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Dear Motte, please help me place my vote.
I really want to support the Democratic Party. Biden's FTC, EPA, and NLRB all seem to be working in economic directions which will make my life and the life of my children better: open markets, cleaner air, better working conditions. I can't help but notice that Trump's previous court picks tend to work against my goals of regulating business, increasing vacation time for my family, and limiting the EPA's attempts to regulate fossil fuels.
But voting blue has some tradeoffs. Some of these I'm aware of, but they are less relevant to me: Immigration is high and crime is up, but immigration and crime are intensely local, and my locality is pretty safe, with lots of rich donors and its own competent police force.
I'm going to have a family soon. I would like my child to be able to enjoy a carefree childhood, without needles in the parks and bullies in the schools, and without the chance that they are brainwashed into values that won't give me grandchildren.
But then things happen which force me to reevaluate and acknowledge that I cannot support the Democratic party. For example, this exchange during the VP debate (Transcript from Matt Taibbi):
Matt makes the argument that Walz got the crowded theater analogy backwards, but even more than that what rings alarm bells in my head is the phrase "Or hate speech."
What do you mean hate speech isn't protected by the first amendment? How do you think the market of ideas is going to work?
This exchange was the last straw for me, and convinced me that, however much it may harm my short-term personal interests, I cannot cast a ballot for Walz and the group of people who think like him. No matter how shitty life might get without the EPA or FTC working in my best interest, it will get much more shitty, much faster if donors to the Democratic party (NPR listeners?) get to define contrarian thought as "hate speech".
So here are my options for presidential tickets:
Any ideas who has the most "Grey Tribe" values and best policies?
Important issues to me, in order of importance as far as I can tell:
Edit: formatting of candidate list
Are you in Wisconsin? That's the only one that had that list match exactly. It looks like their only write-in candidate available is Peter Sonski, of the American Solidarity Party.
I imagine De la Cruz is too extreme with you, wanting to abolish capitalism. I couldn't find identifiable policies for Terry.
If by "quantitative approaches to existential threats" you mean, not shutting down everything over climate change, while still caring about it, I imagine that rules out West and Stein. They're also just generally more extreme.
Of the remaining:
Oliver likes to handle things by just having the government leave the matter. He wants to let everyone in on immigration. He wants to help the climate only by stopping government actions that make things worse.
Trump's probably more anti-trade than you'd like, and cares less about the environment than you'd prefer (though he agrees that clean air and water are important).
RFK's now only listing things that he can agree with Trump on, which makes him hard for me to evaluate.
Sonski's not really a YIMBY, and wants to keep allowing in refugees.
I'd say, if you want to choose someone with a chance, definitely go Trump. Otherwise, your closest match is probably one of those last four, but I'm not sure which.
Yup. I figured the "Wisconsin Green" party made it obvious, but most responders didn't read that carefully.
Thank you so much for the good-faith tips!
I've been (slowly) going through the third-party candidates in Detail, scoring them by (freedom+transparency)*competence*weighted issues. Terry was indeed hard to find info on. Stein is out, because she's provided a laundry-list of "human rights" which she cannot possibly deliver on (Free Tuition, Free Housing, Free Medical, and no nuclear, but Declare a Climate Emergency....). And .. that's about as far as I've gotten.
I'm glad I researched her, though, because I came across an interesting story of how the Democratic secretary of State of Nevada colluded with the Democratic Party of Nevada to keep Stein off the ballot. It serves as an interesting counterpoint to the argument that Democrats only play dirty in response to Republicans playing dirty, since the Green party was victimized by Dems' dirty antics. (tl;ds: Secretary of State tells the Green Party to use an updated petition to put a candidate on the ballot, which petition doesn't collect information on signatories' eligibility to vote. The Democratic Party of Nevada sues to challenge the Green Party candidate's inclusion on the ballot under the argument that the law requires the petition to collect eligibility to vote information to be valid, and now Stein is not on the ballot in Nevada.)
Who did you end up going with?
I have a policy of not telling anyone who I actually voted for. That said, here are my notes for the rest of the third-party candidates:
Cladia De la Cruz (Party for Socialism and Liberation)
Cornel West (Justice For All party)
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (We The People party)
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