So, I figured that it might be good to make a little handy dandy guide to determine who one should vote for. Now, I'm not JUST talking republican and democrat here, since given this blog is mainly aimed at lefties, I'm also talking about third parties vs democrats.
I look at it like this. I figure out what my top issues are and make metrics to weigh my priorities accordingly. And then I look at all candidates that might catch my eye and attempt to measure them. And in theory at least, I go for the highest scoring candidate.
Now, when measuring third parties vs democrats, this metric might need to change a bit. After all, democrats are the "default option" for the left, with the actual chance of winning, while the third party candidate is more a virtue signal. Unlike "pragmatic" voters I'm not gonna say always go for the democrat. I do think sometimes a virtue signal is worth it. How do I decide that? Well, it depends.
If the democrats and the greens get similar scores on my metric, kinda like they're doing this election, a protest vote isnt worth it. I mean, if youre gonna do it, the democrats kinda have to suck and the third party candidate has to be significantly better. That's why I have that 10 point metric for the dems in there now. And then on top of that I'd still expect the third party candidate to be significantly higher than the dem on top of that.
Like, if the dem absolutely sucks, they score like a 40 or 50 on my metric, and then the third party candidate scores like a 70, yeah, third party can be worth it. But if both kinda sorta score around 60, it's like...what's the point of a third party vote? Ya know? just go for the democrat?
To me, it's really a matter of whether the dems' flaws are dealbreakers and if we actually have a better alternative. If the democrat is almost as good as the third party candidate, you might as well just vote for the democrat. Going for the virtue signal is only worth it if the democrats are just so bad that they are actively alienating you, and if you have a third party candidate with a significantly better platform.
like, in 2016, I went third party, and even then I did entertain voting for Hillary. I just didnt do it because the dems had this mentality of just actively offending me while taking me for granted and trying to bully me into voting for them. It really took a lot of effort for them to alienate me as hard as they did. it was almost as if they were trying to.
And stein wasnt really amazing. I kinda held my nose for her.
In 2020, I kinda treated it as a 2016 repeat just with biden instead of hillary, and hawkins was like a better version of stein.
In 2024, Biden shifted enough to make me less hostile toward the dems this time, while the greens really arent doing it for me with the big issue of the day being gaza and palestine for them.
Like, if anything, i actually like the dems better and Stein does worse than Biden. Even within the built in dem advantage, Biden and Stein are kinda neck and neck, which in and of itself tells me it's not worth voting for Stein.
Again, I wanna repeat, in 2016, I felt like hillary's behavior was so bad it was practically an affront to my values, and I felt very strongly about making a point to NOT vote democrat, and in 2020, that behavior and mindset carried over. This time around things are a bit different where the dem vote seems more justified.
And yeah. I just felt like I should write this guide to give people an idea on how I view these things.
Ultimately, a third party vote should be seen as a rejection of the political status quo and a call for some sort of political change. It should be calling for the party closest to you to adopt some policies that they're neglecting, or simply to stop running such crappy candidates.
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