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Break the Left: Vote for Stein
Jill Stein By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link.
Two months ago, I suggested that those not voting Trump may wish to consider voting the Green Party’s Jill Stein instead. I would like to say my rationale is that, in a general election filled with absurd candidates, you may as well vote for the most absurd of the bunch, but really there is some strategy behind it. Although the Libertarian Party garnering enough votes to receive FEC funding is less of a threat now, the Right is not coming out of this election season in one piece. A vote for Stein is a vote to encourage the Greens to keep at their efforts to fracture the Left, which would at least help even things out.
Though, even in a swing state, the odds of your vote deciding the victor are small, they’re far larger than the odds of your vote deciding the victor in a non-swing state. My own state is so far from swing, it’s not even on the playground, and so I really don’t have to worry about my vote for Stein messing up the victory for anyone else. I sympathize with the tougher choice those in swing states must make. Likewise, I sympathize with those who, whether they live in swing states or not, are voting Trump not for the candidate himself, but in order to stand in solidarity with other fed-up, flown-over voters voting Trump. I find this solidarity the most appealing reason to vote Trump. Nonetheless, I would like my vote to deprive both Clinton and Trump of as many popular votes as possible, which I can do with little risk in my state.
For those who aren’t voting Trump, I see voting Stein as another means of standing in solidarity with the many ordinary Americans fed up with the Left, folks who’d like to see the Left’s stranglehold shattered. Voting Stein is not comfortable for a conservative. It is “dirty.” But politics is a dirty game. And given the state I live in, encouraging disunity on the Left by voting for the fractious (Trump-preferring?) Stein may be the most my vote can do to undermine the Left’s monolithic power.
If you’re in a similar predicament — your state’s already in the tank for a candidate, but your vote is not — consider voting Stein. Sure, it’s an eccentric vote, especially for a conservative. But this has been an eccentric year, especially for conservatives.
Published in Politics
It actually makes sense, in a calculating strategic sense. In an emotional sense. it would haunt me to the point of insanity that I sent a signal of approval to such a collection of ideas.
I get it. It will require a really dark sense of irony.
Good luck to ya, Midge.
Tempting…. but as a Machiavellian as I am, I cannot bring myself to do it. My vote would be seen as real support for idiocy, moving the country farther left.
Excellent! Enjoyed it.
For me that would actually be the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is on the ballot in Washington State, natch.
I’ve always (even with McCain) found a reason to vote for the candidate I marked on the ballot. Romney, who was no conservative by my estimation, was a good man. I could vote affirmatively for a good man. My ballot sits with the presidential portion unmarked still because I cannot find in any of the candidates even the tiniest scintilla of a reason to cast my vote for them. I really am contemplating writing in “you’ve got to be [expletive] kidding me…”
Indeed it does!
Yes, that is a risk. The very first time I voted, I faced a somewhat similar situation in a more local race – a stronger Green Party might have been the only way to break the one-party Democrat rule in my region. Even so, I could not bring myself to do it at the time, for the reason you stated.
This year, though, my absurdist streak is seeing less reason to restrain itself. TKC is right about the dark sense of irony involved.
In that case, have you considered writing in Vermin Supreme?
(and don’t he and @jamesofengland make a handsome couple?)
That is exactly why my ballot sits blank…
Write ins have to be on the approved list here in the People’s Republic and Utopian Paradise of Washington State.
I should add, though, that I don’t consider American common sense dead quite yet, and that one potential benefit of lunacy like Stein’s competing with the Democrats is that it might entice Democrats into more of the kind of overt lunacy regular people still reject. On the other hand, it’s also possible a larger, loonier Green Party (Stein seems pretty eccentric even for a Green) would encourage Democrats to make more centrist appeals again… In either case, I guess a conservative vote for Stein is a bet on there being something salutary about drawing attention to lunacy in its unvarnished form. Sort of like what Vermin Supreme does, except Stein is actually on the ballot.
I would add deprive both Clinton and Trump of achieving a majority of the vote.
The problem with the electoral college is the progressive illidea of winner take all. We need to bring back candidate who wins a congressional district wins an electoral vote. Win a State: two electoral votes.
KP’s right. In most states, a vote for a Vermin Supremacy is a wasted vote, morally and practically superior to a Johnson vote, but inferior to a vote for any other candidate. Of all the predictions I’ve made during this cycle, the inevitability of a Vermin Presidency is the one most likely to have to wait a cycle before being fulfilled. The great hope is Oregon, which was always, for a number of reasons, one of Vermin’s strongest states. If Vermin can deny Clinton Oregon and she fails to reach 270 votes elsewhere, it’s possible that it gets thrown into the House. At that point, the only barrier that remains is persuading enough Representatives to cast aside their hide bound notions of economics and adopt a free pony based approach.
They’ve tried to rig the election because they’re afraid of what a true American would do to their precious PACs and Super PACs, but hope remains with the people of Oregon, or perhaps of New Hampshire.
Wow, finally someone I can vote for here in Oregon. As for the Green Party, let’s not encourage the bastards.
Midge, congrats on the Daily Shot mention.
(The voices in my head respond to your post title with a maniacal laugh.)
(The voices in my head do, too.)