[ece]

Trump won because in MI, PA, and WI, Jill Stein received more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary.

3rd party candidates in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, and WI in 2016 were the spoilers for the whole nation. Don't be an idealistic, naive American voter, be a pragmatic voter!

Yes I know the electoral college is racist, and we need to abolish it.

[xtreme]

Why do you assume that all the third party voters would have voted for Hillary if there were no third party candidate? They could have abstained, or even voted for Trump. Many libertarian party supporters find the Republicans more tolerable than the Democrats.

In any case, shaming people because they voted for a candidate who they felt best represented their views goes against the very idea of representative democracy.

[ece]

I'm not shaming the fact that they voted, I'm shaming who they voted for. You aren't a responsible voter if you're not up to accepting responsibility for your vote. If you voted for Trump, hope he's making you happy. If you voted for Jill Stein or Ralph Nader in 2016 or 2000 in WI, MI, PA, or FL, you are very much responsible for Bush and Trump respectively in the electoral and government system we have since your candidate was a spoiler.

These 3rd party voters could have abstained or voted for another 3rd party or went Republican, but they didn't. They could have traded their vote to someone in a safe state (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...), if Hillary was their 2nd preference. If not, go ahead, vote for 3rd party candidate who could be a spoiler and has no chance of winning.

[yellowapple]

You aren't a responsible voter if you pretend that voting for a "lesser of two evils" over a candidate who actually represents your beliefs is ever anything better than a wasted vote.

[ece]

This is the very definition of idealism and being naive about how much your vote matters, when you should give a thought to your 2nd preference and be pragmatic if you are in a non-safe state for your 2nd preference. Do vote trading with someone in a safe state, and your candidate will still get the same percentage of nationwide votes, and your 2nd preference will win.

Again, I am not saying that don't vote for 3rd party candidates anywhere.

There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary, and if Voting for Hillary in a non-safe or safe state would have been a wasted vote, pity the 65 million who voted for her.

[yellowapple]

"This is the very definition of idealism and being naive about how much your vote matters,"

I was a California resident at the time. My vote was about as close to irrelevant as one can get; California's electoral votes haven't turned red since Reagan.

Even if I had moved to Nevada by then (that is: a few months before I actually did), I would have had zero regrets voting for Johnson. Neither Trump nor Clinton deserved my vote, simple as that.

"There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary"

There is plenty of equivalence between two corrupt and most-likely-actually-criminal sociopaths. There's also plenty of equivalence between two presidential campaigns that went out of the way to present a "if you're not with me, then you're against me" mentality and alienate every supporter of the other candidate.

Importantly, and more specifically, both candidates' campaigns utterly alienated me as a voter simply because I did not precisely align with their "one true policy" or whatever. Neither candidate gave me any reason to vote for them, and every reason to not vote for them.

"2nd preference"

I had no second preference. If I did have a second preference, it might as well have been Mickey Mouse.

"vote trading"

Oh yeah, and make my vote even more worthless than it already is.

(Of course, vote trading as a California resident would've been an upgrade no matter what, but now that I live in Nevada, it'd be entirely irrational to want to dilute the power of my individual vote any further than it already is).

[ece]

I am not sure how to help with your perceptions of campaigns and candidates, but their likely policies and cabinet appointments were there for anyone to see. Trump institutionalizing xenophobia is a degree of difference that is hard for me to see past.

[arca_vorago]

The electoral college has a purpose and plenty of thought went into it. Also, this narrative of spoiler candidates is bullshit.

https://youtu.be/BYqOxTzOdb4?t=85

[ece]

It's purpose was to have electors cast nationwide votes before mass transportation existed. In it's current form, it is completely a left over from a racist past.

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/15/the-electoral-college-born-o...

Also, if a democratic candidate is your 2nd preference, and you're in a non-safe state, and you don't trust vote trading, you should most likely not vote for a spoiler candidate, and vote for your 2nd preference democratic candidate. If a democrat isn't your 2nd preference, go ahead, do what you want.

The mechanics of the electoral college make this much pragmatism and tactical voting necessary for any American voter I'm afraid.

[yellowapple]

The electoral college has less to do with it than the fact that our electoral system is first-past-the-post.

[ece]

States handing out their electors according to vote would make the system non-racist.

[legacynl]

I think people should be free to vote whatever they feel like.

The voting is not the problem, the two party system, that effectively discounts any vote thats not R or D, is.

[ece]

People should be vote trading if they're in a non safe state. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...

No excuse to not do it until the electoral college is abolished.

[monocasa]

3rd parties get trotted out every time someone loses an election by a few percentage points. The facts are, that viewed against 2012, the right wing third party candidates gained more votes than the left wing. Ie. the demographics of the 3rd party votes helped Clinton more than they hurt her.

[ece]

By definition they helped Trump more in WI, MI and PA. Where MI, PA, and WI would have put Clinton over 270. Have there been any cases where Republicans would have won the presidency but 3rd parties were spoilers in a handful of states? I don't think so. Maybe in 1960.

Percentage increase is less relevant with Trump on the ballot, compared with the raw votes that swung the electoral college.

I am not saying don't vote for 3rd parties. I am saying if you're in a non-safe state for your 2nd preference, do vote trading with someone in a safe state or vote for your 2nd preference who has a better chance of winning. If you vote trade, your 3rd party candidate will still get the same percentage of votes nationwide, and your 2nd preference will actually win.

The combination of mass incarceration, the racist electoral college as it is, and the the demographics of the country make it seem likely that some pragmatic and tactical voting in non-safe states will go a long way for Democrats, at least that seems to be the lesson from the past two decades. Hacking the electoral college anyone?

[monocasa]

> By definition they helped Trump more in WI, MI and PA.

No, not by definition. There's all sorts of other reasons why Clinton could get fewer votes. Clinton has just been trying to blame every reason except those that blame her campaign.

The real question isn't "what could have cost her a fraction of a percentage point here and there?", but instead "why was such a razor edge to begin with?"

[ece]

Yes by definition, and I did define it as a presidential election flipping because of 3rd party voters in a handful of swing states.

You're ignoring that Trump on the ballot meant any Libertarian was going to get a bump. Any other republican, and their winning margin would've been bigger, or Hillary would've won and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

It shouldn't have been close, but the last few elections have been, with the popular vote winner losing the electoral college twice and Kerry coming within ~30 EVs. Do you have a solution for divided media, inequality, climate change, and citizens united, that is simpler than vote trading or making people realize voting for their 2nd preference might just be worth it to hack the electoral college? I'd love to hear it.

[monocasa]

> Yes by definition, and I did define it as a presidential election flipping because of 3rd party voters in a handful of swing states.

There's no data that this that case. You just keep stating it like it's a fact.

[ece]

Here are the results for MI, PA, and WI: https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/michigan https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/wisconsin https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/pennsylvania

In all three cases, the difference between Hillary and Trump was less than what the 3rd party candidates got and what Jill Stein alone got. Given what I've said before, and what happened in 2000 in FL, trying to convince people of actually voting for their 2nd preference (Hillary) or vote trading in such states makes almost as much sense as blaming the Clinton campaign itself (definitely deserves the most blame), Russia, and any number of other reasons why Hillary lost.

It's a part of the puzzle, again, given that this is the 2nd time this happened.

[ece]

Seriously, downvoted for pointing out legitimate fact and reference to pragmatism?

[arca_vorago]

Not legitimate fact.

[ece]

It mostly is if you lookup the definition of spoiler. Gary Johnson and Independent voters did also receive more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary in MI, PA, and WI.