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Comment by zaphar | Hacker News Reader

This is completely missing the point. Structurally I don't believe either party is set up to allow truly quality candidates to succeed. They optimize for all the wrong things in their candidates. Candidates who are quality that get through tend to be exceptions. Picking the worst of either side is just furthering the "We can't vote for good candidates because they might lose to whoever we believe is the worst candidate on the other side" narrative. The only way out is to stop buying into that narrative in a large enough number.

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Your plan is to vote third party but it has zero to say about First-Past-the-Post voting, and so it is obviously completely useless and naive.

I think that’s some pretty thin gruel. The Democratic Party is hardly perfect. But that’s true of every political party on the planet. There are some grifters, some incompetent, and some corrupt Democrats. But by and large, Democratic politicians do seem to genuinely try to do their jobs. They seem to be at least somewhat receptive, as well. And crucially, they hold their own to account. Get caught with gold bars in your suitcase? Bye. Have women with credible accusations of sexual misconduct against you? Sayonara. There also are many very competent democratic politicians doing solid jobs across the country: Senator Van Hollen, Senator Ossoff, AOC, James McGovern, Baltimore’s mayor Brandon Scott, etc. I see no reason to pretend they’re unworkable. And to suggest “eh, both sides suck” has always felt incredibly lazy and nihilistic to me.

Care about third party options? There are current Democrats advocating for ranked choice voting. The RNC rejects ranked choice. And there are many GOP states that have outright banned ranked choice voting. There’s a party that’s clearly better for your interests.

You're missing the point. The harris administration wouldn't have had even 1% of the damage we are seeing. No 50% tariffs on Canada. No Iran war. No family members get bank charters and $600 million DoD contracts. I could go on and on. Biden was never remotely close to what his worst critics predicted nor was Obama. This admin has been far worse than even the most hyperbolic criticism predicted. American leadership and place in the world is permanently weaker now. It won't ever be the same and we will be poorer over the next few generations more isolated and sink into a position of parity if we are lucky.

The Biden administration left an economy that was the envy of the world. Leadership that was trusted and a series of impressive bipartisan legislation from the CHIPs act to the infrastructure bill that set us on a good trajectory for the coming changes. Obama did the same, if we had continued the emphasis on building a solar industry our AI build out would be better positioned now we are behind China by a massive degree.

But hunter Biden sold a few painting? And democrats take corporate contributions so it's all equally bad? That doesn't match the data, results or predictions people make before administrations take over.

Three Republicans started three wars in the middle east and caused three spikes in oil prices.

Three democrats started 0 wars and over saw reduced deficits, landmark legislation like Obamacare, build back better, CHIPs, etc. And would have had even more accomplished if the Trans pacific partnership trade area had been continued the Iran nuclear agreement remained in effect, the solar investments been expanded the EVV subsidies expanded.

How can you equivicate these records?

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