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Comment by blfr | Hacker News Reader

I already made this point today but Hillary Clinton, whom sama is endorsing, has directly contributed to starting two wars (in Syria and Libya). While Trump threatened to ban Muslims from entering the US, her actions have already led to thousands of Muslims being killed. Isn't that strictly worse?

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Yeah I'm not quite sure I understand the whole "I'm voting Clinton because it's the only way to stop Trump" argument.

No it's not. If enough people who are voting Clinton purely to stop Trump voted 3rd party, 3rd party would actually have a chance.

In this overflowing toilet bowl we call the 2016 Presidential Election, your best bet to unclog it is to use a plunger, now throw another turd in. Vote for the plunger, not the turds.

They probably wouldn't. I think you overestimate the number of people voting Clinton just to stop Trump. A lot of people truly like her the most. (Not me, I'd like to note - not that I will be voting as an Englishman).

It's also worth noting, what third party candidate? There isn't a perfect option there either.

It's a first past the post system - third party candidates are never going to happen because of the psychology, number of ingrained voters, and the way electoral college votes work.

If you are in that situation, the best thing is to vote Clinton, then instantly start putting as much pressure on her and other Democrats to change that system once she is in office. Start now, and get support for a candidate so in the next election you can have one you actually like standing, or at least push towards one. The biggest problem is people getting worked up in the presidential election, then when it's over, ignoring politics for four years.

Change in politics does not happen quickly - generally it involves waiting for old people to die, because people are bad at changing their beliefs. I'd love to believe a third party vote was worthwhile, but the truth is, in reality, it's not. We know that. The system is broken. Work to change that.

First past the post simply isn't democracy. It's a vague semblance of. Until you change that, you'll have two parties and your choice between a turd sandwich and a douche.

IIRC, Surveys consistently show that 40-50% of people would like to have a third option besides clinton or trump, which is rather high. That should be enough to get at least a plurality, except for "psychology" (people don't want to lose; network effects; with-me-or-against-me-ism)

> what third party candidate? There isn't a perfect option there either.

As long as you acknowledge the double standard implicit in your language: For a non-third-party candidate, it suffices to "not be as bad as the other person"; for a third-praty candidate one must be "perfect".

> the way electoral college votes work.

Electoral colleges don't work that way. In order to win, one need only get one state (it's unlikely, but McMullin seems to have a shot at pulling that off; less likely: Johnson).

Really a smart campaigner could grab one state, and then use the momentum (as you might say, "psychology") to continue grabbing states.

Lots of people like the abstract idea of another option. There are, on fact, other concrete options, and people don't tend to like them as much as the abstract idea of an alternative, even before factoring in tactical concerns.

Now, to be fair, part of that is a product of the electoral system--people who are likely to be competent for the office are unlikely to run as a third-party candidate, given that they are likely to understand how the system works.

Let me restate: I don't see a third party candidate that is that much better than Clinton. Most are better in some ways, worse in others. I used the word 'perfect' because I think that, for a third party candidate, you would need to get the perfect mix to inspire enough support to break through. If I'm throwing my vote behind someone for ideological reasons without an expectation it will work, I want it to be someone I can truly support without reservation.

The momentum thing, I don't buy. It might technically be possible, but it's practically never going to happen, because FPTP is broken.

> third party candidates are never going to happen

More than two parties will never be stable unless elections are other than FPTP. But which two parties has changed more than once through US history. I don't see a reason it couldn't possibly happen again.

It happened twice, both in the first century of US independence; whole there have been subsequent realignments, the identity of the two nationally-competitive parties have been stable for more than a century and a half. It's not implausible that the basic factors which promoted the relative fluidity of the party system in the early Republic are gone. (Direct election of senators and the near universal norm of assigning Presidential electors based on public elections both are factors which make the national parties more responsive to changes in the mood of the electorate, which reduces the risk of either being replaced.)

> It's not implausible that the basic factors which promoted the relative fluidity of the party system in the early Republic are gone.

I agree that it's not implausible. I'm just not convinced of it, on a time scale of "never".

It would be possible to consider the post-Nixon Southern Strategy flop of anti-civil-rights Democrats to form the new-look Republican party a third occurrence. That fundamentally changed the direction and outlook of both parties.

There's actually several major realignments since the Republicans displaced the Whigs, but they differ from the changes from the First to Second and Second to Third Party System in that the identity of the two major parties did not change in those realignments; IIRC, the realignment you refer to is sometimes considered the third of those post-Civil War realignments (the one involving the New Deal Coalition is the second, and the first was in the Progressive Era.)

Sure. And? Swapping a party around doesn't really solve any of the underlying problems. It may help a little in the short term, but FPTP encourages not only two parties, but the kind of polarisation that leads to the republican party as they stand now, pushed incredibly far to the right.

Fair point. I think people often underestimate the benefit of short term help, but short term help that only arrives on a long-term timeline should rightfully be discounted.

That said, if control shifts anytime soon to a current leading third party, I (weakly) expect electoral issues would be addressed - it's hard to drop something you've made so much noise about (though certainly not impossible).

> If enough people who are voting Clinton purely to stop Trump voted 3rd party, 3rd party would actually have a chance.

It's actually the other way around though. When including 3rd parties in polls (Florida, for example), Clinton has consistently done worse.

This is why you're not seeing any mainstream media coverage of Johnson or Stein -- it hurts their golden goose.

It is truly Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich. Unfortunately, we don't have a real candidate who is effectively Drain-O. I wonder why Romney, or McCain, or Biden, or, to be partisan to my birth state, Susan Collins, didn't try to be a reasonable option.

My counter to that would be that we accept that sometimes war is necessary and can be the lesser of two evils, while judging every Muslim by the actions of a few should never be necessary.

Hilary didn't say she wants to nuke Syria and Libya. She made a decision because she thought that conflict there was the lesser of two evils, and has applied mostly proportionate response, and attempted to limit collateral damage.

Trump has said he wants to completely ban everyone who shares a religion with the most prominent terrorists of the moment.

The two, in my eyes, are very, very different. One is a decision made in the understanding that we have to make difficult choices, one is a naive, dangerous blanket policy as a knee-jerk response that will cause more harm than good.

It's easy to say 'killing vs banning' and make it sound the way you did, but when it's 'carefully directed killing to try and reduce overall killing vs overreaching banning that will be ineffective and punish innocent people'...

It's easy to call it 'carefully directed killing' when many people called out that sort of activity in general, and those specific actions (syria, libya) and even constructively suggested alternatives that would avoid bloodshed and blowback - and those alternatives have been repeatedly ignored.

I'm not saying I agree completely with the actions taken - but they still hold up far better under the 'who do I want making the decisions' test - the person who at least tried to make a good call, or the person who wants to make a clearly terrible one.

It's actually oil vs killing vs banning

It's funny to me that sama says "try to understand the other people" and yet this comment is downvoted.

Sometimes I think saying that is really an empty platitude.

Not allowing Muslim refugees in is another way of killing them.

Let's not forget about all the weapons we are selling Saudi Arabia.

They are killing civilians with weapons made in the USA.

The US has been the largest arms exporter for as long as I can remember. For much of this time selling directly or indirectly to some very bad people.

So, I find it particularly interesting that this somehow has become a partisan election issue. Maybe the world will get lucky and this will stick as an issue after the election.

Trust me, I know.

My first tech job was at Lockheed, I started there on 9/1/2001.

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