Hah! In that case, what you should propose is that we have a different event that's actually a serious debate, and rebrand what we have now as comedy roasts, without changing a thing.
Debates are pure entertainment, it's just a bunch of quips, one-liners, and power plays. There's no serious, formal discussion of anything. It's glorified reality TV for nerds who would be too good for it otherwise. And that's something that predates Trump, it's part of what set the stage for him.
"Your honor, it's true I purchased a hitman's services, but I didn't cause his actions. He made his own decision, it just happened to be the one I paid him to do."
7 points ahead in PA is not "doomed" lol
Wow, that zero upvote anonymous reddit comment sure is relevant to talk about.
Alice and Bob. Alice wins. She says that Bob can only blame himself for neglecting his training, but Bob blames Alice and says that if she wouldn’t have ran so fast, he could have won.
This analogy has literally nothing to do with anything. What's happening is that Bob is saying that if he loses, it's not because of himself or because of Alice, but rather because of Charlie, who isn't even involved.
But for the very act of him getting their candidate elected? They should not feel guilty for that. They should feel pride - or at least, as much pride as casting a vote into a ballot can entitle.
Why should they feel guilt or pride? According to your insane "logic," they bear zero responsibility for getting the candidate they voted for elected. The reason a candidate wins, apparently, has nothing whatsoever to do with the number of votes they receive, but rather, it's entirely the people who don't participate in the process who determine the outcome, somehow.
The MOU is non-binding. Even if it wasn't, even formal treaties do not override domestic power structures. Biden even has the power to dispatch troops against Israel, if he wanted to.
But ok, let's suppose that the executive, the commander-in-chief, has absolutely zero authority over arms shipments to foreign powers, completely ignoring that it happened before and that the president's power has expanded considerably since then. Has Biden recinded his threat against the ICC? Has he condemned what Israel is doing as a genocide? For the record, in his time, Reagan accused them of committing "a Holocaust."
Is there a single actual, material consequences that Biden has imposed on Israel for refusing to comply? Is there any reason whatsoever to believe that his mild criticisms are anything but keyfabe?
I feel like you are hinting at the possibility of not only a leftist majority but a majority interest in a specific candidate and we would be too dumb to figure that out. Is that your position?
No. If you'd listened to a single thing I said, you'd understand that it has nothing to do with being "too dumb to figure it out." It's a problem of coordinating a mass switch. It's a collective action problem. Intelligence has nothing to do with it, people acting rationally on an individual level are not necessarily going to arrive at the best collective outcome. Read, like, anything about game theory, I am begging you.
Hey, ancient wisdom person, you need to be able to explain why the problem is fundamental and not solvable. I don’t see it. And all that ancient wisdom does you no good politically if you can’t impart it.
I agree, please stop making bad arguments so we can stop this thread or maybe I can learn something.
I have shot down half-assed argument after half-assed argument of yours, and you just keep spewing them out without putting any actual consideration into them.
First it was that polls showing the popularity of third party candidates in general could provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I disproved that.
Then it was that favorability polls would provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I disproved that.
Now it's that polls you just dreamed up that nobody is asking that are supposed to provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I suppose this one could go on forever, with each question I prove wouldn't work being replaced by an equally inane question that you spent 5 seconds coming up with. Just over and over again forever.
You might as well be trying to prove Bigfoot exists by asking one by one about every location you can think of, and each time I check one you simply produce a new location to check.
So I'll tell you what - I will address one, final attempt to produce a mechanism for coordinating a switch. Right now you've offered a suggestion, "We could try “has most favorable opinion of?” or “most ideologically aligned with?”" Before I do: are you confident enough in that attempt that you're ok with it being your very last one? Have you actually thought it through and tried on your own to think of reasons why it might not work? If I'm able to address this one, will you finally admit that you are unable to provide any mechanism for solving the collective action problem, and that you cannot defend your position?
If you’re a Democrat and you feel like the Green Party has a candidate polling at a majority
Polling as in "intends to vote for" or polling as in "has a favorable opinion of?"
If favorability: Multiple candidates can have positive favorability, so in that case most Democrats would stick with Democrat candidates because they don't expect the third party to win.
If voting intention: The only way for a third party to be polling at a majority in terms of voting intention would be if people really did intend to vote for them (which would require some people to intend to vote for them before it was clear they had a real chance), or if people lied to pollsters about their intentions.
You're not going to find some clever solution that allows you to bypass the problem of coordinating a mass switch, that problem is fundamental. This is tiresome.
So, in your mind, if someone did this favorability poll you want, and it showed, say, 60% favorability for the Green Party, you would vote for them, and you imagine that the majority of Democratic voters would all spontaneous switch their votes over together?
Go ahead and ask that to people you know, irl or people online: "If there was a poll showing a third party with 60% (or higher!) favorability, would that cause you to switch your vote? Would you expect it to cause others to switch their votes?" I can already tell you the answer you'll get.
I hate to say this, but the fact that you think this is such a trivial problem tells me that you must be young, and there are no words I can say that are a substitute for experience. I recognize your mindset because I've had it myself, you want to drive a rational answer and the world can simply bend around to what you come up with. You want an answer that's simply correct, because you don't want to face a difficult decision, you don't want to deal with the fact that both courses of action have some validity to them and either one comes with potential negative repercussions.
Let me give you a piece of advice - there are two types of ideas, ones that are molded around reality, and ones that are molded around psychological needs. The ones molded around psychological needs are always more appealing (assuming you have the needs it's designed for), but they're also not real. The ones molded around reality are often less smooth and neat, and less appealing - because they're not designed for you, they're designed to represent reality. The task of anyone seeking truth is to learn how to recognize what both types of ideas look like, what they're "shaped" like, what they feel like. Your idea that you can get all the benefits of supporting a third party while also getting the benefits of voting Democrat - it's shaped around what you want to be true. Essentially, it's motivated reasoning convincing you that there must be some way for it to work, in order to avoid facing a difficult decision.
Seek truth from facts. Put aside how you think the world ought to operate and look at how it does. You can't make a map before you've seen the territory. When you do that, you'll see that this sudden spontaneous shift as the result of some random poll is never going to happen.
That's all I have to say to you about this topic. I'm sorry if that comes off as condescending, but it's genuinely from the heart. I can't force you to see something you're dead-set on not seeing. I don't see anything productive coming from continuing this.
All you care about is tone. It's easy for you to be calm because you don't care. Because you believe all the comforting lies the media tells you without ever digging into the truth, or trying to see things from the perspective of the oppressed.
I've opened both my mind and my heart to understanding reality, and made an active effort to learn about these things and understand other perspectives. As a result, I have more historical knowledge than you. And I scream at you because I understand some small part of the pain and anger felt by people on the receiving end of your imperialism. On both counts, it's because I understand the world better than you.
It's funny that criticizing my tone is your only response to my comment. That comment was the first one I made to you that actually engaged with your arguments beyond just calling you out for what you are.
You liberals never want to have any kind of substantiative discussion. When I was just screaming at you for being the bloodthirsty imperialist you are, you made actual arguments. When I refuted all those arguments, you retreated behind tone. Maybe I should go back to just screaming if I want you to formulate an actual response, or I should engage more substantively if I want to drive you off.
You sure showed them! They thought you were being homophobic, when in fact, you were being sexist! Owned!
I'm not sure reducing military interventions is going to make countries less inclined to trade with the US. They're a part of what's pushing more and more middle income countries over to China, when we invade and devastate independent counties, when we seize assets held in our banks, when we put up sanctions and blockades, other countries have to wonder if they'll be next.
Well, I'm a communist, so "working together to defeat communism" isn't exactly a point in favor in my book.
I have no idea how on Earth you're making that logical leap with regards to Palestine. The US is actively funding and supplying Israel. That's the sort of thing I'm saying I want to stop.
As for Ukraine, I just want peace. If that means giving up some territory, that's fine with me. It's not as if life is that different in Russia compared to Ukraine. If you really care about Ukrainians, get the killing to stop and then spend the money we're blowing on bombs on actually improving their quality of life. If we'd done that before, maybe the people in eastern Ukraine wouldn't have wanted to split off in the first place.
I'm fine with foreign aid, so long as it's going to actually helping people and not to blowing people up to line some executive's pockets.
What indication is there exactly that they're out to "conquer the world?" When was the last time China was engaged in a major military conflict? When was the last time the US wasn't engaged in a major military conflict? Seems pretty clear which country is more intent on aggressive expansionism.
But that's not really how empires fall, anyway. It's the declining conditions in the core that you have to watch out for.
Pure fantasy.