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[Sheb]

There is (or was, since things have gone worse there too) a consensus among ALL parties not to call to vote FN in any case. Chirac got 19% of the vote on the first round. Lepen was set to lose by a huge amount no matter who he'd face.


Trump nomination show that the republican party is agonising, that he do so well in the election shows that the democrat party is not healthy at all either.

Exactly, all parties in 2002 agreed to block the FN (Nowadays of course the French right wing wouldn't do that). The GOP didn't decide to not vote Trump no matter what. If Jospin had won in  2002 and the UMP (or was it RPR? Fuck those french right-winger and their regular name change) had endorsed Le Pen, you would not have seem a 80% win for Jospin.

[mainiac]

The fact that the candidates are unpopular doesn't mean most people are voting against one of them.  About 43% of American voters like Clinton.  About 35% of American voters like Trump.  I'm guessing there isn't much crossover between those groups.  So probably around three quarters of voters are voting for a candidate they like.

[misko27]

Jill Stein, Gary Johnson,

Your right, but not thinking creatively. For example, it's also true that people who don't care about winning are supporting Gary Johnson and Jill Stein even though they don't like their positions precisely to show opposition to the major parties. Do you have the numbers at hand to prove your effect outweighs this one?

But in any case, neither Johnson or Stein  are strong candidates in the first place, and would lose even if the media were "fair" to them because of FPTP. Greens have a low ceiling of support, and while Libertarians are higher, they split their vote with the Republicans and rely on an ideologically pure base and dissatisfied voters stolen from republicans that just isn't enough.

in short, neither understand how to build coalitions. This is why Donald will lose, too. Now can we please move on from the primaries? They've been over for months now. Donald J. Trump or Hillary Rodham Clinton will become President of the United States. Just let it go.

[sluissa]

Right right right, yes I was hyperbolic, but the point remains that a lot of people are voting against who they don't like rather than who they like. That's one of the big problems with first-past-the-post voting systems. I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd like to vote for a lot of the third party people, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, whoever the hell else is running for third party if there are any, but they can't vote for those people in good conscience because of how the system works.

I can, and am voting third party this year. I can't in good conscience give my vote to either of the two main party candidates. FPTP voting makes it so I'm basically throwing my vote away, but it doesn't change my conscience about things. I have in the past cast my vote for candidates I wasn't entirely happy with, but it's never sickened me to choose them. That won't change this year. I'll cast my vote for a candidate which doesn't make me wretch at the thought of supporting them.

Despite what anyone says on either side. Obama, Clinton, Trump, or anyone else. A vote for a third party does NOT mean a vote for their opponent. That is a lie and a scare tactic and a really insulting thing to say.

[PTTG??]

There's always the possibility that Johnson gets 15% of the vote, and thus his party gets on the board.

[RedKing]

There's always the possibility that Johnson gets 15% of the vote, and thus his party gets on the board.

Highly doubtful. If he had run a strong, no-mistakes campaign, I could see Johnson having gotten 15%. But right now, his chances of getting that high are somewhere south of Aleppo.

And the ubiquity of wi-fi in our modern world means everyone's brains will be too scrambled to vote for Stein, except for a few primitivist farming communes in the Pacific Northwest.

I'd say McMullin has a better shot of actually getting electoral votes this election. Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

[smjjames]

There's always the possibility that Johnson gets 15% of the vote, and thus his party gets on the board.

That possibility is extremely low, below 1% but non-zero. The highest national poll for him has been 13%, theres some scattered 11% and 12%, but most of the time he polls between 5% and 10%.

The only states where he has even breached 15% are New Mexico and Utah (just barely). If he can't even breach it in national polls, I don't see much of a chance at all.

There's always the possibility that Johnson gets 15% of the vote, and thus his party gets on the board.

Highly doubtful. If he had run a strong, no-mistakes campaign, I could see Johnson having gotten 15%. But right now, his chances of getting that high are somewhere south of Aleppo.

And the ubiquity of wi-fi in our modern world means everyone's brains will be too scrambled to vote for Stein, except for a few primitivist farming communes in the Pacific Northwest.

I'd say McMullin has a better shot of actually getting electoral votes this election. Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

Yeah, if he didn't suck as a candidate, he'd have a much better chance. Also, there is a slim non-zero chance that he might pull a rout in New Mexico, but considering that he seems to pull more from Republicans than Democrats, he's more likely to simply give it to Clinton.

Right right right, yes I was hyperbolic, but the point remains that a lot of people are voting against who they don't like rather than who they like. That's one of the big problems with first-past-the-post voting systems. I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd like to vote for a lot of the third party people, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, whoever the hell else is running for third party if there are any, but they can't vote for those people in good conscience because of how the system works.

I can, and am voting third party this year. I can't in good conscience give my vote to either of the two main party candidates. FPTP voting makes it so I'm basically throwing my vote away, but it doesn't change my conscience about things. I have in the past cast my vote for candidates I wasn't entirely happy with, but it's never sickened me to choose them. That won't change this year. I'll cast my vote for a candidate which doesn't make me wretch at the thought of supporting them.

Despite what anyone says on either side. Obama, Clinton, Trump, or anyone else. A vote for a third party does NOT mean a vote for their opponent. That is a lie and a scare tactic and a really insulting thing to say.

At least you're in Florida, a swing state, I'm in California where it's just about guaranteed that Clinton will win it, barring some sort of massive collapse in Democrat turnout.

[PTTG??]

There's always the possibility that Johnson gets 15% of the vote, and thus his party gets on the board.

Highly doubtful. If he had run a strong, no-mistakes campaign, I could see Johnson having gotten 15%. But right now, his chances of getting that high are somewhere south of Aleppo.

And the ubiquity of wi-fi in our modern world means everyone's brains will be too scrambled to vote for Stein, except for a few primitivist farming communes in the Pacific Northwest.

I'd say McMullin has a better shot of actually getting electoral votes this election. Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

It's a nice lavender shade on 538 if I recall correctly. Y'see, the green party doesn't have this problem.

[mainiac]

Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

Typically the candidate representing the republican party gets the color red.

[smjjames]

And McMullins chances of getting Utah look pretty good. The latest one (which is from google) omits McMullin, but if the undecided amount for Utah are actually McMullin (around 28%), then he could certainly win that state. However, as Nate Silver said in an article, his window is very slim between giving either Trump or Clinton the state.

Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

Typically the candidate representing the republican party gets the color red.

True, except they'll have to distinguish between two republican candidates, the nominee, and the challenger to the nominee. Sabato's Crystal Ball has 'leans McMullin' as green, though Utah is still a tossup atm and isn't actually colored green yet.

[Max™]

Sanders isn't the best foil for "hey ladies, line up and spread em" guy, what he gains in "clearly different from Trump, to the point even vapid and confused people around the world can see it" he loses in "can you believe that guy wants US to spread em?" appeal.

I could see Trump vs Sanders winding up with them reciting how many times they didn't represent the party they are currently running for, with Sanders being far too nice about the shit Trump has done. Wouldn't call it obvious either way, but I would like to point out something.

Talking about it being "well it's the democrats fault we wound up with someone like Trump" is super crazy.

It's the republican party's fault they picked someone who wouldn't have stomped all over Clinton en route to an easy win, and they aren't going to be able to avoid the stink of Trump in the next several senate elections either.

If you wanted to attribute some Machiavellian traits to either party, one might be tempted to say that Trump was a calculated move to purge the crazy bloc from the Republican party, but so many of the "fall in line" Republican crowd are sticking with him you would have to assign a contrapositive outcome for the Dems, where they lose the opportunity to get rid of the most annoying, yet easily dismissed, folks on the other side.

Also: UXLZ, I can work with that, lose the shirt, then stand there and look pretty.

[RedKing]

Utah can be that lone spot of....whatever fucking color they decide to use for him.

Typically the candidate representing the republican party gets the color red.

What smjjames said. Maybe pink? Salmon?

That, or they'd have to change Trump to something other than red. Orange perhaps? Maybe this is the election that breaks the convention of using red for the Republican Party.
(and maybe I should go domain-squat OrangeState.com....)

EDIT:
And as far as Machiavelli, I'm still halfway thinking that Trump is a deep-cover agent for the Clintons. Though I think the more likely explanation is that they knew his utter unqualification and host of time-bombs in his past, and encouraged him to run primarily to distract the rest of the Republican field and force them to waste money in the primaries. When he actually won the nomination, it would have been 50% "Holy shit, that went way better than expected" and 50% "Holy shit, what did we create??"

I don't think the RNC is nearly bright enough or long-term focused enough to accept this kind of collateral damage to their brand, just to purge the party of Deplorables. Besides, it's not even altogether if the post-electoral effect will be to pure the Republican Party of the Deplorables, or if the establishment is the one that gets purged and the Republican Party at last falls into utter madness. The GOP's tendency over the last few defeats has been to draw the conclusion that they need to double-down on the cray-cray.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I guarantee you some LA Supremacist has already gotten OrangeState.com.

[smjjames]

I was gonna ignore http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-richard-branson-destroy-5-people-230150 since we already know that's a character trait of his, but after seeing http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-options-go-after-clinton-230159 , it just fits his vindicative tendencies even more.

He'd be a complete wreck as a president, but hey, we already knew that

[Neonivek]

Well his current plans are to tank the US economy in the long run for prosperity in the short run. (Yes... Trump DOES in fact release stuff and doesn't go "Emails EMAILS emails crooked Hilary Emails" all the time)