2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAn Examination of Conscience
If you are planning to not vote Democratic because you have to vote your conscience, you might consider what having a conscience actually means.
Where is your conscience when you vote for a third party candidate, knowing that you are literally throwing your vote away? If you have a functioning brain, you know that Jill Stein is never going to get enough votes to be anything more than an also ran footnote. Exactly what do you hope to achieve by voting for someone who has zero chance of winning - knowing that same vote could have helped keep Donald Trump OUT of office?
Where is your conscience when you hope that a Democrat loses to a Republican, because it will send a message to the Democratic Party? The only person you are sending a message to is yourself. No one else will ever know who you voted for other than your fellow posters on a political website full of people (who probably never vote anyway) who will high-five you for being as dumb as they are.
Where is your conscience when you decide that your fellow citizens should be taught a lesson by allowing the devastation that a Donald Trump presidency would unleash?
Where is your conscience when you claim that the GOPs position on abortion, womens rights, gay/lesbian rights, and the welfare of the poor, the sick, and the homeless are exactly the same as the Democratic Partys position on those same issues? That's what saying "both parties are the same" means. Have you thought that through? More to the point, do you think at all?
Where is your conscience when you would rather see Donald Trump in the WH than Hillary Clinton because your candidate-of-choice wasnt the nominee?
Where is your conscience when you would prefer to see Trump and his party destroy every progressive victory from the right of a woman to choose to the right of same-sex couples to marry rather than admit that both parties are NOT the same?
Where is your conscience when you preach that a Trump administration which would seek to shut down every program the Democrats have fought for, from food stamps to affordable healthcare is no big deal, or that the ensuing devastation to those reliant on such programs in order to survive are not worthy of your consideration because they're not seeing the "big picture"?
Where is your conscience when you promote the idea that a bigoted, know-nothing idiot one who wants to nuke his perceived enemies abroad, while deporting his perceived enemies at home is preferable to seeing a woman you personally dont like sitting in the Oval Office?
Where is your conscience when you totally dismiss the well-being of your country and your fellow citizens because your personal (alleged) conscience is far more important?
The truth is that if you are encouraging your fellow citizens to see Hillary Clinton as not worthy of their vote, a vote which would keep Trump OUT of the office of POTUS, you have no conscience. You are just another self-centered idiot who thinks they are going to change the world by trying to convince their fellow idiots that "voting ones conscience", as opposed to voting for the better candidate, means something noble and productive when what it really means is accomplishing nothing, and having no conscience at all.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,791 posts)madaboutharry
(40,245 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)Rocknrule
(5,697 posts)Also, amen brother/sister and K&R
radical noodle
(8,017 posts)The petulance of some people astounds me.
SunSeeker
(51,796 posts)Response to NanceGreggs (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Richard D
(8,815 posts)Should be spread far and wide.
sheshe2
(84,057 posts)Where is your conscience when you claim that the GOPs position on abortion, womens rights, gay/lesbian rights, and the welfare of the poor, the sick, and the homeless are exactly the same as the Democratic Partys position on those same issues? That's what saying "both parties are the same" means. Have you thought that through? More to the point, do you think at all?
K&R
Still In Wisconsin
(4,450 posts)I fail to see what actual message these people are sending other than "I'm a big stupid idiot."
Look, I was and am a big supporter of Bernie Sanders. But Hillary won the primary and even if I didn't like her (and I have REALLY come to like her a LOT) how would voting for Jill Stein further Bernie's priorities and agenda one iota?
Some people's logic astounds me, and not in a good way.
nolabear
(42,002 posts)Upthevibe
(8,106 posts)DFW
(54,502 posts)And thank goodness!
There is more at stake here than pride, and since we have secret ballots in the USA, even if you parade around with a sandwich board saying "I voted for Jill Stein!" no one can possibly know if it's true or not (free hint--nor will they care).
In normal times, this shouldn't even be an issue. That Donald Trump is not qualified to be POTUS should be obvious to even the most embittered, bigoted, racist, ignorant Republican. But these are not normal times. Due to a confluence of unfortunate circumstances, the UK voted to leave the EU, and parties like the AfD in Germany and the Front National in France are racking up over 20% in national polls. It is an ugly fact of political life that in the USA, the Republican ticket is practically guaranteed a minimum of 40% of the vote, even if their ticket consists of George of the Jungle and Josef Mengele--a comparison to their current ticket that is frighteningly less far from reality than it ought to be.
I have read many posts and heard many interviews saying "I'm not voting FOR Clinton, I'm voting AGAINST Trump, and that's not where I want to be."
You know what? I don't have a problem with that. If you don't like Hillary, then you are confronted with a less than ideal choice if you have accepted that the next president will be one or the other (and it will). But it is VITAL that Trump NOT be our next president, and nearly as vital that we have a Democratic majority in the Senate starting January 2. We must start ASAP on securing a Supreme Court that will be a secure anchor for not only repealing Citizens United, but for re-instituting voting rights the current court took away (with severe penalties for proven deliberate denying of them), demolishing gerrymandering as a standard practice, and to cement other civil rights currently under long-term assault. If that means you are voting against Trump when you select HRC, so be it. It still means you are voting FOR all those "fellow Murkins" who stand to lose out big time if the next SCOTUS member is a clone of Scalia rather than of Sonya Sotomayor or RBG.
Put it this way--if you despise pea soup (as I do), and are given a choice of pea soup or cyanide, I'll unhesitatingly choose the pea soup. We have enough crazies in our country who would nonetheless take the cyanide, as long as it has an "R" in front of the label. No amount of pride or conscience could make me join them.
BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)It's great to have you in the Dems' corner!
brer cat
(24,646 posts)K&R
BumRushDaShow
(129,950 posts)MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Apparently some people who are "sending a message" haven't gotten the message yet.
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,773 posts)I live in a blue district, in a reliably blue state, so one could make the case that "my vote won't matter anyhow." My Dem rep and Dem Senator are pretty safe to return, and my state will be for Hillary, no problem.
So I could vote for a 3rd party with a "clear conscience."
But I won't. And I won't encourage that behavior either.