PHOENIX (AP) – The 2024 presidential election is drawing an unusually robust field of independent, third party and long shot candidates hoping to capitalize on Americans’ ambivalence and frustration over a likely rematch between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump.
During almost any other election, I’d be all sorts of in favor of 3rd party candidates. But I’m also willing to acknowledge the reality of the situation, and the choices are this:
A Third Party CandidateDonald J. TrumpStay HomeDonald J. TrumpA Write-in CandidateDonald J. TrumpThat’s it. Those are your options. Third party candidates have exactly zero chance in our political system in today’s hyper-partisan environment. If you are voting for anybody other than Biden, or opting not to vote at all, you’re essentially giving your vote to Trump. All of these people refusing to put support behind Biden because he’s too old, or because of Israel, or whatever, refuse to accept that the alternative is exponentially worse for them.
It’s Biden or Trump. There is no choice C. And in the immortal words of Rush, If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Ok. So you’ve pointed out the reality of the situation. How do we proceed? How do we get them back? “Trump is worse than Biden, moron!!!” hasn’t done the trick. If we need their votes, how do we get their votes?
If we don’t need their votes, we don’t get to retroactively need their votes if we need someone to blame for a loss, either.
If Trump wins, you stop investing your money, pull it completely out of the bank, do not buy anything at all beyond basic needs. You want the economy to implode and your investments are safe at home. Beyond that you can’t do much else.
In my opinion, the Democrats need to work on broadly popular legislation, like marijuana legalization. Try to push it through, and if it fails, which it probably would in the house, they need to make a stink over it, and then use that for campaign ads, with the promise that if they win all 3 branches next election, they will make it happen. Then they actually need to do that, rather than waffling like they have in the past.
Never claimed to have any of the answers to that.
I have a few ideas. There’s been a pattern in the Biden administration. I call it “lose big, win small, celebrate huge.”
Example: BBB. We lost big there. Over the course of months, BBB was systematically gutted and then killed. Americans got to watch as things Biden ran on, things that could have improved their lives in tangible ways, the reasons many of them voted for Biden in the first place, get removed, one by one, until the bill was eventually killed, at the behest of a member of Biden’s own party.
This was followed up with a comparatively modest win: The Inflation Reduction Act, which has indirect limited benefits to individuals, like Medicare being able to negotiate prices on a laughably tiny selection of prescription drugs. It’s something, yes, but we voted for childcare and family leave.
Then Biden’s supporters completely ignore the big loss, and instead celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act as though it was a bigger win than passing BBB, with all sorts of puffery about how it’s the least pathetic attempt to address the climate emergency so far.
I can provide other examples, but this is the most glaring one.
Now, compare this to how Biden has handled student loans. Biden started with half measures and his supporters acted like forgiving fraudulent loans for select buyers was huge, even though it was mandated by existing law. Then Biden actually listened to progressives and tried to forgive student loans. Actual, tangible benefit to voters. That was killed by the courts. Crucially, it was not killed by Biden’s own party. Unlike childcare and family leave, Biden didn’t immediately give up forever. He instead did what he could to forgive what he could. He had a contingency plan and kept going. His supporters could point to the failure, admit it failed, blame those responsible, and show in real terms how Biden wasn’t gonna let that be the last word on the subject.
There’s other examples of this as well, but as before, this is the most glaring.
We need to keep trying to do what voters voted for, not acting like they won the showcase showdown when they’re going home with the consolation prize.
And for the love of god, we can’t keep acting like “not trump” is a sufficient argument to get all the voters we need to win. It might be, but the consequences of failure are so dire that that mustn’t be our only message. That and we need the administration to step up between now and the election. The administration needs a win between now and then.
And before anyone is like “well, you’re not getting one so vote for Biden anyway,” I’m already voting for Biden. I’m saying what I think is needed to convince enough people to vote for Biden so that we can be confident about beating Trump.
Yeah the choice you’re misrepresenting is its own choice. The choice to not participate, or to protest the incumbent. Unless you tick the box next to trump you’re not voting for trump. If Biden wants support he has to earn it like everyone else. Blame all the idiots voting for trump, blame the DNC for shilling trump into the Whitehouse in 2016, or blame the two party system for creating this scenario sure, but blaming the people on the fringe trying to vote their conscious is just reinforcing the system that got us in this mess.
Ex Republican here. We loved people like you. We joked about it constantly. A non voter is seen as a Republican vote because it meant we won in the end. Republican voters sort of understand on some level that they are the minority so they see non or protest voters as a victory.
You vote Republican by not voting if you were planning on voting Democratic. It’s that simple, no nuance needed.
I blame you directly if Donald wins this time.
Hahaha well you have a great track record for being absolutely wrong so no skin off my back.
Being wrong when uneducated and indoctrinated is one thing. Continuing to be stupid in the face of overwhelming evidence is significantly worse. You are literally a joke to Republicans.
They are a lot of pig fucking idiots, what do I care what they think? What evidence have you presented, aside from dogma and assertions? I never plan to vote Democrat. Democrats have never won my vote, they have just tried to bully me for it
I just spent a Thanksgiving listening to Republican voters discussing putting liberals and LGBTQ into camps. Stop trying to be righteous. We are living on the edge of the end you fucking idiot.
Thats rich, you’re eating with these people, breaking bread and kissing their cheek and telling me I’m the problem.
It’s surprising how complicated life is. I’ve cut off multiple family members but I can’t control who is invited all the time dumbass. Stop being dense.
Republicans love you for voting third party. And would put you in the camps with my educated ass.
Option 1 - eat pizza. Option 2 - eat burritos. Option 3 - eat burgers. Option 4 - eat shit.
There are 5 people in your family and 2 of them are die hard shit eaters and 1 die hard burger eater. If you vote for a burrito, pizza, or don’t vote you are eating shit.
Except the burger is 50% ground shit. You were forced to est shit your whole life. Your best friend was sent far away by shit enforcement to eat shit somewhere else, and your neighbors are eating shit out of garbage can and lighting shit on fire to stay warm. The only time anyone seems to question why we are covered in shit is when the shit eaters win the vote, otherwise they are completely ignoring the shit eating party and are content to blame anyone who is eyeing the ecoli burrito for the fact we are eating shit.
What they are ignoring is that if the orange blob is able to do his worst, their very lives may be at stake.