The president, senators, congresspeople, and all the way down are all the party

They’re of the same party, yes, but doing a different part of the job of governance. I was trying to draw a distinction between the vote for president, and the votes for senators congress people and all the rest. My point was that there is a single president and so getting the least terrible is better than getting the more terrible. This does assume we agree on least and most terrible, but see below on that. The rest of the votes it makes more sense to do as you’re saying, although I’d be worried about ending up with trump as president and both houses being controlled by the republicans. Having at least one of those three democrat controlled would reduce the harm a somewhat, and having more dem controlled would reduce it further. Not eliminate it, but make the situation worse more slowly.

There are only six realistically possible outcomes from the next election; trump or biden as president and either two dem houses, one of each, or two republican houses. Absolutely none of those are a good option, but one will happen, so it seems sensible to try to push towards the least harm.

copy and pasting the same ignorant vibes-based nonesense I’ve already addressed elsewhere but you couldn’t reply to or defend

Ok, are you saying that you see absolutely no difference in outcome between trump and biden being president? None at all? Because I know too many people who’ll be actively harmed by trump being president who would not suffer that level of hard under biden to be willing to say that myself.

No, it’s not, because you advocate against even threatening to withhold voting for a candidate. That is the original premise of your entire arguement you came here to make.

I was advocating primarily for avoiding trump being the next president, and suggesting that given the electoral reality as it stands, not deliberately acting to increase the chance of republicans being elected elsewhere. Withholding you vote is a sensible tactic, so long as the candidates in question know exactly why you are withholding it, and can adjust to that without losing more of their other voters. The trouble here is that for a lot of policies they all agree, so you withhold your vote from everyone. Fair enough, but there are also issues they disagree on, and now you need to consider those too.

Also, don’t think I didn’t notice you cut the rest of my quote to make it only about electoralism again and not other pressures

Sorry, I’m not deliberately dropping bits, but people are replying to me on about 25 different threads, ranging from the rather curt ‘fuck off’ through the somewhat intemperate, to quite thoughtful discussions suggesting approaches that might meaningfully reduce the harm in this cycle whilst also hopefully leading to longer term change, so it’s a little hard to keep up, especially when life is also occurring. I thought that bit got to the heart of what you were saying, as the previous bit (Plenty of movements throughout history have done this. Polling data shows this.) seemed to be agreeing with me. The call to, or implicit threat of violence, is, I feel, less necessary until all other options are exhausted.

Anything but assured victory is unacceptable and should not be risked. Also you must limit yourself to only a very narrow set of activities, during a tiny time window, that make that kind of organising impossible, while strengthing your opponent. This is definitely a good faith arguement.

I’m not saying it is unacceptable or should not be risked, I’m just pointing out that the outcome is likely to be neutral or (more) detrimental unless there is a large enough number to make it a more sure proposition. Sometimes that (more) detrimental outcome is worth risking, perhaps you see that it is in this election, but as I said above, I see trumps stated desires as harmful enough that they should be avoided. The rest of the ticket is sort of insurance against the presidential vote going to him, and so certainly easier to decide to withhold.

Straw man bullshit because you can’t and won’t address the actual points people, including me have made elsewhere in the thread. No one is advocating for this.

I may very well have misunderstood various peoples position then, as I haven’t seen anyone say they’re actually engaging with their candidates, only that they want to withhold their votes. If that engagement is implied I do apologise for misunderstanding everyone.