Thank you to @seanhoyer for pointing out this is from the brilliant Rebecca Solnit!
@Drdind
An astute observation.
@Drdind mind if I steal this for my fb feed?
@postitman sure! I stole from my friend's Insta
@Drdind make about this
@Drdind Relevant for all global elections. Here in New Zealand at the moment as polls are open!
@mastodonmigration no problem
So true.
Also a good time to remind people that this is like multi-dimensional chess and the local level matters. Take a look at your city council, your school district… really cool things can happen there.
I am currently seeing that the people I elected locally in the past are open to good new ideas in the future. I won’t say yet but you’d be surprised how happy and relieved some of these people are when their constituents give a damn.
@izaya you mean ohio1 or????
@izaya got it
@Drdind credit to Rebecca Solnit: https://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/i-think-of-voting-as-a-chess-move-not-a-valentine/
@seanhoyer thank you! Of course it was her. Love her.
@Drdind Een goede gedachte om vast te houden voor bij de komende verkiezingen.
@Drdind All of these candidates are bad chess moves. Choosing the lesser evil is still choosing evil.
@mrblissett @Drdind This choice is not binary. I vote for a third-party or independent who's not outright evil.
Want me to vote for whichever major party you favor? Nominate a better candidate. The end.
Third party votes aren't favored in our Winner-Take-All voting system.
@mrblissett I know. A shift to something like ranked choice voting would please me greatly.
@WriterOfMinds
So why choose a third party.
@Drdind ...and as with chess, it is very important to pay attention to the victory conditions and think a few moves ahead.
I agree with the sentiment but feel like 95% of the people I see saying this sort of thing are using it to justify voting for the "lesser of two evils" regardless of circumstance. Which is like playing chess while believing that you win by having the most pieces left on the board at the end of the game. That's just not how the rules work. Popular vote is irrelevant at a national level, it only matters locally. And locally elections are often not nearly as close as they are at a national level -- we have far more "red states" and "blue states" that "swing states". If you know who is going to win locally beyond a reasonable doubt, there is no point in voting for them. Vote for the candidate you actually *want*, because next election people will be looking at those results to help decide if they should run and what their campaign should focus on -- and even before that election the people who won might be looking at those results to get a sense of what their constituents want -- and aligning with a mediocre candidate when there is no strong reason to do so only ensures more mediocre candidates in the future.
@Drdind No, voting is NOT as complicated as chess. Much, much simpler!
Look at the choices:
- Is one actually good? Fine, vote that one.
- Is one bad but the other terrible? Vote for the bad one. Because "bad" is better than "terrible", and you are an adult. You ARE an adult, right?
- Are both pretty good? Vote for the best one. Or, in this case—and this case ONLY—you can play games and vote some third choice, who will lose.
(US version, your country may differ.)
I love the image but in that vein, we don't have to declare who we are supporting or do so this early. imo we should discussing issues, be ramping up to vigorous primary on both sides and helping end the duopoly. votes (and arguments about them) are many months out.