[alarge]

I'm not sure I follow your logic. First off, he didn't say that Republicans are reprehensible. He said that voting for a Republican implies that you are voting for a lot of reprehensible stuff (by proxy through your Republican representative). Reprehensible doesn't mean "I don't agree with". Over the years I've had disagreements with both parties (and have voted for members of both parties). However, with the increased polarization in Congress, I don't think it is unfair to say that Republican behavior and the Republican platform has largely become reprehensible. That certainly doesn't mean all Republicans politicians have reprehensible views - just that they are too cowardly to vote against their party when they should be doing so.

The OP is suggesting that he wants to use his vote to encourage a Republican to do the right thing on a very narrow issue. The parent is effectively saying this focuses on a single tree instead of the entire forest. In a two-party system you are effectively voting for the entire platform and not for a single issue, so I have no idea why you consider his critique absolutist.

[dcow]

I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform. I'm defending the GP in this case arguing that I wish collectively we would focus more on single issues and less on broad sweeping platform stereotypes (e.g. reprehensible republican). I initially commented because I've put some thought into this recently. I even commented last week here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17028256

[croon]

> I understand exactly what the parent's point is. I'm just continuing the discussion. The implication (and the sibling comments agree) is that you shouldn't vote for a party if you don't agree with everything about the platform.

No, the implication was that you should maximize your agreement with one of the platforms available (two here). One issue voting most likely doesn't do that.

[Dylan16807]

You are again conflating disagreements with "reprehensible". I disagree with lots of politicians on lots of issues. I find very few of those positions to be actually reprehensible.

[dcow]

I think we actually agree. Or at least that's what I'm saying too. I didn't use reprehensible, the comment I was responding too did. My point is your point, just worded differently.

[Dylan16807]

The original comment said that there are some reprehensible policies.

You then treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "not perfectly aligned".

Your followup treated "reprehensible" as meaning the same thing as "don't agree with everything".

We might agree on some things, but we clearly do not agree about what jacquesm was saying, because I think the original comment was fine.

[dcow]

Well I am extrapolating based on the way the argument was presented, yes. I don't disagree with the essence of what jacquesm said. I think that's what's not clear. I am quibbling with the idea that we should call the republican platform reprehensible in an academic discussion about single issue voting in the US. Why? Because reprehensible carries an implication of blame and it has clearly distracted from the argument and caused at least me to extrapolate from jacquesm's comment in a way that may not have been intended.

I understand that some people will choose to minimize negatives while some will choose to advocate for positives when stepping up to the poll. We all agree on this idea and this has nothing to do with whether one person diesagrees with or isn't fully aligned with a platform. (This is where I'm losing your argument which seems to be harping on this idea.)

My meta commentary is that viewing the other side's policies (_some_) as reprehensible distracts from the politics and pushes people towards the minimizing negatives game because it inflates the impact of negatives because of the association of blame that comes with a term like reprehensible. "If you are republican and vote for their reprehensible platform then you are to blame." Now it's not just about disagreement, it's about social justice. And for that reason I prefer, of late, when people focus on advocating for positive change rather than voting against negative change. That is where the semantics do come in.

A response to this point would involve asserting that their policies are indeed reprehensible and we should treat the entire platform in such a way.