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With FPTP, a candidate from one of the two major parties will win. You're voting against the greater evil. Primaries are where you vote your conscience and hopefully get the candidate you want on the ballot.
Thats how it works in practical terms. When you protest vote against the lesser of two evils, you are throwing support to the greater evil.
As I keep pointing out, the problem with this argument is that it presumes that the United States is a law of nature, eternal and unshakable, simply the backdrop for our political battles. It is not. That much should be obvious with how much the fascists have managed to dismantle in such a short time.
Yes, FPTP means that a candidate from one of the two major parties will win. But also, every time a candidate from one of the two major parties wins, we get closer to authoritarianism (slowly with Team Blue, directly with Team Red), and the destruction of the United States. Both things can be true. There's not always a solution to our problems, or a correct course of action.
We have to do something other than FPTP with the two, current major parties. Well, no, actually, we don't have to. It's only if we want to save the United States (and protect vulnerable minorities) that we do.
Either you work with the current 'legal' democratic system, and vote for the lesser of two evils, and then work within the system to push for what you want with media, lobbying and peaceful protests; or you go with some sort of violent illegal acts - which will probably just get you in jail. If you don't vote for the better candidate who can win, and just sit on your arse complaining, you won't get much respect.
Yes, those are the options. I chose to advocate for peaceful-as-possible legal reforms of the current system, e.g. the big cities should 'secede' from state control, while remaining part of the Union, not unlike the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire. The point here is that voting in the "respectable" way for the lesser-evil party has not, and will not, save us from eventual authoritarianism, any more than the right configuration of deck chairs will keep the ship from foundering. (Well,a better analogy is that one party wants to rip the hull open more, while the other wants to run the pumps even if they can't keep up with the flooding, and repairing the hole isn't an option under the regulations.)
Maybe it won't save us, but voting the lesser of two evils will reduce the immediate damage. Better to have someone adjusting the deck chairs than stabbing people and throwing them into the water.
And we can push in other angles of reform at the same time.
When is this pushing other angles of reform ever gonna start? If it didn't in 2020, I have to wonder. I'm just not satisfied with "everybody gets stabbed, but a few years later" as the best possible outcome.
Not sure. What have you done to start it?
Thank you for proving me right.
Go buy some lottery tickets. You're bad at math.
You’re not right. Read fhe room.