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18 days agoSerious question, not trying to argue, I just want to understand: What do you expect to gain by not voting/voting third party in this particular election? Is it a matter of principle for you, or is there another reason? And are you really unafraid of having more Republican representatives vs Democrats?
I ask because this choice has always seemed like an obvious one to me, but I’ll admit I’m looking at the question through a lens of cold logic. Also while I am a minority, I’m not trans, so I assume there is a perspective here that I’m not seeing.
Those are all fair points; I can’t argue any of them, at least not with my level of understanding. I would even agree that Republicans and establishment/neoliberalism Democrats are ultimately rolling up to the same folks to get their marching orders, even if their outward facade paints them as opposing factions. I would argue, though, that while the Democrats you describe represent the same brand of fascism as the Republicans they (ostensibly) rail against, they do push it in a noticeably slower, less heavy-handed way than Republicans do. That doesn’t sound like much of a benefit, but I would think it offers progressives a chance to shift the Overton window back to the left during the eras when Democrats are in power; more of a chance than they’d have during a Republican administration like this one anyway, where people are constantly overwhelmed with the avalanche of blatant corruption and intentional cruelty directed toward them. A slower-moving disaster is an objectively better situation than a fast-moving one, because you at least have more time to try to stop it or get out of the way. That’s the cold logic I was referring to in my original comment.
But like I said, I’m not really here to argue. I just wanted to ask a question, the one you skipped right over: What do you expect to gain by either not voting or voting third party in this particular election? You’ve given a salient explanation of why Democrats aren’t much better than Republicans as leaders, but you haven’t explained why picking an unlikely third option (or not picking one at all) is the best choice.