I used to mainly vote third party as a protest vote for both sides to do better. Didn't matter the party, really.
I voted for Obama out of genuinely wanting him in office. I thought he was decent overall but he did disappoint me.
I voted for Biden purely to keep Trump out of office. Even so, I think Biden has largely been a better President than Obama was, though the Gaza/Israel thing is really testing that. I would love to have a more progressive choice, but any time I am disappointed in Biden, I just remind myself the alternative and I would crawl across a mile of broken glass to vote for him.
So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.
So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.
If you mean "unique in 240 years of American history" I agree.
So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.
as will be the next, and the one after that, as well as all of the ones following; meanwhile you'll continue crawling over broken glass and giving a pass to ongoing genocides because you believe it's better than the alternative somehow without realizing there's one alternative.
no one knows the right answer, but there are plenty of wrong answers and 2 of those have been placed before and you're told that you must select one.
Told? It's just math. If you want to change things, you have to either do it from within an existing party or wait for an existing party to implode and then maybe there is an opportunity for change.
I'm fifty. I spent a lot of fucking elections wasting my vote on third parties, thinking I was sending some kind of message or making things better, but here we are. I wasted every single vote prior to 2008. Would anything be different if I hadn't? No. Would anything be different if a bunch of people hadn't? I don't know. Maybe.
as i said before: no one knows the right answer, but there are plenty of wrong answers, we know they're wrong because we've tried them and things don't get better (and we sometimes try it again with the same results); we're only allowed to pick from among those wrong answers only.
trying anything otherwise might also be a wrong answer; but we will never know because there are plenty who will shame you if don't pick the same wrong answer they do.
Fair. Government is hard. There is no such thing as a right answer. Just shit that we find out later didn't work. I'm not happy with either of the two parties; I don't really believe in parties anyway. But here we are.
Fight the good fight, my friend, but just don't let fascism take us. My grandfather fought against the fascists in WW2, and here I am doing the same (though admittedly with way less personal risk) 80 years later. I don't like it, but it is what it is.
So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.
I worry that it's the new baseline.
New baseline?! I have often gotten the feeling that you are an adolescent. It would explain so many of the shitty hot takes and bad ideas. But this really kind of solidifies it. Being young is not an insult however. We all were at one point in time. And we all matured and grew up.
This is so not a new thing though. Trump is literally Reagan part 2. And that's just within the last 50 years that's not even mentioning Nixon or all the others that came before him. The truth is this is been the way it has always been. It sucks that so much of the energy of youth is wasted tilting at windmills. Instead of actually understanding and working to improve things. Actively demotivating non Republican voters in an effort to get the Republican candidate to win. That sounds like a real good way to improve things.
As someone who lived through the Reagan administrations, Trump is far, far worse than Reagan part 2.
Granted there are similarities such as Reagan ignoring AIDS and Trump ignoring Covid, but at the same time, Reagan was far more likeable while committing actual war crimes in the Iran/Contra affair, and having the CIA dealing cocaine.
I used to mainly vote third party as a protest vote for both sides to do better. Didn't matter the party, really.
I voted for Obama out of genuinely wanting him in office. I thought he was decent overall but he did disappoint me.
I voted for Biden purely to keep Trump out of office. Even so, I think Biden has largely been a better President than Obama was, though the Gaza/Israel thing is really testing that. I would love to have a more progressive choice, but any time I am disappointed in Biden, I just remind myself the alternative and I would crawl across a mile of broken glass to vote for him.
So I would anecdotally say this election is outside the norm.
If you mean "unique in 240 years of American history" I agree.
as will be the next, and the one after that, as well as all of the ones following; meanwhile you'll continue crawling over broken glass and giving a pass to ongoing genocides because you believe it's better than the alternative somehow without realizing there's one alternative.
no one knows the right answer, but there are plenty of wrong answers and 2 of those have been placed before and you're told that you must select one.
Told? It's just math. If you want to change things, you have to either do it from within an existing party or wait for an existing party to implode and then maybe there is an opportunity for change.
I'm fifty. I spent a lot of fucking elections wasting my vote on third parties, thinking I was sending some kind of message or making things better, but here we are. I wasted every single vote prior to 2008. Would anything be different if I hadn't? No. Would anything be different if a bunch of people hadn't? I don't know. Maybe.
as i said before: no one knows the right answer, but there are plenty of wrong answers, we know they're wrong because we've tried them and things don't get better (and we sometimes try it again with the same results); we're only allowed to pick from among those wrong answers only.
trying anything otherwise might also be a wrong answer; but we will never know because there are plenty who will shame you if don't pick the same wrong answer they do.
Fair. Government is hard. There is no such thing as a right answer. Just shit that we find out later didn't work. I'm not happy with either of the two parties; I don't really believe in parties anyway. But here we are.
Fight the good fight, my friend, but just don't let fascism take us. My grandfather fought against the fascists in WW2, and here I am doing the same (though admittedly with way less personal risk) 80 years later. I don't like it, but it is what it is.
I worry that it's the new baseline.
New baseline?! I have often gotten the feeling that you are an adolescent. It would explain so many of the shitty hot takes and bad ideas. But this really kind of solidifies it. Being young is not an insult however. We all were at one point in time. And we all matured and grew up.
This is so not a new thing though. Trump is literally Reagan part 2. And that's just within the last 50 years that's not even mentioning Nixon or all the others that came before him. The truth is this is been the way it has always been. It sucks that so much of the energy of youth is wasted tilting at windmills. Instead of actually understanding and working to improve things. Actively demotivating non Republican voters in an effort to get the Republican candidate to win. That sounds like a real good way to improve things.
As someone who lived through the Reagan administrations, Trump is far, far worse than Reagan part 2.
Granted there are similarities such as Reagan ignoring AIDS and Trump ignoring Covid, but at the same time, Reagan was far more likeable while committing actual war crimes in the Iran/Contra affair, and having the CIA dealing cocaine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking