this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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You're giving people way too much credit. Those of us who dig deep and really think about this are a small minority. Most people vote for whoever their favorite news source tells them to. When those news sources are corporate owned, you end up flipping a coin between two corporate approved candidates.
It sure doesn't help having people like you acting like voting for a third party is the same as voting for whichever candidate you don't like. You're doing the oligarchs work for them. Harris lost, by a wide margin. She didn't have a chance. Does that mean a vote for Harris was a vote for trump? Do you see how stupid that logic is?
And that is a problem, not a forgivable quirk.
I'm doing the oligarchs' work for them by... trying to ensure the LESS pro-oligarch candidate wins, the less pro-oligarch candidate who also has the extremely appealing trait of not being a literal fucking Nazi?
What.
Do you... do you know what Harris lost by?
what.
The point of pointing out that throwing away your vote was a vote for the fucking Nazi is that in a FPTP system with near-majority support from two candidates, one of them is going to win the election. When September ran around and third-parties were still polling under fucking 1%, THAT was the time to fucking consider maybe voting for the anti-fascist coalition candidate. In such a system, not voting or protest voting is effectively a half-vote contribution to whomever the eventual winner is - and guess who the fucking winner was? The goddamn Nazi.
You seem to think the average American is capable of using reason, has intellectual curiosity, and has morals.
The average American is literally too dumb to ever do any of that, and screaming into the void doesn't change that.
Politicians need to notice more than half the country is braindead and checked out and act accordingly.
In what ever-loving fucking way are politicians running on the presumption that American voters are using reason, intellectual curiousity, or morals?
You're asking them to change their strategy to... what they're already operating under.
And you're outnumbered by these people 100 to 1 and you think you're going to vote harder than them.
No you're right I'm sure the oligarchs hate it when you vote for one of the two candidates they hand picked for you. Nice primaries by the way.
31 states. 86 electoral votes. That's 16 percent of 538. A wider margin than 4 of the 7 presidents elected this century.
Right, it's electoral quantum superposition. Shroedinger's ballot. Get the fuck out of here. A vote for a third party is a vote for a third party. Staying home is voting for no one. Stop getting your logic from bumper sticker slogans. It's dumb.
What the fuck are you talking about?
You mean the primaries where no one of substance ran and Biden, the winner of the 2020 primaries, won effectively by default?
So glad that military-grade morons like you are out here asspatting letting the more oligarch friendly candidate win as some sort of 4d chess against oligarchy. Putting your own goddamn nuts in a vise and calling it strategy when they pop like grapes.
Nice dodge. Less than 2% of the vote, genius.
Jesus fucking Christ, I'm sorry basic math is equivalent to quantum physics in your limited comprehension.
Oh the popular vote matters now? When did they change the constitution?
I was being generous calling it anything other than mental gymnastics. Statistically, non voters' political slant probably reflects the rest of America and slightly more than half of them would have voted for trump. God, imagine that happened and you had to blame the DNC for running a shitty candidate that nobody liked instead of people who refused to partipate in this electoral circlejerk. That would be horrible for you.
Would you like to remind me what causes a state to go for one candidate or another?
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fucking point, Jesus H. Christ.
Read what's being said before trying to argue against it.
Sure.
You mean this?
I did read it. I don't buy it. In fact I think it's dumb.
And what makes those electors vote in the modern day, largely restricted by state law?
That is left up to the states. And even if there are many who assign all of their electors to whoever won that states popular vote, the national popular vote is a useless metric for anything other than bragging rights. Losing by 31 out of 50 states is not a close election, it's a blowout.
And again, what have the states largely decided?
"The popular vote means nothing" is just as fucking stupid as thinking the popular vote means an automatic victory.
Yet a shift in the vote, so long as it's not running up numbers by doing endless fucking rallies in useless places like fucking California (thanks, Hillary), is generally a national shift, resulting in state majorities or pluralities shifting.
Your claim was, and I quote:
If you think that a 2% shift in the national vote was impossible and beyond the realm of reason, to the point of characterizing it as Harris not having a chance, you're out of your fucking gourd.
It apparently means a lot to you. I'm not sure why. It means jack shit in a US presidential election.
If this is how you talk about states that went the way you wanted them to, I'm starting to think you're just an angry person who is angry at everything. Have you considered therapy?
You're acting like trump didn't lose the popular vote and win the election last time and I'm not sure why you're doing that because he did.
I think a 2% shift in the national vote would have been irrelevant because, as we've covered already, the popular vote doesn't decide the race.
Harris lost Arizona by 5 points, North Carolina by 3 points, Nevada by 5 points, Pennsylvania by 3 points, Ohio by 11 points, Florida by 11 points. If 2% more people voted for Harris nationwide the result would be a trump presidency with a slightly smaller difference in the popular vote for you to seethe about.
Harris didn't have a chance. Know how I know? Because she fucking lost.
Lord.
... we're literally discussing strategy right now. Running up votes in a safe state is fucking useless. For someone who's beating their chest about how 'realistic' they're being, that's an awfully simple thing to miss.
Where am I pretending that? Feel free to quote me, genius.
She lost Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia all by ~2%. Winning Pennsylvania (48.6% vs. 50.3%) and 2 of the other 3 would have given her victory. Sorry that you're so ill-informed, but I understand that masturbatory cynicism is preferable to folk like you over actual analysis of events.
... what fucking bizarre circular logic.
Ok champ