I am 1,000% going to vote for the Democratic nominee in November, because I don’t want the world to end. I just want to make that clear because I know some people may be rightly suspicious of this type of post, for oh you know the reasons.
But after reading this excellent Ezra Klein editorial and watching the better-than-excellent Jon Stewart show on the topic, I’m actually somewhat convinced that maybe another nominee would be better. Like Klein I think Biden’s done a fantastic job so far. Just, someone else might do better in the election, and beating Trump in the election is pretty important.
So, what can I do? I’m about to vote in the Democratic primary, but his two primary challengers don’t seem likely to spark victory either in the primary or the general. Voting for them seems unlikely to change anything. And I am nobody of importance to call up the DNC and tell them to put up another candidate.
So what can I do? Is there anyone else who feels this way?
We don’t get to decide who the Dem nominee is when the current President is a Dem who will be running again.
What we can do is urge our representatives to pass legislation enacting ranked-choice or STAR voting, which would cause the parties to put up better candidates as their nominees if they want a chance of winning.
Unfortunately, the chance of the nominee being anyone else is pretty slim, short of Biden having a sudden and severe medical issue. You can lodge a vote for one of his challengers in the primary, but it’s little more than a protest vote - not that that should discourage you, but looking at it realistically. Most of the theoretical candidates being put forward to replace Biden have the very, very small issue of not actually running in this election, and that’s kind of a pre-requisite to win an election.
Yeah. I looked up who Biden’s challengers are for the nomination, and the productive impact of voting for either of them, I think, is 0.
Ezra Klein’s article (posted interestingly enough by a user I’m fairly well convinced is a total troll/shill) had a big part in convincing me, and he listed plenty of Democratic “talent”, but none of them really seemed all that compelling in terms of maybe being president. Maybe Gavin Newsom.
Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore, Jared Polis, Gavin Newsom, Raphael Warnock, Josh Shapiro, Cory Booker, Ro Khanna, Pete Buttigieg, Gina Raimondo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Murphy, Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker
Vote for Biden anyway. The magas won’t change their vote, so splitting it on your side doesn’t help.
It’s not the system we want, but it’s the system we have.
While I think there may be a more viable candidate running, I’ll vote for the more popular one, rather than risk splitting the vote.
It’s worth voting for who you like in the primary. Sometimes it has an effect even if the nominee isn’t changed. The administration and Democratic party leadership is more than one person.
I have my criticisms of Biden but voting for Trump or a 3rd party candidate this election is not tenable if you want a semblance of a Democratic Republic to exist in the US.
Trump has already been on record saying a bunch of fascist shit like that he’ll root out political opponents if elected and that he’ll act like a dictator on day one.
