Better to lose an election than to vote away principles in a trainwreck election.

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Is it? So here’s what people need to decide for themselves.

1. Will you vote for someone who you think should be President, regardless of the outcome?

or

2. Given that Hillary Clinton is overall worse than Donald Trump, will you vote in a way that causes the least amount of damage to the country?

I’m not suggesting it’s an easy question, and one that I’m currently struggling with. I was able to hold my nose and vote for McCain, whom I really dislike. I was actually happy to vote for Romney, although he wasn’t my first choice. I am trying to decide if I can justify, and defend, voting for Trump for the sole reason that Clinton is worse.

While we’ve been using the phrase “the lesser of two evils” in elections for a long time, I think this time around it’s the most applicable it’s ever been.

So, do I look at my vote from the point of view of policy and principle, or do I look at my vote from a strictly pragmatic reason. The vote on principle has absolutely no effect outside of me. The vote for pragmatism does.

We already have a POTUS who shoots from the hip (“Red Line”, “Jayvee Team”). Trump kicks it up about 100 notches – and that is just with what he’s said so far.

Rather smug. Wrong wrong wrong. Here it is again…

My vote is for a set of ideas. Not looking for purity either – I’d take >50%.

But Trump is playing games with what he stands for. Negotiating position? Keeping the opposition off balance?

Does it matter what his “reasons” (all bogus and made up on the fly, AFAIAC)?

Trump is not anywhere close to 50%, as far as I can tell, and is a LOT closer to a Dem position, and moving more that way on a daily basis.

But then again, who knows for certain? You can’t.
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You equate Clinton with Lenin, others with Marx, but there is a loooong distance between where we are now and what those guys eventually brought upon humanity.

Last I seen, no major European country is remotely governed today the way Lenin did, so drop the false comparison.
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“Of course Trump will govern as an autocrat…” AND “There is no doubt that Trump’s ‘authoritarianism’ is better than Hillary’s ideology. If necessary, Caesar can be overthrown.“

Frightening how you so easily say “of course…”

As far as “denial is the first stage”, that’s on you and other Trump voters, as you, in fact, think he WILL be an autocrat (others may think there is a good chance he will be), but yet you deny the consequence of that.
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And, great! Now we are supposed to count on our ability to overthrow a Caesar!

That is ridiculous. If we cannot stop him now, how the h*ll do you think he can be overthrown, when he has the reigns of power?
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And just how does an “autocrat” govern? Merely “Liberal/Democrat”? Autocrats don’t respect boundaries and institutions. So, NO, don’t think it is so blithely explained away as so.

Without anything else to the contrary provided by Trump in a consistent, coherent, and detailed way, what we see today will likely become “normal” at the governing / policy level.

Essentially that is… What Trump thinks of that day will become fiat.
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The man gives every indication that he will be chaos for this country, on almost every issue across the board.

How that can be better than Clinton – the real deal, not the Lenin strawman? Easy, if you under play what an autocrat would be like. But that is only fooling yourself.
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Could Trump be better than he is indicating? Hasn’t he had long enough to prove his case?

Seems like he is relying on arguments like yours to bring people along.

It will work for some, but I don’t think an election is something where we should be buying lottery tickets for the presidency.
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“Only one is certain, the other is probable.”

Strongman leaders almost always end up a disaster for the populous.

If we inch more towards being like the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, or Canada, even – is that disaster?

Seems to me we can more easily recover from that than from “Caesar” (as YOU chose to refer to Trump) who potentially threatens the foundations of democracy itself.
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Even if he doesn’t turn autocratic, but, if Trump just continues his bullying ways, it still looks like we end up with chaos, and the consequences will still be huge.

I rarely take a look at the previous day comments… but ok, I will generously give you even odds. The wager is a case of your favorite beer against a case of my favorite beer. One caveat, we meet in Decorah, Iowa so you can buy my case at my favorite brewery. 😉

Geoffrey Britain:
“However, under Trump a “long-term competitive social activist movement” could conceivably arise and out of it a new American experiment”

You’re overlooking the Left-mimicking alt-Right that’s the creative engine of the Trump phenomenon. Their 1st move in usurping the GOP nomination race was to ‘other’ conservatives as “cuckservatives”.

They’re establishing their Gramscian long march on the social political territory they seized from conservatives. The Left and Left-mimicking alt-Right both know what to do about counter-revolutionaries in their midst. But conservatives pose a more direct threat to the alt-Right due to heritage; for example, the Bolsheviks and the Romanovs. The alt-Right will be more attuned to quashing a conservative (“cuckservative”) activist insurgency than the Left.

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Or –Trump destroys the Republican party–a lot of his backers hate the Republican party and are voting with that in mind.

The Opposition Party–the only organized party opposed to Democrats is left unfunctional.

Trump creates turmoil and chaos–and a power vacuum that is fertile ground for your future Lenin. As you have admitted previously–Hillary is not that yet.

Hillary is a known, Trump is an unknown. An international crisis happens and the voters run back to the known entity.

GW Battleground polling shows that and so does the pdf of the latest Quinnipiac polling for Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Hitler loved Germany–to death.

Big Maq:
“I want a choice, but I cannot bring that choice forward myself (so won’t bother with the pencil and matrix) … I also think it is easier, cleaner, and more powerful for all those opposed to go Libertarian at the national level, to stop both Trump and Clinton vs scrambling to produce a 4th party.”

Keep in mind that the Libertarian Party hasn’t competed as a viable 3rd-party alternative before, either.

Their leadership should have more ready national infrastructure than a ground-up “4th party” op (which would be jumpstarting with practical experience from the 2-party dissidents), but as they stand right now, not enough for a real competitive 3rd-party run. They would need to scale up.

Which is to say, like for a “4th party” campaign, the Libertarian Party would also need your “pencil and matrix” help in order to spin up, and possibly even more help in some areas if they need to change their current operational template rather than simply scale up ops.

Again, the window is open. It’s feasible. But whatever dissidents will do to spin up a viable 3rd-party alternative to the Trump GOP and Clinton Democrats, they need to do it now.

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A vote for Trump destroys the opposition party to democrats–perhaps for good. Trump is slightly ahead in the current Quinnipiac polling most likely because Hillary is still in a primary battle–but Republican Senators in yesterday’s Quinnipiac polling are fading away. There is the very likely scenario that Republicans lose the Senate. When that happens who will be there to check Trump’s dreams of building fabulous airports, and train stations like they have in China?

Trump rules like an FDR democrat, there’s not much evidence to prove he would not–in fact his current flirtation with the minimum wage, and talking points on the debt and printing money weigh the scale towards the FDR scenario.

Now Hillary—could be like a democrat Nixon. Nixon won in a landslide even though the Watergate break in had been reported on before that vote. Nixon (Hillary) ends up resigning. The Republican party regroups and survives to bring foward a better candidate than Trump in 2020.