The app for independent voices

Please. This is chess, not checkers. And you're asking the wrong question.

The more relevant question is "of these two candidates, whose ill-conceived policies would be easier to effectively oppose, once inaugurated President?" Real world, real time.

And don't even fall for the fallacy of two-valued logic that a vote for a presidential candidate signifies that the voter has pledged their troth to them forevermore (or whatever the numbskull take is on that, I've heard it so many times...) The Democratic Party has made a lot of ambitious proposals in the course of this campaign. If the Democrats win the Presidency and the Senate (required), there's enough free-floating discontent in this country that the people who voted for them will notice any sign of wavering or dissembling on their part. And if the Dems do pull the football away, there will be hell to pay for the Democrats. If they don't follow through, it will polarize the country worse than anything that's happened in the last four years, because the Dems will have sold out their own base of popular support, while clutching levers of power that they plainly don't deserve.

If the Republicans retain a majority in the Senate and the Democrats remain functionally disabled in that house of Congress, a lot depends on the ability of the Democrats to expose GOP obstructions (inevitable, as long as Mitch McConnell or someone like him is Senate Majority leader) and make the case that they'll only be able to accomplish their goals if they obtain a Democratic majority Senate in the 2022 midterms. This should be obvious. Unfortunately, the Establishment Democrats don't have much of a track record of fortitude on that score, and that's a big enough problem to lead to doubts as to whether the leadership cadre of the Democratic Party cares more about pursuing the goals touted in their campaign, or about keeping a ready excuse for their failures on hand.

As long as it's too early to tell, I recommend voting to permit the Democrats to take back the Senate. Just as I recommend voting for the Democratic Party candidate, despite the fact that Joe Biden would not be my top choice if we had ranked-choice voting.

So much is conditioned by the ballot system, don't you see? I learned about ranked-choice voting in 1998, and this is the 5th Presidential election I've had to suffer through, knowing that there's a way out of this rigged, bogus, stagnant status quo of two thoroughly entrenched parties and their media-reified "Red/Blue meme" offal. To speak of Polarization.

How much of the useless chatter in discussions of American Presidential elections would be totally nullified and mooted, if only voters had the ability to rank (as few as two) choices, allowing them to vote FOR the candidate they most want, instead of the current situation for most of us, of being cornered into voting AGAINST the candidate that they've concluded is the worst of two choices? Speaking from extensive personal observation: almost all of it. Which is a telling indication of how much improvement would be effected by a ranked-choice ballot reform.

Oct 31, 2020
at
1:53 AM

Log in or sign up

Join the most interesting and insightful discussions.