I must express my gratitude to Hayley Stevens. She lost a primary election for the Michigan senate to Abdul El-Sayed, but promised to endorse him anyway, and then over the weekend, just before the midterm elections, changed her mind and endorsed the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers. It was a breathtaking betrayal. A stunning stab in the back moment for Democrats. She has killed her political career.
And I love her for it.
She has single-handedly destroyed the slogan “vote blue no matter who”, tearing it into tatters, spitting on it, and wiping her ass with it. Establishment Democrats are dismayed — they rely on that knee-jerk party loyalty and hatred of Republicans to coast into re-election without having to actually do anything, and Hayley Stevens just made a vivid demonstration of the fact that you can’t simply trust someone because there’s a “D” after their name. The electorate needs to actually think and assess the merits of their candidate? That’s anathema to the Chuck Schumers and Joe Bidens of the Democratic party!
Thank you for your service, never-to-be-senator Stevens.
Of course, she never intended to blow herself up to advance enlightened democracy. As Jamelle Bouie explains, she was just a self-centered marginal democrat who lost her damn mind.
The midterm elections are tomorrow, and now you must take these candidates seriously (although you should have done that in the primaries) and vote for the best one who will improve your life in the years to come. It’s all weighty serious stuff, and no more of this reflexive “vote blue” nonsense.
Excellent and timely post.
^Says the Trump troll’s support troll.
hey, answered these questions here yet have you troll :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-a-senile-fool-run-the-country/comment-page-1/#comment-2309411
Also have you apologised for your constant and continuing misgendering of chigau (違う) yet?
I ‘spose the Trump troll will be here to gloat & bask in this soon too.
What is the alternative!!?
If you do not vote Blue, you get Red. Fact.
If you do NOT vote for the NON-fascist party you get the FASCIST one.
That is the USoA’s flawed binary system.
One now expelled Democratic party ex-candidate’s tantrum does NOTHING to change this.
What the actual fuck PZ!? What the actual fuck?
You cannot possibly be serious here can you?
Is this a troll or have you been hacked or something?
I’ve been reading your blog for decades & this is the very worst post I have ever seen from you. It doesn’t sound at all like you.
It can’t be what you truly think can it?
You are better and more rational and have more knowledge and wisdom then the I hope imposter posing as you who wrote this.
Everyone with even half a brain and a minimal understanding of USA politics knows the reality is that
If we want to see any progress in the USA and anything good come out of an election in the USoA it is essential that everyone VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!
The ONLY way. Vote Blue. No matter who.
I hope the real PZ Myers turns up soon and explains what TF happened here. Because I honestly cannot believe you’d write this utterly dangerously false.
THOUGHTFUL VOTERS THINK WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW THEY HAVE TO VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO BECAUSE THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE IS THE FASCIST TRUMP CULT PARTY.
Anyone thinking otherwise, well, has NOT actually thought about it at all.
If you want to have proper Democracy with multiple parties you need to change the USA-ite system to one that allows preferential or run-off voting or other ways of stopping third party spoilers (eg Nader, Stein, Perot) from spoiling.
Oh and scrap the Electoral College and just go to a true one vote one value system too.
See : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-the-electoral-college_b_12891764
Now where’s the real PZ and what has the imposter who posted this posing as him done with him? I know the real PZ would NEVER think or write this.
I feel like people don’t understand what political parties are for. Political parties exist as a system for getting their members elected to office. They do this in service of policy goals, but even when they publish a platform, that platform is a compromise across the broad sweep of their membership. They want to get elected to wield power to achieve policy goals, sure, but the party itself is more of a mechanism for getting them elected.
Stevens broke the first rule: she tried to sabotage a fellow Democrat. That’s a bigger crime than deviating on policy, because again, the party exists to get its members elected to public office. Policy is always something that is changing and being negotiated.
Despite policy not being the goal, we certainly can evaluate what the respective parties will do with power when they have it, and it’s clear that the GOP should not be allowed anywhere near power. That’s a separate statement from whether the Democrats will wield power in a way that’s what we’d like; I’d argue though that’s more of the fact that any policy the Democrats try to implement is again, a negotiated compromise across their members. It’s going to be more conservative than most people like.
The reality is this: our political system is slow moving, so meaningful change happens across decades, not elections. Parties are also slow moving, and this means that the best time to set party policy is in primaries a decade ago. The second best time is in the primaries now. “Withholding” your vote from Democrats in the general, because they’re not pure enough, does not send a signal that they need to advocate for your policies- it sends a signal that they should move to the right, to capture more of the loosely affiliated Republicans.
And yes, parties are slow moving. The current Trumpian GOP is not a sudden thing that happened in 2016. Or 2012, when the TEA party whargarbled. We can trace its roots at least back to Nixon: it’s been a half a century of work to construct a GOP that rallied around god kings and could effectively dismantle the administrative state.
Knee-jerk, automatic voting for a party is what would lead to the eventual election of a Democratic version of Trump.
Think. Be informed. Vote your conscience.
It isn’t automatic “knee jerk” voting to look at the alternatives and look at the broader context and, at least for this individual election, say only one party deserves your vote & can be trusted with any power over others – and it is neither the fascists not the futile vanity campaigners that help the fascists take power by divide and conquer dirty tricks.
Is that really you and did you really, actually, seriously, write this PZ? I find that VERY hard to believe.
Again, what are the actual alternatives and where do they take our whole planet?
Think very seriously about that please everyone. On climate alone but also so much more.
Damnit, Stevor, we have thought very seriously. Your constant refrain is infantilizing and insulting to the people who will continue to suffer under Democratic reign nearly as much as Republican.
Sit your cis ass down.
@PZ: No, I don’t think that’s true, because Trump is not a product of the voters, he’s the product of a god-king cult that’s been under construction for 50 years. He’s the product of an erosion of both the actual systems upon which our government depends, and the norms which we’ve accepted as stabilizers when the system doesn’t work. There’s no Trump without Newt, without Reagan, without Nixon.
Now, if you’re saying, “Yes, but the primaries can result in bad candidates,” sure, that’s emphatically true- but all you’re saying is that getting the primaries right is way more important than people generally think.
Look, I live in PA. Fetterman suuuuuuucks. Wish he wasn’t our senator, but he wouldn’t have sucked as badly as Oz. And “but we could vote third party!” sure- but the reality is that if I want to avoid Oz, I have to follow the pool of votes most likely to defeat Oz.
And I can tell you that I am real skeptical that Fetterman would win a second primary, even with the incumbent advantage, the mood within the PA party is… unfavorable towards him. The sad reality, though, is that if he does somehow win a primary, I’d almost certainly vote for him in the general. But I’d do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t win that primary.
A different bias;
“Obama Is Back On The Campaign Trail And Trump Is Losing It!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WmbWQiINYv8
.
I love seeing the evil ones flailing about, not knowing what to do.
Remember, republicans, ‘vote as if Trump is on the ballot’.
Remember how he praised the ‘muscular ass’ of a republican senator.
Remember how he endorsed the message of a woman who abandoned her children for the man that had raped her daughter.
Remember the redacted Epstein files.
And every time you go to the pump, remember the promise to keep America out of wars.
If I were still living in Pennsylvania, I’d probably have voted for Fetterman over Oz, too. But my point is that you need to do the work of thinking and assessing and comparing the candidates, no simply relying on the color of their yard signs.
remyporter @ 8
Agreed.
The evil ones (the Heritage Institute, the Koch brothers, the talk radio hosts, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch et al) have been playing a long game since Nixon lost power.
.
The Democratic leadership has been consistently myopic, thinking the Bill Clinton playbook is all there is.
Or as Biden said when he met billionaire donors 2020 “everything will be as before”.
Primary the ass off any Dem who think like a legacy Democrat or you will be fighting this war again and again.
The Republican politicians fear their voters. Make the Dem politiciana fear you!
Dear Mr. Myers, I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid blog posts.
Well, good for her.
The Michigan voters dodged a huge bullet when they voted for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed instead of her.
She would have been a horrible Senator.
One of the most useless elected officials during the present US crisis is Chuck Schumer D New York, who was the sponsor of Haley Stevens. Schumer is one of the most powerful elected Democrat as head of the Democrats in the Senate.
He also does a great imitation of a house plant.
He has done almost nothing to fight against the GOP attempts to kill our democracy.
I hope he gets primaried out in his next election.
He is 75, so maybe he won’t run again, although these days, 75 is young for an elected official.
@PZ: I agree, but I’d argue the time for that is the primary season. Once we’re in the general, we’ve made our key choices. And in a more traditional landscape, I’d be more flexible on this point, but the reality is that we have one party that’s moved into a high-control mode: the GOP has established a brand that is one and only one thing, and every candidate at every level is basically marching in lock step. The Democrats are operating more as a traditional political party, where they have basically no control over their elected officials. Like the most shocking thing about Stevens is how quickly everyone lined up to kick her out of the party (because she violated, not any rules around policy or platform, but the prime directive of parties: get your candidates elected). It certainly helped that she has no political future at this point- she’s leaving office at the end of the term and didn’t run for re-election for her seat, favoring the senate bid. Note how Fetterman has also campaigned with Republicans, but nobody’s done anything (because he’s still in office and will be for some time).
In any case, low-control, fractious and chaotic is always my preference over high-control, ideological lockstep. That alone makes a shitty Democrat better than the best Republican. And similarly, it actually gives the Democrats an edge over many third parties- the DSA is a higher-control organization which sanctions candidates/electeds for not advancing its platform, and I don’t like that (even where I like the platform, I believe elected officials work for their constituents, not the party). I’d argue that the DSA is more likely to produce a Trumpian outcome specifically because of that higher control model.
I agree in principle that everybody should vote their conscience regardless of candidates’ political parties; but in practice, that’s not how U.S. politics works at present.
And this is the wrong election to, as the saying goes, make the perfect the enemy of the good. Yes, we need to “throw the bums out” regardless of whether they’re Democrats or Republicans; but in our current two-party system, throwing the Dems out (and I agree that many of them are bums that I wish we could throw out) is indistinguishable from hauling the Reps in.
I live in Missouri’s Second Congressional District which, for a couple of decades, has been a reliable Republican seat in the U.S. Congress; and you can tell from just the TV ads which party is least bad. My current rep., Ann Wagner, has attack ads aimed at her Democratic opponent, Fred Wellman, not about any issues, but basically calling him names (socialist, liberal, you know the list). She also goes full-bore anti-trans claiming that Wellman supports gender modification surgery on minors (which he doesn’t). Wellman has an anti-Wagner ad, but it’s much more mild. He reports (accurately AFAIK) that she has made tons of money investing in companies that her congressional committee is supposed to regulate.
I voted early a couple of weeks ago. I voted for all Democratic candidates; and I voted against all but one state constitutional amendment (which would protect the right of citizens to put propositions and amendments on the ballot if they get enough signatures), and against state Proposition A (which would put in place the Trump-inspired gerrymandering that the Missouri Supreme Court threw out).
The two amendments I most eagerly voted against would repeal a previous constitutional amendment that proteced the right to an abortion, and replace income and property taxes with sales taxes. (The TV ad for Amendment 3, the anti-abortion one, also goes full-on anti-trans even though that’s not what the amendment is about.)
My conscience is clear this time. Now, if we have a progressive wave (not the same thing as a blue wave), we have an outside chance of throwing out the real bums (Musk, Bezos, the Ellisons…you know the list). We need to get big money out of politics; and, yes, most professional Democrats in Congress are just as beholden to it as Republicans are.
Oops…“protected”, not “proteced”.
Honestly, I think this is a good example of how we have too many “Republican like” people in the Democrats, and have for a while. Her solution to having been hurt (boo hoo) is to whine, exactly like Trump and most of the GOP, when caught with their pants down on something, and babble, “Well, there are problems… blah, blah, blah… Nothing is perfect, babble, babble…”, when her act is literally to not just throw out actual progress, but to all but scream, “If it doesn’t help me somehow, which would be my definition of perfect, then I won’t endorse ‘good enough’ either.” Its a bloody stupid perspective, and, as was said, reflects a level of “main character” syndrome you expect from some idiot in a movie, who keeps insisting, while everyone else is trying to fix shit, that, “I know exactly what I am doing, and we need to do the stupidest thing possible, because I am always right.” – right up until the monster eats them, something explodes, with them in/near it, etc. You see it coming, every time, and think, “Yeah, no one in real life can be that stupid.” Then…. someone like this comes along and reminds you why it works as a trope.
PZ, your point is well taken. You are right that you should consider the integrity and positions of the candidates over their party, as well as the integrity and positions of the opposition candidates. I have found that a candidate’s political party indicates something about their position on issues, but it’s not a sure fire thing a la Fetterman.
I have almost always voted for Democrats over Republicans. That’s largely because I grew up in a pro-union home in the 50s and 60s, and Democrats have tended to support labor unions over Republicans. However, in the lead up to the 2008 Presidential election I seriously considered voting for John McCain over Obama, mostly because of McCain’s experience. Then, Sarah Palin got on the ticket and she was such an obvious nut case that there was no sensible reason to vote for McCain.
I might add that the last Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a pretty good governor. I don’t think Arnie was ideologically that close to contemporary Republicans. He ran as a Republican because the incumbent Democrat governor was a fuck up.
Incidentally, over half of Rep. Stevens’ staff has quit over her reversal, including her chief of staff.
Imagine that Haley Stevens had won her primary instead of losing it. How confident are you, right now, that she’d fight Trump and the Republicans if she got to the senate?
We up here in the Great White North are rather hoping for a blue wave to apply some sort of brakes on the Tariff Tyrant (among other objections to him).
But: this post makes no sense. How do you get from “self-centered marginal” candidate to “thoughtful voter”? You really haven’t made the connection clear. And what exactly is said “thoughtful voter” supposed to do when faced with a ballot choice between Mediocre and Worse? At least I have the choice of voting NDP or Green (though I can’t take the latter seriously ATM) if I want to “vote my conscience” — but that’s a slogan I don’t like anyway. My vote is not, and cannot be a pure expression of my conscientious values, certainly not under FPTP (and maybe not under alternative systems either). It’s a tool to promote certain leadership and policy preferences (and those preferences are where my conscience lives, not in the candidate per se), and I’m going to use it as effectively as I can.
As you say, the real work needs to take place upstream, at primaries and policy conventions and so forth — but once you’ve got the ballot in hand, you have to pick from what’s available. Voting third party, or spoiling your ballot, or some other form of protest vote, in hope that it will shake up the Democrats (or in my case, Liberals) is at best a long term strategy which requires an awful lot of other people to do the same, while in the mean time the Worse party holds power and wreaks a lot of damage.
I too live in Pennsylvania (in Lancaster, a Democratic city inside a Republican measles-addled county). Fetterman is indeed a disaster. Some of that is surely due to his diagnosed post-stroke clinical depression. He does almost zero appearances or constituent services and it seems to me he no longer wants to be senator. I predict he won’t even run again in 2028.
In her defense, she probably did it just out of spite.
It really backfired on her. El-Sayed raised $2.4 million in donations in response, and Stevens has been kicked out of the Michigan Democratic party.
Good.
@19 davebot
As opposed to voting for the literal republican? A fake democrat is still better, as any thinking person would realize. Shed still vote for something good, occasionally, to maintain appearances.
Haley is engaged to a Jewish fake Dem pick-me, and had already been bought by AIPAC. AIPAC is contributing heavily to Rogers (R), for MI Senator.
Clearly El-Sayed is the far better choice, and I’m very glad he beat Haley in the primary.
I agree that thoughtful voting is preferred to sloganeering, but step one of defanging the rabid GOP is gaining control of the House and Senate.
I’ve already voted all blue because they are IMO the best candidates in MN, and would love to never scroll through yet another Vote Blue wall o’text from Aussie steveor. It’s beyond tedious at this point.
Hopefully a taste of fascism will push all those non-voters to do their civic duty. The early votes certainly seem to be leaning towards a Dem takeover of Congress, impeaching the entire cabinet, ending the illegal war, and hopefully towards getting rid of Citizens United and all the dark money PACs that enabled this shit show in the first place.
Yeah, here decision to do that just reinforced that I made the right choice in backing Abdul. I will add that voting blue no matter who also has proven to do nothing to push the needle in the direction of real changes that would meaningfully impact the lives of the average person. Also, just voting for the centrist who is more interested in the status quo than actual change tends to lead towards the sort of fascism we are facing as we are seeing. It doesn’t stop it, it just delays it…
@24 erik333 Did I say vote Republican? I’m not telling anyone how to vote. I’m pointing out that the claim that “voting blue no matter who” stops fascism is false. If you want to conclude that being against an obvious and cynical electoral ploy designed to protect the powerful, is the same as voting for the GREATER of two evils, well, that’s a “you” problem. PZ is spot on in this post (and he also DID NOT say to vote republican).
I live in Orange County, California. The last sane Republican office holder representing my districts disappeared shortly after Reagan gave the party the prion disease. I’ve been a Yellow Dog Democrat as long as as I’ve been voting (long before Reagan). In the early day some of the Republicans representing my districts were honorable men, but they did not represent my views (unreconstructed 60’s liberal). Now, after Reagan and the Dump MAGAts have primaried out anyone with a vestige of integrity I’d vote for a dead yellow dog before any Republican. Dump and the MAGAts have to be destroyed utterly before we have the luxury of being picky. Sure, you’ll end up with some bozos. The saner heads (big assumption) have to shunt them off into make-work committees where they can’t get into too much mischief.
Where do we get someone like them? Term limits in California, and I suspect other states, have made sure than no one gets enough experience to be truly effective. They get steamrolled by lobbyists.
The Democratic Party has long needed another FDR. But what did we get? The Clinton’s, Biden, and a bunch of unelectables.
We’ll never know how JFK might have turned out, but he was inspiring. The space program was starting to find its way before he was elected, but he kicked it into high gear and spawned generations of sciences and technology. Science was not a dirty word then.
Hell, even LBJ would be better than what we’ve had the last 40 years. He was the consummate backroom dealer who knew when ALL of the skeletons were buried. Sure, he f’ed up thinking he had to show how tough he was to counter Goldwater. But look at all of the foundational social programs he pushed through: health care, civil rights, education, environmental protections, urban renewal. All that from a Texan. Now Texas elects some of the worst of the worst.
@25. Tethys : “.. would love to never scroll through yet another Vote Blue wall o’text from Aussie steveor. It’s beyond tedious at this point.”
I’d love to not have to write any.
Pretty sure my text is in the same black colour as the rest of us commenters here but ok.
Give it a few days.
Hope like I do that I won’t then have to play Kassandra and give yet more doleful, miserable and unstisfying “I told ya sos..
I don’t do this for the LOLz but becasue it actually matters. All too much.
Do suggest any tips you have for making them more entertaining and effective and feel free to do better than me in making this case yourself if you think you can.
@imback – if there’s anyone near him who cares about him, they’d 100% strongly encourage him to not run for re-election. I don’t think the primary would go well for him.
I strongly suspect what he really wants is to quit politics and be a Fox News talking head, “I was a Democrat until they pushed me out because of WOKE” will get him plenty of air time.
I do vote my conscience, and it tells me to support the best of the realistic alternatives, which sometimes means the lesser evil.
Strictly speaking, I wouldn’t vote “blue no matter who”, but at this point the Democrat would have to be very bad indeed not to get my vote.
As an outsider I have to ask; is there any progress in making ranked choice voting more widespread?
This debacle, as PZ clearly and accurately shows, is why ‘vote blue no matter who’ is a STUPID idea. There are times when we are compelled to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.
We have always had friends that are some of the many decent, honest Jews everywhere.
But, zionists; whether xtians or Jews are murderous aholes. haley stevens and her fiance are the most horrid kind of deceitful aholes. Dr. Al-Sayed is so positive and decent. If he doesn’t win; stevens and her fiance along with carville, jeffries and schumer should be tarred and feathered.
If there were any decency in the election process in this deteriorating country, we would have more and better choices of parties and candidates. But, as it is, corrupt corporate and plutocratic forces control this evil clown circus with shitloads of billions of dollars.
In answer to @32 birgerjohansson, we pay attention and have seen only microscopic progress toward that better system.
Cue Martha and the Vandellas
Comment @2 made me think it is time to tell StevoR to S.T.F.U. I didn’t want to muddy my on topic comment, so I ‘m putting this here, separately.
I am admittedly torn on the issue. On one hand, I have often embraced my fellow Hoosier Eugene Debs’s line that it is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it. But that gave us Bush in 2000 and Trump and 2016. I admire the Nader and Stein voters for sticking to their principles, but look where we are now. Gore or Clinton would have delivered far more of the Nader or Stein policies than Bush or Trump (or possibly even more than Nader or Stein themselves could, had they won, because they would not have had a majority coalition in Congress). I am increasingly embracing the idea of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If the point of your post is to consider the candidates and platforms thoughtfully and not vote reflexively for the Dem candidate just because their is a “D” next to their name, then yes. I can support that absolutely and categorically. But in this election (and in 2028) the only thoughtful, considered priority is stripping power from Trump and MAGA by flipping one or both chambers of Congress and eliminating the GOP majorities there. That is the only immediate thing that matters. And it just so happens that electing a Dem, for better or worse, is the only path to that. If there were an electable third party candidate ready to form a coalition and caucus with the Dems, that works, too, but there isn’t.
I don’t believe in “vote blue no matter who.” I’m not in Michigan, but had Stevens won the primary, I’d vote for her. I’d vote for El-Sayed, too. Not because of the “D” but because either is better than the “R” in this election.
@32. birgerjohansson: For what it’s worth, Utah has ranked choice voting for municipal elections (at the city’s option) but for no other races. Utah also has near universal vote by mail for all elections. I don’t know about RCV in the rest of the country.
Tethys @25: Yes, the key is Stevens’ fiancé, but in a darker way. See Haley Stevens’s Friends and Staffers Are Freaked Out by Her Fiancé.
It looks like he is an abusive partner who is manipulating her the way abusive partners do. She is not acting out of spite, as some posted above. She needs help.
This story is going around the internet, mostly Bluesky.
I don’t quite know what to make of it though.
Haley Stevens is now engaged to Jason Turkish, a wealthy Jewish lawyer in Michigan.
Her boy friend hates Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and supports the GOP candidate.
Haley’s staff and friends claim that he told her to support the GOP candidate, and beat up on El-Sayed. Which she did.
Her former friends and staffers don’t like Turkish and claim he seems to have control freak and abuser vibes. They are blaming him for her sudden mental change.
OTOH, she is an adult with free agency. She could have said no. “I’m the wannabe senator, not you.”
Both can be true.
Stevens doesn’t seem to have a solid grasp of her own identity and the concepts of consent and boundaries. Jason Turkish could easily be an abusive control freak.
No matter what, Michigan is the winner here. Haley Stevens isn’t anyone who should be an elected official. The candidate is supposed to be Haley Stevens, not her boy friend, Jason Turkish.
@37 anat has a valid point to consider. However, we don’t know what’s in her demented little mind. She may be manipulated or she may be just another murderous zionist like here fiance.
Also, in amplification of @36 Chris Rohrer: If I remember correctly, Oregon has an all mail-in voting system. But, the usps has become corrupted and is delaying or discarding ballots to screw-up elections.
Cue Martha and the Vandellas, one more time!
Quit taking the trolls bait.
I am clearly not the only commenter who is thoroughly tired of reading your repetitive screeds on the topic of voting. I suspect I am also not the only person who finds it bizarre that you use the term WE, when you are not even American.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the US commentariat has been voting for Democrats all along, and doesn’t make their choice based on blog comments.
@birgerjohansson, I agree we all should have ranked choice voting. This would mean, however, voters would have to research all the candidates and decide what order to put them to get the maximum impact of their vote. The state of Alaska actually does have ranked choice voting. This would in theory make the kerfuffle of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot moot as voters could rank both Sullivans before Peltola to be sure their vote goes to one of the Dans. However, in practice, a good number of voters will mark their top choice and leave remaining rankings blank, having not researched the full slate.
shermanj, the way USPS operates these days is all mail goes to regional offices to be stamped and sorted. This adds to the time it takes both for stamping and delivery. The advice in Washington state is to use ballot drop boxes for early voting, and this is what some 70% of the voters so far have been doing. If one votes by actual mail, the advice is to mail at least a week prior to election day (in past elections the advice was until the Friday before election day). If one has to vote by mail after that for some reason, the advice is to take it personally to the post office and demand that it is stamped in front of you. In Washington that means the vote gets counted even if it arrives a week or two late.
John Scalzi, https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/11/02/my-voting-recommendations-2026/
I’m not going to argue with you that the Democrats, each individual or the party as a whole, are a paragon of civic virtue, but this year the options are “actual fucking corrupt and lawless fascism” or not. I regret to say we have a two-party system where third parties act as spoilers, not legitimate competitors — there’s a reason why pro-GOP political action committees funded a huge mailer push for the socialist senatorial candidate in my state — and all the ways to fix that fact are beyond the purview of this particular election. Here in 2026, the most effective way to blunt the reach of actual corrupt and lawless fascism runs through the Democrats.
Just going to echo the same reply as so many other commenters. I’m nearing 50, and up until a few years ago, I’d never voted a straight party ticket. I did evaluate every candidate on an individual basis, and usually voted for at least a few Republicans every election (especially because down here in Texas, Democrats didn’t always put up serious candidates for all races, let alone third parties). But now that the Republican Party has gone full fascist, the immediate concern is stripping the fascists of power. For now, with the bipartisan nature of our political system, that means voting for any Democrat on the ballot. We can go back to being picky about candidates after MAGA is gone.
The comic linked below is deadly serious about democracy. The prerequisite of an ‘informed electorate’ which also demands decency CAN’T HAPPEN due to the stupidity of too many sheople.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/679
Anat @37
I suspect she is being willfully blind and manipulating herself with dollar signs, in addition to the malignant influence of her fiancé. She is entirely in control of her ability to hold press conferences announcing her political endorsements, nobody is forcing her to fly her integrity and Dem political career into the sun.
Is it just me or does he look really similar to the golem that is currently deputy chief of staff/puppeteer to Dementia Don?
Between a clear, existential, threat for your democracy (Republican Party) and a party, at times treasonous of the expectatives of his suporters and, chaotically, undermining some of the best people inside(Democratic Party), you – my american friends – doesn’t have any real choice, if you hope to save your democracy for your children.
Q and A with Haley Stevens and Mark Ambrose (2022)
* Back then, Democrat Stevens was pro-choice, for the Inflation Reduction Act to lower drug costs and fight climate change, for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, for funding public schools, student safety, pro gun control.
* Republican Ambrose was for forced-birth with exceptions, against spending on economy stimulation and safety nets, for sabotaging social media moderation (covid lab leak fearmongering was his example of unfairly suppressed speech), against scaling back police, against bail, for school privatization, against covid lockdowns, and smeared immigrants.
That was the choice in the general election.
Wikipedia – Haley Stevens, 2022
This is who she vastly outspent in the primary to play musical chairs.
Andy Levin v. Haley Stevens: 5 things to know
Pretty easy to tell who thinks in slogans, and who thinks empirically.
And who gets told how to vote, instead of being autonomous.
Such exhortations only work on dogmatically obedient types, the natural followers and saps.
Fact: Abdul El-Sayed won with 48.45% (744,952 votes), narrowly defeating Haley Stevens at 47.55% (731,160 votes) and Mallory McMorrow at 4.00% (61,516 votes).
See? It was damn close. And her nature was not until then revealed.
Point being, voting for any of them truly was voting blue (being a primary), literally fulfilling the slogan.
(So, it’s not a panacea, is it?)
I know, edge cases and degenerate ones, or at least trivial.
So I get the posts’ point, I feel it.
Don’t vote by rote, but vote.
Glad I’m not the only one here who thinks StevoR’s schtick is threadbare.
Thanks PZ for posting Jamelle Bouie‘s take. Wow Stevens does look hit by a truck and then loved his segue to the abrupt ending to the press conference when someone loudly calls Stevens a traitor.
Not a fan of Cenk and haven’t seen his ad Abdul El-Sayed is obligated to disavow for some reason…maybe because he’s a Muslim or something. Gotta scrutinize that am I right (sarcasm)?
Our engagement with Iran on behalf of Israel has contributed to Trumpflation and I think of that at the grocery store and gas station, unlike certain bloggers who think people who are critical of Israel and our support for the magical desert bloomers are antisemites. He probably thinks everyone who disagrees with his heavily biased and blinkered view is an antisemite. The word means nothing then.
I guess if you’re retired from a private university in the windy city, affordability is not a priority compared to the sacred cow of Israel and you can continue posting foodie pics with no sense of irony or shame. Look what I can afford everybody while others here and abroad suffer. Obliviousity!
I wish I could have voted for Mamdani or El-Sayed! I would have gladly.
Also as an addendum to @50, I think Chuck Schumer should send Hayley Stevens a strongly worded letter. Because that’s what Democrats with a backbone do.
I don’t have a dog I can vote for in this fight, and I wish good luck to you yanks. And I hope you get it right, there is almost universally a morally and ethically correct choice. These are not ice cream flavours.
There is an old cricket (ok think baseball you US folks, it still works) that goes: If you win the coin toss you should bat first. If you aren’t sure, have a think about it, then bat first.
Vote Blue No Matter Who seems to me to be a proxy for thoughtfulness. Ie, if you can’t deeply consider things, or vote in primaries, or whatever for some good reasons, I get it. That person should VBNMW. It would be nice to have the luxury of being able to consider deeply the alternatives and make choices accordingly and be able to vote everywhere you can whenever possible. But it is a luxury for many many many time starved or otherwise disenfranchised in whatever way people. VBNMW is not ideal and will be imperfect sometimes. But it’s not often terrible either and it may be the best available way to decide.
No one ever says “vote Blue no matter who” for the primary, except regarding local races that are held along with the party primaries and put people into office right after the primary. In primaries, you vote for whatever party you align with or don’t vote.
It’s different for the actual vote for the seat once the candidates for each party have been selected. If for no other reason, VBNMW is critical for the D or R behind the candidate, as that will determine who is in control of the House and Senate. Even if Fetterman acts like an R, as long as he remains a DINO, that’s one less seat Ds need to flip to get the R’s out of control of the Senate. We’ve seen the damage the majority leaders can do by just sitting on their hands and on legislation and on Court and Cabinet nominees they don’t want to bring to a vote. We can’t even hope to get anything done until that stranglehold is broken, let alone actually do anything.
One last thing. Best political ad of all time. This arsehole went to jail for fraud in Western Australia at the height of the mining boom (This would be like ordering too much ice in your cocktail on The Titanic.)
Ridana,
There is another option: vote for the weakest candidate of the opposing party.
(I mentioned some time ago how gameable the primary system is)
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BTW, voting is voting, and in a primary one votes.
Why else did you imagine I included “I know, edge cases and degenerate ones, or at least trivial”.
(Wasted drollery, I know)
indiananjones @ 52
No coin flip in baseball. Visitors get the first at bat and the home team gets the last (if needed).
There is a coin flip in North American football (excluding whatever Mexico calls soccer). I did watch more baseball toward the beginning of the season because I got the app for free and was into it until I wasn’t. Congrats to Brewers! I do not recall a coin flip for who is top or bottom of an inning. That almost sounds kinky.
Re voting for the weakest candidate in the opposing party, it’s possible in Virginia (where I used to live) where you got to choose which party’s primary to vote in on primary election day at the moment when you walk into your local voting location, but here in Pennsylvania, you choose which party when you first registered to vote long ago, making such gamesmanship difficult.
Coyne had this ridiculous post on his blog with the title “What’s a Democrat to do?”. Easy answer. Switch over to becoming a MAGAt Republican asshole and take your fly attracting piece of garbage hero Bill Maher with you. And Hayley Stevens. You will not be missed. Seriously. Fuck off!
Maybe move to Israel and join the IDF since potential deaths of US soldiers seem to mean nothing to you. Take your heavily Republican glazing comments section with you. I can’t even say you are captured by them. You attract that like flies to shit.
I’m waiting for the Coyne come to Jesus moment when he realizes he’s conservative as fuck. He ain’t “of the left”. That whole Vietnam escape moment seems self preservation oriented given he’s apparently ok with us sending people into Iran to die. Fuck that guy and his hateful commenters.
The Onion has perfected the reporting on Stevens.
a flaw of the 2 party (single vote) system – in the primary you for FOR who you think is best (or who you think is most electable) often, in the general, you vote AGAINST the candidate that is worst- it is a selection process that breeds mediocrity, and extremists, and tends to filter OUT visionaries and genuine leaders. I’m not sure what the solution is- multiple parties that must form coalitions to govern (like in parliamentary systems)? rank voting? something else? but I firmly believe that term limits and anti corruption measures (anti insider trading, anti- corporate money in campaigns, etc) are steps in the right direction
PZ is correct in his initial premise: no one DESERVES your vote just because of the team they are on – they need to EARN it with sound policies and following thru on them
I vote blue no matter who because it isn’t just about individual candidates. It is about who controls each branch of Congress.
StevoR’s right.
The primaries are when you debate ideas. The general is when you have to bite your tongue and coalesce or concede defeat to the regressives.
We all agree the two party system sucks. But it’s the best we have, and it’s simple pragmatism to come at it the way he is.
@ ^ 63. This Guy : Thankyou. I also strongly second what #47 fernando wrote. He’s spot on.
@40. Tethys :
I use the term we referring to humans. Our whole species here. Pretty sure I’ve already explained that what happens in the USA unfortunately affects us all planet-wide.
One more day anyhow and this will be over at least the part where having to beg people to do the only rational thing is something there’s any point in doing.
That day can’t come fast enough for me either. But then afterwards? Well, we’ll soon see.
@50. Hemidactylus : See above and, as you’d expect, I strongly disagree with your assessment there.
@34. shermanj :
Why? What is actually wrong with it there? I think its long overdue that the Dishonest Trumpist troll “beholder” was banhammered and so was their support troll Silentbob and there should be zero tolerance for Bothsiderism and OnlyUnicornism here but, well, guess neither of us are getting our way here are we?
@7. kippudarkwater :
No. Assumptions much BTW?
Taking your least relevant and least important point first, whether I am cis, trans, intersex, non-binary or other is totally irrelevant here and has zero bearing whatsoever on the subject and is my business and not yours.
Don’t want to be infantilised? Don’t act like an infant.
Don’t want to be insulted? Don’t insult my intelligence and that of others here.
To be a Bothsiderist is to be wilfully ignorant.
The two (& ONLY two serious meaningful, relevant parties becoz USA political system stinks) parties are NOT the same. Compare their platforms, policies, candidates, leaders and actions. They are NOT remotely the same and anyone falsely saying they are is simply wrong whether through ignorance or outright lying.
To be an OnlyUnicornist is to be profoundly infantile and not mature. It is to be a sulking child refusing to do anything because they didn’t get all the super special extra perfect icecream they demanded. Act like that, you get called out for that.
Grow the fuck up.
(Adult language there not too infantilising for ya? Mature enough?)
There are political realities just as there are scientific ones and the political ones are also very much determined by the numbers and maths.
Much to my regret, we do NOT live in a perfect and just world and half the voters are always going to be below average intelligence, low emotional quotient, etc.. and add to that the conventions, the media brainwashing from social and old media alike with Murdoch, Musk, Zuckerberg ad nauseam, the abysmal state of USA-Ite education ad fucking nauseam again.
You do NOT ever get perfect “Unicorn” candidate in politics. You get the ones you get. If you don’t like it, try it. Participate personally yourself and see how far you get.
You will NEVER get an ideal candidate that passes all the fucking purity tests and, if you do, they’ll probly lose because we aren’t a majority.
Everyone has their own purity tests and ideals and they clash and contradict and what the Base wants, well, the rest of the country – far too many of them – do not & will be alienated by. You have to put up with what will win other voters votes even when you don’t like that.
OnlyUnicornist / Bothsiderists staying home and not voting or 3rd party spoiler vote wasting is politically indistinguishable from those who just don’t care and aren’t politically responsible enough to vote. These are all effectively the same failures to be responsible citizens.
Whatever message you think you are sending by not voting / 3rd party vote wasting; the message the political parties get from it is that you are unreliable, untrustworthy and therefore will be catered to less not more.
We know this from historical experience. Has not voting or 3rd p spoiler vote wasting ever worked at pushing the Democratics to the left? No.
Sucks I know. Does reality sucking make reality go away? No.
The way to have any real impact is to participate and work to get the people you want in the primaries then unite behind them and do all you can to win.
To win elections you need to get the most votes. Which means you have to convince enough people who are NOT in your political base.
Too infantile for ya? I really need point this out? Too obvs? I’d have fucking well thought so but here we fucking well are. (Just World fallacy, Political reality. Facts vs ideals.)
Nearly as much? Oh I fucking well doubt that. Look at ICE and the treatment of migrants.
Look at the transphobic bigotry of the Repugs vs the Democrats who were hounded and attacked and still are for their even mild support for trans rights.
Look at the anti Choice Repug reichwingers views and policies on Women’s Rights and abortion and even just voting vs the Democratic ones. Bothsiderism refuted right there.
You have, eh? Have you tho?
Have you thought about what this means for our planet’s climate with Global Overheating and the impact that has on us all, everyone on Earth, if Trump and the Repugs retain power?
Have you thought of the environmental consequences for biodiversity, pollution, the insect apocalypse, the Mass Extinction event we are causing & living through right now?
Have you thought of the impact of continued, worsened Trump tyranny on the
genocides and likely genocides in Ukraine, Iran & Gaza & elsewhere?
Have you thought of the impact on SCOTUS and gifting Trump yet more compliant traitor “Justices” on that?
You say you thought of these.
Okay then. Your answers please.
On these and other issues how does NOT voting Democratic all the way and therefore helping the Repugs make anything better and offer any better solutions or more hope or anything?
You did say you thought seriously so I guess you’ll have some quick and good response and better alternatives to VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO for all these ready and you’ll post it as soon as ya see this, yeah?
Right?
I don’t mean to be brutal or cruel to you and I am very fucking angry and upset here because votes have consequences, global ones here, and there are TWO and ONLY two fucking choices in the shithouse system the USA has.
(Think I might’ve mentioned that just once or thrice here?)
So. How and where exactly am I wrong here? Do tell.
Because the primary worked Stevens is not the Democrat candidate for Michigan. The imperative in Michigan is still to vote blue because the blue who now matters is El-Sayed.
By my reckoning, because we are talking about an ‘American’ election, the choices are:
1. vote for the
nazisRepublicans2. be a proper fuckwit and don’t vote at all (result = option 1)
3. vote for the unicorn (result also = option 1)
4. vote for the
non-nazi/non-unicornDemocrats (result is not option 1, so yay! – one small step of the long journey in the right [slightly left] direction)But I am concerned that you ‘Americans’ are yet to exhaust all other options before doing the right thing.
[meta]
Two reasons are obvious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum
Tethys gave another (and others have too, but hers is relevant):
“Keep in mind that the vast majority of the US commentariat has been voting for Democrats all along, and doesn’t make their choice based on blog comments.”
Basically, you are preaching to the choir in the guise of purity, of righteous smiting. It is a sad sight. Looping.
Americans are currently breaking mid-term voter turnout records across the country, which bodes well for Dems.
Even deep red districts that voted for Dumpster multiple times are seeing huge increases in Dem early turnout.
Maybe the stress of a GOP bloodbath will be enough to finally rupture a cranial blood vessel in the dementia patient and save everyone from having to deal with months of whinging about unfair elections.
@ 64 StevoR
StevoR,
Given I cannot vote in US elections and have said several times I would have cast a thousand votes for Harris in the last presidential election if I could have, what exactly is my banworthy offence?
a) saying voting blindly for the lesser of two evils rather than refusing to vote for evil is a losing strategy in the long run
b) objecting (along with countless others) to your obsessive bullying of the same person apparently for the crime of voting their conscience in a democratic election (pretty much the definition of a democratic election)
c) suggesting the onus should be on the Democratic party for not winning votes, rather than voters for not voting for them regardless
None of these are outrageous opinions whether you agree or not. Are you seriously calling for people to be banned just because they hold reasonable opinions you don’t share?
I’m truly surprised you’ve become such a fanatic.
P.S. I have no idea who “beholder” is other than someone you obsessively bully as every regular knows only too well.
About not voting blue topic:
If you are a rational left, progressive etc., you have two logically sound and very defendable options, in my opinion:
One: Vote for a Democrat. Obvious.
Two: Vote for a Republican. Not voting is not a rational choice, in my opinion.
So why voting for Republican can be a rational option? The main reason is that incumbency is a massive and overwhelming advantage in primaries because of name recognition, infrastructure, and Democratic party establishment’s general tendency to hang on to their representatives. The main reason against voting for a Republican is that you are obviously voting for a Republican. So here the thinking would be that by suffering a short term defeat, you can get rid of a shitty incumbent Democrat who because of massive advantage in primaries, muscles out any better candidate and thus gets elected over and over again. So the idea is that by getting rid it them, you can hopefully get a better option in the long term.
So it all boils down to how to you assess the immediate loss versus potential long term gain and it also depends on how bad the Republican/Democrat is. Obviously, most of the time, the best pay off is obtained by voting for a Democrat but it is possible that in some scenarios, voting for a Republican could actually be the better option.
@lotharloo
The Iranian schoolgirls Trump murdered gladly gave their lives so you could feel pure and superior and teach those naughty democrats a lesson the last time after all. Or the fishermen Hegseth murdered in the Carribean. Or the people who were tortured and abused in ICE custody.
Unbelievable.
I guess you lot still aren’t downtrodden enough, gotta’ starve and lick lichen off rocks before you might even start thinking that helping plain evil people into power just so you can be feel PURE is a shitty, selfish and solipsistic idea.
@AugustusVerger
You are clearly an idiot because you do not engage with the argument. I am Iranian you fucking idiot dipshit.
To be honest, one of the biggest problems with the culture of North America and I guess generally former British colonies is that it is full of people like AugustusVerger who love nothing more than to display their morality at all costs to others. It’s also where LARPing comes from. It’s where virtue signalling comes from. I can also see it in the “super hero” culture. It is an attention seeking culture. It was actually quite shocking for me to realize in the past that but now I understand it: The Western culture is centered around the individual and so people love to be at the center of attention. It is very visible in movies, children’s books, stories and so on that it is an individualistic, and generally selfish culture.
@lotharloo
So I guess you assimilated to the American way of never taking responsibility for your actions pretty quickly then because I responded only to what you wrote. Sorry, for not being able to read your mind where you might have meant something completely different but your fingers decided to put something else out just to spite you.
Voting for plain evil people to get power because you are unhappy with the incumbent does not make you PURE and UNBLEMISHED, it makes you a sociopath, nothing more. If you don’t like the king for not being caring enough, helping a child rapist and trafficker into power means you now share part of the blame for everything that guy does.
So far every time the American Left decided to be PURE and UNBLEMISHED by helping Republicans into power, people died for it. In 2001 when they helped Bush Jr. into power and he fucked up the Middle East with wars of choice. In 2016 when they helped Trump #1 to stuff the Supreme Court with fascist activist judges and now Trump #2. Every single time their decision cost lives and made the world a worse place. And now that at least parts of the Democratic party are moving left we are STILL DOING THE FUCKING PURITY THING?!? ARE YOU FOR REAL?
Also, I’m neither American nor part of the Anglosphere, so you take your own advice and sodomize yourself with a rusty shovel.
Considering your snotty reply I guess I squeezed at least a dozen nerve bundles, huh? Do your countrymen know you are taking sides with the people throwing bombs at them?
@AugustusVerger
I made a clear argument. When you decide to quit LARPing and actually produce something that resembles an argument, we can continue. But right now, I have zero fucking respect for useless idiots like you.
You never quit losing do you? I left N. America a while ago and live in N Europe now. A quick tip: try to live in other countries for an extended period of time, if you can. You are obviously a person who is very limited in their perspective.
@5. “Knee-jerk, automatic voting for a party is what would lead to the eventual election of a Democratic version of Trump.”
What would a Democratic version of Trump, if one were even possible, look like?
Given the Democratic policies are largely opposite of the Repugs wouldn’t that be a good thing anyhow?
Any such version of a putative Democrat Trump seems an awfully long way and I’m talking about, well literally today here. 3rd November mid terms 2026.
Oh and again, please, what is the alternative – if not Blue no matter who then what and who and where does that alternative take us in the binary system that is USA politics?
StevoR:
Mate! That is the Liberal Party, where you live.
(Did you vote Blue? No matter who? I am pretty sure you did not)
—
It is a bit insulting to tell foreigners how they should vote. Doesn’t stop you.
—
We shall soon see how (and if) people voted.
Tethys above: “Americans are currently breaking mid-term voter turnout records across the country, which bodes well for Dems.”
See? Non-compulsory voting means getting people to even vote at all is some sort of achievement.
(StevoR, did you vote in your local Council election? Not compulsory, after all)
We can already see the Democratic version of Trump: a corporate Democrat and Zionist who cheerfully finances a genocide.
@69 Trump troll’s support troll Silentbob : ”..what exactly is my banworthy offence?”
Do you really want a list? Okay – note its offences plural.
We can start with your constant and continuing misgendering of chigau (違う) and your bullying of her and other commenters including John Morales for many years and me more recently.
Your misrepresentation of what I argue and have said vs your bad faith strawperson.
Notably what you said here :
Is a lie
The Dishonest Trumpist Troll “beholder” (DTTB) isn’t being bullied & certainly not over a mere difference of opinion or single vote. They are being called out for their years long campaigning here for Trump by attacking the ONLY alternative and ignoring the worse alternative. Also regularly lying and promoting and seeming to believe reichwing lies and disinfo. I have explained what I am trying to achieve here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/05/06/free-speechunless-you-criticize-the-gaza-genocide/comment-page-1/#comment-2300306
Then next on the list of your personal banworthy offences in my view, we have your continued lying about Kamala Harris who is NOT a genocide supporter or responsible for what Netanyahu chose to do and actually called what was happening there “outrageous “and “heart-breaking” as I’ve informed you many times including here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/01/i-almost-completely-missed-the-meteoric-career-of-joe-schmid/comment-page-1/#comment-2311220
Only to have you trollishly ignore the reality and continue lying about her repeatedly.
Oh & of course your cowardly and disingenuous refusal to answer direct questions and cowardice e.g. those here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/11/this-is-what-happens-when-you-let-a-senile-fool-run-the-country/comment-page-1/#comment-2309411
@77. John Morales :
Context. Of course, I meant in the USA which is the subject here. Locally sure Ive already note that I vote for – and am a member of – the Australian Greens because we can do that given we have preferential voting here.
It is a bit insulting to tell foreigners how they should vote. Doesn’t stop you.
Because it matters to our entire species especially given the Climate Implications and especially to Aussies given how dominated we are by the USA and its politics and culture. I’ve stated this before so you must already know the answers I’m giving you here.
Anyhow. What people in the USA does directly affects all our lives with things like the covid pandemic, Global Overheating policies, promoting fascism and multiple forms of bigotry throughout the world, getting dragged into their wars in Vietnam, Iraq and being affected like the rest of the world by their current war with Iran, ad nauseam.
If they are going to affect my life and all our lives so much then begging them to choose wisely and doing all I can to see that reason prevails seems pretty reasonable I’d say.
A good reason to have mandatory voting – or at least crossing one’s name off at the polling booth introduced for the USA.
Yes I did. Helped in a couple of local, successful Greens councillors’ campaigns too.
@78. If that’s meant to refer to Biden I think that is unfair given Biden called for restraint, sanctioned some Israeli extremists, criticised Netanyahu and even withheld some weapons from the IDF. Trump reversed those measures actually cheers on and endorses Netanyahu calling for him to finish the job and for the extermination and expulsion of all Gazans and is clearly far worse for them and other Palestinians.
@70, Lotharloo, assuming the well hasn’t been poisoned I will attempt to indicate why your proposal will not work. But before I do that, I’ll re-iterate what I believe your proposal is, so that if my understanding is in error it can be corrected.
As I understand it, you are saying that voters need to evaluate each candidate. If a left-leaning candidate is not acceptable, for any number of reasons, it may be wiser to elect a right-leaning candidate with the hope that a better left-leaning candidate will be available in the future. Because it will be easier to remove a right-leaning incumbent in the general election than to remove a poor left-leaning incumbent in the primary. Obviously, a right-leaning voter would use the opposite strategy.
There are a number of flaws in the above thought experiment, I’ll deal with two, one minor and one major.
The minor flaw is that it can be hard to tell during the election process if a candidate is acceptable. As a politician myself I can say that when I was canvassing my neighborhood there were topics I avoided because I knew the voter wouldn’t find my views appealing. The most obvious one is that I never proclaimed my atheism. I personally don’t think my religious views are important, but some voters do. I never lied, if I was asked about my religion I was happy to discuss my lack of belief, but I also never advertised because I am certain I would have lost voters. It is quite common that a candidate’s fitness for a position is not known until after they are elected. Further, there are politicians, like Fetterman, whose personality shifts and they no longer share the same views as the people who voted them into office. So, your thought experiment falls on the first hurdle in the real world. Knowing that a candidate is acceptable, and will take into consideration your views, is nigh impossible. But this is, in comparison, a minor quibble compared to a bigger issue. Money in politics.
The votes cast by your elected congresscritter, at the federal and state level, and even to an extent at the municipality level depending on the population of that municipality, are largely along party lines because of money. I’ll illustrate this point with an example. The republican candidate for Senator in Michigan is Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is a career politician, and wants to get elected and re-elected to offices he runs after. Mike Rogers is not a fanatic believer in any religion, or trickle-down economics, or that we need to be in a war with Iran. However, in order to get elected he needs money. The party will give him money if he supports the party position. Republican voters who believe democrats will shut down churches, or take away their wealth will give money to Rogers as long as he appears to support their positions. There is so much money floating around in politics these days that should he fail to toe the line he won’t just be chastened by the party whip, there will be attack ads at his next election paid for by his own party. There is less and less crossing party lines during votes at the federal and state level than there used to be because doing so is likely to cause that elected official to lose their next election. (As an aside, based on the voting patterns I see in the senate, I think that those politicians who do cross party lines in a vote probably discuss it within their party before doing so. There are a couple senators who are designated lightning rods, who have a reputation of bucking the party. But if, for some reason, the senate decides a few more votes are needed, it almost seems like a couple people are chosen at random. Not because of their professed beliefs, but because a single vote against party lines doesn’t hurt their reputation much.)
If Mike Rogers was a congresscritter in the 1950’s he would support Eisenhower’s 90% top marginal tax, would have agreed that the military-industrial complex could be a future problem. Would have been against bussing and de-segregation. Rogers would have been for the war in Korea. In other words, his positions and beliefs we would be what is today called RINO, but what was then the party platform. The majority of the 538 congresscritters are just like Mike Rogers. They are not evil, at least not beyond the basic banality we all are, but they are not going to jeopardize their jobs by voting against the legislation their party leaders submit.
The thought experiment you propose suggests that you can look over the available candidates, evaluate them, and select the candidate which will do the least harm. The problem, frankly, really are not the candidates in most cases, it is a system where party leaders, both elected officials and unelected leaders, control so much money that they can make or break any candidate they choose. For a good reason, or a petty one. Getting as much money out of politics as possible would help. If the candidates raised most of the money they spent themselves they would be more willing to buck the party line. Of course, that has it’s own problems.
Finally, and just as an aside, the incumbent advantage which used to exist in US politics has largely gone away. Voters are so upset with their government that there are plenty of voters who will chose to vote against an incumbent.
A long comment, but my $0.02.
StevoR, Your continual wall-of-text comments are the antithesis of good political argument, as they are far more focused on making enemies than persuasion. Your obsession with certain other commenters moved from being annoying to being alarming some time ago. I don’t doubt your motives (well actually, I’m beginning to – what would be a motive for intentionally alienating folks who agree with your stated political aims?), but I think you need a rest. It’s hard enough to be a politically active American these days, particularly in a “red” state, without your constant attacks and empty condescension. Your rhetoric has a good deal in common with another obsessed guy I can think of who has never gotten over elections going back at least to 2016. You express anger at any sort of nuance, and your rhetoric has become toxic to rational discourse. Just stop.
“In primaries, you vote for whatever party you align with or don’t vote.”
Or, if you live in a region completely dominated by one party, you vote in that party’s primary, because whoever wins the primary is going to win the general election, so that’s your best shot at having an influence.
flex @81: “A long comment, but my $0.02.”
Perhaps, but with far more content than a certain other poster’s equally long, not to mention endlessly repetitive, screeds.
Amanda’s Mild Takes ( YouTube series) Donald Trumps L’s for the Week(it’s only Tuesday) is pretty glorious today.
She gives a quick rundown of early vote totals across the country, and the various legal losses of Dumpsters attempts to interfere in free elections.
Great early Dem voting in Nevada, Kansas, NC, SC!, Louisiana?! New records in every state!
Nevada needs miracle numbers of R voters to show up today, or they already lost. NC is in a similar position.
Americans are pissed off and apparently all those fence sitters who didn’t vote in 2024 are showing up in droves to vote blue.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jGb5KotctUk&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D&ra=m
———————
I agree that comments such as Flex’s 81, that contribute to the thread are great!
Maybe now StevoR will quit being such a self-centered jerk that keeps posting their obsessive screeds all over the blog. It’s literally 10% of this thread alone despite numerous Pharyngulites pointing out it’s really obnoxious.
@ ^ Tethys : What? I’m “self-centred” and “obnoxious” for hoping that the world gets better for everyone and trying to do what I can to make that so?! For caring about the future and putting the case for how to make it better? For pities sake!
Also, I don’t think percentages of threads are a good or useful metric.
Can’t win, post a single, long comment covering a lot of replies and ideas and points and its a “wall of text”, TLDR. Post separate replies and make individual comments for individual points, OTOH, and you’re “thread hogging.” Catch 22..
.***
@82. psanity : Dude, definitely NOT trying to make enemies and, pardon me, for actually giving a shit about one of the most important elections in my lifetime and then expressing my opinions in the blog comments here hoping to make a positive difference.
I certainly never intended to annoy people here. I’ve been massively stressing out about this election for months becoz it matters! That’s wrong somehow?
Anyway, be assured I won’t be calling for people to vote Democratic when there’s no longer an election happening.
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Thinking of which..
Phew! Its looking good. Blue Tsunami! YES! :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/29/infinite-thread-xxxxi/#comment-2315534
Needed this result so much, the whole world did.
I can feel a metaphorical weight coming off as the results keep rolling in and they’re so, so good. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Actually, huge thanks to everyone who voted Blue.
At this time, anyone standing as a Republican is, at best, an enabler of fascism. If there’s an election when either the Republican or the Democrat is effectively certain to win (and I note that in the current midterms, that does not include the election of a senator for Mississippi!), by all means vote third party if there is a decent candidate. In all other cases, not voting for the Democrat is enabling fascism.