The rhetoric isn't misleading. When voter turnout is low, ergo the total number of votes for Republicans and Democrats are low, Republicans fare better. The US uses a first-past-the-post system of voting which devolves into a two-party system. This means that voting for a third party removes votes from the total number of ballots cast for one of the two actual candidate parties, which means fewer votes for Republicans and Democrats, which usually benefits Republicans far more than Democrats.
All this to say that when you vote for a third party, Trump is more positively impacted than Biden, so you're effectively increasing Trump's chance of winning.
I agree with your general point that third party votes don't matter nationally. This is kinda blunt, but you are making the false assumption that Party politicans are entitled to everyone's votes. You can't remove a vote that was never casted for a particular candidate.
"The rhetoric isn’t misleading."
It is to me. A vote for an independent candidate does not in any way, shape, or form count as a vote for Trump. They are not the same thing.
It is a fact that a vote for an independent candidate is not tallied the same as a vote for trump. It is nonsense to say they are the same. It's like saying a vote for Hawaiian pizza is a vote for Pepperoni Pizza. It is hokum.
Do you understand that some words mean something beyond their literal, exact definition? If someone says "it's raining buckets", would you come in and say "that rhetoric is misleading, I looked outside and no buckets are falling from the sky"?
Of course. The problem is that when someone says one thing is another thing, that is not obviously metaphorical. Maybe you'd be able to tell in person but not through text where the message is monotonized and broadcasted to the entire internet.
A vote for a 3rd party candidate is IN ESSENCE a vote for Trump. There, fixed the literal reference.
The rhetoric isn't misleading. When voter turnout is low, ergo the total number of votes for Republicans and Democrats are low, Republicans fare better. The US uses a first-past-the-post system of voting which devolves into a two-party system. This means that voting for a third party removes votes from the total number of ballots cast for one of the two actual candidate parties, which means fewer votes for Republicans and Democrats, which usually benefits Republicans far more than Democrats.
All this to say that when you vote for a third party, Trump is more positively impacted than Biden, so you're effectively increasing Trump's chance of winning.
I agree with your general point that third party votes don't matter nationally. This is kinda blunt, but you are making the false assumption that Party politicans are entitled to everyone's votes. You can't remove a vote that was never casted for a particular candidate.
"The rhetoric isn’t misleading."
It is to me. A vote for an independent candidate does not in any way, shape, or form count as a vote for Trump. They are not the same thing.
It is a fact that a vote for an independent candidate is not tallied the same as a vote for trump. It is nonsense to say they are the same. It's like saying a vote for Hawaiian pizza is a vote for Pepperoni Pizza. It is hokum.
Do you understand that some words mean something beyond their literal, exact definition? If someone says "it's raining buckets", would you come in and say "that rhetoric is misleading, I looked outside and no buckets are falling from the sky"?
Of course. The problem is that when someone says one thing is another thing, that is not obviously metaphorical. Maybe you'd be able to tell in person but not through text where the message is monotonized and broadcasted to the entire internet.
A vote for a 3rd party candidate is IN ESSENCE a vote for Trump. There, fixed the literal reference.