Which presidential candidate will you vote for?

i'm way too cynical for my opinion to hold water here, but fuck everyone (politicians, not you fine folks at watmm)

that said, gary johnson is the single politician i can think of who seems articulate, "honest", realistic and has achievable goals that coincide with my own views.

10 years ago i would say voting for social issues is ridiculous (i would also have been 13....). however, due to the current stupid idiotic state of things, that is the main distinction between dems and reps (evident with romneycare being turned into obamacare and now it's a partisan issue). both parties are fiscally fucking crazy, the "big" things separating these groups is ideology, which is so fucking depressing that i can just barely finish this post. most americans consider themselves fiscally conservative, yet both parties who control all 3 branches of the gov't are spending their faces off on whatever the fuck the next stupid thing is that comes up that won't help us long term one bit.

fuck this thread

I probably would not vote for Jill Stein if I didn't live in California. If I lived in a battleground state, I'd probably vote for Obama. But, hey guess what? It's my goddamn decision. Because alleged democracy.

Absolutely vote protectively on a a State and Local level. Your life and your friends' lives will be impacted dramatically.

But you all know it, it's a truism: the virulent election year rhetoric is largely abandoned for a center-right/neoconservative/hawkish Executive Branch as soon as the election is over, regardless of who wins. A democrat in the WH is not going to push a progressive social agenda, because they will not survive the next election when (a) their success depends on economically conservative¹ corporate support and (b) nearly half of this country is whipped into a bigoted frenzy by the sound-byte, fear-based discourse encouraged by the binary political system. Is Obama a socialist? Fuck no. Does half the country think he is? Yes.

The argument that this election is different and that one should vote for Obama because dear god look at the alternative is frankly an intentional trap. Again, a truism. I know you all know this: that's how the two party system works to perpetuate itself. That's why the Republicans spew virulent socially backwards rhetoric on wedge issues. That's why they're called wedge issues. That's... that's how this works. That's how the Democrats get to consolidate the progressive vote without having to ever honestly work for it. And that's how it will continue to work, because people are too terrified to vote their conscience and accidentally let the other guy win.

It's all just feelings? Really? Fear of letting the other guy win is basically the foundation of the electoral process at this point. And you know this, man.

Do I want Romney to win? Absolutely the fuck not. Do I want another conservative on the Supreme Court? No. Do I want to see the same essential choice 4, 8, 12, 24 years from now? Absolutely the fuck not.

Nobody voting for Jill thinks she's going to win the presidency, they're hoping that she'll get a small in-road and that over time this country will have a more educated electorate and a more nuanced election year marketplace of ideas. Without that, this country is absolutely doomed. An election perpetually won on a soundbyte and on fear does not somehow lead to a healthy, functioning, sustainable government able to adapt as needed to reality, and it does not produce an informed, rational electorate able to influence government. And again, you know this.

Rationally weigh the impact of your vote, and vote for Obama if you feel it necessary (or, hell, if you actually like him). But do it on your own terms, and do not tell anyone else how the fuck to vote. Because that is not how this system should work. Help people make an informed decision, but don't make it for them.

Again, someone voting in Wisconsin or New Hampshire is necessarily going to have a different analysis of this than someone in California, just recognize that the analysis should be nuanced and different depending on political realities

This truism filled tirade not directed at anyone.

¹Not in any rational, long-term, farsighted sense of the word "conservative," of course

great post baph

This lunatic judge went on tv saying Onama will start a civil war if re-elected. I like how he points to the cities only in Texas, bc the outside world does not exist to him.

http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/blogs/lookout/texas-judge-warns-possible-civil-war-president-obama-230545603.html?.b=entertainment&.ts=1345751058&.intl=US&.lang=en

it's really unfortunate all legitimate criticisms of Obama get overshadowed and drowned out by absurd bull shit like the link you just posted.

That rhetorical binary thing, basically reducing politics to Good vs. Evil, is what I really wanted to criticize in my last post. Sorry if this is a rehash, or way too obvious.

So we all acknowledge and lament the huge, intractable, complex problems in the US electoral system, from the Electoral College down to the local, individual level. And we all acknowledge the ethical binds we're faced with as voters, because of that system, eg a vote within the two party system perpetuates it, but a vote for a third party risks allowing the other guy to win.

Aside from the political realist concerns about what any official will actually do when in office [which, throw in your analytic method of choice to try to figure out, but the end result is typically concerned more with pro-corporate policy and defense than social justice one way or the other, to the extent they're separate issues] you've got another stage of the intractable electoral puzzle before you even get there, and it's a communicative, rhetorical one, and it's the part of the process where voters are directly interfacing with it.

The decision a voter makes when confronted with the party-vote ethical bind is dependent on the rhetoric at this stage. We can all accept that the Democrats and Republicans are rhetorically opposite but functionally (more) convergent when in office (with real, alarming differences that we should weigh heavily). But the binary rhetoric makes clear decision making impossible because (for as long as I've been alive, anyway), it usually appeals to fear of the Other Side's position on wedge issues. The Republicans are masters of this-- the Tea Party/Birther/Death Panel platform is based on largely irrational fear-based rhetoric, and the Republicans have adopted that position as part of their rhetorical sell to voters. The effect isn't just to consolidate those voters within that party, but also, from the Democrat's perspective, to consolidate opposition along those same wedge lines within the Democratic party. If you are able to unilaterally frame the discussion, you can get enough people to fear the opposition without appealing to reality.

What you have then, is fear-based rhetoric driving elections toward a clear binary choice, because the Other Side is always Awful.

Romney/Ryan might really be awful; a political realist approach is kind of useless looking forward despite trends towards center-right/pro corporate/defense policy.

But in a non-battleground state, as a voter, you have a chance of engaging in that rhetorical stage with a third party vote, or at least support of third party involvement in the system, somehow, because fear-based binary rhetoric can (not will) be minimized by diversifying the rhetorical playing field. In large part, that's because the criticisms (of everyone!) are diversified. Rather than merely hear bitching about Obama's socialism, one might be able to criticize Obama for being too far to the right on eg defense or human rights.

To some extent, the increased rhetorical complexity could contribute to voter education and willingness to deal with complexity, but (here's where I'd get shot down as an elitist) that's unlikely to happen as long as politics can be framed as binaries.

I don't think people are stupid, but I do think mass voting patterns along binaries are, because reality is complexity. An organism's sustainability within a complex system seems to me to be dependent on its ability to deal with complex stimuli and adapt accordingly. Nature abhors a monoculture, right? Lack of diversity tends to contribute to initial irruption and eventual collapse. Sorry, the environmental analogy isn't the best, but it's what I studied, lol.

Anyway, I'm concerned with the low-information, low-complexity binary rhetoric almost as much as I am with any other aspect of the Electoral Process, because I'm worried, honestly worried, about the collapse after the irruption. I don't think this is sustainable. People are very, very mad, and violent, and swayed by the current rhetorical state of affairs, and it seems to me that it's contributing to gross incompetence and ineffectuality and inability to respond to complexity, and dangerously unsustainable behavior throughout government.

If that's true-- I think it is, but who am I?-- one might have strong ethical/moral reasons to vote outside the party bind, particularly when not in a battleground state, even when weighed against the practical concerns you should have over the Other Guy winning.

And I think that's all obvious enough? Except (some of) the criticism of third party voters fails to really acknowledge that the rhetorical stage of US politics is foundational for some of these huge systemic problems.

Of course, I might be overselling the ability of any third party candidate to actually enhance the level and depth of the national dialogue. If so, extreme, dystopian cynicism forthcoming.

Anyway, I didn't mean to the post before this one to sound angry, as it totally undermines the entire point I'm trying to make, but sometimes I say "fuck" and "goddamn" a lot. I am from Boston. I am sorry.

Edit: edited just under 2309 times

2 thoughts:

you've got a quite a lot of variance in primaries though, you've had ron paul and kucinich..it takes from your "binarity argument"..if i understand it correctly.

what you call convergence i like to call centrification, maybe institutionalization too. pre election party is aiming only at its potential electorate but once in the office it has to adapt itself to serve everyone. this is off top of my head but im sure something smart and scientific is written about it as it's something quite apparent in many places and periods.

  On 8/23/2012 at 11:58 PM, eugene said:

2 thoughts:

you've got a quite a lot of variance in primaries though, you've had ron paul and kucinich..it takes from your "binarity argument"..if i understand it correctly.

 

what you call convergence i like to call centrification, maybe institutionalization too. pre election party is aiming only at its potential electorate but once in the office it has to adapt itself to serve everyone. this is off top of my head but im sure something smart and scientific is written about it as it's something quite apparent in many places and periods.

There is a bit more variance in primaries, good point. The dialogue in the primary process, since it's party-internal, is really more to to consolidate a national platform than to encourage open, diverse debate, though, isn't it? I don't think Kucinich would ever win the nomination within that system. But maybe.

You can call the second point certification and I don't think I'd disagree; functionally the point is to allow the president or the party to win the next election cycle. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem that the process is contributing to anything more than a locked-down, ineffective Congress, maybe because Congress holds tighter to the party line?, and fear based rhetorical attempts to drive votes to the other party during the presidential elections.

I really don't know.

But in part, I think that eventuality of executive branch convergence/centralization means one might consider voting for a third party if only to broaden the initial rhetorical dialogue (if you think it's a problem in the first place, which is really my first assumption-- but I think the initial framing of national discourse is a significant part of our systemic problems). I'm not a political scholar by any means, and I don't have any answers, and I'm certain people have hashed all of this out better before than I can now, I'm just trying to think some of it through.

  On 8/23/2012 at 6:07 PM, eugene said:

  On 8/23/2012 at 5:25 PM, Hoodie said:

  On 8/23/2012 at 7:12 AM, disparaissant said:

seen on the tumblrs

 

  Quote

libertarians who say not voting is the same as casting a vote because “none of these options are good enough”

actually ANYONE who says that

are you so blinded by your own self-absorption that you don’t realize the rights of a LOT of people are genuinely at stake, here?

look, if this election were less polarized, I could give a shit less if you wanted to make a meaningless statement by not voting. but by not voting in THIS election, you’re saying to women, people of color, queer people, and everyone who isn’t rich that you care more about your own ideology than you do about the reality of those people losing their rights and living in a world that is much worse for them.

and you can just go fuck yourself.

 

requisite amy poehler gif

 

i think it applies to third party candidates as well though

do you think mitt romney is going to be better for the rights of people who would be targets of illegal assassinations? i sure don't.

mitt romney is going to be worse in every way and i think the ability to say nah im just gonna not vote/vote third party/vote for romney because obama is worse than bush is something that comes from a place of privilege. vote for obama if only for the sake of the women in your life. or the lgbt people. or the people of colour (most of them). then work to change the system so your favourite candidate is viable rather than pretending we live in any sort of

 

yeah its choosing between two evils but just. fuck's sake, look at the GOP agenda. tell me you'd rather have that then obama's agenda. just honestly tell me that. because when you say "i'm not voting" or "i'm voting third party" you're literally saying "i'll risk it!" in this political system.

 

(sorry smetty)

 

i don't think mittens vs obama would create an appreciable difference in the life of the average american. if you're wanting to change politics that affect your life, state government is the way to go. people can actually make a difference there.

 

also, i care about women's rights and lgbt rights. that's why i'm voting for a candidate that supports those things: jill stein. i don't care if it's not practical--if we only followed practicality, there'd be a lot more evil in the world.

 

if you don't care that it's not practical then you can't say that you honestly care about those issues but instead surrender to emotions or perhaps democratic ideals. a vote for stein will not benefit women or lgbt in any way because she has no chance to win.

 

i understand that long term-wise there might be some sense in voting for her but it's more like a gamble at this stage.

Also, I really respect you guys, but I really resent this moral dilemma that I am somehow privileged and responsible for perpetuating it upon the American people through a third-party or no confidence vote.

My thoughts on gay rights are practically in lockstep with the Democratic agenda, but Im fucking sorry. People in Afghanistan and Iraq are being fucking firebombed because we chose to go in there for a false reason. Let's not fucking forget that here people. Maybe I'm an asshole, but I place fucking illegal acts of torture and murder on my priority list of shit to change, and Obama certainly didn't do a goddamn thing to help that. So there, that's my moral dilemma. I'd rather have gays discontented and suffer domestic abuses than innocent civilians that never did a damn thing to hurt another American risk being murdered by a goddamn militarist zealot pressing the red button for a drone strike.

I'm not voting from a position of privilege from that perspective, everyone else in this whole fucked up country is. Let's start with a promise to end completely unwarranted murder of innocents and civilians for complete out and out falsehoods and lies, and I'm willing to pony up to an Obama vote.

I'm sure I touched a nerve with some people by saying this, but goddammit, you guys have your political passions and I have mine.

dumbo or the jackass... the shit still smells the same

so smetty, which candidate of the two presented has a chance of getting us out of all that stuff?

which candidate out of any of them?

  On 8/24/2012 at 4:47 AM, disparaissant said:

so smetty, which candidate of the two presented has a chance of getting us out of all that stuff?

which candidate out of any of them?

All candidates have a "chance" at doing the right thing. None of them have done so AFAIK. The mere fact that the longest war in American history (still ongoing btw) isn't even a major talking point for the election is beyond disgusting.

i think it's disgusting too. i'm not prioritizing one over the other, i'm just being pragmatic. the stuff you are talking about is, at this point, a really depressing given. we're not going to go to the polls and vote to end war, or end indefinite detention, or end drone strikes. that's just out of the question, no matter who the candidate is. so how about we vote to stop ourselves from backsliding in other areas?

how fucked is it that we are at this point christ almighty i hate this country

I'm going to the polls to try to end the war. And stop other ones. I considered Ron Paul for that reason alone.

lol

sorry but just lol

  On 8/24/2012 at 5:58 AM, disparaissant said:

lol

 

sorry but just lol

I mean, he'd be more likely to do something than Obama or Romney, and has the best chance out of all the third party candidates. But then there's also his other policies...

Poll Reveals You Live In Country Where Mentally Ill Man Still Has Good Chance Of Being Senator

http://www.theonion.com/articles/poll-reveals-you-live-in-country-where-mentally-il,29274/

  On 8/24/2012 at 7:34 AM, azatoth said:

Poll Reveals You Live In Country Where Mentally Ill Man Still Has Good Chance Of Being Senator

 

http://www.theonion....tally-il,29274/

"GOP Trying to Keep Elderly Voting Base Alive Until November"

i love the onion.

  On 8/24/2012 at 12:27 AM, baph said:

  On 8/23/2012 at 11:58 PM, eugene said:

what you call convergence i like to call centrification, maybe institutionalization too. pre election party is aiming only at its potential electorate but once in the office it has to adapt itself to serve everyone. this is off top of my head but im sure something smart and scientific is written about it as it's something quite apparent in many places and periods.

 

You can call the second point certification and I don't think I'd disagree; functionally the point is to allow the president or the party to win the next election cycle. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem that the process is contributing to anything more than a locked-down, ineffective Congress, maybe because Congress holds tighter to the party line?, and fear based rhetorical attempts to drive votes to the other party during the presidential elections.

i meant CENTRE-fication, when elected left or right wing parties zero in on some more comfortable positions to please the masses rather than own voters, hence similarities to previous governments..and subsequent disappointments.

sounds like Romney has it in the bag according to this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/university-of-colorado-pr_n_1822933.html

I'm banking on another OWS movement but this time it being bloody organized and backing a third party like Jill Stein. It's a lot easier for me to imagine the youth in this country gathering around that then the prospect that the Democrats are gonna nominate someone who actually gives a crap about what the American people want/need right now.

Also humans/US needs to learn to stop killing each other and create a system that doesn't perpetuate greed before we worry about animal cruelty, gay marriage, or whether or not our cars need to have better mpg (lol that "efficiency" is an issue in this country, "progressive technology! u damn liberal tree queers!"). These cultural issues that deal with macho traditional america vs. multiculturalism while morally cruel are a symptom of a much greater systemic problem. We need to treat the main problem here, the longer we wait and the longer we elect these half assed political actors and the longer our government takes to become efficient. Less focus on parties, people, platforms, religions, etc more focus on science, facts, and ideas. One doesn't set out to create mediocre art/music/etc, they do it cause they want to. We need people like that again in our government. We don't need no more 4 more years no more. yeaaaaaaaa

edit: "We need to treat the main problem here, the longer we wait and the longer we elect these half assed political actors, the longer our government takes to become efficient."