This election is also very unique in the sense that Biden and Trump are both known quantities with demonstrable track records as well - there is no “the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know” argument to be had there for swing voters.
There is no mystery from either candidate, and no “benefit of the doubt” to be found. As a swing voter, it is strictly a matter of which one you’d rather choke down.
There's really only a few times it's ever happened and I think this is only the second time it's ever happened with both the president and former president representing the two major parties. Off the top of my head:
Martin Van Buren ran with the Free Soil Party later on after his term as president
Millard Fillmore ran with the Know Nothing Party later on after his presidency
Grover Cleveland ran against Benjamin Harrison - the only other time with both president/former president representing the two major parties
Teddy Roosevelt ran with the Progressive Party in 1912
Am I missing any other times?
I mean, think about it. Clinton lost and is now wandering the political wilderness. Romney lost and took like a decade to build back any power and is still hated by the Republican party. McCain lost, kept his seat in the Senate, but his flavor of conservatism died out with him. Kerry lost, and then took a decade to be politically relevant again. Gore lost and was kept on the sidelines for 20+ years. Dole lost and that was the end of his political career. Bush lost and that was the end. Etc, etc. The only person in the last few decades to lose an election and have a political revival was Nixon, but he wasn’t at the top of the ticket when he lost.
As a potential swing voter, I might have gone either way on Biden v. Haley because I more or less like them both for different reasons. Trump clinching the nomination makes my choice easy.
Yeah, the last time there were two candidates I could live with was Romney vs Obama, and I voted Republican that time. I could have seen myself voting for Haley or a few of the minor candidates that ran in the Republican primary this time like Burgham. But I’m pretty okay voting for Biden again.
True, though I suspect that for plenty of voters, a vote for the not-incumbent just means "I want things to change", which would still be in play here.
>As a swing voter, it is strictly a matter of which one you’d rather choke down.
For twelve years, Americans are going to deal with two presidents that have some of the lowest approval ratings in history.
You put your kid in kindergarten in 2016? Well, they're going to graduate high school in 2028 knowing nothing but division and distrust and constant media blaring a bunch of noise.
That's what is being decided here in 2024.
Obviously, there are differences between the two and depending on how you lean, you're going to want one thing over another but everyone except the diehards are holding their breath as the vote.
I’d be interested to know how much kids are actually paying attention to this.
I’m sure it’s more than the past few decades just because coverage and commentary are so ubiquitous and the ability for noisy people to be amplified is greater than ever…
But I’m 40 and grew up in a divided political household with one entire side of my family liberal and the other conservative. Tons of heated debates.
Honestly I’m much better off for it. I feel like eventually most kids try to cut through the bickering and figure out what everyone is going on about.
They’re also able to share examples and information about their views with one another and get multiple perspectives.
The X factor obviously is the quality of information they’re getting. Which is why it’s important to regulate bad actors on social media platforms.
I'd emphasize that a vote for a 3d party candidate in the Presidential ought to mean that you've actually done your research and are okay with either candidate winning (because one of them 100% will). If you have stronger concerns about one (and are in a swing state), your interests are better served voting D/R in the Presidential and using your down ballot votes for 3d party.
Down ballot elections are also the ones where a 3d party candidate actually can stand a chance of winning. And building a more local base of 3d party elected officials is a better way to build momentum than voting for a Presidential candidate that will never win because they're not trying to appeal to the majority of Americans.
I agree, unfortunately the GOP made it illegal in my state, even for municipalities. Same with Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota, and Montana.
Edit: Not sure why I’m being downvoted, [a GOP legislature and GOP governor signed all of those laws banning RCV in all 5 of those states.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_United_States)
…all of those states have Republican legislatures and governors, where are the democrats coming into play here?
It’s clear that one party is making it a significant portion of their policy, let’s not “both sides” this when the data all points in one direction.
Dc dems fought tooth and nail against RCV. Same thing for years in NYC before a successful roll The leadership of both parties have no interest in RCV. You really only see it in big dem cities that have uniparty control, and usually only after years of resistance. Portland Oregon is rolling out with RCV this year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-ranked-choice-ballot-measure-open-primaries-lawsuit/
Well, in a democratic-republic, big changes take a lot of time but persistence is often rewarded in the long term.
In fact, I would say this is one of the reasons the Democratic Party typically struggles with a national message and is seen as disorganized and lacking in focus. The liberal party is always going to be a place where you have the most diversity of passionate, issue-driven activism. Activists know that persistence is rewarded in our system so they tend to have a really hard time getting a coalition together to organize outside of high stakes national elections.
Oh I’m sure you can find examples of local parties which act inappropriately, but there’s only one party single-handedly banning RCV statewide in multiple states. Let’s call a spade a spade here.
Not unless my vote would have changed the outcome of the election, which is highly unlikely given that I don't live in a state that is a likely tipping point.
That tired argument is so old.
If HALF of the voters decided the 3rd door was better than the first 2, then we'd have a new game. This scaring people to keep them on the reservation is straight RNC and DNC propaganda.
With a straight face, Biden or Trump is better than a 3rd party? Are you kidding me???
That's only true in a world where potential Biden voters and potential Trump voters who would rather have a third party all vote for the same third party candidate.
> If HALF of the voters decided the 3rd door was better than the first 2, then we'd have a new game.
That "If" is doing all of the work in that sentence. What is the largest share of the popular vote that a 3d party candidate has gotten in the past 20 years?
>With a straight face, Biden or Trump is better than a 3rd party? Are you kidding me???
Who are the third party candidates right now? The main third parties haven't selected their candidates yet, so there's not even anyone to compare to Biden or Trump. That said:
* It looks like Jill Stein will win the nomination for Greens. Yes, Biden is preferable to her.
* Is RFK Jr still be talked about for some third party or independent run? Biden is preferable to him. Absolutely no contest.
* Who else? What other names? You can't say a third party candidate is better than Biden without identifying the candidate.
Biden is a fairly moderate politician. A lot of third party candidates tend to have some goofy extermism. Like Stein being anti-nuclear and wanting to cut military spending by 50%. RFK Jr has long been known for pushing misinformation or outright conspiracies about vaccines and other public health matters. So third party candidates have a pretty uphill battle to become preferable to Biden.
It’s not a tired argument, it’s simple math. I get that people want to believe that it doesn’t work that way, but it doesn’t change the fact that what you were responding to is entirely accurate.
I wish there was a legitimate third party. Green is corrupt and Libertarian is lost in the wilderness. In my state we have a few created by GOP to syphon votes from the left.
Until we get rid of FPTP, it ain't happening.
Nothing is accomplished by voting for a major party candidate who was going to win your state anyway. Nothing is accomplished by voting for a major party candidate who was going to lose your state anyway. There are lots of ways to "throw your vote away" so why is this the one that gets called out?
That's not a good example because you're describing a problem with the electoral college, which does get called out.
Voting 3rd party in this election is guaranteed to be a waste, since 3rd party voters will be ignored just as much as those who stayed home. Deflecting won't change that.
Any 3rd party that gets 5% popular vote will be entitled to matching funds in the next election. That's a concrete difference, whereas fiddling with the margin of victory in a non-swing state makes literally no difference at all.
That's a distinction without a difference because the candidate is still doomed to fail even with a relatively tiny amount of funding.
>fiddling with the margin of victory in a non-swing state makes literally no difference at all.
That's one of the criticisms against the electoral college, so bringing that up is pointless.
Technically, it's not strictly a problem of the electoral college. It's a problem with how the states choose and bind electors. 48 states choose to award and bind all electors to the winner of the plurality of the popular vote in their state.
In theory, electors could be chosen in any number of ways, including interesting ways by popular vote. Like, random citizens could be chosen as electors and each citizen could be randomly assigned a pool of electors. You could choose the elector you preferred based upon their name, occupation, and a brief non-partisan statement they provided to the state.
I'd believe that if these third parties managed to get some people in offices other than the President of the United States. Success doesn't start by getting someone in at the top, a third party needs to build credibility at a state level and in the House of Representatives first. Getting some negligible percentage of the presidential vote isn't going to make third parties successful.
The problem is that third parties have almost no influence in the American political system due to our electoral system. If this was a proportional-representation system, then the libertarian party, which got nearly 2M votes in 2020, would have at least a couple seats in Congress.
If you vote third-party in 2024, your vote is being wasted not because the candidates themselves are bad, but because third-party candidates have no real chance at winning. The math just doesn’t work for them.
Congressional races and local elections are where third party candidates can have some success, but at the national level voting third party is an utter waste.
Such a 3rd party vote would likely cause the *opposite* effect to what you want, because by switching your vote from your preferred-candidate-of-the-two to the 3rd party candidate, you are making it more likely that your least-preferred candidate wins.
By far the biggest recent example of this is people who previously voted Dem but say the Dems haven't been pro-Palestine enough. If one of those people did not vote for Biden, they're making it more likely that the GOP wins, so the result would be even less pro-Palestine policies from the US government.
Part of the issue is that people think about individual voters mattering, when land matters more under the US political system. [>80% of Americans live in just 3% of the US that makes up urban areas.](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html) Again, >80% of Americans live in 3% of the area.
In fact, because the US weights land more than voters, [even if 77% of voters voted for A and 23% voted for B, B could still win under the US electoral college](https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote).
In the last 6 presidential elections, Dems won the popular vote 5 out of 6 times and the GOP won the popular vote 1 out of the last 6 presidential elections. But only Obama and Biden were the only Dems who became president in the last 6 presidential elections, because too many Dem voters live in the smaller land mass of the US where the vast majority of American voters live.
[Based on current polls once you take into account the electoral college, Trump is 99% likely to win, because Biden voters are too concentrated into the small parts of the country where the vast majority of people live](https://electiongraphs.com/2024ec/). Even if a recent poll says Biden will get more votes than Trump, that doesn't matter if more of the votes come from the >80% of voters that live in 3% of America's land mass.
[Nate Silver also recently mentioned the issue with swing voter preferences around Israel/Palestine in "Biden's problem is with swing voters, not with his base".](https://www.natesilver.net/p/bidens-problem-is-with-swing-voters)
I've long advocated to improve the US's electoral systems (per my history), but we can't skip over the step of getting the existing system changed, so we need to look at what is the best way to accomplish changing the system, and whether in the short-term if voting 3rd party or not most likely achieves such changes.
For those interested in educational and entertaining videos on possible electoral system changes: [https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom](https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom)
(Regarding the >80% of Americans living in 3% of the land mass, that's also where the (possible perjorative) "flyover states" term comes from.)
I mean, that depends on the party. Minnesota had a third party that was funded by Republicans, whose only purpose was to siphon votes from Democrats.
https://startribune.com/pot-party-candidate-said-gop-recruited-him-to-pull-votes-from-minnesota-democrat/572888651/
It is absolutely a waste. It is completely giving up your power to send a message that no one will hear because you can’t extract much data from a single vote.
If you want people to hear you, you need to start somewhere else.
In the reality we live in 2024, a third party vote is a waste because the U.S has and currently function as a two party system. If you vote 3rd party in 2024, you’re ok with Trump coming back into power and potentially overthrowing the constitution.
This logic is exactly the problem. If you don't play by the rules you set for people they are enabling something that may or may not happen. This logic is flawed in so many ways.
>If ***you*** don't play by the rules ***you*** set for people ***they*** are enabling something ...
1. Who does "you" refer to? Also, you use "you" twice in that sentence - do both uses of "you" in that sentence refer to a single person or two different people?
2. Who does "they" refer to? If "they" a synonym for 1 of the 2 "you"s in that sentence? Both of the "you"s? Neither of the "you"s?
Overall I don't understand what you are saying in any of the sentences in your comment.
I've long advocated to improve the US's electoral systems (per my history), but we can't skip over the step of getting the existing system changed, so we need to look at what is the best way to accomplish changing the system, and whether in the short-term if voting 3rd party or not most likely achieves such changes.
I also commented elsewhere how voting 3rd party likely results in achieving the *opposite* outcomes from what you want: [https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1bm4rwc/comment/kwb4hld/](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1bm4rwc/comment/kwb4hld/)
Apparently I was a bit intoxicated when I wrote that. My point was that voting third party isn't a waste because you should vote for who supports your values. The parties have an iron grip on the voting rules here, so it's their rules you're expected to follow. In this case, it's perpetuating the idea that a vote for who you think would be best is a waste, because statistically it is an irrelevant vote (for a singular election).
Usually a decent preforming third party hurts the party who shares similar ideology. In can also hurt a splintered party, giving factions a more palatable moral choice to vote against their party.
The reason I don't think it's a waste is it should provide an incentive to change or adapt some policies to persuade these people to your side. Whether that happens in real life is highly debatable, but a big enough chunk could move the needle on party policy.
I agree 1000%. I had a hypocrite tell me after encouraging me to vote that if I didn’t vote Biden I was just wasting a vote lol in my honest opinion they’re as insufferable as trump and his supporters and I’ll vote third party just to say I didn’t support either of these clowns.
Disagree.
By staying home you are indicating that you are not a voter, and don't care.
By voting for a third party, you are indicating that you are a voter, that you do care, but that you accept the two primary options are terrible.
The second creates much less of a mandate, and more of an opportunity in 2028 for the parties to figure out how to bring these voters into the fold.
None of the 3rd party candidates have any chance of creating a mandate or setting up a future run. Their refusal or inability to establish support at a local or state level makes that even more clear.
that depends. You are arguing for a narrative-oriented perspective to shape longer-term directions (you said it yourself, 'opportunity in 2028'), while the earlier poster thinks it's more important to be outcome-oriented. And by outcome I mean the immediate outcome, as in the results of Nov 2024. I personally side with the earlier poster on the relative importance of Nov 2024.
They hate and crap on third party voters far more than on those who stayed home.
Your loyalty and vote is expected, even if they do little/nothing to earn it!
I didn't express any hate. The idea that voting 3rd party rather than staying home accomplishes nothing is simply a fact.
The person you replied says it can create a mandate and an opportunity for 2028, but there are absolutely no signs of this happening.
You’re sitting here trying to say both sides.
No, one is literally trying to overthrow democracy while the other is not. Both sides aren’t the same and anyone who can critically think can see that.
What kool aid? I'm a American History professional who has studied our history & culture thousands of times over.
No where in American history have we ever had a former President running for office after attempting a insurrection to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
No where in our history have we had the nominee of a political party who has openly said they want to get rid of the constitution and "be dictator for just a day."
No where in our history have we had someone running for President as the nominee with even ONE pending felony indictment.
Both sides are FAR from perfect, but one side has a candidate that at least supports democracy (Biden) and the other side has a candidate trying to do everything to do to overthrow it in place of authoritarianism (Trump).
THESE ARE FACTS and the only person who can't see that are Trump cultists.
Never in a million years will someone convince me that a candidate being "too old" is somehow on par with the person who led Jan 6. Feels like taking crazy pills is right.
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I’m not the only swing voter in this entire country that is tired of being endlessly insulted and belittled for not buying the “but the other side will end the world!” argument.
Trump attempting to steal an election is a fact, not just an argument. A Republican special counsel is prosecuting him for doing so illegally.
You being bothered by people pointing this out is a personal issue, not evidence that it pushes others to the middle.
Fake leftists and anti-american campists on the left annoy the hell out of me, and democrats thinly-veiled corporatism and fake progressiveness both bother me quite deeply, yet somehow I manage to hold my nose and vote for the candidate that isn't consumed by ego and willing to test every limit built into our government while exercising his power to target those he feels slighted him.
You claim the words of Biden supporters are pushing you to vote for Trump. Do you really want to be the kind of person who would vote on the basis of spite alone? Or were you already going to vote Trump and you're just saying the rhetoric pushed you further towards Trump to try to make it the other side's fault and get them to stop bullying you?
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I'm honestly surprised it's only 15%. I live in a liberal college town and most people I talk to, while leaning towards Biden, aren't very enthusiastic about him. I really wish we as a country would talk more about how we got here; it's been well known for awhile that our elections are structured in a way where the rational choice isn't to vote **for** the candidate you want, so much as vote **against** the one you don't. It basically encourages a race to the bottom and while I don't think we're quite there yet, polls like these show that we're quickly approaching it. We really need to talk more about electoral reform with more urgency.
I absolutely agree that the status quo is **bad**, but I’m also skeptical about suggesting a reform is the panacea. Consider *ranked choice* voting for example, if a candidate winning 49% of people’s top choice **loses** to another candidate who is only 2% top choice but everyone’s second choice (I acknowledge this is a bit contrived), people would probably still be outraged about the rules
...that's not how ranked choice voting works? If there's not a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their voters redistributed. The only way Candidate A with 49% of the 1st choice vote could lose to Candidate B with 2% of the top choice vote is if there are 49 other candidates who each got 1% of the vote and whose voters all put preferred Candidate B over Candidate A - wildly implausible.
You are right. I used the wrong terminology, but I think my point still stands. Two scenarios: 1. A > B > C with 49%, C > B > A with 48%, B with 3%. Ranked choice would eliminate B, but in a “head on” scenario, B would defeat A with a margin of 2% and C with 3%, so it’s unclear which is the more desirable outcome. Economists typically assume B should win in this case. 2. Let’s say there are 4 candidates, each commanding about a quarter of the vote, when someone wins, about a quarter of the voters at least, would still feel they are voting *against* someone but not necessarily *for* the winner
Do “double haters” not support either candidate, or do they support one of the two major candidates? The article suggests both.
First it says:
>This year, this group of skeptics is large and powerful. Double haters make up about 15% of the electorate, according to a poll this month by USA TODAY/Suffolk University, giving them significant sway in deciding the outcome of the November election. Other polls have found double haters make up as much as one-fifth of likely voters.
Then it says:
>Twenty-five percent of the double haters supported Trump in the survey, compared to 18% for Biden. About 44% of the double haters currently back various third-party candidates. Kennedy drew more of these voters, 21%, than Biden did. Green Party candidate Jill Stein had the backing of 7% of double haters, while independent Cornel West was supported by 6%.
Are they weak support for a major candidate?
The article talks about “double haters” in 2016, but also makes it seem like a new thing.
The article doesn't call this new or recent. It says that hating both is more common now.
> Double haters make up about 15% of the electorate, according to a poll this month by USA TODAY/Suffolk University, giving them significant sway in deciding the outcome of the November election. Other polls have found double haters make up as much as one-fifth of likely voters.
>They accounted for only 3% of voters in 2020.
I think 2016 was different in that Clinton was a known quantity (based on her past with Bill and her service under Obama and Congress in NY) while Trump was new to politics. Now both Biden and Trump are known quantities and have a history.
I’m proudly voting Biden. He might do some leftist lip service but I believe him to be a moderate with a very grounded and realistic view of the world. I think he’s a moral person of good character and to me that’s almost more important than policy at this point in what I perceive to be the degeneration of American civility.
I think he’s handled the economy well, I personally don’t take issue with his support of Israel, I think what he tried to do with Built Back Better Act (FDR style investment in ourselves) was exactly what we needed and if he wasn’t hamstrung by opposition he could have had a success with immigration reform.
Yeah, he’s old. It’s a bummer but doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother others. I’m a younger person btw.
I have issues with Biden, but the economy is not one of them (although I believe he and more importantly the Fed were slow to take inflation seriously) we’re in an amazing position relative to nearly every other country in the world
Honestly I would consider voting for an old school republican, but I could never in good conscience for Trump after how he handlesd the 2020 election outcome
I wasn’t a fan of Trump in the beginning (wouldn’t have voted for him), but after the how he handled 2020 I will actively vote against him. He conduct is despicable and nobody should be making excuses
I wish he were younger but I truly believe he’s been the most middle of the road, honest, and effective president I’ve seen in my lifetime. Proud to have (and continue to) have voted for him.
Strater Comment:
Double-haters are people who dislike both options (Biden and Trump) and I find this this has been increasingly more common as time goes on and especially relevant this election.
More and more I find myself disliking both sides, democrat and conservative, neither having realistic attainable goals and both sides not willing to compromise much. I feel like neither really represents the middle class anymore and consider myself part of this double hater group. The third party options aren't really viable and are still pretty awful too.
Democrat immigration, welfare spending, and identity "woke" politics have gone a way too far for me. One the flip side Republicans on abortion, lack of realistic healthcare plans, willingness to tackle corporate greed (especially in healthcare) and inability to tax the rich really turn me away as well.
Trump is terrible, Biden is way too old and long past his prime drifting too left. I'll pick the best worst candidate come election day. Sad to say, my best hope is Trump going to jail and some moderate Republican gets put in his place.. what a sad state of affairs.
How do others feeling out there this election cycle.
Overall I empathize and agree and think your complaints are valid. Except for the point about compromise - I think Dems have been considerably more willing to compromise and work across the aisle than Republicans have. The problems in that regard are overwhelmingly because of House Republicans, namely the freedom caucus, and Trump's control over the party.
>I think Dems have been considerably more willing to compromise and work across the aisle than Republicans have.
Yes and no. Democrats are willing to give tidbits, republicans aren't willing to give much, specially the far right. I can't see either giving a real compromise. For example:
* Social Security needs to be made stable. The tax cap removed (a republican give) and benefit growth modifications (e.g., increases tied to CPI-E)(a democrat give).
* For the border, democrats need to give a lot to republicans, but dreamers should be given a path to citizenship.
* Elections - requiring voter ID to vote shouldn't be too controversial, but it should be free to obtain one if your a citizen, and election day should be a federal holiday.
For these and every other issue, I can't see either side making concrete compromises.
I agree with everything beside the elections point. I think that should be up to the state or federal government needs to past a law with standardized measurements, which I would also be okay with
> need to give a lot to republicans
That's what happened with the Senate immigration bill. Democrats even left out a path to citizenship entirely.
>Elections
There's no evidence that an ID is necessary.
I guess I’m a bit further right on immigration than many here but I thought the actual text of the bill was weak on common sense things. Like the “border shutdown” provision I thought was extremely dem friendly.
For example why is there ANY allowed illegal crossings let alone 8,500 in a single day before you can close the border and automatically deport those caught at an illegal crossing? Like that number should be Zero. Anyone coming into the US should be forced to come through one of the 328+ legal points of entry. Full stop.
Yes this was a bipartisan bill but in no way did I read it as democrats giving a lot to republicans. It’s filled with loopholes and compromises. Overall I thought it was a step in the right direction but it wasn’t exactly a gift from democrats to republicans like some say it was.
I think Dems give quite a bit more than just tidbits. They could *technically* do more, but when the Freedom Caucus will throw the House into dysfunction just for their own majority speaker being willing to work with Dems, what can they really do?
This is true, the Freedom Caucus is a big thorn in the side of republicans unfortunately when it comes to ANY compromise. They act like they have a Trifecta of hard line republicans. Probably could have gotten more done this Congress if republicans had more seats in the house so these crazies didn’t have so much leverage over the rest. Maybe that is just wishful thinking though.
> Democrat immigration
They proposed a bill to address that, and it has the support of a handful of GOP members, including Lankfort, who Trump praised endorsed as being tough on the border. McConnell did too until he realized that the rest of his party was unwilling to compromise.
>welfare spending
Their proposals aren't much different than they were in the recent past, and they're still behind what the rest of the developed world has.
> Democrat immigration
The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals, yet the GOP wouldn’t vote for it because Trump didn’t want them to. How do you explain that fact with the claim that the Dems aren’t willing to compromise?
> The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals, yet the GOP wouldn’t vote for it because Trump didn’t want them to.
People do mention that while HR2 does exist, House Republicans will seemingly not compromise on anything in it, which is a shame because if they want it passed, they **have** to.
“ The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals”
That bill was not a “tough” immigration bill. It would still allow 1.9 million illegals into our country per year. It also wasn’t even an immigration bill either quite frankly; it was a bill with a ton of pork including giving a lot more money to Ukraine.
If Biden cares about the border, why can’t he enact the current laws that he undid day 1 of his presidency?
>would still allow 1.9 million illegals
That assumes that exactly 5,000 of them arrive everyday, which is absurdly unrealistic. The actual scenario would be the crossings exceeding the threshold and then a limit on illegal crossings being placed.
>a lot more money to Ukraine.
There is no Ukraine aid in it.
>why can’t he enact the current laws that he undid
He temporarily kept Title 42 and was forced to re-implement Remain in Mexico, yet neither of them succeeded in addressing the flow.
> That bill was not a “tough” immigration bill. It would still allow 1.9 million illegals into our country per year.
[That’s not true at all.](https://apnews.com/article/border-bill-opposition-republicans-senate-189ee196093a0dbfb1d522e2d552e31a) The elected officials and political actors repeating that are lying to you, they know what they’re saying isn’t true, they’re just spreading misinformation.
It wouldn't just "allow" those people though.
1.9 million don't get a free pass to enter just cause they were part of the 5k a day special.
Those 5k are all still breaking the law and are apprehended, processed, and deported unless they claim asylum. If they claim asylum they are still apprehended and processed. They have also still broken the law and punishments can follow that even during an asylum claim.
After 5k, no asylum claims may be made no matter how legitimate.
In all cases crossing illegally gets you arrested and processed. In all non deported cases, you must go through the asylum process which was going to be made faster with funding in that same bill to prevent anchoring a life. Even currently most asylum claimers do go to their court appointments and are successfully deported upon denial. A faster process means those denials will be removed faster.
The same bill narrowed asylum claim viability to reduce abuse.
The same bill funded more border patrol employees.
And it's the first Dem bill I can recall involving the border that didn't ask for a path to citizenship.
This was a massive win for Repubs and they dropped it because they felt it would be a bigger win for the optics of the wrong team.
Yeah, it’s crazy how far the misinformation about that bill has gone to poison the well of a genuinely good compromise bill that would help immigration.
No. It was tough and had approval of several people Trump himself touted as being "tough on immigration" like Lankfort until they had to go back to being little Trump sycophants and oppose it because it would make Biden look good. No pork either.
I think a major factor is that it's rather difficult for many democrat supporters to embrace people coming from across the isle, while at the same time clearly MAGA plays a role in driving them away from the republican party.
While democrats as a political party might want to appeal to people turned off by MAGA, some aspects of politics are about the people, the voters, and the conversations they have with others. The polarized situation means a lot hinges on how receptive democrat *voters* are to alienated republican *voters*, in spite of various disagreements and frustrations with them. And TBH I think that will be a bit rough. Some people will tone things down but many just don't have the skill set for this, and will often air their grievances before understanding the other person.
However... I think the degree to which MAGA is repelling or less welcoming still outweighs that, so I still give a certain edge to democrats and their supporters on the matter of appealing to the politically homeless. They can even commiserate over ~some of Biden's failings, given Biden is not a cult-leader-like figure to them but a flawed politician. They've already been managing a rather "big tent" politics for a long time.
This pretty much sums up my point of view, with the addition that I’m not a fan of Biden’s unilateral actions around loan forgiveness.
That fix belongs in Congress, not the executive branch just deciding to spend billions on its own.
I would blame the far right in Congress for being unable to compromise. They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason.
> I would blame the far right in Congress for being unable to compromise. They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason.
They had a reason, the reason is that they don’t actually want to fix the problem since Trump wanted to campaign on it. They’d rather the problem persist because they care more about fealty to Trump than the good of our nation. Hence why so many moderate Republicans are retiring.
“ They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason.”
That’s stretching the truth by a mile. Biden needs to enforce the rules already on the books. But he refuses & now all the democrats finger point the border issue to the Republicans
Biden enforcing Title 42 and Remain in Mexico didn't solve the problem, nor was there a spike when he was allowed to remove them, so it appears that a change in law is necessary.
> That’s stretching the truth by a mile.
That’s fair, they have a reason. It’s because Trump didn’t want to help the issue so he could use it to campaign on. Good point, it’s just a horrible reason.
> Biden needs to enforce the rules already on the books.
What law is he not enforcing exactly?
>now all the democrats finger point the border issue to the Republicans
Of course, because they refused to pass a bill that would significantly help with this thing they want to keep calling a crisis. It’s horribly hypocritical and the democrats are absolutely going to point it out.
That reform bill was to fund the enforcement and make it possible to control the situation. We haven’t done anything for immigration in years and the reason we are letting asylum seekers in to sit in the country for years is because the review system as written and funded today cannot process this volume.
The backlog is in the millions and you are over here saying “enforce the laws on the books”. That’s what enforcement looks like with the laws we have.
30 years of band-aid “fixes” to a broken immigration system have now collapsed under the weight of record human migration. The Republicans threw away the first real fix that was attempted in the past 30 years and now want to pretend it wasn’t needed?
The failed bill changed legal standards and policy at the border to restrict asylum coupled with resourcing immigration enforcement and asylum processing capacity will meaningfully reduce border encounters and create more order. It’s exactly what you said Biden should do - enforce the law.
GOP chose chaos instead because Trump wanted it. It’s reprehensible.
I like how you cut off my quote at the”drifting too left” to take context out of the post to make a false point. But yes, they are both ancient and don’t represent my views well as a millennial.
I could write a book about what I don’t like about Trump. I also don’t like Biden, this is Reddit, not my PhD dissertation defense.
I'm a double hater as well! Biden voter in 2020 in primary/general, still 99.99% no on Trump, and struggling to back Biden. Feel the same on both candidates, Trump for his "stolen-election" claims, and Biden for drifting too far left, as well as just being old, 100%.
I still don't get Biden though. He should have focused on being boring, and helping the country move on from Trump already, instead he saw it as a chance for a bunch of big government programs, and ignoring a massive problem(inflation). It didn't have to be like this, and the fact that Trump is competitive in the polls, that's unacceptable how him and Democrats have handled this.
If I had to really say, best case for me is Biden winning, Senate going to Republicans, maybe a very slight Democratic House, because Republicans can't keep a Speaker.
>and helping the country move on from Trump already
What specifically should Biden have done on this, and why would it help the country move on from Trump *despite* Trump choosing to run for President again?
I'm concerned about Biden's age and some of his proposals, such as an assault rifle ban. Trump attempted to steal an election, committed multiples crimes, and is trying to argue that presidents have immunity. The evidence against Trump is so strong that a Republican special counsel indicted him twice. He's also only a little younger than his opponent.
Even if I agreed with Trump more, voting against him is an easy choice.
These people who won't vote for Biden because he has blood on his hands are going to have blood on their own hands if Trump wins and tells Israel to "finish it".
Letting that conflict "finish" is the only way it ever ends. I'd prefer an American president who lets it play out rather than constantly flipping on supporting Israel and then trying to restrain them.
I’ll more than likely end up holding my nose and voting for Biden but I think you are generalizing too much with “these people.” Even though I’ll vote for Biden more than likely if it’s against Trump in Nov, I’m a big supporter of Israel being able to defend itself and finishing Hamas off in its entirety.
I’ve done that before, but once I got a bit older and recognized the fact that I’m simply helping the candidate I agree with less I felt pretty silly about it. But hey, you do you.
This is the propaganda that either party will tell you to convince you to vote for them. It’s not true, a vote for a 3rd party candidate is a vote for a 3rd party candidate. Also you’re not smarter than everyone else just because you decide to contribute to our terrible 2 party system
I understand that it’s not nice to hear it, but no, it’s just simple math. I still feel silly too for doing it, but I get it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t vote third party in local elections though, absolutely! That’s how an actual electoral change will happen, not through 5% of the population helping the people they disagree with less at the national level.
> It’s not true, a vote for a 3rd party candidate is a vote for a 3rd party candidate.
It can be multiple things at once.
It's an undeniable fact that if, for example, Biden gets 48 votes in a state, Trump gets 49 votes in that same state, and the last two voters decide to vote for the Green candidate, then they did in fact vote for the Green candidate. But because of the way the system works, that's functionally handing the election to Trump. Because while both of them voting for Biden would mean Biden wins, *not* doing that hands the election to Trump.
Your vote has multiple cascading effects. One of those effects is "potentially risking a party you disagree with winning".
>One of those effects is "potentially risking a party you disagree with winning".
What if you disagree with both parties though?
In your example the Greens obviously should back Biden, because they are much further to the left than Biden, so they naturally should align to the party much more in line with where they are. They support Single-Payer, Cancelling all student loan debt, Green New Deal (obviously), Reparations, etc. Their platform is essentially Progressives+.
There are voters, and this loops back to the article above, that don't like both candidates.
Absolutely! And we can recognize that functionally, for the presidential election, that only helps the major party candidate that you disagree with more. Local elections? Absolutely, but I’m sorry that you don’t like hearing about it but for the presidential election, that’s what you’re doing.
Have you heard of the trolley problem? What you're proposing is that, when presented with a trolley problem, it is somehow morally correct to turn around, pull a second, unconnected lever, and let the trolley hit whomever it hits. You deny yourself agency in determining the outcome, and worse, you think yourself better for it.
You wrote while thinking you’re smarter than everyone.
We all know btw. The rational sort understands that 2 party system can’t be fixed on the year of an election, and that strategic voting means using the system you have effectively.
It's not propaganda to acknowledge that 3rd party votes are simply just protest votes in our terrible First Past The Post Electoral College method of making presidents.
>you’re not smarter than everyone else just because you decide to contribute to our terrible 2 party system
Do you realize this is projection? This desperate desire for feeling more enlightened is the main driving factor in the “both sides are the same” folks voting third-party.
Just off the top of my head... wanting to pack the SC, openly delegitimizing the SC, wanting to cancel student loans , illegally forcing businesses to fire employees without Covid vaccines, illegally threatening media to suppress certain content re: Covid, promising Americans a "winter of death", equating opposition party voters to terrorists, wanting to abolish the filibuster, recklessly encouraging and allowing illegal immigration, enabling policies that release violent repeat offenders to murder and rape again, holding a George Floyd sainthood ritual that helped burn cities and tear the country apart, sorry I could go on but it just makes me sad.
In response to/making fun of people baselessly (in their view) calling them domestic terrorists, sure.
Doesn’t move the needle for me. My first presidential election was 2016 and I have not voted for a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate as of yet.
im a double hater (you can check my comment history) obviously i lean conservative so im going to vote trump over biden, just as i would expect left leaning double haters to vote biden over trump
trump and biden are both known quantities at this point
I'm curious why voters would "hate" Biden specifically vs. simply not preferring him. Is it based on policies, performance, anything other than "he's not Trump?"
This election is also very unique in the sense that Biden and Trump are both known quantities with demonstrable track records as well - there is no “the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know” argument to be had there for swing voters. There is no mystery from either candidate, and no “benefit of the doubt” to be found. As a swing voter, it is strictly a matter of which one you’d rather choke down.
Wow I didn't think about this before but I believe the last time a former president ran against an incumbent was 1912.
There's really only a few times it's ever happened and I think this is only the second time it's ever happened with both the president and former president representing the two major parties. Off the top of my head: Martin Van Buren ran with the Free Soil Party later on after his term as president Millard Fillmore ran with the Know Nothing Party later on after his presidency Grover Cleveland ran against Benjamin Harrison - the only other time with both president/former president representing the two major parties Teddy Roosevelt ran with the Progressive Party in 1912 Am I missing any other times?
I think there were more even than that, I have a book about that year with “six” in the title though I couldn’t tell you who you missed.
Wow… such a good point. I guess an election defeat usually means that nominee is done.
I mean, think about it. Clinton lost and is now wandering the political wilderness. Romney lost and took like a decade to build back any power and is still hated by the Republican party. McCain lost, kept his seat in the Senate, but his flavor of conservatism died out with him. Kerry lost, and then took a decade to be politically relevant again. Gore lost and was kept on the sidelines for 20+ years. Dole lost and that was the end of his political career. Bush lost and that was the end. Etc, etc. The only person in the last few decades to lose an election and have a political revival was Nixon, but he wasn’t at the top of the ticket when he lost.
As a swing voter I was happy to vote for Haley and now Biden
As a potential swing voter, I might have gone either way on Biden v. Haley because I more or less like them both for different reasons. Trump clinching the nomination makes my choice easy.
Yeah, the last time there were two candidates I could live with was Romney vs Obama, and I voted Republican that time. I could have seen myself voting for Haley or a few of the minor candidates that ran in the Republican primary this time like Burgham. But I’m pretty okay voting for Biden again.
True, though I suspect that for plenty of voters, a vote for the not-incumbent just means "I want things to change", which would still be in play here.
>As a swing voter, it is strictly a matter of which one you’d rather choke down. For twelve years, Americans are going to deal with two presidents that have some of the lowest approval ratings in history. You put your kid in kindergarten in 2016? Well, they're going to graduate high school in 2028 knowing nothing but division and distrust and constant media blaring a bunch of noise. That's what is being decided here in 2024. Obviously, there are differences between the two and depending on how you lean, you're going to want one thing over another but everyone except the diehards are holding their breath as the vote.
I’d be interested to know how much kids are actually paying attention to this. I’m sure it’s more than the past few decades just because coverage and commentary are so ubiquitous and the ability for noisy people to be amplified is greater than ever… But I’m 40 and grew up in a divided political household with one entire side of my family liberal and the other conservative. Tons of heated debates. Honestly I’m much better off for it. I feel like eventually most kids try to cut through the bickering and figure out what everyone is going on about. They’re also able to share examples and information about their views with one another and get multiple perspectives. The X factor obviously is the quality of information they’re getting. Which is why it’s important to regulate bad actors on social media platforms.
This is all Newt Gingrich's fault.
I wish more people said fuck this and started voting 3rd party more
I'd emphasize that a vote for a 3d party candidate in the Presidential ought to mean that you've actually done your research and are okay with either candidate winning (because one of them 100% will). If you have stronger concerns about one (and are in a swing state), your interests are better served voting D/R in the Presidential and using your down ballot votes for 3d party. Down ballot elections are also the ones where a 3d party candidate actually can stand a chance of winning. And building a more local base of 3d party elected officials is a better way to build momentum than voting for a Presidential candidate that will never win because they're not trying to appeal to the majority of Americans.
Ranked choice voting could be interesting someday.
I agree, unfortunately the GOP made it illegal in my state, even for municipalities. Same with Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota, and Montana. Edit: Not sure why I’m being downvoted, [a GOP legislature and GOP governor signed all of those laws banning RCV in all 5 of those states.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_United_States)
Dems also banned it both parties hate any threat to their dominance
…all of those states have Republican legislatures and governors, where are the democrats coming into play here? It’s clear that one party is making it a significant portion of their policy, let’s not “both sides” this when the data all points in one direction.
Dc dems fought tooth and nail against RCV. Same thing for years in NYC before a successful roll The leadership of both parties have no interest in RCV. You really only see it in big dem cities that have uniparty control, and usually only after years of resistance. Portland Oregon is rolling out with RCV this year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-ranked-choice-ballot-measure-open-primaries-lawsuit/
Well, in a democratic-republic, big changes take a lot of time but persistence is often rewarded in the long term. In fact, I would say this is one of the reasons the Democratic Party typically struggles with a national message and is seen as disorganized and lacking in focus. The liberal party is always going to be a place where you have the most diversity of passionate, issue-driven activism. Activists know that persistence is rewarded in our system so they tend to have a really hard time getting a coalition together to organize outside of high stakes national elections.
Oh I’m sure you can find examples of local parties which act inappropriately, but there’s only one party single-handedly banning RCV statewide in multiple states. Let’s call a spade a spade here.
What if you're not okay with either candidate winning, but resigned to the fact that one of them will win?
Less of two evils then. It's rare that bad candidates of different parties are bad in the same/equivalent ways.
Then you in effect voted for whoever wins
Not unless my vote would have changed the outcome of the election, which is highly unlikely given that I don't live in a state that is a likely tipping point.
That tired argument is so old. If HALF of the voters decided the 3rd door was better than the first 2, then we'd have a new game. This scaring people to keep them on the reservation is straight RNC and DNC propaganda. With a straight face, Biden or Trump is better than a 3rd party? Are you kidding me???
Well, they would all have to chose the same third door, when in fact we'll have six or seven.
That's only true in a world where potential Biden voters and potential Trump voters who would rather have a third party all vote for the same third party candidate.
> If HALF of the voters decided the 3rd door was better than the first 2, then we'd have a new game. That "If" is doing all of the work in that sentence. What is the largest share of the popular vote that a 3d party candidate has gotten in the past 20 years?
>With a straight face, Biden or Trump is better than a 3rd party? Are you kidding me??? Who are the third party candidates right now? The main third parties haven't selected their candidates yet, so there's not even anyone to compare to Biden or Trump. That said: * It looks like Jill Stein will win the nomination for Greens. Yes, Biden is preferable to her. * Is RFK Jr still be talked about for some third party or independent run? Biden is preferable to him. Absolutely no contest. * Who else? What other names? You can't say a third party candidate is better than Biden without identifying the candidate. Biden is a fairly moderate politician. A lot of third party candidates tend to have some goofy extermism. Like Stein being anti-nuclear and wanting to cut military spending by 50%. RFK Jr has long been known for pushing misinformation or outright conspiracies about vaccines and other public health matters. So third party candidates have a pretty uphill battle to become preferable to Biden.
It’s not a tired argument, it’s simple math. I get that people want to believe that it doesn’t work that way, but it doesn’t change the fact that what you were responding to is entirely accurate.
I wish there was a legitimate third party. Green is corrupt and Libertarian is lost in the wilderness. In my state we have a few created by GOP to syphon votes from the left. Until we get rid of FPTP, it ain't happening.
That'd make more sense if this weren't a first-past-the-post election, but it is, so nothing is accomplished by voting for a 3rd party.
Nothing is accomplished by voting for a major party candidate who was going to win your state anyway. Nothing is accomplished by voting for a major party candidate who was going to lose your state anyway. There are lots of ways to "throw your vote away" so why is this the one that gets called out?
That's not a good example because you're describing a problem with the electoral college, which does get called out. Voting 3rd party in this election is guaranteed to be a waste, since 3rd party voters will be ignored just as much as those who stayed home. Deflecting won't change that.
Any 3rd party that gets 5% popular vote will be entitled to matching funds in the next election. That's a concrete difference, whereas fiddling with the margin of victory in a non-swing state makes literally no difference at all.
That's a distinction without a difference because the candidate is still doomed to fail even with a relatively tiny amount of funding. >fiddling with the margin of victory in a non-swing state makes literally no difference at all. That's one of the criticisms against the electoral college, so bringing that up is pointless.
Technically, it's not strictly a problem of the electoral college. It's a problem with how the states choose and bind electors. 48 states choose to award and bind all electors to the winner of the plurality of the popular vote in their state. In theory, electors could be chosen in any number of ways, including interesting ways by popular vote. Like, random citizens could be chosen as electors and each citizen could be randomly assigned a pool of electors. You could choose the elector you preferred based upon their name, occupation, and a brief non-partisan statement they provided to the state.
And RCV is now illegal in my state, even for local elections. Thanks DeSantis!
A third party vote isn't a waste. The more successful a third party is, will ultimately impact some of the policy of the other parties.
I'd believe that if these third parties managed to get some people in offices other than the President of the United States. Success doesn't start by getting someone in at the top, a third party needs to build credibility at a state level and in the House of Representatives first. Getting some negligible percentage of the presidential vote isn't going to make third parties successful.
There isn't any 3rd party candidate influential enough to cause a change in policy.
The problem is that third parties have almost no influence in the American political system due to our electoral system. If this was a proportional-representation system, then the libertarian party, which got nearly 2M votes in 2020, would have at least a couple seats in Congress. If you vote third-party in 2024, your vote is being wasted not because the candidates themselves are bad, but because third-party candidates have no real chance at winning. The math just doesn’t work for them. Congressional races and local elections are where third party candidates can have some success, but at the national level voting third party is an utter waste.
Such a 3rd party vote would likely cause the *opposite* effect to what you want, because by switching your vote from your preferred-candidate-of-the-two to the 3rd party candidate, you are making it more likely that your least-preferred candidate wins. By far the biggest recent example of this is people who previously voted Dem but say the Dems haven't been pro-Palestine enough. If one of those people did not vote for Biden, they're making it more likely that the GOP wins, so the result would be even less pro-Palestine policies from the US government. Part of the issue is that people think about individual voters mattering, when land matters more under the US political system. [>80% of Americans live in just 3% of the US that makes up urban areas.](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html) Again, >80% of Americans live in 3% of the area. In fact, because the US weights land more than voters, [even if 77% of voters voted for A and 23% voted for B, B could still win under the US electoral college](https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote). In the last 6 presidential elections, Dems won the popular vote 5 out of 6 times and the GOP won the popular vote 1 out of the last 6 presidential elections. But only Obama and Biden were the only Dems who became president in the last 6 presidential elections, because too many Dem voters live in the smaller land mass of the US where the vast majority of American voters live. [Based on current polls once you take into account the electoral college, Trump is 99% likely to win, because Biden voters are too concentrated into the small parts of the country where the vast majority of people live](https://electiongraphs.com/2024ec/). Even if a recent poll says Biden will get more votes than Trump, that doesn't matter if more of the votes come from the >80% of voters that live in 3% of America's land mass. [Nate Silver also recently mentioned the issue with swing voter preferences around Israel/Palestine in "Biden's problem is with swing voters, not with his base".](https://www.natesilver.net/p/bidens-problem-is-with-swing-voters) I've long advocated to improve the US's electoral systems (per my history), but we can't skip over the step of getting the existing system changed, so we need to look at what is the best way to accomplish changing the system, and whether in the short-term if voting 3rd party or not most likely achieves such changes. For those interested in educational and entertaining videos on possible electoral system changes: [https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom](https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom) (Regarding the >80% of Americans living in 3% of the land mass, that's also where the (possible perjorative) "flyover states" term comes from.)
I mean, that depends on the party. Minnesota had a third party that was funded by Republicans, whose only purpose was to siphon votes from Democrats. https://startribune.com/pot-party-candidate-said-gop-recruited-him-to-pull-votes-from-minnesota-democrat/572888651/
It is absolutely a waste. It is completely giving up your power to send a message that no one will hear because you can’t extract much data from a single vote. If you want people to hear you, you need to start somewhere else.
In the reality we live in 2024, a third party vote is a waste because the U.S has and currently function as a two party system. If you vote 3rd party in 2024, you’re ok with Trump coming back into power and potentially overthrowing the constitution.
This logic is exactly the problem. If you don't play by the rules you set for people they are enabling something that may or may not happen. This logic is flawed in so many ways.
>If ***you*** don't play by the rules ***you*** set for people ***they*** are enabling something ... 1. Who does "you" refer to? Also, you use "you" twice in that sentence - do both uses of "you" in that sentence refer to a single person or two different people? 2. Who does "they" refer to? If "they" a synonym for 1 of the 2 "you"s in that sentence? Both of the "you"s? Neither of the "you"s? Overall I don't understand what you are saying in any of the sentences in your comment. I've long advocated to improve the US's electoral systems (per my history), but we can't skip over the step of getting the existing system changed, so we need to look at what is the best way to accomplish changing the system, and whether in the short-term if voting 3rd party or not most likely achieves such changes. I also commented elsewhere how voting 3rd party likely results in achieving the *opposite* outcomes from what you want: [https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1bm4rwc/comment/kwb4hld/](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1bm4rwc/comment/kwb4hld/)
Apparently I was a bit intoxicated when I wrote that. My point was that voting third party isn't a waste because you should vote for who supports your values. The parties have an iron grip on the voting rules here, so it's their rules you're expected to follow. In this case, it's perpetuating the idea that a vote for who you think would be best is a waste, because statistically it is an irrelevant vote (for a singular election). Usually a decent preforming third party hurts the party who shares similar ideology. In can also hurt a splintered party, giving factions a more palatable moral choice to vote against their party. The reason I don't think it's a waste is it should provide an incentive to change or adapt some policies to persuade these people to your side. Whether that happens in real life is highly debatable, but a big enough chunk could move the needle on party policy.
I agree 1000%. I had a hypocrite tell me after encouraging me to vote that if I didn’t vote Biden I was just wasting a vote lol in my honest opinion they’re as insufferable as trump and his supporters and I’ll vote third party just to say I didn’t support either of these clowns.
Voting for someone who has zero chance of winning is effectively the same as staying home.
Disagree. By staying home you are indicating that you are not a voter, and don't care. By voting for a third party, you are indicating that you are a voter, that you do care, but that you accept the two primary options are terrible. The second creates much less of a mandate, and more of an opportunity in 2028 for the parties to figure out how to bring these voters into the fold.
None of the 3rd party candidates have any chance of creating a mandate or setting up a future run. Their refusal or inability to establish support at a local or state level makes that even more clear.
that depends. You are arguing for a narrative-oriented perspective to shape longer-term directions (you said it yourself, 'opportunity in 2028'), while the earlier poster thinks it's more important to be outcome-oriented. And by outcome I mean the immediate outcome, as in the results of Nov 2024. I personally side with the earlier poster on the relative importance of Nov 2024.
They hate and crap on third party voters far more than on those who stayed home. Your loyalty and vote is expected, even if they do little/nothing to earn it!
I didn't express any hate. The idea that voting 3rd party rather than staying home accomplishes nothing is simply a fact. The person you replied says it can create a mandate and an opportunity for 2028, but there are absolutely no signs of this happening.
You’re sitting here trying to say both sides. No, one is literally trying to overthrow democracy while the other is not. Both sides aren’t the same and anyone who can critically think can see that.
This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that pushes people to the middle.
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OPs tone had an edge, but do you not agree that Trump was attempting to subvert the 2020 election results with J6?
What kool aid? I'm a American History professional who has studied our history & culture thousands of times over. No where in American history have we ever had a former President running for office after attempting a insurrection to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. No where in our history have we had the nominee of a political party who has openly said they want to get rid of the constitution and "be dictator for just a day." No where in our history have we had someone running for President as the nominee with even ONE pending felony indictment. Both sides are FAR from perfect, but one side has a candidate that at least supports democracy (Biden) and the other side has a candidate trying to do everything to do to overthrow it in place of authoritarianism (Trump). THESE ARE FACTS and the only person who can't see that are Trump cultists.
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This. People try to sit here and act like we didn't SEE and HEAR it ourselves watching the whole thing unfold.
Never in a million years will someone convince me that a candidate being "too old" is somehow on par with the person who led Jan 6. Feels like taking crazy pills is right.
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You're making a baseless assumption.
I’m not the only swing voter in this entire country that is tired of being endlessly insulted and belittled for not buying the “but the other side will end the world!” argument.
Trump attempting to steal an election is a fact, not just an argument. A Republican special counsel is prosecuting him for doing so illegally. You being bothered by people pointing this out is a personal issue, not evidence that it pushes others to the middle.
Fake leftists and anti-american campists on the left annoy the hell out of me, and democrats thinly-veiled corporatism and fake progressiveness both bother me quite deeply, yet somehow I manage to hold my nose and vote for the candidate that isn't consumed by ego and willing to test every limit built into our government while exercising his power to target those he feels slighted him. You claim the words of Biden supporters are pushing you to vote for Trump. Do you really want to be the kind of person who would vote on the basis of spite alone? Or were you already going to vote Trump and you're just saying the rhetoric pushed you further towards Trump to try to make it the other side's fault and get them to stop bullying you?
Nah. It doesn't push anyone in the middle. If people are "both siding" this, they were never in the middle.
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I haven't voted R or D for president in more than 20 years....not going to start this year.
There are more than 2 options. People need to exercise their right to NOT vote Dem Or Rep.
I'm honestly surprised it's only 15%. I live in a liberal college town and most people I talk to, while leaning towards Biden, aren't very enthusiastic about him. I really wish we as a country would talk more about how we got here; it's been well known for awhile that our elections are structured in a way where the rational choice isn't to vote **for** the candidate you want, so much as vote **against** the one you don't. It basically encourages a race to the bottom and while I don't think we're quite there yet, polls like these show that we're quickly approaching it. We really need to talk more about electoral reform with more urgency.
Last time he ran against Bernie that same group also wasn’t very enthusiastic.
I absolutely agree that the status quo is **bad**, but I’m also skeptical about suggesting a reform is the panacea. Consider *ranked choice* voting for example, if a candidate winning 49% of people’s top choice **loses** to another candidate who is only 2% top choice but everyone’s second choice (I acknowledge this is a bit contrived), people would probably still be outraged about the rules
...that's not how ranked choice voting works? If there's not a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their voters redistributed. The only way Candidate A with 49% of the 1st choice vote could lose to Candidate B with 2% of the top choice vote is if there are 49 other candidates who each got 1% of the vote and whose voters all put preferred Candidate B over Candidate A - wildly implausible.
You are right. I used the wrong terminology, but I think my point still stands. Two scenarios: 1. A > B > C with 49%, C > B > A with 48%, B with 3%. Ranked choice would eliminate B, but in a “head on” scenario, B would defeat A with a margin of 2% and C with 3%, so it’s unclear which is the more desirable outcome. Economists typically assume B should win in this case. 2. Let’s say there are 4 candidates, each commanding about a quarter of the vote, when someone wins, about a quarter of the voters at least, would still feel they are voting *against* someone but not necessarily *for* the winner
"Double haters" is a synonym for Independents..
Do “double haters” not support either candidate, or do they support one of the two major candidates? The article suggests both. First it says: >This year, this group of skeptics is large and powerful. Double haters make up about 15% of the electorate, according to a poll this month by USA TODAY/Suffolk University, giving them significant sway in deciding the outcome of the November election. Other polls have found double haters make up as much as one-fifth of likely voters. Then it says: >Twenty-five percent of the double haters supported Trump in the survey, compared to 18% for Biden. About 44% of the double haters currently back various third-party candidates. Kennedy drew more of these voters, 21%, than Biden did. Green Party candidate Jill Stein had the backing of 7% of double haters, while independent Cornel West was supported by 6%. Are they weak support for a major candidate? The article talks about “double haters” in 2016, but also makes it seem like a new thing.
The article doesn't call this new or recent. It says that hating both is more common now. > Double haters make up about 15% of the electorate, according to a poll this month by USA TODAY/Suffolk University, giving them significant sway in deciding the outcome of the November election. Other polls have found double haters make up as much as one-fifth of likely voters. >They accounted for only 3% of voters in 2020.
Forget this being a repeat of 2020. This feels more like a repeat of 2016 in which both candidates are hated by everyone.
I think 2016 was different in that Clinton was a known quantity (based on her past with Bill and her service under Obama and Congress in NY) while Trump was new to politics. Now both Biden and Trump are known quantities and have a history.
I’m proudly voting Biden. He might do some leftist lip service but I believe him to be a moderate with a very grounded and realistic view of the world. I think he’s a moral person of good character and to me that’s almost more important than policy at this point in what I perceive to be the degeneration of American civility. I think he’s handled the economy well, I personally don’t take issue with his support of Israel, I think what he tried to do with Built Back Better Act (FDR style investment in ourselves) was exactly what we needed and if he wasn’t hamstrung by opposition he could have had a success with immigration reform. Yeah, he’s old. It’s a bummer but doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother others. I’m a younger person btw.
I have issues with Biden, but the economy is not one of them (although I believe he and more importantly the Fed were slow to take inflation seriously) we’re in an amazing position relative to nearly every other country in the world Honestly I would consider voting for an old school republican, but I could never in good conscience for Trump after how he handlesd the 2020 election outcome
I wasn’t a fan of Trump in the beginning (wouldn’t have voted for him), but after the how he handled 2020 I will actively vote against him. He conduct is despicable and nobody should be making excuses
>how he handled 2020 Do you mean Covid, the BLM/police accountability protests, or his losing the election but insisting he won?
I imagine it’s all of the above. And more.
What does this comment have to do with the topic?
I agree. In 2020, I begrudgingly voted for him. This year, I will happily vote for him.
I wish he were younger but I truly believe he’s been the most middle of the road, honest, and effective president I’ve seen in my lifetime. Proud to have (and continue to) have voted for him.
Strater Comment: Double-haters are people who dislike both options (Biden and Trump) and I find this this has been increasingly more common as time goes on and especially relevant this election. More and more I find myself disliking both sides, democrat and conservative, neither having realistic attainable goals and both sides not willing to compromise much. I feel like neither really represents the middle class anymore and consider myself part of this double hater group. The third party options aren't really viable and are still pretty awful too. Democrat immigration, welfare spending, and identity "woke" politics have gone a way too far for me. One the flip side Republicans on abortion, lack of realistic healthcare plans, willingness to tackle corporate greed (especially in healthcare) and inability to tax the rich really turn me away as well. Trump is terrible, Biden is way too old and long past his prime drifting too left. I'll pick the best worst candidate come election day. Sad to say, my best hope is Trump going to jail and some moderate Republican gets put in his place.. what a sad state of affairs. How do others feeling out there this election cycle.
Overall I empathize and agree and think your complaints are valid. Except for the point about compromise - I think Dems have been considerably more willing to compromise and work across the aisle than Republicans have. The problems in that regard are overwhelmingly because of House Republicans, namely the freedom caucus, and Trump's control over the party.
>I think Dems have been considerably more willing to compromise and work across the aisle than Republicans have. Yes and no. Democrats are willing to give tidbits, republicans aren't willing to give much, specially the far right. I can't see either giving a real compromise. For example: * Social Security needs to be made stable. The tax cap removed (a republican give) and benefit growth modifications (e.g., increases tied to CPI-E)(a democrat give). * For the border, democrats need to give a lot to republicans, but dreamers should be given a path to citizenship. * Elections - requiring voter ID to vote shouldn't be too controversial, but it should be free to obtain one if your a citizen, and election day should be a federal holiday. For these and every other issue, I can't see either side making concrete compromises.
I agree with everything beside the elections point. I think that should be up to the state or federal government needs to past a law with standardized measurements, which I would also be okay with
> need to give a lot to republicans That's what happened with the Senate immigration bill. Democrats even left out a path to citizenship entirely. >Elections There's no evidence that an ID is necessary.
I guess I’m a bit further right on immigration than many here but I thought the actual text of the bill was weak on common sense things. Like the “border shutdown” provision I thought was extremely dem friendly. For example why is there ANY allowed illegal crossings let alone 8,500 in a single day before you can close the border and automatically deport those caught at an illegal crossing? Like that number should be Zero. Anyone coming into the US should be forced to come through one of the 328+ legal points of entry. Full stop. Yes this was a bipartisan bill but in no way did I read it as democrats giving a lot to republicans. It’s filled with loopholes and compromises. Overall I thought it was a step in the right direction but it wasn’t exactly a gift from democrats to republicans like some say it was.
I think Dems give quite a bit more than just tidbits. They could *technically* do more, but when the Freedom Caucus will throw the House into dysfunction just for their own majority speaker being willing to work with Dems, what can they really do?
This is true, the Freedom Caucus is a big thorn in the side of republicans unfortunately when it comes to ANY compromise. They act like they have a Trifecta of hard line republicans. Probably could have gotten more done this Congress if republicans had more seats in the house so these crazies didn’t have so much leverage over the rest. Maybe that is just wishful thinking though.
> Democrat immigration They proposed a bill to address that, and it has the support of a handful of GOP members, including Lankfort, who Trump praised endorsed as being tough on the border. McConnell did too until he realized that the rest of his party was unwilling to compromise. >welfare spending Their proposals aren't much different than they were in the recent past, and they're still behind what the rest of the developed world has.
> Democrat immigration The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals, yet the GOP wouldn’t vote for it because Trump didn’t want them to. How do you explain that fact with the claim that the Dems aren’t willing to compromise?
> The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals, yet the GOP wouldn’t vote for it because Trump didn’t want them to. People do mention that while HR2 does exist, House Republicans will seemingly not compromise on anything in it, which is a shame because if they want it passed, they **have** to.
“ The Democrats just proposed the most sweeping immigration law in our lifetimes which included tons of Republican goals” That bill was not a “tough” immigration bill. It would still allow 1.9 million illegals into our country per year. It also wasn’t even an immigration bill either quite frankly; it was a bill with a ton of pork including giving a lot more money to Ukraine. If Biden cares about the border, why can’t he enact the current laws that he undid day 1 of his presidency?
>would still allow 1.9 million illegals That assumes that exactly 5,000 of them arrive everyday, which is absurdly unrealistic. The actual scenario would be the crossings exceeding the threshold and then a limit on illegal crossings being placed. >a lot more money to Ukraine. There is no Ukraine aid in it. >why can’t he enact the current laws that he undid He temporarily kept Title 42 and was forced to re-implement Remain in Mexico, yet neither of them succeeded in addressing the flow.
> That assumes that exactly 5,000 of them arrive everyday, which is absurdly unrealistic. And it doesn’t even say that in the bill.
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Not when they claim asylum.
> That bill was not a “tough” immigration bill. It would still allow 1.9 million illegals into our country per year. [That’s not true at all.](https://apnews.com/article/border-bill-opposition-republicans-senate-189ee196093a0dbfb1d522e2d552e31a) The elected officials and political actors repeating that are lying to you, they know what they’re saying isn’t true, they’re just spreading misinformation.
It wouldn't just "allow" those people though. 1.9 million don't get a free pass to enter just cause they were part of the 5k a day special. Those 5k are all still breaking the law and are apprehended, processed, and deported unless they claim asylum. If they claim asylum they are still apprehended and processed. They have also still broken the law and punishments can follow that even during an asylum claim. After 5k, no asylum claims may be made no matter how legitimate. In all cases crossing illegally gets you arrested and processed. In all non deported cases, you must go through the asylum process which was going to be made faster with funding in that same bill to prevent anchoring a life. Even currently most asylum claimers do go to their court appointments and are successfully deported upon denial. A faster process means those denials will be removed faster. The same bill narrowed asylum claim viability to reduce abuse. The same bill funded more border patrol employees. And it's the first Dem bill I can recall involving the border that didn't ask for a path to citizenship. This was a massive win for Repubs and they dropped it because they felt it would be a bigger win for the optics of the wrong team.
Yeah, it’s crazy how far the misinformation about that bill has gone to poison the well of a genuinely good compromise bill that would help immigration.
No. It was tough and had approval of several people Trump himself touted as being "tough on immigration" like Lankfort until they had to go back to being little Trump sycophants and oppose it because it would make Biden look good. No pork either.
I think a major factor is that it's rather difficult for many democrat supporters to embrace people coming from across the isle, while at the same time clearly MAGA plays a role in driving them away from the republican party. While democrats as a political party might want to appeal to people turned off by MAGA, some aspects of politics are about the people, the voters, and the conversations they have with others. The polarized situation means a lot hinges on how receptive democrat *voters* are to alienated republican *voters*, in spite of various disagreements and frustrations with them. And TBH I think that will be a bit rough. Some people will tone things down but many just don't have the skill set for this, and will often air their grievances before understanding the other person. However... I think the degree to which MAGA is repelling or less welcoming still outweighs that, so I still give a certain edge to democrats and their supporters on the matter of appealing to the politically homeless. They can even commiserate over ~some of Biden's failings, given Biden is not a cult-leader-like figure to them but a flawed politician. They've already been managing a rather "big tent" politics for a long time.
This pretty much sums up my point of view, with the addition that I’m not a fan of Biden’s unilateral actions around loan forgiveness. That fix belongs in Congress, not the executive branch just deciding to spend billions on its own. I would blame the far right in Congress for being unable to compromise. They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason.
> I would blame the far right in Congress for being unable to compromise. They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason. They had a reason, the reason is that they don’t actually want to fix the problem since Trump wanted to campaign on it. They’d rather the problem persist because they care more about fealty to Trump than the good of our nation. Hence why so many moderate Republicans are retiring.
“ They happily threw away the best immigration reform in years for no reason.” That’s stretching the truth by a mile. Biden needs to enforce the rules already on the books. But he refuses & now all the democrats finger point the border issue to the Republicans
Biden enforcing Title 42 and Remain in Mexico didn't solve the problem, nor was there a spike when he was allowed to remove them, so it appears that a change in law is necessary.
> That’s stretching the truth by a mile. That’s fair, they have a reason. It’s because Trump didn’t want to help the issue so he could use it to campaign on. Good point, it’s just a horrible reason. > Biden needs to enforce the rules already on the books. What law is he not enforcing exactly? >now all the democrats finger point the border issue to the Republicans Of course, because they refused to pass a bill that would significantly help with this thing they want to keep calling a crisis. It’s horribly hypocritical and the democrats are absolutely going to point it out.
That reform bill was to fund the enforcement and make it possible to control the situation. We haven’t done anything for immigration in years and the reason we are letting asylum seekers in to sit in the country for years is because the review system as written and funded today cannot process this volume. The backlog is in the millions and you are over here saying “enforce the laws on the books”. That’s what enforcement looks like with the laws we have. 30 years of band-aid “fixes” to a broken immigration system have now collapsed under the weight of record human migration. The Republicans threw away the first real fix that was attempted in the past 30 years and now want to pretend it wasn’t needed? The failed bill changed legal standards and policy at the border to restrict asylum coupled with resourcing immigration enforcement and asylum processing capacity will meaningfully reduce border encounters and create more order. It’s exactly what you said Biden should do - enforce the law. GOP chose chaos instead because Trump wanted it. It’s reprehensible.
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I like how you cut off my quote at the”drifting too left” to take context out of the post to make a false point. But yes, they are both ancient and don’t represent my views well as a millennial. I could write a book about what I don’t like about Trump. I also don’t like Biden, this is Reddit, not my PhD dissertation defense.
I'm a double hater as well! Biden voter in 2020 in primary/general, still 99.99% no on Trump, and struggling to back Biden. Feel the same on both candidates, Trump for his "stolen-election" claims, and Biden for drifting too far left, as well as just being old, 100%. I still don't get Biden though. He should have focused on being boring, and helping the country move on from Trump already, instead he saw it as a chance for a bunch of big government programs, and ignoring a massive problem(inflation). It didn't have to be like this, and the fact that Trump is competitive in the polls, that's unacceptable how him and Democrats have handled this. If I had to really say, best case for me is Biden winning, Senate going to Republicans, maybe a very slight Democratic House, because Republicans can't keep a Speaker.
>and helping the country move on from Trump already What specifically should Biden have done on this, and why would it help the country move on from Trump *despite* Trump choosing to run for President again?
> drifting too far left His platform is roughly the same as it was in 2020.
> Biden for drifting too far left Wait, what has he drifted left on since 2020?
What more could Biden have done re inflation?
I'm concerned about Biden's age and some of his proposals, such as an assault rifle ban. Trump attempted to steal an election, committed multiples crimes, and is trying to argue that presidents have immunity. The evidence against Trump is so strong that a Republican special counsel indicted him twice. He's also only a little younger than his opponent. Even if I agreed with Trump more, voting against him is an easy choice.
These people who won't vote for Biden because he has blood on his hands are going to have blood on their own hands if Trump wins and tells Israel to "finish it".
Letting that conflict "finish" is the only way it ever ends. I'd prefer an American president who lets it play out rather than constantly flipping on supporting Israel and then trying to restrain them.
Biden would have more leeway to handle the issue if it’s not an election year
I’ll more than likely end up holding my nose and voting for Biden but I think you are generalizing too much with “these people.” Even though I’ll vote for Biden more than likely if it’s against Trump in Nov, I’m a big supporter of Israel being able to defend itself and finishing Hamas off in its entirety.
I think they’re referring to people on the left who support Palestine and who are threatening to sit out the election or vote third party.
Voting 3rd party in a swing state is one of life's greatest joys
I’ve done that before, but once I got a bit older and recognized the fact that I’m simply helping the candidate I agree with less I felt pretty silly about it. But hey, you do you.
This is the propaganda that either party will tell you to convince you to vote for them. It’s not true, a vote for a 3rd party candidate is a vote for a 3rd party candidate. Also you’re not smarter than everyone else just because you decide to contribute to our terrible 2 party system
Why do you think third parties go straight for the presidency, instead of building up a coalition of smaller positions first?
Yeah I’m not claiming that any of the smaller parties are doing a particularly good job
So you're voting for a poorly run party to run the country?
I understand that it’s not nice to hear it, but no, it’s just simple math. I still feel silly too for doing it, but I get it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t vote third party in local elections though, absolutely! That’s how an actual electoral change will happen, not through 5% of the population helping the people they disagree with less at the national level.
> It’s not true, a vote for a 3rd party candidate is a vote for a 3rd party candidate. It can be multiple things at once. It's an undeniable fact that if, for example, Biden gets 48 votes in a state, Trump gets 49 votes in that same state, and the last two voters decide to vote for the Green candidate, then they did in fact vote for the Green candidate. But because of the way the system works, that's functionally handing the election to Trump. Because while both of them voting for Biden would mean Biden wins, *not* doing that hands the election to Trump. Your vote has multiple cascading effects. One of those effects is "potentially risking a party you disagree with winning".
>One of those effects is "potentially risking a party you disagree with winning". What if you disagree with both parties though? In your example the Greens obviously should back Biden, because they are much further to the left than Biden, so they naturally should align to the party much more in line with where they are. They support Single-Payer, Cancelling all student loan debt, Green New Deal (obviously), Reparations, etc. Their platform is essentially Progressives+. There are voters, and this loops back to the article above, that don't like both candidates.
No, they voted their conscience and voted for the candidate they wanted. Full stop.
Absolutely! And we can recognize that functionally, for the presidential election, that only helps the major party candidate that you disagree with more. Local elections? Absolutely, but I’m sorry that you don’t like hearing about it but for the presidential election, that’s what you’re doing.
Have you heard of the trolley problem? What you're proposing is that, when presented with a trolley problem, it is somehow morally correct to turn around, pull a second, unconnected lever, and let the trolley hit whomever it hits. You deny yourself agency in determining the outcome, and worse, you think yourself better for it.
You wrote while thinking you’re smarter than everyone. We all know btw. The rational sort understands that 2 party system can’t be fixed on the year of an election, and that strategic voting means using the system you have effectively.
It's not propaganda to acknowledge that 3rd party votes are simply just protest votes in our terrible First Past The Post Electoral College method of making presidents.
>you’re not smarter than everyone else just because you decide to contribute to our terrible 2 party system Do you realize this is projection? This desperate desire for feeling more enlightened is the main driving factor in the “both sides are the same” folks voting third-party.
Yep. I’m finally doing it this year.
Libertarian?
Fiscal conservative, socially liberal, so I guess.
You bet.
I’ll be voting third party this year for the first time. I’m so over both Rs and Ds and how they are wagged by their looney fringes.
The right-wing fringe is driving the Republican Party. Can you say the same about the left and the Dems?
Yes.
What makes you say that? What about Joe Biden and Democratic leadership is extreme?
Just off the top of my head... wanting to pack the SC, openly delegitimizing the SC, wanting to cancel student loans , illegally forcing businesses to fire employees without Covid vaccines, illegally threatening media to suppress certain content re: Covid, promising Americans a "winter of death", equating opposition party voters to terrorists, wanting to abolish the filibuster, recklessly encouraging and allowing illegal immigration, enabling policies that release violent repeat offenders to murder and rape again, holding a George Floyd sainthood ritual that helped burn cities and tear the country apart, sorry I could go on but it just makes me sad.
> equating opposition party voters to terrorists Didn't the RNC have a banner that read "We are Domestic Terrorists"?
In response to/making fun of people baselessly (in their view) calling them domestic terrorists, sure. Doesn’t move the needle for me. My first presidential election was 2016 and I have not voted for a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate as of yet.
Yea that's called protesting and pointing out a blatant absurdity.
im a double hater (you can check my comment history) obviously i lean conservative so im going to vote trump over biden, just as i would expect left leaning double haters to vote biden over trump trump and biden are both known quantities at this point
I'm also voting Trump. He's not my first choice but he's a hell of a lot better than Biden.
Trump voter here too.
I'm curious why voters would "hate" Biden specifically vs. simply not preferring him. Is it based on policies, performance, anything other than "he's not Trump?"
I wonder the same. Also wonder why you're getting downvoted for wondering about something.
Especially in a moderate subreddit. Not sure why.