Walter Shapiro reflects on his decision in 1968 to vote third-party rather than to vote for Hubert Humphrey. This was, he now sees, a "self-righteous decision to opt out of the two-party system" he made "out of misplaced antiwar passions."
And, of course, his third-party protest vote enabled tricky Dick Nixon, a warmonger if there ever was a warmonger, to gain the White House.
"The reason for revisiting my long-ago electoral folly is because I fear that, in similar fashion, a significant number of young, idealistic voters will wrongly conclude that it is more important to bear personal moral witness over Gaza than to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House."
@GhidorahX I don't hear Walter Shapiro saying that voting is not protest. I hear him saying that some decisions made in the name of protest are good and wise and others are the opposite.
@wdlindsy Sure, some people are capable of "nuanced" thinking. I was more posting for "today" where today's young people apparently. "aren't happy that things aren't perfect in the world," and thinking that a "protest vote" for RFK or worse, the tumpster, will help straighten things out . . . . #democracyversusautocracy
@GhidorahX And I think Shapiro is telling his story about once having been in that same position, young and idealistic and having made a decision he soon saw as lamentably wrong as a result of callowness and naivete, precisely to speak to young people today and to warn them not to replicate his mistake.
@wdlindsy I'm not saying to vote for one of the ridiculous third party candidates in 2024, I am saying that the article cited is illogical. The guy is centering himself, giving his little act an undue importance
@guacamayan So you're 1) denying that Shapiro's third-party vote helped Nixon win the White House by undermining Humphrey, and you're also arguing that 2) the article cited is illogical and Shapiro centers himself.
Your primary motivation is to attack Shapiro and what he says, it seems to me, because you disagree with his points.
I myself don't disagree with them, and that's why I highlighted his article.
@wdlindsy@guacamayan he’s not even wrong it’s just that the whole tone of this genre is so sickening. shaming third party voters is insulting and counterproductive, it’s sheer self-righteous ego masturbation.
@theothersimo@guacamayan Yes, this definitely does touch a nerve, doesn't it, among a certain set of purist voters on the left who are utterly unwilling to learn the lesson of what they accomplished in 2016 by sitting out the election or voting third-party? Some folks just don't intend to learn, and self-righteousness is a powerfully blinding force.
@wdlindsy yes, good summary. I don't mind the article, and the general issue is very relevant to the current election.
But his personal situation shows the opposite of what he says. If anything it shows that you can cast even a really far out protest vote and it doesn't matter in most of the USA, because of the electoral college.
@guacamayan It's precisely because of the Electoral College and the extraordinary power it accords a minority of citizens that third-party votes have such ability to shift the results of an election.
@wdlindsy the only time that has demonstrably happened in recent years was in the elections that put Bill Clinton in office. Both times he benefited tremendously from Ross perot. The other recent cases that people point to like Hillary Clinton or Al Gore losing close races are far tougher to prove. I've never seen any convincing data that the people who voted for Jill Stein would otherwise have voted for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump
@guacamayan The major Trump-supporting donors fundingn RFK Jr. as a third-party candidate wouldn't be investing major dollars in his campaign if third-party voting did not provide important ballast for Trump's election chances.
@wdlindsy I'm skimming so maybe I missed it, but I don't think any of those articles addresses abstention. How many people voted Stein who would have otherwise not have voted? As I said, I've yet to see a decent study of that.
As for this year, the strategy appears to be the final one in your final link: send the election to Congress.
Anyway, I still think the initial article in the thread is mediocre. There is a good story to write on this (maybe by a Florida 2000 Nader voter?) but this ain't
@randulo Yes, and then there are the hordes who voted 3rd party in 2016 and remain self-righteously certain they had nothing to do with helping Trump gain the White House, though statistical studies suggest otherwise. Some of us just seem unwilling to learn.