{"id":131216,"date":"2016-08-07T14:22:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T20:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/07\/on-protest-votes.html"},"modified":"2016-08-07T14:22:48","modified_gmt":"2016-08-07T20:22:48","slug":"on-protest-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/07\/on-protest-votes.html","title":{"rendered":"On Protest Votes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A very good article here on how protest votes for President (votes to "send a message," votes for third parties, votes for write-ins, or just staying home) are pretty much futile because they don't actually succeed in doing much of anything except leaving the voting up to the folk who are<\/i> voting for one of the two major parties, which parties are largely unlikely to actually hear, let alone react favorably, to such messages.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/medium.com\/@cshirky\/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-protest-vote-c2fdacabd704#.oms5e6xio<\/a><\/p>\n

'Throwing away your vote on a message no one will hear, and which will change no outcome, is sometimes presented as ‘voting your conscience’, but that’s got it exactly backwards; your conscience is what keeps you from doing things that feel good to you but hurt other people. Citizens who vote for third-party candidates, write-in candidates, or nobody aren’t voting their conscience, they are voting their ego, unable to accept that a system they find personally disheartening actually applies to them.<\/i><\/p>\n

The people advocating protest votes believe they deserve a choice that aligns closely with their political preferences. With 130 million voters, hundreds of issues, and just two candidates, this idea doesn’t even make mathematical sense, much less political sense. <\/i>No matter who you are, voting isn’t about you. You are not promised a candidate you love, or even like, because no one is guaranteed that. Presidential voting is an exercise in distinguishing the lesser of two evils.<\/i><\/b> Making that choice is all that’s asked of us, and all that’s on offer.'<\/i><\/p>\n

(Emphasis mine.)<\/p>\n

The article notes — correctly — that in a democracy you can have it pretty much of two ways. Most countries have multi-party setups, which end up in coalition governments which is where the compromising takes place, amongst the politicians. A voter can vote "their conscience" for the party that (mostly or more so) aligns with their particular policy set or priority, and then let the politicians dicker and bargain over how to create a governing majority.<\/p>\n

The alternative is what the US has: two parties where the voters themselves are asked to make (or approve of) the compromises up front. There are a wide array of Democrats, and a wide array of Republicans, serving in the federal (and state) governments; while there has been some ideological narrowing over the past few decades, both parties are still significantly big tents, and the voter in a US election has to decide to vote for one, or the other, or leave it up to everyone else (and live with the consequence).<\/p>\n

Is one system better than the other? That's a separate debate, but it's been 150 years since we saw a rise of a third party, and it didn't spring full-blown from the presidency but started at the local level (largely cannibalizing one of the existing parties). If people really want a new third party — or want to effect a change in the nature of one of the existing parties — it needs to start at the bottom, with local races, cities, counties, school boards, state legislators; those are the folk who then influence (or are) the state party leaders, and then have an influence on national party politics. That's how the GOP social conservative movement became such an influence on its party, from the grass roots up.<\/p>\n

But whether you are looking for a third party, or a revolution within one of the existing ones, a protest vote to "send a message" isn't going to change anything. It's merely going to leave the rest of us to make the decision for you. <\/p>\n

(The same could be said, I suppose, for someone already coming into this election thinking that the Libertarian Party or the Green Party is the bee's knees and planning on voting for them. While I can admire what at least appears to be an actual analysis and decision, the effect is much the same, i.e., little to none.)<\/p>\n

(And, long-time Green or Libertarian fans aside, if you honestly think there is no substantive or effective difference between — in the case of the presidential campaign — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, then there's probably not much else that can be said, because our worldviews are way too different. I can wish there were more<\/i> difference, in a variety of ways, and I can wish that my candidate of choice were more closely aligned with me in a wide array of policy issues. But if you really think a Donald Trump presidency will be effectively the same as a Hillary Clinton presidency, then I think you are taking an extraordinarily myopic view.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/div>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very good article here on how protest votes for President (votes to "send a message," votes for third parties, votes for write-ins, or just staying home) are pretty much futile because they don't actually succeed in doing much of anything except leaving the voting up to the folk who are voting for one of … Continue reading “On Protest Votes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/democrat-republican5B15D.jpgimgmax=660.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131225,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/08\/on-multi-party-systems-two-party-systems-and-protest-votes-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":131216,"position":0},"title":"On multi-party systems, two-party systems, and protest votes (again)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Aug-16 4:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Somewhat separate from the debate over Trump v. 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