A vote for someone who polls say cannot win a campaign, duopolists say, is a wasted vote. But how does one assess likelihood of victory with perfect precision?
Vote for a Winner
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is 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 "2024: Revisited."
19 Comments. Leave new
Trump damaged his own voting base by mocking masks, and Harris is making it easy by not grabbing onto abortion, student loan debt, etc., as wedges against Trump. So apoliticals/”low information voters” jump onto the Trump train not knowing that he will make it worse.
The Clintonoids need to be booted from the Democratic party. They are stuck in the past, they don’t win elections anymore, some of them were friends with Trump when he was a NYC business Democrat. We desperately need a labor party.
Here’s my take on the subtext to Ted’s satire: An election is not a horse race, and a vote is not a bet. Voting is declaring our preference for the leadership/direction of the country.
Strelnikov, the Clintinoids ARE the Democratic Party. As somebody who has been deeply involved with The Green Party for nearly 25 years, I have discovered that the Dems and Repubs are united in doing everything they can to prevent other choices from arising and being viable. In my opinion, that won’t change until this country goes down hard and something new arises from the ashes.
The problem with the strip is that it starts from a defective initial premise: “A vote for someone who polls say cannot win a campaign, duopolists say, is a wasted vote.” The duopolists don’t start from the correct initial premise: “A national-level election that offers only two candidates is a wasted election.” The purpose of this process, therefore, is not to advance the “will of the people.” Any system where “nonvoters” comprise the largest voting bloc of all political parties is, on its face, defective and nonrepresentational.
I look forward to the results. And what results from those results. Harris, should she win, will probably order Biden to step down immediately. But even if she waits, she’s going to be walking into a narrow hallway filled with Ginsu knives. Her party won’t control the Senate, probably won’t control the House. Trump, on the other hand, quite possibly will have full control: both the House and Senate, and a very pro-him Supreme Court, with two justices who want to retire under a Republican president, giving Trump the distinction of appointing five justices. Maybe six if one of the others kill themselves in despair.
I’d stock up on alcohol. I think either way, we’re all gonna want to be able to be slightly blitzed all the way through the next four years.
We’ll see if your prediction is accurate soon enough. Personally, I prefer the Cheech and Chong solution to such difficulties.
“In my opinion, that won’t change until this country goes down hard and something new arises from the ashes.”
Hear, hear!
Actually, the blows have already been coming harder and harder, and will NOT stop any time soon. So there is reasonable hope that the ‘cure’ is going to destroy the patient for good.
Give it an extra boost by voting Trump!
Regardless, hard choices are going to be forced on us, like it or not.
Brother Martin, what’s the Green Party’s position on the issue? What (if any) has been recommended as mitigation?
PSA: I suggest reading “World Without End: An Illustrated Guide to the Climate Crisis”, available on Amazon or elsewhere, and lending to Rall, so he might be able to have an educated opinion on the topic. He really needs it.
No way am I going to vote for Darn Old Turnip. The Green Party has a well-thought-out platform on the GP website. That should answer most of your questions. “World Without End” looks interesting. Thanks for the suggestion, though I don’t appreciate you trash-talking Mr. Rall like that.
@Brother Martin
Just to let you know that my original answer was blocked.
Censorship for allegedly trashing the Guru?
Enjoy “World Without End”.
Sorry to hear that. Wondering what could have provoked it. There’s one frequent commenter here who trashes Ted regularly, and stupidly, so your story is a bit of a surprise.
I don’t consider criticizing (a.k.a. trashing) as an offense to the mind. Doing it stupidly certainly is.
FYI I don’t block them. It’s a WordPress site and if you’re on the whitelist it should just go through. (You are.) Alex’s stuff often gets blocked but not by me. If you have a problem just email me and I’ll repost it. It’s a mystery to me that I’m at a loss to fix. All I can say is, there are no dark forces at work here.
List of comments classified by order of appearance, which should normally be strictly chronological:
Post by Ted Rall November 2, 2024 Vote for a Winner
brother martin November 2, 2024 1:36 PM
alex_the_tired November 2, 2024 7:19 PM
brother martin November 2, 2024 10:07 PM
SomeoneElse November 2, 2024 7:27 PM (!!!)
brother martin November 3, 2024 10:55 PM
(***)
(???)
SomeoneElse November 4, 2024 9:09 AM (!!!)
brother martin November 4, 2024 11:46 AM
SomeoneElse November 4, 2024 12:45 PM
Ted Rall November 4, 2024 3:39 PM
SomeoneElse November 4, 2024 11:13 AM (!!!)
(!!!) Discrepancies due to unknown (but rather opportune 😉 bright) forces…
(***) New post by Ted Rall November 4, 2024 Better Than Me
(???) 1st comment by rossevrymn November 4, 2024 4:18 AM
That one went through, but it’s far from being the same….
Nice trick, Mr. Rall
@Brother Martin
The glitch was due to a limit on comments’ length: So here is my original answer (in two installments):
“No way am I going to vote for Darn Old Turnip”
I was just joking. Voting for either one of two clowns won’t make a difference.
The shock treatment you are ‘hoping’ for is coming, and the question is how long the burning will go on before recovery (if any) will be possible. With no guarantee (surviving?) Greens will enjoy it, but you and I will be long gone anyway.
“The Green Party has a well-thought-out platform on the GP website”
Indeed, a rather impressive exercise, unfortunately totally disconnected from the present reality: Not a word about controlled de-growth, which is now the only mitigation available.
However, thank you for pointing out where Mr. Rall gets his ‘inspiration’ for his columns from. A blasphemer like me will say no more…
To be continued…
I am under no illusions that what is about to happen to this country, and the world, will be controllable by anybody. It’s not going to fit the traditional definition of “fun,” that’s for sure, but I’m a great believer in the idea that the main thing we can control is our attitude, and if one has the strength of character to maintain a good attitude in the face of extreme adversity, it can at least be one hell of an adventure, if not quite “fun.”
I’m on the far left of the GP–are you familiar with the “political compass” website/questionnaire?–so yeah, the GP is not what it would be if I ran the show, but it’s as good as it’s gonna get, until it gets better. I think “controlled degrowth” is kind of implied in our version of The Green New Deal, but if I had my druthers it would be much more out front.
… Continued
@Brother Martin
“I don’t appreciate you trash-talking Mr. Rall like that”
Let me correct that: It should rather read as “Mr Rall is talking trash when writing about climate change”. Quoting from USA Today might be the issue there.
““World Without End” is interesting”
Indeed, very much, as in ‘living in interesting times’. I hope you’ll read (and re-read) it to the end, and that you’ll realize the predicament we are all now in, and how irresponsible it is to muddle with the issue, because the mandatory first step is to understand the problem.
So we may exchange further…
BTW, I consider myself to be a green anarchist.
And yes, Eliza Gilkyson is right. Peace, bro.
I’ve been aware that radical climate change was coming, faster than we thought, since the late eighties. We are caught in a spider web of our own construction–“Koyanisqaatsi,” I think the Hopis call it. I’m a bit of a “green anarchist” myself, one who thinks “government” ought to be the peoples’ tool for undertaking community/bioregional projects, not something that rich people use to make themselves richer and order the rest of us around.
And I don’t know how you sussed out my great affection for the music of Eliza Gilkyson, but yeah, I’m a devotee.
“I am under no illusions that what is about to happen to this country, and the world, will be controllable by anybody.”
Certainly not. But we can explore possible mitigation.
“it can at least be one hell of an adventure”
And most likely one’s last chance at it.
“government are something that rich people use to make themselves richer and order the rest of us around.”
Alexis de Tocqueville warned you about such democracy shift in the 2nd volume (1840) of “Democracy in America”.
To me, anarchy and government are antinomical. But creating community/regional entities could make us more resilient to what’s coming. Remember the “Small is Beautiful” movement?
“Eliza Gilkyson”
She’s referenced on your website; I wasn’t talking about her music but only about the ‘Unsustainable’ lyrics.
Mitigation is possible, but increasingly less likely absent some kind of species-wide “aha moment” about degrowth…and there simply is no compassionate way to reduce our population far enough, fast enough. I’m 76 years old. I am not going to survive very far into, let alone through, the evolutionary bottleneck we are hurling ourselves into. Maybe we won’t make it through at all. Too much testosterone for our own good.
Apart from the fact that government has been taken over by private industry, I’ll trust the government being here to help more than I’ll trust corporations being here to help. Individuals? Small groups of people who know each other pretty well? Best bets.
Yeah, “Unsustainable” is one of my faves.
“If I had my druthers it [controlled de-growth] would be much more out front”
Green growth (a.k.a. de-coupling) is physically impossible, due to the second law of Thermodynamics.
There is a element that’s essential to the issue, but hardly ever mentioned or truly understood: Energy.
Energy is the notion that characterizes a change of state in a system. For example, to implement the GP program would require energy (and quite a lot in that case).
Everything human societies provide is done by using energy. In other words, everything that’s available (i.e products and services) is linked to energy. Unfortunately, a)the main (and by large) energy type we are addicted to are fossil fuels, b)the same are killing the planet by warming it, and c)since they are not renewable we are running out of them.
So, like it or not, we’ll have to do with less and less, therefore losing all associated benefits. Hard choices will have to be made…
You’ll find more detailed explanations in “A World Without End”.
As a Parthian shot: Don’t worry, the government is here to help. 🙂