A lot of people don’t want to vote for a third-party candidate like Jill Stein or Gary Johnson because they believe their vote will be “wasted.” But they don’t apply the same logic to most other things in life, many of which involve setting yourself apart from the herd.
If We Did Other Things The Way That We Vote
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Hey, maybe we should stop talking about political parties, and instead call them herds. It’s definitely a herd mentality, encouraged by both major parties – and look where it’s gotten us.
I remember when I was just old enough to start understanding what politics and parries were all about. I desperately wanted to support the “right” candidate or the “right” issue, but all those other people just couldn’t agree on what that meant.
Luckily I outgrew that mindset by the time I was actually old enough to vote – I’ve always voted my conscience rather than any party line. Unfortunately, there seems to be a large number of people who never got to that stage; and that tells me we’ll never fix the two party system. There simply aren’t enough rogues.
Now I’m all depressed again, and it’s too early to hit the Jack. Beer for brunch, anyone?
Anybody when/how this mentality originated? Besides being irrational, it just doesnt seem like an organically grown opinion. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were planted by elites. We know they encourage it of course. It’s just repeated ad naseum, until people adopt it mistakenly believing it is their own opinion.
I am convinced that if Sanders’ campaign hadn’t been sabotaged by the DNC, he would have been the Democratic candidate. (Why hasn’t legal action been taken?) On the other hand, had he run as an Independent, he had a large enough following that he could have beaten both Clinton AND Trump. Voters have to get rid of the “lesser of two evils” mentality and stop voting for either of the two corporate-sponsored candidates, especially since there is a better choice. Jill Stein is mine.
Hear, hear!
I believe that it would be against Sanders’ moral compass to sue. He is playing nice by backing Hillary – he ran as a Dem and so he is obligated to play by their rules. (In spite of the fact that they didn’t)
BUT the Democrats who were shafted thereby have no such obligation – the party they donated time & money to obviously defrauded them. “Racketeering” or “Consumer Fraud” would seem to be good bets – I’d be curious to know what a lawyer would say. (Always assuming that we could find an honest one… 😉
I wasn’t suggesting that Sanders should sue, because I’m convinced he never would. But, as you suggested, his campaign staff and his supporters certainly have grounds for class action against the DNC, at least to refund their donations to the Sanders campaign — because the wheels are in motion to coronate Clinton and have been since the last Presidential election. 🙁
OIC. This looks like a job for GoFundMe!
If Sanders won’t stand up for himself, how can he be expected to stand up for anyone else?
Legal action hasn’t been taken because taking on the Clintons is suicide.
Sanders himself would be a poor choice to head the lawsuit. He already accepted his bri-er settlement.
Though considering what happens to people even halfway across the world that overtly oppose the Clinton Cartel, can you blame the guy? His goal was to set the fire, and now he gets to sit back in his new million dollar home and watch it all BERN.
Honestly he made out much better than most, the Clintons are cheap, so they REALLY must have seen him as a possible legitimate threat.
Even if she does manage to hold on after cheating her way to victory, she will never win that second term. Tulsi Gabbard will see to that.
Bernie seemed exceptionally naive for a career politician going in, but he actually accomplished many secondary goals, including empowering someone that would continue to give his followers hope after he’s long gone. I don’t know when he realised the fix was in, or if he just lucked his way through, but let’s look at the results.
The exposure of the leaks confirmed what many believed and torpedo’d his opponent’s credibility.
While not the most moral of options, he accepted a bribe far above his standing (rather than selling out cheap like scuzzbuckets like Lamar, already millionaires and selling their votes for mere thousands) for a completely empty promise and completely lacking in consequences. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.
He re-energised the most politically apathetic portion of the country’s voting base.
Far more of the democratic party now lean towards his side of the aisle (even if some have made the poorly informed decision to “hold their nose and vote for the warmonger”)
He was also able to make off with approximately 1.4 million left-leaning repubs and independents, which is sure to have a lasting effect in the next few elections.
So to me, I chalk that up as he having lost the battle (for presidency) but winning the war. He outplayed Clinton and she isn’t even aware of it, because she’s never been about forward-thinking, only immediate gratification.
Not bad for someone jammed in a broom closet for 35 years. It gave him the advantage of not having been involved in the political landscape shift to one of substance-less soundbites and identity politics, both of which promise only short-term advantage.
Heck, he even managed to chop out the one voting block that propelled her to success every other time in her career!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0212/How-Hillary-Clinton-lost-young-white-women
He may have gone down, but it was a masterful exit.
He kept her worried about him all the way up to the DNC, despite being totally neutralised for months.
So, once again, the “Conspiracy-Theory'” question is begged. When balloting is “secret,” how can we know (more than a century or two down the road) if the vote-counting ever got hijacked? Before the new millennium, most political races in a two-party system could be won by manipulating as little as 5% of the vote. Nowadays with computer balloting? The vote-counters can elect anybody they want , and nobody can ever really challenge the count.
America, the Capitalist political party, and its fake duopoly. If the Democrap wins, the Bankster party wins. If the Repug wins, guess who also still wins … not the greater self-flagellating, wage-slave population.
Trump doesn’t really want the office, he just wants to be a popular Boss Hogg. Simply because of that, I think he certainly deserves my vote. Hillary wants being pResident so badly, she’s sold her soul six-million times over to the demon-seed, global banking cartel of Zion to simply be considered. It’s already a done deal either way. And whether it’s Hillary or Trump, the same Bankster’s agenda will continue buying out (with its debt-based currency) the life-breath of us all, until we are all suffocated.
DanD
> how can we know … if the vote-counting ever got hijacked?
Open source software. True transparency is more feasible today than it has ever been. I sincerely doubt it will happen, but the means are most assuredly within our reach.
> demon-seed, global banking cartel of Zion …
Lions and Tigers and Jews and Reptilians and things that go bump in the night, Oh My!
CH … Zionism is an economic political movement dominated at the top by a Jewish bankster-class. On the flip side, there are many times more Christianite-Zionist in the world than there are Jewish-Zionists. Christianite-Zionists are the useful idiots of the Zionist cult.
Name the top 5 richest shareholders of bank stocks in the world … which ones are not Jewish?
DanD
Google “Forbes billionaire list” and how many Jews show up? Here is a list of the 25 most evil serial killers of the 20th century – how many Jews show up? Pull out a history book and figure out who started the biggest wars of the 20th century – how many Jews show up?
You do realize that tinfoil hats have to be made out of tin right? Aluminum foil doesn’t cut it.
«I personally think we should drop the whole lot of you into a big jar and watch you fight.» I fear that would have to be one hell of a big jar, CrazyH….
Henri
CrazyH you moron, the very first serial killer on that site! You really ARE Crazy!
Also you must not be familiar with the catalysts for the creation of ‘the final solution,’ the Bolshevik revolts led by the likes of Béla Kohn and Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Nor familiar with Stephen Wise, who blockaded all attempts by American Jews to assist the Europeans. Sounds like you should get above a 4th grade social studies book, buddy. And I’ll leave off with two other names of import, Jan Pieterszoon Coen and Leon Brittan. While the first is from he 16th century, he did come to define what we know as “modern total war” in the name of profit and trade, though it was yet to have a name at the time.
@Kyurene – I’d respond in kind except I cannot for the life of me figure out WTF you’re trying to say. Slow down, take a deep breath, and try again.
@ CrazyH –
I concur.
For some stupid reason, I received more than a half-dozen notices in my email today with regard to posts dating back to August 24th, many (or most) of which were from “Kyurene” and those were almost impossible to comprehend.
It would be beneficial for this contributor to communicate so that others might understand.
😀
With all the hype about North Korea, Russia, and stuxnet making computers insecure; and knowing how easily hacked these election computers were years ago, should anyone blindly trust that even a bought election will turn out as planned? Can even an American crook believe his fix will give the fixed results his fix should guarantee?
Let the machines talk to machines and let natural persons talk to natural persons.
Time to go back to the paper ballots that any person of average intelligence can read and to stop trusting proprietary coded machines that leave election result announcements to a connected few that must be trusted to deliver true counts.
: chuckle :
“An honest politician is one who stays bought”
Paper ballots can be trusted — if the ballot boxes get delivered to those who are entrusted to do the counting.
When Sheriff Marlin Hawkins of Conway County in Arkansas departed this world, multiple ballot boxes were discovered in his attic, delivered to him from districts unfriendly to him by friends who wanted him to win re-election (over and over again).
Okay CH, lets go in a slightly different direction …
How many Jews worked for the La Cosa Nostra? Maybe slightly less than those who worked for Murder Inc. And how many Jews populate the top spots at any Mainstream Media conglomerate? DuckDuckGo Jews admit that Jews dominate banking.
Have you ever read an English translation of the Talmud? Now there’s an instruction book on how to religiously express racism as a g-d-approved, Special-Chosen blessing. Of course, no Goyim need apply.
Just use your favorite search-engine and input JEWISH RACISM. Hell, just read the Torah … after scanning through that collection of fables, you’d think that Jews INVENTED racism.
DanD
Judaism is somewhere around 3,000 years old. Humanity is approximately 200,000 years old. Given these indisputable facts, it seems a safe bet that someone thought up racism long before Jews appeared on the scene.
However, that’s not the point. Racism is A Bad Thing. The only way we can end it is to stop practicing it. (And by “we” I mean you.)
CH ~
Are you claiming that I’m being “racist” at the whole global Jewish population? I am dominately of Caucasian descent . 98% of the global Jewish elite are of Caucasian descent. I criticize the global Jewish elite for conducting itself like a racist KKKlan.
Where is the racism in that?
DanD
Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to falsely accuse you of racism.
How about antisemitism? Bigotry? Prejudice? Animosity? Bias? Discrimination? Preconception? Xenophobia? Just let me know which you’re happy with and I will do my best to accommodate you.
The fact is that you are biased against anyone and everyone who is different than you. Call it what you like. I call it disgusting.
I’ll call it “having our eyes open.”
“There are none so blind as those who see what they’ve been told to see.”
CH,
Bigotry? Prejudice? Animosity? Bias? Discrimination? Preconception? Xenophobia?
Those are all the hallmarks of an AIPAC convention. Anti-Semitism? You haven’t noticed yet that the most virulent and violent anti-Semites on Earth are operating straight out of Zionland/Israel? Israel first has a 5th Column agent fire off a few oversized bottle rockets at some empty settler-occupied fields, and then sends a flight of F-16s out to obliterate some nearby village of Christian and Arab Semites. Consequently, their coveted farm land is open game for Zionist theft … mission accomplished.
Do you also understand that the most virulent, head-of-the-class anti-Zionist ARE Jews? Go ahead, put it in your search engine, ANTI-ZIONIST JEWS.
Without the Koolaide CH, you really do need to educate yourself for a change.
DanD
Yes, Dan, I am aware of the etymology of “Semite” just as you are aware of common usage of “Anti-Semite” – you’re just playing word games. We can substitute “Jew Hater” as if that makes it any better.
I’m also aware that AIPAC calls anyone who disagrees with Israel’s policies “antisemitic” as well. Their arguments are just as specious as yours.
Why should it matter if Israel kills Palestinians out of religious bigotry? You wholeheartedly support bigotry of many sorts. Some Jews hate Muslims, some Muslims hate Jews. Both groups are comprised of bigots, and both groups start wars that kill innocents.
It really doesn’t matter who you hate, you can always find someone to hate you back. Those of us who don’t automatically hate anyone different than ourselves are getting tired of being caught in the middle. I personally think we should drop the whole lot of you into a big jar and watch you fight.
CH ~
So, you’re the lord arbitrating inquisitor who can read all people’s minds and determine exactly what they hate? What a fraud.
Tell me CH, what do you hate? Is criticism, even severe criticism, the equivalent of “hate?” Tell me more CH, do you hate evil? So, you do understand the word games that Zionist-creed minions employ … these are the same games that the minions of Hitler, and Stalin, and Franco, and the Bush Crime Family, and the Clinton Crime Family, and ALL despot crime families use … and yet you find some more tolerable than others. What crime family do you love, CH?
You apparently proclaim that “hate” is a bad thing. But that’s not really true, hate is no more of an evil crime than is “love.” Both are just tools of the mind … like any weapon, it’s how you use the tool.
DanD
> what do you hate?
Bigotry. War. Greed. Hatred. Oppression. Did I mention bigotry?
When someone’s every post is dripping with hatred, every description of a group is negative, when they place so much emphasis on those characteristics which divide humans, and when they go on & on & on about it it’s pretty obvious. No telepathy needed.
Now look back on my list above. Notice something? It’s about actions & attitudes – not race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or any other irrelevant characteristic. If you help others, you’re a good person; if you hurt others unnecessarily you’re a bad person.
Okay CH,
I criticize the ethnically-based war-crook bigots of all creeds and races, but when I also include and illustrate the evil white-trash element of Zion, you get all teary-eyed and claim that I’m being bigoted against them, AND then throw in that I’m also being prejudiced against everybody else to boot just to hide your own Ashkenazi-centric, passively-aggressive bigotry.
Go ahead, quote to me some of the all-inclusive bigoted statements that I’ve made. But please, don’t cherry-pick and edit.
DanD
What’s the point, Dan? Anyone who wants to know, knows that there is an extensive, powerful group of Pharisees/Rabbinists who believe the world belongs to them and that “others” are their subhuman servants. Pointing out that they openly identify racially is not a reflection upon us. That’s what they DO. They are not Jewish, Semitic, or Hebrew. They follow the Talmud, which says all sorts of *unflattering* things about us wretched subhuman Gentiles.
Yeah. I hate oppressors. Therefore, I hate elite “Jews” and their collaborators.
Bigotry? Seriously? You’re telling me you don’t understand the difference between practicing racism and fighting racism? Oh, it’s so hard to be a straight, white, male, Christian in today’s world. boo hoo hoo.
Hey, didja see the articles about the governor of Maine? He doesn’t think he’s a racist either. He keeps a picture book of alleged criminals of color, and he doesn’t think he’s a racist. Isn’t that stupid? I think that’s stupid. I’m guessing you don’t see what the problem is, right?
That’s stupid.
> Anyone who wants to know, knows that there is an extensive, powerful group of …
Jews
Texans
Swiss
Martians
Germans
Japanese
Chinese
Commies
Socialists
Terrorists
Hippies
Anarchists
Lizard People
Illuminati
Masons
Hydra
The Foot Clan
Cult of the Yellow Sign
Flying Monkeys
Sharks with lasers on their heads
It’s not the objects of your paranoid delusions that matter. It’s the delusions themselves that matter.
Jack, would more lean towards calling it a Self-Preservation Mechanism.
As with your nerves telling you when you are standing upon hot coals, it would be wise to listen to it!
Jack & Dan –
Read this
Then go look in a mirror.
The MSM pretty much all agree that anyone running against St Hillary is an unpatriotic scoundrel, since she is the ONLY qualified candidate for President, obviously the best qualified candidate since George (Wash or Han). And she’s got just about all the votes of everyone who is not an angry white male.
So Secretary Redbeard looks sure to win, and her words and her actions are fairly convincing proof that she’ll liberate Syria and Russia from their evil dictators as soon as she takes office, sending in peacekeeping forces (thanks, CrazyH, for pointing out that the US has never been in any war since ’45 as far as native speakers of English are concerned) that will transform both from impecunious dictatorships into peaceful and prosperous democracies, just as her actions helped transform Iraq and Libya.
And Trump says he’s a strict isolationist (sometimes), meaning he’d bring back the troops and close the bases, which means he really wants to start a nuclear war (as those promises are interpreted by our always truthful MSM).
So everyone who wants peace MUST vote for Secretary Redbeard!
Because, after she sends that peacekeeping force to liberate Russia, I’m absolutely certain the world will be very, very peaceful.
(Best guess: St Redbeard will get about 48% of the vote and more than 300 Electors, while Trump will get about 42% of the vote and 200 Electors, and Johnson will get about 7% and no Electors.)
Making concrete predictions is dangerous, Michael, -that’s why «The End is Nigh» beats «The world is coming to an end of 8 November 2016» (or, for that matter, 20 January 2017), but since you’re willing to go out on a limb, how would you update this graph ?…
Henri
@ mhenriday – I would venture to update your graph if I knew what the hell it represented and if I could read the data.
😀
My guess is voter turnout will decline to the level of Bill Clinton’s first election.
Fear and hopelessness sucks motivational emotional energy from voters. The election will be of more interest to the small number of insiders who have real prospects of gains and losses, versus the numerous outsiders who will lose no matter who wins—if the win goes as it usually does to the duopoly.
This guess assumes that vast numbers of votes of the underprivileged, and those for third parties will continue to be uncounted.
Trying to calculate voter turnout is harder than I thought. One graph shows increases from the nadir of 1996, with increased turnout in every presidential election until ’08, then a small decline in ’12. But the graph ends in ’08, and numbers for ’12 are still being ‘revised.’
The only solid figure I saw was that Romney won more than 60% of the WASP vote and still lost. I never heard numbers like that one before the analysis of the ’12 election came in (back in ’15). Measuring turnout by race is tricky, because of laws designed to prevent that kind of thing.
Also, votes only matter in swing states.
So the questions are, what will happen in the swing states, i.e., Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Georgia, all of which are now leaning D, except for Georgia.
So it is very hard for me to see any way Hillary can lose the election (other than a major health problem or a bad accident).
When she demands that Putin turn Syria over to the Saudis, and the Crimea over to NATO, will Putin back down? The US MSM will say that any war is 110% Putin’s fault, President Clinton is just trying to keep the peace. And, as CrazyH already pointed out, it will NOT be a nuclear war on the part of President Clinton, but a nuclear peacekeeping mission. In plain English (but not British or Antipodean), it’s NOT a war unless both houses of Congress vote to call it a war, and they haven’t done that since ’45.
Entertaining stuff Michael, but I would say that “isolationist” is a derogatory label that no one uses for himself. I haven’t been paying much attention to the race, so if Trump has characterized himself with that word, then that was his mistake.
Jack,
I haven’t heard Trump refer to his policies as ‘isolationist’, but the term applies: he wants to reduce international trade, reduce immigration, and reduce military actions. This means America will produce only for Americans and consume only American products, and America will not send its military outside America.
If that’s not isolationism, I don’t know what is.
Almost everything Trump stands for is terrible. But he is promising that he will NOT start a nuclear war with Russia. And nor will St Hillary start a nuclear war. It will be a strictly humanitarian holocaust (thanks, CrazyH and falco)!.
The term. Proponents are non-interventionists. Isolationist is an attack word.
Here’s a link to a map-based summary of voter polls and electoral vote tallies derived from them. Note separate page for senate races.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
The logical expectation for HRC’s foreign policy is “humanitarian holocaust.”
«The logical expectation for HRC’s foreign policy is “humanitarian holocaust.”» «[H]umanitarian holocaust »is good, falco, right up there with «war on terrorism» and «R2P» («right to protect» (my bagmen’s interests). Language is always growing and evolving, but alas we use it to say teh same old bullshit….
Henri
For years I thought I hated movies, that the blatant emotional manipulation that seemed inherent to that media required too much of me to filter and still leave watching enjoyable.
Then I saw a few Werner Herzog movies.
And then learned to love Klaus Kinski too, watching his Jesus Christus Erlöser a couple of times without understanding a word of it before I found a version with subtitles.
I’m happy to see Herzog’s name on the cartoon’s box office marquee.
Yes, but in the other two cases, you actually HAVE something. The movie wasn’t a blockbuster, but you watched the movie. This is more like betting that the indie film will be a blockbuster, and only getting to see it if you’re right.
You need a majority of the electoral college to win the Presidency. Not a plurality. That being the case, there will always be two major candidates. Groups will form coalitions with other groups in order to make a large enough group to get a majority. If you are not willing to form alliances with people who sometimes disagree with you, you will never, never, never win, and never be able to actually effect much change at all.
“XYZ can’t win” is the ultimate in democracy***-destroying, self-fulfilling prophecy.
*** For Jack, please substitute, “republic-rupturing”
I had a legitimate, hearty laugh over that.