Some people out there seem to be confused, but I always vote in every local and every national election for every office and every ballot initiative since I was 18 years old. Some of my greatest civil rights heroes have fought and died so that we can all vote and I honor their memory in the ballot box every single time.
To some of us, especially those of us like myself who have been scheduling secretaries for US senators, it often seems like a morally reprehensible choice between compromised corporate Democrats and fascist-minded Republicans. Where I live in California, I have the luxury of voting my conscience for president for third-party candidates that better align with my ideas of justice and equality.
But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off, but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see without compromise and without apologies before, during, and after election day. And let’s stop the fascists every which way we can. Power the people.
I would agree with this if Trump hadn’t won the popular vote in 2024. Even though it doesn’t matter for the result, the outcome would still have been slightly less terrible than Trump winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote. From a harm reduction perspective, those deep blue state voters who oppose Trump but failed to vote for Harris still contributed to the outcome in a way that has served to further empower Trump.
And what did winning the popular vote in 2016 do for Clinton? As long as we live in an anti-democratic system where some votes are worth more than others and the electoral college exists, acting like the popular vote is what decides vote (and therefor getting angry at people living in deep blue states for not voting blue) is absolutely asinine.
You also can’t have it both ways; if it’s so important to get every single vote even in deep blue states, then you have to take the concerns of these voters seriously and not just demand they perform for the party’s sake. If their votes are so necessary then they must be earned.
Do you not remember “the Resistance”? Have you not noticed the difference between how corporate America behaved following 2016 vs. now? There is this idea of a “mandate” that can help animate the implementation of the new regime, Trump having the popular vote win in 2024 to point at was a significant factor in how things played out after that election. If Trump had only won the Electoral College again he would have been less empowered by the election outcome.
I don’t understand this, it seems like a non sequitur to the point I was making. I am not arguing any of these things. It’s generally not a good use of limited campaign resources or political capital to target these kinds of voters, that would be a bad strategy when that money and effort could be much better spent trying to actually win via the Electoral College.
I would argue the difference is not some tiny percentage of voters, but his first term had a lot more long term establishment people in it. He fucked off and went golfing and the assortment of people in the administration really set direction. Bad direction, but moderated.
After his 2020 loss and subsequent sore loser meltdown, anyone vaguely moderate went with the prevailing wisdom that he was out of the picture and abandoned him. Meanwhile just the worst people bet on alignment with him and stood by and crafted a plan and administration for 4 years to be just even worse.
Multiple things contributed to the differences, I am not saying the sole difference comes down to winning or not winning the popular vote. Yes, a major factor in the difference is that 2016 Trump had some establishment folks keeping the train on the tracks to some extent. Do you think they would have felt as free to thwart Trump’s will if there wasn’t the cloud of his split victory over him compared to the scenario where he won a decisive victory that included that popular vote? The zeitgeist would have been totally different, the political capital that Trump had back then would have been much greater. Those establishment folks would have been both less likely to be selected to help run the show and those who were selected would have been less willing and able to act against Trump, corporate America would have been more willing to bend to his will in the way they did after 2024, etc. Everything that results from winning the popular vote is beneficial to Trump, so the simple logic is if you make a choice that contributes to Trump winning the popular vote you are inherently doing something that empowers Trump.
I remember protestors and journalists where I live getting beaten, gassed, and arrested while Democrats did more performative shit, Trump incited a riot, and nobody faced any consequences. Why, what do you remember?
This is magical thinking, corporations will do whatever gives them money and that’s all they’ve ever been doing. The only thing that can take power from Trump is Congress or SCOTUS. If a ‘mandate’ is so great at giving and taking power from Trump why don’t his opinion polls being in the trash fix anything? Is your premise that corporations look at politics once every 4 years and then shrug and move on? Just a snapshot on Election Day?
Then don’t complain about voters you don’t want not voting for your candidate. It seems like focusing on winning only the votes of some Platonic ideal of an undecided voter instead of issues actually important to their base has done nothing but lead to Trump getting elected, but what do I know, I’m not a professional election loser.
You are missing the point being made. There is a difference in how American society behaved following 2016 compared to 2024, a factor in that difference is Trump losing the popular vote in 2016 but winning it in 2024. Trump has more power now in part because he won the popular vote and had less power back then in part because he lost the popular vote. This is basic politics, a more decisive victory confers greater power than a less decisive victory.
I don’t think I am complaining, I am describing the situation to dispute the idea that criticism of these third party voters is “moronic”, or whatever the original comment was. It isn’t moronic to be critical of people who made a bad decision that served to empower Trump. I never suggested anything about Platonic ideal undecided voters, it seems like you are reading lots of things into my comments that are not there. I get the impression that you are not really engaging with my points and just throwing whatever you can come up with back at me.
As I said, this is magical thinking. There is not a legal mechanism holding him in control if he loses the popular vote, and in no way did it reduce his power; he appointed three SCOTUS judges in his first term for fuck’s sake.
Basic politics also says the person with the most votes wins an election, so toss it out if you’re trying to understand American politics. I’m also not sure you should be lecturing me about basic politics if you believe the checks on Trump are how many votes he got and not the other two branches of government
If they “empowered him” by not voting blue in a state that went blue was always going to go blue, why can’t they disempower him by disapproving of him? Is it possibly because approval has nothing to do with what power a politician has, and that Congress and SCOTUS instead hold the reins to power and are simply letting it happen?
No, it must be those dastardly people in blue states who simply didn’t vote hard enough!
The concept of a popular mandate is not magical thinking, and it doesn’t require a legal mechanism. You keep misrepresenting my point. Do you dispute that a more decisive victory provides more political capital to the winner? Do you dispute that winning both the popular vote and electoral college is a more decisive victory than winning the electoral college alone?
I think you need to work on your reading comprehension, or read more carefully, or maybe you are not participating here in good faith, I don’t know. For the record, I do not believe that and never made that claim.
I am not sure if I follow this but yes, disapproving of Trump is to some extent inherently disempowering for Trump, of course. You can see how his capacity to enact his agenda has become increasingly challenged in certain regards due to the decline in his polling, for example. You have candidates he endorsed openly trying to distance themselves from him at this point. We are in a very different political environment now compared to last year. Are you suggesting that popularity doesn’t bring with it political capital?
I am asking you to specify what powers of Trump’s were limited by not winning the general vote. Because it wasn’t the ability to sign laws, appoint new SCOTUS justices, or stack the federal courts with judges. So far you have refused to elaborate beyond ‘it would have been worse in his first term’ which is untestable and unprovable. I am forced to conclude he didn’t actually have his powers restricted in any way by the vote, or by his approval ratings.
But hey, who knows, if it drops to a new low for the nth month in a row maybe that will magically make it so that people aren’t getting put in camps. (Not magical thinking though)
Then why the hell are you pissing about the people who have a symbolic vote on the presidency once every 4 years and not the people whose literal job as laid out in the constitution is to balance and check the powers of the president?
This is a dumb question that you wouldn’t be asking if you had read and understood my previous comments.