So, like always, the blue no matter whoers are trying to push their whole "YOU HAVE TO VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO" crap on us, and I'm once again pushing back. This time I want to look at the 2024 field in particular.
Between Biden and West, as we know, I'm fairly mixed. I do agree more with west on economic agenda, although Biden has done some good things I like. At the same time, Biden is MUCH better on foreign policy. And given the threat of Trump winning again, I am leaning toward voting Biden if Trump is the nominee.
At the same time, Trump MIGHT not be the nominee. Despite winning in polls commandingly, he IS facing a metric crapton of legal trouble and this might inevitably disqualify him. And if so, my 2024 strategy may change. One of the big things keeping me voting for Biden IS the threat of an illiberal psychopath in office, but after watching the GOP debate, I am reminded other candidates exist who are potentially a lot "safer" than Trump is. This is not to say they are great or they are problem free, but given I only suspended my normal vote my conscience perspective to defeat the illiberal psychopaths and have no desire to make this an every 4 years thing, I'm going to be less constrained to vote blue if Trump or someone like him DON'T win the nomination.
That said, let's look at the existing field and polling.
Trump- 53%
DeSantis- 13%
Ramaswamy- 7.5%
Haley- 5%
Pence- 4.7%
Christie- 2.8%
Scott- 2.7%
Burgum- 0.4%
Hutchinson- 0.4%
Hurd- 0.4%
As we can see, Trump is winning by a whopping 40 points. This puts him 10 standard deviations according to my statistical methods away from a 50-50 race with another candidate, which gives him well over a 99.99% chance of winning. It's not even close. Unless movement changes MASSIVELY in the next 6 months, Trump IS going to win the nomination. PERIOD.
And let's say he does end up being forced to concede, given legal issues, what have you.
Vivek Ramaswamy, well, I already covered him. He's a nutcase who explicitly wants to raise the voting age to 25 unless they serve in the military. And a lot of his other ideas seem outright dangerous.
Ron DeSantis I don't think is AS dangerous as Trump or Ramaswamy, but he has a record of trying to ban ranked choice voting, suppress entire points of view with his "Stop WOKE act", and a bill that more or less engaged in voter suppression. I have to admit, researching it further, the case against desantis isn't as hard as the one against Trump or Ramaswamy, but he's still not great.
As far as the others go, meh. I know one person told me Pence is a fundie Christian and Christie is anti teachers unions, but to be blunt, don't care. That's just NORMAL republican scumbaggery. The thing that makes me suspend my normal ethics is the threat to democracy that these guys are.
Trump is a CLEAR threat to democracy. The dude literally incited an insurrection and should go down for that. He should not be allowed near the white house again and I think he should be disqualified from running for office again.
DeSantis and Ramaswamy are subtle threats to democracy. They do things that are scummy, but still largely within the lines of civilized society. While democracy as a whole may survive with them in office, we won't escape unscathed if they have their way, although I don't think the damage will be AS BAD as the left acts like it would.
The others...I just...don't care. I'm gonna be voting my conscience, period.
As such, if Trump is the nominee, I will probably vote for Biden.
If DeSantis or Ramaswamy are the nominee, I will take that into consideration, but otherwise vote my conscience.
And if Pence, Christie, Haley, etc, are the nominee, I'm just gonna act like this is a normal election and not care.
You can't fear monger with just any republican threat against me. NO. I voted green in 2016, I voted green in 2020, and Trump's danger to democracy is the only thing causing me to suspend my ethics there in 2024. if he's no longer a threat, I'll feel more freedom to do as I want. And I'll evaluate the democrats primarily on their POSITIVE record, as opposed to the threat the GOP present. And if the democrats don't stand up and there's a better third party nominee I feel it's worth voting for, I will do that.
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