If Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, and you can’t see yourself voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, then don’t. Vote third party.
Consider the Libertarian or Green Party.
Don’t feed the establishment by voting for Clinton, and don’t feed authoritarian isolationism by voting for Trump.
No. The absolute largest chunk of people considering changing their votes at the moment are disappointed non-conservatives. There was barely any competition among republicans; from the get-go, the voter base united behind Trump. If non-conservatives split their votes across multiple fronts, they WILL lose.
Voting third party in America throws your vote directly into the garbage. Our system does not work like Australia’s. You don’t get a second or third choice, and candidates who win aren’t going to look at the numbers and say “I see 25% of Americans voted Green, I should implement Green policies.” That’s not how it works. Conservative voters overwhelmingly back a single party, the GOP, while non-conservative voters are the ones that scatter across multiple, weak fronts when faced with an unappealing Democratic party nominee. Think about it like this:
The majority of Republican voters support Trump and are not changing their vote even though party leaders and figureheads are universally decrying him. They’ve been groomed for decades by the GOP to be this way, and now party leaders have lost control of the impressionable voter base they created for themselves. There’s nothing they can do about it at this point. While a small number of Republicans can and are switching parties, it’s not very much. Meanwhile, Democrats are floundering, trying to decide which front to unite under. Some of them go to the Green party or Libertarians, sure; the rest stay with the Democratic party in the hopes that even with people leaving, they will have enough to block Trump. But Trump doesn’t need a majority of total Americans to vote for him; he only needs more than the other candidates have. Do you understand what I’m saying? Trump could get 10% of the vote, but as long as no other party has more than 10%, he still wins. The second you split the left and middle across three or four fronts, the right seizes control. This is how it goes down every single fucking time we go through this.
The other thing to consider is that the electoral college is NOT going to weigh in favor of a third party. Doing so would be political suicide. They are paid to vote certain ways, and not doing so would fuck up their careers. Even if an entire state votes in favor of a third party, the electoral college is going to vote for whichever primary party matches up the closest, and sometimes not even that. Their votes are counted when making the actual choice of president; ours are not. They proved that with Gore. The majority of Americans voted for him; the electoral college installed Bush anyway and told us to suck it up. The question at this point is whether they’d risk it a second time, and we have to hope that they won’t, which is why we have to unite under a single front to block Trump.
^^^^^^^THIS!!!!!!!!!! People do not understand that under our plurality system, it doesn’t matter if the majority of the population doesn’t vote for Trump. As long as he has more than any of the other candidates, he wins. Splitting up the more liberal voters is now what non-Trump supporters want to do.
DO NOT SPLIT THE VOTE, PLEASE! GOP is gonna vote Trump, they won’t vote for a 3rd party person. That means a solid voting bloc. Dem who split the vote are in essence giving him a free vote. HILARY WITH ALL HER FAULTS IS STILL BETTER THAN TRUMP!
GOD DAMNIT YALL BETTER NOT SPLIT THE DEM VOTES
This is how the Conservative Party in the UK won the last election with less than 40% of the overall vote!!!!
Don’t do it America!
NOT splitting the vote is how Canada snagged this magical unicorn man in the last election. Basically everyone I know voted strategically, even if it was against their party, to ensure that Harper’s crusty conservative ass was kicked the hell out. Personally I waffle between the Green Party and the NDP politically, but I sure as heck voted Liberal last election.
Think about how much Obama accomplished with a hostile Congress in 6 of his 8 years in office.
Now think about how much Trump can “accomplish” with a Congress that isn’t hostile.
I’m legit scared of this election because of this. Our system is screwed up and I’m sorry if you hate both parties (I’m still shocked we ended up where we are), but realistically, writing in Bernie because you’re “Bernie or bust” or voting for a third party isn’t going to work this time.
On the upside, two conservatives I know are both voting libertarian because they don’t want to vote Trump (my hubby said he’d vote for dog before he’d vote for Trump). Let the conservatives split their party, don’t split ours.
