3 ms·

Can you be more specific? Are you claiming that the winner is not actually whoever gets the most votes (e.g. voter fraud, corrupt vote counting), or that someon

by saghm 2mo ago

Can you be more specific? Are you claiming that the winner is not actually whoever gets the most votes (e.g. voter fraud, corrupt vote counting), or that someone who would not authorize something like this would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot? Those are the only two scenarios I can think of that would result in the conclusion you're stating. As far as I can tell, people who claim the former are almost overwhelming the ones voting for the people who are worst about stuff like this. I've honestly never seen anyone claim the latter though, so if that's what you believe, elaborating more would be helpful.

RobotToaster 2mo ago
The last person to stand for president who managed to get political momentum and wanted real change in the system was Eugene Debs, and they arrested him.
- iamnothere 2mo ago
  Two others: Bernie Sanders (prevented from winning the primary via unelected superdelegates) Ross Perot (suddenly withdrew under murky circumstances and later claimed his family was threatened) Both wanted significant change, although they were reformists rather than revolutionaries.
  - runako 2mo ago
    Am I missing something here? Perot was on the ballot in 1992, and he won a bunch of votes. IIRC he was the most successful independent candidate in modern times, by vote count. Sanders ran an insurgent campaign while denigrating the party, and didn't win more votes. I seriously don't understand the argument that the person with fewer votes should win the nomination, although I am receptive to hearing a coherent articulation thereof. (Superdelegates did not enter the picture until tens of millions of votes were cast, with Sanders trailing by millions of votes.)
    - iamnothere 2mo ago
      Perot dropped out, then reentered the race at the last minute. This cost him a lot of votes and the media framed him as unstable. He had many more votes before withdrawing. Sanders was on track to win in 2015 but the media counted all superdelegates for Clinton throughout the campaign, costing him votes in later states where voters didn’t show up, assuming he lost. I guess this isn’t entirely the party’s fault and they did reform the system somewhat afterwards.
      - runako 2mo ago
        > This cost him a lot of votes and the media framed him as unstable This was...an eminently reasonable response to Perot's own actions? > Sanders was on track to win in 2015 Yes, like Clinton was "on track" to win in 2007. "On track to win" is necessarily filtered through a set of lenses that don't mean anything compared to actual votes. He didn't earn the votes, so he lost. There's nothing unfair about that.
        buellerbueller 2mo ago
        there was a ton of ratfuckery. clinton's team got debate questions ahead of time from a friendly moderator. debbie wasserman schultz resigned as dnc chair because it was shown that the dnc tried to undermine the sanders campaign in favor of clinton. the clinton campaign was given operational and fiancial control of the dnc prior to the end of the primaries.
        runako 2mo ago
        The debate thing was clownish, for sure. My recollection of the DNC linkage was that the Clinton campaign agreed to help the DNC in a set of ways (likely raising money for the DNC and helping Democratic candidates) in exchange for some affordances and Sanders refused to do likewise (which, to his credit is on brand). Is that not accurate? I admit it's been 10 years and there have been a lot of claims made as to why Sanders should have been given the nomination in spite of not winning more votes.
bandofthehawk 2mo ago
The candidate would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot, and it happens regularly. For an example, look what happened to Butch Ware in the California election recently.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
> or that someone who would not authorize something like this would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot? I'm surprised that you've never encountered this persepective before, it seems a very common one to me. The first thing I think about is the South Park episode in which the elementary school had to vote for a school mascot and they were given the choice of either "a giant douche" or "a turd sandwich". The second thing is another South Park episode (circa 2009), for which they actually produced two episodes (and aired one) for the Presidential election between McCain and Obama. Regardless of who would win, the plot was the same: the winner colludes with the loser in a National Treasure-style heist, with the election just being part of the setup. In the latter example, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter who wins because the same outcomes occur. The former example probably doesn't need explaining. Anyway, yeah, it would be nice to choose something better than a turd sandwich but when the other option is a giant douche, what is there to do? The way I see it, you either vote for someone who you know stands no chance (Jill Stein, btw), don't vote at all, or vote for the turd sandwich (or the giant douche, if that's your persuasion).
- saghm 2mo ago
  I guess I wasn't clear: I'm aware there are people who think that the choice doesn't really matter. That's very different than people literally being blocked from appearing on the ballots at all (which some people in sibling comments have cited some references to I'll need to look into more), and even that's different from them refusing to count votes and declare a winner if they did actually receive the most votes but don't fit the status quo. As far as the one real-world example you gave goes, I'm not convinced that someone who feels the need to avoid making definitive statements about whether vaccines cause autism is a great example of someone who wants to effect meaningful change rather than play the politics game, but that's mostly an orthogonal point.

by saghm 2mo ago

RobotToaster 2mo ago

The last person to stand for president who managed to get political momentum and wanted real change in the system was Eugene Debs, and they arrested him.

iamnothere 2mo ago
Two others: Bernie Sanders (prevented from winning the primary via unelected superdelegates) Ross Perot (suddenly withdrew under murky circumstances and later claimed his family was threatened) Both wanted significant change, although they were reformists rather than revolutionaries.
- runako 2mo ago
  Am I missing something here? Perot was on the ballot in 1992, and he won a bunch of votes. IIRC he was the most successful independent candidate in modern times, by vote count. Sanders ran an insurgent campaign while denigrating the party, and didn't win more votes. I seriously don't understand the argument that the person with fewer votes should win the nomination, although I am receptive to hearing a coherent articulation thereof. (Superdelegates did not enter the picture until tens of millions of votes were cast, with Sanders trailing by millions of votes.)
  - iamnothere 2mo ago
    Perot dropped out, then reentered the race at the last minute. This cost him a lot of votes and the media framed him as unstable. He had many more votes before withdrawing. Sanders was on track to win in 2015 but the media counted all superdelegates for Clinton throughout the campaign, costing him votes in later states where voters didn’t show up, assuming he lost. I guess this isn’t entirely the party’s fault and they did reform the system somewhat afterwards.
    - runako 2mo ago
      > This cost him a lot of votes and the media framed him as unstable This was...an eminently reasonable response to Perot's own actions? > Sanders was on track to win in 2015 Yes, like Clinton was "on track" to win in 2007. "On track to win" is necessarily filtered through a set of lenses that don't mean anything compared to actual votes. He didn't earn the votes, so he lost. There's nothing unfair about that.
      - buellerbueller 2mo ago
        there was a ton of ratfuckery. clinton's team got debate questions ahead of time from a friendly moderator. debbie wasserman schultz resigned as dnc chair because it was shown that the dnc tried to undermine the sanders campaign in favor of clinton. the clinton campaign was given operational and fiancial control of the dnc prior to the end of the primaries.
        runako 2mo ago
        The debate thing was clownish, for sure. My recollection of the DNC linkage was that the Clinton campaign agreed to help the DNC in a set of ways (likely raising money for the DNC and helping Democratic candidates) in exchange for some affordances and Sanders refused to do likewise (which, to his credit is on brand). Is that not accurate? I admit it's been 10 years and there have been a lot of claims made as to why Sanders should have been given the nomination in spite of not winning more votes.

bandofthehawk 2mo ago

The candidate would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot, and it happens regularly. For an example, look what happened to Butch Ware in the California election recently.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago

> or that someone who would not authorize something like this would literally not be allowed to show up on the ballot? I'm surprised that you've never encountered this persepective before, it seems a very common one to me. The first thing I think about is the South Park episode in which the elementary school had to vote for a school mascot and they were given the choice of either "a giant douche" or "a turd sandwich". The second thing is another South Park episode (circa 2009), for which they actually produced two episodes (and aired one) for the Presidential election between McCain and Obama. Regardless of who would win, the plot was the same: the winner colludes with the loser in a National Treasure-style heist, with the election just being part of the setup. In the latter example, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter who wins because the same outcomes occur. The former example probably doesn't need explaining. Anyway, yeah, it would be nice to choose something better than a turd sandwich but when the other option is a giant douche, what is there to do? The way I see it, you either vote for someone who you know stands no chance (Jill Stein, btw), don't vote at all, or vote for the turd sandwich (or the giant douche, if that's your persuasion).

saghm 2mo ago
I guess I wasn't clear: I'm aware there are people who think that the choice doesn't really matter. That's very different than people literally being blocked from appearing on the ballots at all (which some people in sibling comments have cited some references to I'll need to look into more), and even that's different from them refusing to count votes and declare a winner if they did actually receive the most votes but don't fit the status quo. As far as the one real-world example you gave goes, I'm not convinced that someone who feels the need to avoid making definitive statements about whether vaccines cause autism is a great example of someone who wants to effect meaningful change rather than play the politics game, but that's mostly an orthogonal point.