fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3496 ]

[ SECRET POST #3496 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3496 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Wish I could help you, but Trump's antics have convinced me that the GOP is beyond saving, and I am in the process of leaving the party.

Though yeah, fandom tends to be more left-leaning. I've read some stats saying that conservatives tend to prefer reality TV to scripted TV, so there might be a self-selecting bias (though I guess reality shows have their own fandoms). Don't know how legitimate this is, however.

If you don't mind my asking, why did you join? What were they doing before to make you stick with them?

You're not the only republican I see abandoning the party.

I was raised by socially liberal Republicans, so that had a pretty big impact on my beliefs. I actually got more conservative in college, but became a bit more liberal once I entered the working world. Nowadays, I'd consider myself moderate right-of-center. I voted for Bush in '04, Obama in '08, and Romney in '12. I will not vote for Trump, as I think he is an evil person.

I don't see much of my beliefs in Trump's platform (I see many which are the opposite). But Trump's popularity has forced me to acknowledge that the GOP's been courting some very corrupt beliefs for a while, and that this is the end result.

DA

If Romney had been in the running this year, he'd probably have had a good chance of winning.

Ehh, maybe. I think Romney would be too associated with previous failures. He's ultimately not the sort of person who has a lot of appeal right now; working with finance would count as a strike against him.

Unfortunately, the lesson a lot of Republicans took away from the 2012 election was that they needed to double-down on their beliefs. That if they'd had someone more hardcore as their candidate, they would have won.

Trump only partly fits the bill. The GOP has traditionally been the more free trade-oriented party, and Trump completely abandons that. He does, however, appeal to the nativist elements (along with some social conservatives, though he's wobbly on those issues—still people go for him).

I actually don't think Trump believes much of what he says, but it'd still be hideously foolish to elect someone that narcissistic to the Oval Office. Plus, he's a populist, so he'll keep doing whatever he can to keep the crowds happy. I can see him telling supporters to vote hostile or resistant GOP congresspeople out of office, and to vote in more Trump-friendly types. This could make things much worse.

Thus, even though I don't really trust Clinton, I find her the safer option. The fact that she isn't actively courting racists and sexists makes her the only sane choice. I'm not white, and I don't like the kind of rhetoric I'm hearing from Trump.

I actually don't think Trump believes much of what he says, but it'd still be hideously foolish to elect someone that narcissistic to the Oval Office.

Yep. Even if he doesn't personally give a shit whether or not same-sex couples marry, his vice presidential candidate sure as hell does. And people around him who are more concrete in their conservative beliefs would also do their part to try and push their policies out there. Having a Republican president would embolden them.

I think a whole lot of people are leaving both big parties this year.

Huh. You know, maybe this will be a push for people to consider third parties in four years.
Also, local elections. Not enough people pay attention to local elections.

American presidential politics is fundamentally not set up to have third parties work. It would be more likely that we'd have a dissolution of the present party system followed by it reforming in 4 or 8 or 12 years in a new alignment that still featured 2 major parties.

I don't think the Dems are going to dissolve. The GOP is in the process of tearing itself apart, something that's been in the works since the Tea Party movement first appeared. The Dems have no equivalent reactionary insurgency, certainly not one that's had 7 years to build up and whip up a populist frenzy. Like Bernie himself, most Bernouts are not loyal Democrats; at best, they historically voted Democrat because they're not Republicans.

nayrt but definitely not going to happen. The American election system cannot sustain anything but a two-party system. Melodrama of this election aside, most people are going to vote party lines, same as always, and no, the masses aren't ripping up their party memberships, either.

Maybe if the US had a Parliamentary system instead...

I would argue that FPTP is a bigger issue than presidential/parliamentary system. You could easily have third parties as a real thing if you implemented some kind of ranked choice voting system (you could even hammer it into place with the electoral college if you wanted to).

The problem is first-past-the-post, not how our government is actually structured.

Yes. I'm so tired of hearing people go on about voting third party for the president but not do anything to support third parties in local elections or even in Congress. You can't just stick a third party president in the White House and surround them with nothing but Republicans and Democrats and expect them to be able to accomplish everything you want them to accomplish.

Exactly. Even if by some completely unexpected miracle a third party candidate got enough votes to win the election this year, they'd still have their hands tied when it comes to trying to make their platform a reality, because Congress is such a ridiculous stalemate nowadays. So the candidate's supporters would wind up just as disappointed with the outcomes as they would if Clinton or Trump were in office.

I would love to see more variety in candidates, too, certainly, and maybe someday we'll eventually get to that point. I do sympathize with the idea of people feeling frustrated that a candidate doesn't fully speak for them*. And I obviously can't control how people choose to vote. But third party supporters' decision to go that route this year seems a very simplistic solution to a bigger problem, and I feel a lot of them don't seem to think about that fact.

*That said, I also feel some voters think they have to be 200% in agreement with a politician in order to support them, and they forget that that doesn't always have to be the case, nor will it always be the case. Not all Republicans/conservatives think the same way on certain issues, nor do all Democrats/liberals. And sometimes people from one side will agree with people on the other on certain issues.

It's like some people can't comprehend the concept of nuance and balance, and figure it has to be all or nothing.

SA

Bah. 100%, that should say, not 200% :p. Wow.

I feel stuck in a place where I don't agree 100% with either candidate and I'd be happy to vote for the candidate who I agree with more, but both of them either make shit up or lie so much or flip flop on everything that I have no idea what either of them will bring in reality.

TPP > anti TPP > back to pro TPP again. What am I voting for??

I think that may hearken back to the split in approval ratings for national bodies vs local bodies. Congress has an abysmal approval rating collectively, but almost all of them get re-elected individually. My Congresscritter is great, but yours sucks. My local (D)/(R) is great, but the rest of them suck.

People want other options at the top federal levels but don't take steps that way locally because they're happy enough with what's happening locally. (Over-simplifying - voter apathy, media coverage discrepancies also are huge factors.)

This!

You also can't have someone jump from "no political experience" to "highest office in the land." Jill Stein seems like good people, but the only position she's ever actually held is "town meeting representative for Lexington" -- and that was five years ago. At least Gary Johnson was a state governor -- but as a Republican, because Libertarians haven't worked up that far in their own right.

(obligatory note that this is also one of many reasons Trump would crash and burn if we were obtuse enough to elect him)

Slightly OT, but I'd like to argue the statement that Jill Stein is good people: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2016/07/29/theres-nothing-green-about-jill-steins-vaccine-stance/#3b8ceb0e6465 I'm on immunosuppressants, so this is personal for me.

So she's used language that panders to antivaxxers, and that's not good. But she's also flat-out said "As a medical doctor, of course I support vaccines." And other unequivocal statements about how they're good and important. (Which they obviously are.)

I'm not saying not to criticize her at all, I just think, on balance, that still puts her on the light side of the force.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2016-07-30 23:17 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

dethtoll - 2016-07-31 00:58 (UTC) - Expand

Jill Stein is a piece of work. As someone who has extensively been working in healthcare for many years, I have zero respect for her. They should recall her medical license.

It's not like the two major third party candidates are even viable this year. Libertarian party hahahahahaha no. Green Party is a bunch of patchouli-huffing pricks in hemp who reject anything approaching a high-school level of science and seem to be physically incapable of having a real dialogue about meaningful environmental solutions in favor of screaming their heads off about vaccines and GMOs, and their chosen candidate is a Russia- and Brexit-loving moron who called autism a "public health calamity" and "epidemic" and rambles like a subway vagrant when asked simple questions that should be trivial for a physician like her to answer. She isn't even on the ballot in all 50 states.

Even ignoring first-past-the-post it's clear that third party is a waste of time this year.

That might be the case, but it would be disastrous since there are still more people who blindly and stubbornly support anything republican or democratic. Having the stragglers not vote or vote for another party would just mean more scattered voting but still it's either Trump or Hilary's game.

Basically you gotta decide the lesser of two evils and vote for them so the other one doesn't win. 3rd parties don't stand a snowballs chance in hell.

The problem is that you can't jump straight to third parties at the federal level and expect to get anywhere. If the goal is to have third parties be taken seriously as a viable alternative to the big two, they've got to get the support at the local and state level first. I agree with you that not enough people pay attention to local elections, but I would include third parties in the group of people not paying attention.

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