton. However, the message here is clear. There is power and leverage created by 3rd party voters and they are being represented whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. I already gave this example in my previous post. That you had no response to it, is very telling.

    I already do vote every 2 years, thanks for the encouragement. And allow me, in turn, to encourage you to make a campaign donation to the candidate of your choice as an effective form of "tactical voting" in lieu of trying to pressure other people to vote for a candidate they don't like.

    "So manifestly untrue" and then in the very next sentence you concede that I'm right. Ok, I guess some people use language in odd ways.

    Well that's fine by me, because I never tried to prove that in the first place. What I showed was that your claim that Nader voters in Florida voted against their own interests was a specious claim. And this has nothing to do with my opinions or deductions either. According to exit poll data from 2000, in a 2-way race between Gore and Bush, the majority of Nader voters would have either abstained or voted for Bush (find the numbers in my previous post). I'm sorry if this doesn't fit the narrative that you were going for, but that's the truth of the matter. Nader didn't spoil the election for Gore. This is a myth that has been repeated so many times that people just accept it as fact without question. I just wish people would do a little bit of research before they parrot the line about 3rd party candidates being spoilers while citing Nader and the 2000 election.

    Let me just repeat the facts, because they bear repeating. 13% of registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush in the 2000 election; among self-described liberals in Florida, 17% of them voted for Bush, and about 3% of them for Nader; nationally, Bush got over 7 times as many Clinton-voters as Nader did (source: timewise.org). The inconvenient truth about Gore's loss in the 2000 election is that he is the one responsible. He could not hold onto enough of his liberal voter base. Nader didn't hand Bush the election - Gore did that himself. Nader was just a scapegoat.

    First of all, when did you develop the ability to read minds? Because that's really impressive. Secondly, do you find that what you've written here is in any way logical? I certainly don't. You are perfectly fine with self-described liberals and registered Democrats voting for Bush. But if a mixed group of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents vote for a third-party candidate like Nader, it's somehow unconscionable. That makes no sense. Your hatred of Nader voters seems to stem from a false narrative you've created about their motives for voting the way that they did. I sincerely doubt that this mixed group of voters (some liberal some conservative) had the same reasons for voting Green that you ascribe to them. As I have already shown, their votes did not belong to Gore. And there is no evidence to suggest that they voted against their own interests.

    You'd have an easier time arguing that registered Democrats, liberals, or Clintonians voted against their own interests when they voted for Bush. Or you could make the argument that people who supported Gore (but stayed home on election day) failed to act in their own interests. But you choose, nonsensically, to focus on the less significant factor - Nader voters. Unbelievable.


    And I will strongly disagree with that. I don't think you are in any position to advise someone on which candidate to vote for, especially if you are the type of person who would irresponsibly propagate the Nader spoiler myth and urge people to vote for the lesser-evil candidate against their own interests.

    Your plea for what you call "tactical voting" is both undemocratic and short-sighted. In this election we have the two most unpopular candidates on record. Both Clinton and Trump are viewed unfavorably by the majority of Americans (source: washingtonpost.com).
    So, how did we end up with these candidates? The power to elect the president belongs to the people, yet we now have two candidates that most Americans don't even like. How does that happen?

    It happens because of the self-defeating attitude people have towards elections. It's the idea that you need to vote for the candidate that's deemed "viable" over the candidate that best represents your values. And in a two-party system, that leaves very little choice, since only two candidates will be deemed viable. It's fascinating that we had the power all along to choose someone other than Clinton or Trump, and we still have that power. Yet we don't exercise that power because we are constantly influenced by propaganda that only serves to solidify the choke hold that the two major political parties have over the election process. It is a fear-based propaganda that says 3rd party candidates are spoilers and you need to vote for the lesser-evil candidate of one of the two major parties. It's a marvelous trick. I can get you to vote for anyone as long as I can find another viable candidate who you think is worse. And given how polarized the Democratic and Republic parties have become in recent years, that's not such a difficult feat. At some point we need to stand up and say 'no', or else we'll continue to let these two political parties choose our president for us. I believe that the power to choose our own president is not one that the populace should relinquish without a fight.

    But we don't live in that world. You may say - 'as long as we have plurality voting, we are stuck with a two party system. We all need to play the game and vote tactically. ' And to that my response is 'no thank you'. Duverger's Law is not absolute. Plurality voting is not guaranteed to prevent the existence of third parties - not in Canada, not in India, not in the UK. source

    Come election day, I will vote for the Green party candidate as I did in the previous presidential election. Yes, I will look back, in hindsight, and I will say that had I not voted at all the election result would still remain unchanged. But, on the other hand, I can say with near certainty that the same will also be true of any person who voted for Clinton or Trump. My vote will count just as much as any other person's vote.
     
    #60 Blackbirdz, Oct 13, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2016
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