2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSeth Godin: The faulty thinking (and marketing) of the third party protest vote
Sir Kensington's Ketchup is better ketchup. Most adults who try it agree that it's more delicious, a better choice. Alas, Heinz has a host of significant advantages, including dominant shelf space, a Proustian relationship with our childhood and unlimited money to spend on advertising.
The thing is, you can buy Sir Kensington's any time you want to. And when you buy it, that's what you get.
You're not buying it to teach Heinz a lesson. You're buying it because that's the ketchup you want.
The marketing of Sir Kensington is simple: If you want better ketchup, buy this, you'll get it.
Elections in the US don't work this way.
I'm calling it a third-party problem because the outcome of third-party efforts don't align with the marketing (and work) that goes into them.
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If enough people spent enough time, day after day, dollar after dollar, we could fundamentally alter the historic two-party system we have in the US. But it's been shown, again and again, that the easy act of letting oneself off the hook by simply voting for a third-party candidate accomplishes nothing.
The marketing of the third-party candidate is: Teach those folks a lesson, plus, you're not on the hook for what happens. But...
No one in government is learning a lesson.
And you don't even get who you voted for.
The irony is not lost on me. A small group of voters who care a great deal are spending psychic energy on a vote that undermines the very change they seek to make.
It's a self-defeating way of letting yourself off the hook, but of course, you're actually putting yourself on the hook, just as you do if you don't vote at all.
No candidate has earned a majority of all potential (regardless of registration) voters, not once in my lifetime. Which means that the people who don't vote, or who vote for a third-party candidate, have an enormous amount of power. Which they waste.
Yes, it's on you. Your responsibility to vote for one of two people, and to be unhappy with that conundrum if you choose. And then work to change the system, and keep working at it...
But it's not like ketchup. With ketchup, you get what you choose. With voting, we merely get the chance to do the best we can on one particular day, and then spend years working for what we might want.
It turns out that democracy involves a lot more than voting.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/10/ketchup-and-the-third-party-problem.html
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whatthehey
(3,660 posts)It's THE CANDIDATE'S fault we are unable to tell the difference between Clinton and Trump policies, not ours because we are brainless extremists with no concept of how politics work.
It's the CANDIDATE'S fault that they need to serve 340 million citizens, only a very few of whom want doctrinaire ideologies like either zero or unlimited environmental controls, not ours because we think a tiny fringe view in one area must carry the day completely or we throw in the towel on every other issue out there.
It's the CANDIDATE'S fault that we have built up an impossible mythical image of what a candidate should be. One who adheres always to our views, who is strong enough to defeat all opposition but never hurtful, who is wise enough to always be right but never prideful, who is completely honest and above board but who can work deals to destroy the opposition every time. Not our fault because we throw every good candidate who comes along under the bus when they can't measure up to our pipedreams.
It's the CANDIDATE'S fault they can't inspire us with details of how they will double wages but hold inflation down, how they will keep us safe but retain limitless personal liberty, how they will triple government spending but manage the debt, Not ours because we can't accept these things are impossible, so we run like little frightened children to comforting liars like Stein and Nader who pretend we can have all those things and they can do all those things, secure in the knowledge that they are under no risk whatsoever of being asked to accomplish them.