#like we are at 44k and COUNTING. INSANE BEHAVIOR

[campbyler]

me looking at ch9.2, less than 100 words short of ch9.1's word count, and at least another 4k to go: 🫥

[walnutbun]

How about you take your infantilization and shove it? I at least tried to treat you with some respect, considering you purport to be a leftist and an adult.

Once again, since you're apparently too busy viewing other adults as children to read what we say:

painting everyone who rallies behind the Democratic Presidential candidate as being "uncritically supportive of Democrats" is beyond idiotic.

That isn't "extrapolating what [my] arguments imply" - it's reading into things that aren't fucking there. If I wanted to say "we should support Democrats no matter what", I would have fucking said that.

how many policies do i need to disagree with before you think it's ok to not vote blue?

You should vote for whatever major party most closely aligns with your beliefs. Key word there is major. Unfortunately, thanks to our FPTP electoral system, voting for a third-party candidate is actively harmful. If you want proof just look at the results from 2016.

Had Stein voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan voted for Hillary, we would've never gotten Trump - Stein got 207k, 146k, and 172k votes in those states respectively, which Hillary lost by 113k, 44k, and 11k. Winning those states would have boosted her electoral vote count to 297 (or 292, if we're assuming the same faithless electors).

A similar thing happened in 2000, but even more extreme - had just 537 Nader voters in Florida voted strategically for Gore, we would have never gotten the second Bush. Winning Florida would have given Gore 292 (or 291 if we're assuming the same faithless elector). That's not a typo, by the way - that's five hundred and thirty-seven. Not even a thousand Floridians stood in the way of Gore becoming President and sparing us from so much shit.

Ultimately, we do need to switch from FPTP to something else - even approval voting would be better. That said, while we are still under FPTP (which we still are), refusing to vote strategically is actively harming the policy positions you support.

that safe states do not exist because hundreds of thousands of voters might spontaneously change their voting behavior

I did not claim that they would "spontaneously" change their voting behavior. I didn't say 2% of Texans had to swap from red to blue, or 12% of Californians from blue to red - I said that they simply had to stay home or protest vote, which is the end result of messaging like "if you do not live in: pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia, michigan, arizona, wisconsin, or nevada, your presidential vote doesn't count!"

And before you try to respond with "but my post won't reach all those people", you're absolutely right - but I'm not talking about just your post. I'm talking about the idea that Presidential votes don't matter outside of swing states, and you are far from the only person pushing that narrative.

Finally, you keep trying to bash the very *idea* of the tragedy of the commons, which is insane. Then, instead of even bothering to respond to what I said defending its existence, you just attempted to deflect by nitpicking about my choice of metaphor - all over some easily disproven idea that it originated with Garrett Hardin.

i see a small possibility to push [the Democrats] left by strategically withholding your vote

The issue with this is that it's impossible to "strategically" withhold your vote - you never know how many other people are going to withhold their vote until it's too late. Yes, my examples have (mostly) all used vote numbers in the hundreds of thousands, because statistically it is unlikely that an election will ever be won or lost by a single vote. The closest we've come that I'm aware of is my example of Florida in 2000, where 537 votes left us with the second Bush.

Withholding your vote is like playing Russian Roulette with an unknown number of bullets and an unknown number of other players who have gone before you. You don't know your odds - you can't know your odds - until you take your turn.

Yes, it is stupid that our best weapon - voting - is also our worst. It's terrible that our only other options are primary voting, petitioning, and down-ballot voting. But that's the hand we've been dealt - and choosing not to play it isn't an option.

fuck. me and my 9 roommates were at the pound voting on which cat to get. each of us cast our ballot for a different cat, except that two of us voted for the rabid horse so I guess that's who we're bringing home today