Your Guide to the Masturbatory Third Party or Protest Voter Delusions of 2016 [View all]

[Lithos]

A Smorgasbord of Logical Fallacies and Magical Thinking at the Worst Possible Election to be Fucking Around

1. “Clinton’s got this on lockdown, ergo I can do what I want”
Reality: First, You literally just admitted to relying on the votes of other, braver people doing the dirty work for you, so that you don’t have to. Do you comprehend the tragic beauty of this irony? Second, taken together, most of the polls ultimately signify the potential for a tight race. It is, quite simply, a dangerous show of overconfidence given how high the stakes are to adversely affect the immediate lives of women, brown and black people, gays and trans people, people in other countries, etc; every group that is not white American men. But even for those polls that may correctly show a clear path to a Clinton victory, the threats coming from Trump of not conceding the election, voter intimidation (that earned him and his campaign a restraining order), and his terrifyingly unpresidential ability to incite violence among his supporters; all amount to the increased importance of a legally indisputable, united landslide of a Democratic victory. A tight race may have been fine in 2008 or 2012 — before the GOP collectively lost their goddamn mind — but there are zero benefits of third party, protest, or write-in votes that are worth the risk of not only losing the election, but having newly emboldened, gun-toting Trump supporters full of nonfactual ammunition running around. To them, the race is “rigged” no matter the evidence stating otherwise. The potential of a close race makes the potential for a post-election war significantly worse. We are already going to need to face the reality of the existence of Trumpland one way or another. Having Trump himself lawfully humiliated by a woman is the best offense progressives have.

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