I agree with this to an extent and so far hav e voted in every election I have been eligible for, including when I lived overseas.
The problem I have today is that I fundamentally disagree with both options and think we will be worse off with either one.
I am totally fine accepting and supporting a candidate that I generally agree with, or even just agree with on a few key policies. I'm not okay with having to pick between one candidate who I view to be a sociopathic narcisist or another who I view has being well on his way to serious cognitive issues. Assuming Harris is the new candidate, I'm now left with the narcisist and a candidate who I view as unfit for duty, and an ineffective candidate who fell into this position thanks to a combination of DEI and a white house that refused to accept the limitations of the president.
If, on the other hand, voter participation goes down noticeably it can drive change. Both parties will know they lost support and, more importantly for them, have voters to win over. It also opens the door for creating a real chance for a third party that doesn't exist when we all continue to accept the unofficial duopoly that started way back when Hamilton and Jefferson were tearing the union in two.
>If, on the other hand, voter participation goes down noticeably it can drive change
I'm not American so system and the dynamic might be different there, but this comes off as wishful thinking driving a car down a cliff.
Voter participation among young is painfully low in Japan (a country I follow election results and politics), and almost every young ones reasons for this, as far as I know essentially boggles down to "it's useless for me to vote, older generation out vote our concerns and politics always favours the elder. Not voting at least sends my dissociation and discontentment to it all".
But decades of "not voting" have only told the politicians ONE message: the young voting bloc don't matter, because they don't vote, and our resources are better spent to favor the older bloc.
It's a circular logic, a self fulfilling prophecy, a local suboptimum with steep gradients.
Not voting because I fundamentally disagree with both options is a "break glass in case of emergency" situation in my opinion. I've never pilled that rip cord before, but for me that's where it is today with this presidential election.
Do I like it? Absolutely not. Do I expect to feel this way again in future elections? Also no, I honestly don't know how both parties allowed such bad candidates to be considered the best we have to offer as a country.
That said, I view not voting more akin to jury nullification than driving a car off a cliff. Not acting is different than doing something insane. I'm not sure how well known jury nullification is outside the US (or even in the US), but effectively it boils down to a juror voting not guilty despite the evidence, usually because they either disagree with the law or don't think the person on trial should be punished.
I'm aware of jury nullification (thank you cgp gray [1]) but afaik I don't think jury nullification can be equated to "doing nothing rather than doing the insane".
Jury nullification have a lot of uncomfortable implications to the legal system and that's one of the reasons it's not shared to potential juries, but implicit asked. The systematic implication can be pararelled to politician's in the long run deciding nonvoters concern can be ignored.
Jury nullification comparisons comes with a bit of a blind faith in the other juries (because in this situation you're not replaced, the resting juries just have more votes) are sane.
That said I know you're not advocating for nonvoting as a viable long term strategy but just for this one occasion. I'm not faulting that and can understand it. Advocating for it to others is a bit more problematic and the point I'm contending on in a public forum, in case many agrees to that stance.
My comparison was meant mainly in the light of going against the system that is in place because one has a problem with the system itself.
On a jury the expectstion is that you will vote based solely on the logic of the facts and legal interpretations presented. Jury nullification is a choice to go against this, going outside what the system wants you to believe is your duty because you disagree with that premise.
Here, not voting is going against this unwritten rule that we must pick between the two options and that is our civic duty to vote for one or the other no matter what. Sitting out for a specific election is ignoring what the system wants us to do when we disagree with the assumption that we must choose between the two options given.
> If, on the other hand, voter participation goes down noticeably it can drive change. Both parties will know they lost support and, more importantly for them, have voters to win over. It also opens the door for creating a real chance for a third party that doesn't exist when we all continue to accept the unofficial duopoly that started way back when Hamilton and Jefferson were tearing the union in two.
Is there a minimum turnout needed? I'm pretty sure there isn't.
All the diehards will always vote for the Dems or Reps.
And everyone else is not voting, not voting for an alternate candidate.
Sounds like the fewer swing voters there are, the better.
No there isn't a minimum turnout. Sitting out for an election means that whoever does still vote gets to decide the winner. St scale, though, a decrease in voter turnout would signal discontent with the system and the parties in charge. Those parties would likely respond to try to capture more voters and a third party may finally see a window that they could use to raise funds for a legitimate challenge to the two party system.
I have not seen that's happening anywhere. What actually happens is that parties will just focus on whoever votes and ignore the rest.
Sure, maybe if participation dropped suddenly to 20% there would be comments and reactions, but anything over 40% would barely get a few curious articles and no real difference.
> He may be a sociopathic narcissist but at least he's not black!
Where the he'll did that come from? I could care less what race, sex, or religion a candidate is. I want someone who is the best fit for the job.
> Maybe the problem isn't your made up voting moral code, it's that you're a little too in love with talking about your made up voting moral code.
Everyone's moral code is made up, where else would it come from? You don't know me or what I talk about about, I have no idea why you would think that I am in love with talking about my opinions on voting.
You don't see who I really am, nor is taking Biden at his word limited to the attitude of a generation you disagree with.
Biden specifically said he would be picking a VP that was a black woman. Niether is a qualification for the job nor a valid analog for success in the role. How is that not a DEI hire?
I'm not even saying DEI as a whole is a bad thing. I wouldn't begin to make such a broad reaching and absolute argument. I will absolutely argue that for roles as important as who is next inline to be President should be entirely about qualifications and fitment for the job. I don't think that a crazy stance at all but I'd love to hear any counterpoints you may have.
If there are plenty of qualified black women capable of doing the job, why not pick one as VP? Trump picked Vance and previous Pence not because they were the best choice, but he needed votes in the Midwest to win. Biden picking Kamala is an acknowledgment that he needed black support to win, VPs have never been picked outside of a political benefit, except maybe Cheney, but we all knew how that turned out.
Because, especially for such an important role, neither factor should be a hiring consideration.
When you reduce the candidate pool to one minority you have by definition, thrown out a majority of the total candidate pool. When you reduce that pool by sex you've cut it in half again, leaving yourself with a much smaller subset of the total candidate pool.
The odds are low that the best person for the job happens to be in that smaller pool. More importantly, you reduced the pool before knowing that the best candidate was somewhere in the smaller population.
Biden picking Harris to win the black vote is a political stunt and cheapens the role tremendously. Picking a VP only to win votes implies that the role isn't actually important and that anyone winning votes could do the job. I don't agree with that implication and find that it's quite a sleight to the importance of our government and our political system.
> Biden picking Harris to win the black vote is a political stunt and cheapens the role tremendously. Picking a VP only to win votes implies that the role isn't actually important and that anyone winning votes could do the job.
This is literally every election. Every single one. It's literally all any speculation about VP picks is about. Seriously, pick an election year in the last century and I bet we could dig up articles about what voting bloc the VP is expected to bring in.
What's more is that it's largely independent of the competency of the VP picks, who are sometimes quite accomplished and capable.
And of course, it's always been assumed it will be "white" and "male" for almost the entire history of this country.
And yet for this one you trot out "DEI" and all that you're trying to imply with it. I wonder why.
> This is literally every election. Every single one. It's literally all any speculation about VP picks is about
Until the 12th amendment was passed the VP was whoever got second place in the election.
In more modern history, it's commonplace for VP candidates to be picked because they fill in a gap in experience for the presidential candidate. Bush and Cheney is a good example, as is Obama and Biden. Sure you could make it political and say they were shoring up one group of voters, but the VP pick filled in a gap of experience and skills that was missing. Harris filled in a diversity gap, I'm not aware of anything else she brought to the table that Biden was missing.
The problem I have today is that I fundamentally disagree with both options and think we will be worse off with either one.
I am totally fine accepting and supporting a candidate that I generally agree with, or even just agree with on a few key policies. I'm not okay with having to pick between one candidate who I view to be a sociopathic narcisist or another who I view has being well on his way to serious cognitive issues. Assuming Harris is the new candidate, I'm now left with the narcisist and a candidate who I view as unfit for duty, and an ineffective candidate who fell into this position thanks to a combination of DEI and a white house that refused to accept the limitations of the president.
If, on the other hand, voter participation goes down noticeably it can drive change. Both parties will know they lost support and, more importantly for them, have voters to win over. It also opens the door for creating a real chance for a third party that doesn't exist when we all continue to accept the unofficial duopoly that started way back when Hamilton and Jefferson were tearing the union in two.