the lesser of two evils

[Fresh_Start]

I understand disappointment and anger about not having your team win
I understand thinking that the other side/supporters are idiots

been there, done that.

But I don't understand not voting for the lesser of two evils.
While your non-vote is not a vote for the GOP, it strengthens the GOP because your vote has reliably been there to cancel out a vote for the GOP. So in effect, your non-vote does strengthen the GOP position.

You may not understand this, but many of us who prefer Clinton would vote for Sanders if he won the nomination.
And when we would cast that vote, we would be voting for the lesser of two evils in our minds.
Maybe we dislike Bernie a little less than you dislike Hillary, but we would still be compromising with ourselves to support your candidate.

And you would want us to vote for the lesser of two evils because you would want your nominee to win
and you would be angry if we withheld our vote because our team didn't win

but we care enough about our neighbors and family and friends, that we will do what is better for others...while we suffer our own disappointment

[Demsrule86]

1. I completely agree nt

[seabeyond]

2. Interesting point. I love listening to people hearing different directions we arrive at places in

thought.

[geek tragedy]

3. the lesser of two evils is really overused.

Stalin was the lesser of two evils as opposed to Hitler.

Clinton is an imperfect, mainstream liberal Democrat, not Josef Stalin.

[Fresh_Start]

4. understood

but language gets overblown when emotions run high

[geek tragedy]

5. I hear ya, and wasn't necessarily commenting about you

but about the phraseology in general.

Democracy means picking between two human beings, both of whom are going to have policy and personal flaws.

"evil" should be used for those who are really, well, evil

[Garrett78]

23. Agreed. The "lesser evil" thing is hyperbolic.

And I fully admit to having once used the phrase. But it's not constructive.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. In November, I am not voting for the Lesser of Evils, I am voting for the best available candidate.

I think the lesser of two evils argument tends to convince voters to stay home. Why vote for evil if you can stay home and unclog and clean your toilet with a coathanger and your toothbrush?

I will vote for Clinton (or the Democratic Nominee) because the Republican nominee is a bigoted, racist, misogynist, narcissist (those are his best qualities), and the Libertarian candidate is a typical small government conservative who intends to shrink government until he can drown it in Grover Norquist's bathtub. (His broad libertarian leanings do not overcome this desire to end regulation on everything, especially businesses.) Jill Stein is not a bad candidate, and I would like to see the Green Party move into the mainstream, but in our two-party, winner-take-all system she will not draw more than 5% of the vote even in the most wildly unlikely scenario.

I'm a pragmatist, and we need someone who will hold chaos at bay until 2020, at least. Only a Democrat will do that.

[Fresh_Start]

7. thats a better way to look at it

but for the disappointed and angry, LOTE is closer to what they are feeling...and what I have felt at times

[pinebox]

8. Ok I'll answer this

While your non-vote is not a vote for the GOP, it strengthens the GOP because your vote has reliably been there to cancel out a vote for the GOP. So in effect, your non-vote does strengthen the GOP position.

No it actually isn't. It doesn't help Trump. In fact you can literally use the same logic and say it helps Hillary. 0+0=0. It's a net zero. It has no effect and honestly, that's along the lines of saying that everyone under the age of 18 is helping Trump because they can't vote. In the end, it's people either not voting for looking elsewhere to vote third party.

You may not understand this, but many of us who prefer Clinton would vote for Sanders if he won the nomination.
And when we would cast that vote, we would be voting for the lesser of two evils in our minds.
Maybe we dislike Bernie a little less than you dislike Hillary, but we would still be compromising with ourselves to support your candidate.

No we get that, we know this. What you may not understand is many Bernie supporters see a vote for Hillary as going backwards. We don't want to go backwards, we want to go forward and for all intents and purposes, Hillary really hasn't proposed much of anything. She wants small incremental change where as Bernie wants light speed. We've been stuck in slow motion for decades and that is why many of his supporters won't vote for Hillary. Then you get into ideological differences. Bernie supporters see Hillary and Trump as the same plant of corn, just different rows of the crop.

And you would want us to vote for the lesser of two evils because you would want your nominee to win
and you would be angry if we withheld our vote because our team didn't win

Again, ideological differences here.

but we care enough about our neighbors and family and friends, that we will do what is better for others...while we suffer our own disappointment

Ok, dig this. Under Hillary or Trump, people would suffer. Hillary wants to expand the ACA yet does absolutely nothing for people living in red states in the south. People will literally continue to die there because states haven't expanded Medicaid. Hillary can't support even a $15 minimum wage which would help people a great deal to life them out of poverty. Remember in the 80s how one of the big topics was "latch key kids"? Today, that is the norm. It's due to low wages and yet Hillary enables that in our opinion. Walmart shouldn't be getting tax cuts while the tax payers pick up their bill for paying their employees so low that a massive number are on SNAP.

It is what it is.

[Fresh_Start]

12. I understand what you are saying

The under-18s don't have a choice, so they are not at all at fault for not voting. I will tell you that I was very angered to read stories of Bernie supporters who said things like I'm 32 years old and this is the first time I am voting. I blame that attitude (or in my viewpoint, shirking of responsibility) for the flaws of the current system.

There is no way that a vote for Clinton is a vote for going backward she won't roll back progresses made under Obama. Maybe you think Obama didn't make enough progress, but that is much more a result of the times than a result of flaws in Obama. But accepting your premise, you think a vote for Clinton is going backward...but that a President Trump isn't even more 'backward'? I don't understand how you can make that leap. I also believe that Sanders might 'dream' of lightspeed progress but has zero chance of even incremental progress. And that is my objection to Sanders: he is not grounded in reality: his plans will not happen. I see a Sanders Presidency as a waste of 4 years. Four years, which in my perspective, we don't have the time to waste.

Clinton wants a increase in minimum wage. She believes that it must be done incrementally. As a latchkey child from the 1960s with a single mom with only a grade school education, I understand what is it to be poor and struggling. The poorest voters are a group that supports Clinton rather than Sanders. Don't you wonder why? Maybe they know something you are ignoring.

I've been boycotting Walmart since the 1980s.
I use mass transit rather than the convenience of driving myself.
I compost. I recycle. I have been conserving energy and water for years.
I've decreased by own pollution and my own household waste.
I downsized house and car. I vote myself tax increases.
I keep/kept my children in public schools. I vote in every damn election. I volunteer over 50 hours a year.

So I care deeply about the the world and the future.
I can and will try to make choices which I believe are best not just for me but also for the future.

I have learned that honorable people can have differences of opinion.

Peace.

[Shemp Howard]

9. I worry about wars.

Hillary has a scandal problem. To me, that's an issue, but it's not the main issue. So I can apply the "lesser of two evils" rule there. No problem.

My main issue is the war issue. Hillary apparently has little restraint when it comes to starting wars.

Her comments on Libya are chilling. "We came, we saw, he died". She advocates a no-fly zone in Syria. That would pit US planes against Russian planes. Even more chilling. Then there is the Iraq war vote. I just cannot get past all that.

No more wars, please. So it looks like I'll be taking my write-in pencil with me next time I vote.

[Fresh_Start]

10. I'm very worried about Clinton scandals

I'm not worried about her starting a war: though I understand why someone would be worried about it

[Maedhros]

11. The "lesser of two evils" meme is a lever used by the Democratic Establishment

to maintain control of the Party and to prevent progressives from gaining a foothold in Party policy.

Those who support them think that by electing more-and-more conservative Democrats, somehow we will magically create progressive government. Of course the Party establishment knows this is nonsense: electing conservative Democrats will give us more conservative government, which is what they want.

The Democratic rank-and-file is being played. Some are waking up to this fact.

[Fresh_Start]

13. I think you are misunderstanding the lever.

I think the lever they are using is moderation to keep together a coalition with many different voices.

West Virginia is not ready to give up coal.
Pennsylvania is not ready to give up fracking.
Texas is not ready to give up fossil fuels
The entire country is not ready to cut all energy usage by over 30%.
And so, any plan must consider each of those constituencies.

I read an academic paper (which I've been trying to relocate), that made a good argument that when political progress moves too fast, it incites a disproportionate backlash. I suspect that their argument is right, too many people in the USA weren't ready for a black President and thus we got the birthers, the rise of white supremacy, and the tea party.

And you can see the same with respect to LGBT rights. Insanely stupid arguments and tantrums against the rules which those individuals and communities do not support.

We must continue to make progress...unfortunately that progress will be slow progress until the majority of people can unite on a goal.

[Maedhros]

14. Oh, I've no doubt that they are using it to keep a coalition together.

It's just that I've observed what they do with their coalition, and it is not progressive or liberal.

And there is no shortage of voices out there chomping at the bit to tell me why this is a good thing. I just don't believe it.

[Fresh_Start]

15. I'm curious where you think the coalition is ahead of the platform?

I think there is only one soft point....but I'm interested in your view.

[Maedhros]

17. The Party platform has consistently comprised empty platitudes for the last few decades.

I'm looking at what the Party actually does, which is to wage unnecessary war, allow the executive to skirt the Constitution, craft regressive trade agreements and weaken regulations.

They talk a good game ("Give us subpoena power!&quot only to immediately capitulate ("Impeachment is off the table!&quot immediately after they get the votes they needed.

[Fresh_Start]

19. Again, where is the coalition (the party membership) ahead of the party platform

cause I don't see the coalition pushing the party forward.
I see the coalition holding the party back.

Now admittedly the coalition isn't individually participating. They participate through their selection of representatives...those dreaded blue dogs: but they aren't picking progressing representatives..

[Maedhros]

21. You are absolutely correct: the rank-and-file expects NOTHING from their elected representatives,

therefore they do not hold them accountable for their shortcomings. The "coalition" cares about one thing, and one thing only: counting coup on the Republicans.

That's why there is a movement in opposition to the status quo.

[seabeyond]

18. Bullshit. It is used by the Naders and Sanders. Lol.

[ancianita]

16. If you don't understand it, then you don't want to. But try to understand it this way:

as voting for "the greater of two imperfect goods." THAT is as real as one can get when voting for imperfect candidates.

There will nevernevernever be a perfectly good candidate, and so logically there will always be the foregrounding of evil in campaigns. We'll never not face this problem.

We will always suffer for our candidates' imperfections.

Now look at who benefits when this phrase comes up with every campaign. The lesser of two evils is the opponents' attempt to split a majority vote by appealing to some supposed intellectual vanity of its opponents. To create a split that allows their win.

Don't fall for it.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

22. Personally

I never get this talk of "lesser of two evils". For one to choose between two "evils", one must first, of course, define both persons as "evil", which is a hard thing for me to do because I would ascribe the label to very few politicians (McCrory in NC being one) but, as far as politics go, when presented with a choice between a viable Democrat and Republican for POTUS, it's always been pretty clear to me who is going to best represent the agenda I support and it has NEVER been the Republican.

[MineralMan]

24. No, the better of two options.

That's always the choice.