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"No, I'm not doing nothing I'm raising awareness!"
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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I think there is a point that gets left out in this back and forth a lot. So because of the way our system is, only two parties currently have a real world chance at winning. And yes voting for one is not a vote for the other. Likewise voting 3rd party is not voting for the other. In any literal sense this is true.
The argument that's trying to be made but is being done poorly imo, is that if you aren't helping to stop a party from winning by voting against them (and for the only other party capable of winning) then you are actively hurting the chances of said party being defeated. So in this case, not voting for harris, who is the only candidate opposing trump with a real world chance of winning, means that you are helping trump to win, because it's one less vote to the party capable of beating him.
When they say you voting 3rd party is a vote for trump, it's not literal. It's the effective end though. If not enough people vote harris, trump wins. They are talking about the argument from a single perspective, of defeating trump. You can make the argument from the other perspective of trump defeating harris too, that not voting trump helps harris. And both statements are true. If you don't help a cause, you hurt it. And the same goes for 3rd parties. If you don't help them, you hurt them.
Let's take our current race as an example. If I had ranked choice I'd vote 3rd party, then harris, then a 4th party then at the very bottom trump. Since we have FPTP though this really just becomes my order of preference.
In our FPTP system without ranked choice voting, when it comes to a federal presidential election, if you aren't voting for a party that can actually win (even if they aren't your first choice), then you are increasing the chances for their competition. In our case the 3rd and 4th party are incapable of producing a win, no matter how badly we may want it. So if I want my vote to make a difference that helps push things towards my preferences, then I have to remove those two from my consideration. I could vote for them. But by doing so my alternative preference of harris doesn't get a vote. Fewer votes for my alternative preference means that my lowest preference of trump stands a better chance of winning because there is now less opposition from the preference with a chance to win.
Any and all parties want you to vote for them. But their next preference is that you not vote, or at least vote in a way that doesn't support their strongest competition.
If it were green against democrats as the top two in an election, and you are cheering on green. Would you prefer someone (Joe) that doesn't want to vote green, instead vote democrat, a 3rd party with no chance at winning, or not at all? I can't say what you'd choose in actuality, but in most cases, others in the same position wouldn't care one bit if Joe voted 3rd party or not at all, because at least he didn't help the democrats.
Sorry, a bit rambly and this is from my phone so probably littered with grammar issues. But that's my general point of view on it. Most people view it as if someone isn't helping, they are hurting. Thanks for coming to my ted talk lol
It is very much false, in any literal sense. When they count up the votes, they do not add third party votes to the other side. The argument you're actually trying to make (or should be trying to make, at least) is that, despite being false in a literal sense, it is true in a metaphorical or in a practical sense. Otherwise, you are just objectively wrong.
No, I'm not "hurting" Harris' chances. I'm just not helping them. I am not taking a vote away from Harris, if you wipe me away from existence, Harris doesn't have "one less vote" than she would have otherwise, she has the exact same number. So this is also wrong.
You just said it was literal.
Categorically false. If someone on the other side of the world murders someone, and I did nothing to help the victim, did I hurt them? No, I just didn't help them. The baseline or zero-point is non-involvement.
Again, false. I'm not increasing the chances for their competition, I'm just not decreasing their chances.
I have no idea if "most people" view it that way or not, but regardless, it's not how I view it and I don't think it's a reasonable way to view it.
I think you might have misunderstood me. Like a lot. In the hopes you are intending to have an honest conversation I'll try to address the misunderstandings.
In response to my first statement you stated
If you had read me correctly I said
Which is completely in agreeance with your position on the matter. If I'm incorrect on this, then you are as well because we have the same opinion on this. :)
on to the next bit
If the premise is to avoid a trump election, then you are incorrect here. If the premise is solely talking about whether abstaining is helping or hurting, then you are right. But, the argument of "if you aren't voting for harris you are voting for trump" that I'm endeavoring to explain (in a hopefully helpful or at least friendly way) is predicated on the notion that those saying that are working to prevent a trump election. In that specific scenario, which is the root of all this discussion, then yes, if one is not helping the side opposed to trump, they are helping trump, even if that help is by inaction. The being dead position isn't analogous enough to be an accurate comparison because the dead can't vote.
Next you commented the following
I can see how this could be misinterpreted. Those saying "if you aren't voting for harris you are voting for trump" are not making a literal assertion that you are voting for trump. It's intention is closer to "...you are helping trump" It's not meant as a literal statement that your vote is tallied under trump. Likewise I'm not asserting that votes are literally being tallied for trump when you abstain or vote 3rd party. My statement was the exact opposite and again in-line with your opinion.
Next you replied to
That analogy doesn't work because in that case you can do nothing to help the victim on the other side of the world and have no involvement, nor is there any group component. A closer analogy would be something like "Someone was about to be murdered but there are 5 people with buttons in front of them. If 3 of the buttons are pressed the person will live." In this scenario which more closely resembles the scenario we are discussing, your inaction could lead to the person being murdered if only two other people press their button, the inaction of you and the remaining others resulted in a murder. It may have no impact at all if there are 3 people that press regardless of you, or maybe everyone is apathetic and no one presses, but your button press could also be what saves the person. That's more like what voting is like. In the end, you may or may not matter. But you take a few "doesn't matter" people here and there throughout the country and it makes an impact one way or another, especially in states where races get close. A local election in my own state was decided by a matter of 28 votes. While federal is broader it's the same concept.
Next
Ehhhh, that's a bit of a semantic wordplay that's not entirely truthful because it only works in a hard literal sense. So by not decreasing the chances of the trump, you are definitely increasing the chances he gets elected by however small an amount that may be. If you just don't vote, or vote 3rd party, you have decreased his chances to a degree because he doesn't get your vote, but you do more by voting for harris, because you help her increase as well as not increase trump. It becomes a compound effect and so one could say by not opting for the compounded effect, you've aided trump by not opposing him as much as possible.
Lastly,
I say "most people" talking about the group we find ourselves in here. It's a probably little hyperbolic to say "most", just anecdotally what I've witnessed here. And as far as being reasonable or not I don't have a real strong opinion either way here. I do tend to find that that's not always a reasonable way to view things. In the position of the argument, "if you aren't voting for Harris you are helping trump" I tend to think it's accurate. But it's fine, we don't have to agree on anything. I'm not trying to convert anyone at this point. People are gonna people and at this point in the election cycle people's minds are already made up. I was just trying to give some info to the position regardless of my opinion on it. :)
The crux of the disagreement comes down to where you define the zero point. If the zero point is defined as doing nothing, then doing nothing is not helping anyone. If the zero point is voting democrat, then doing nothing is helping Trump. If the zero point if voting Trump, then doing nothing is helping Harris.
There is no logical reason why the zero point should be defined as voting for one candidate or the other. Therefore it is incorrect to say not voting for one candidate "helps" the other.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. And I'd say the people you are talking to saying your 3rd party vote is helping trump are defining that zero point as a vote for harris. Nice talking with you though. 🙂
I don't think you read the post you were responding to for understanding, you just read it for disagreement, because it doesn't say here what you act like it says. Re-read it.