I am so so divided on if I should vote for biden or not. I wanna vote third party to at least do something or should I just stay home and protest and advocate where I can? Thoughts?
Until your system does anything useful with third party votes or couch-sitting, you go out and vote every time for whatever does the least damage to democracy. But don't disengage from the political world after the election. Between elections, you work to change the system. Find groups that tries to do this and volunteer. If you really care about it, you will need to dedicate your time to the cause, even though it might seem hopeless and may very well be.
I understand your situation sucks and you are tempted to say "Fuck the status quo" and desperately do something different in hopes that something will somehow change. But you know who do go out and vote, every fucking time? The racist assholes who would love to see Trump and his fascists cronies in power. And if that happens, it is game over. You will never get any chance to change anything, except from after a big traumatic event such as a big war ("civil" or otherwise).
Yes we should let the worst people in power because the other option isn't perfect, the axis had a lot of issues during ww2 so we should have just let the Nazis win.
Only thing I have to add to the others is that this can only change once we have Ranked Choice voting. Look up your local nonprofit supporting this goal and volunteer.
Do what you want and don't be guilted by fear-mongerers on social media. If you want to vote third party, you should.
I'm biased, but think you should vote for Biden. I voted for Nader I'm 2000 because I lived in Massachusetts at the time and it didn't matter there but I still regret it on the principle.
Biden is too centrist for my liking but the alternative is total chaos. I am super progressive but did vote for McCain in 2000 for the primary and never voted for Ted Kennedy!
America (and alot of countries to be fair) need ranked choice voting systems so damn badly for this exact reason (if you're unfamiliar with it, a simple version is that basically you rank your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick, your first pick gets 3 points, 2nd pick 2 points, 3rd pick 1 point. At the end they tally up the points, and the party with the most wins).
Singular vote systems trend naturally towards 2 party systems often, whereas with a ranked choice system, far right people would vote for far-right-person that loads of people hate, far left people would vote for far-left-person that loads of people hate, but since almost everyone would put moderate-person as their 2nd choice that everyone kind of doesn't like, they would be the one to get elected in this case. It's like the old saying, a good compromise is when nobody is happy. That's what's needed to move away from extremist politics, but without a ranked choice system, it's not going to happen any time soon.
*this is grossly simplified, and there are examples of multi-party systems that don't use ranked choice, and there's many many caveats besides when talking so simply about something as complex as electoral politics, but the fundamental point stands.
I don't know what the rules are in the US regarding a protest vote, but that's what I do in the UK as long as the candidates I have to choose from (local or general) all make my skin crawl. If you don't represent my interests, you don't get my vote, and neither red nor blue team even pretend to care about people like me at this point, so:
https://www.votenone.org.uk/protest_votes_count.html
Oh, and just to pre-empt any "you're why people like Trump get in", no you. The system is literally designed this way -
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
Vote your conscience. Vote third party if you can't stand the Democrats no more. Vote Democrat if the Republicans winning is too much for you to handle. Which ever let's you sleep best at night is the correct answer.
Vote Democrat if the Republicans winning is too much for you to handle.
The Republicans winning should be too much for anybody with a conscience to handle.
That's the great thing about options, we can differ on them.
Trump has already stated that he'd go after news sources that he doesn't like if he wins the next election. So, if you like the ability to differ on opinions, as you seem to, then you cannot tolerate Trump to win, nor any of the other leading Republicans who refuse to denounce him.
So, yes, I agree, that is the great thing about opinions, that we can differ on them, but we can only do so as long as Republicans are not in power.
Please make what you can to avoid trump coming back. Please. Edit I understand the indecision but the situation is dire, if trump goes back to office the US is going into feudalism
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