I hear you. A few years back I was rooting for Jeremy Corbin to be Prime Minister and could not understand how the populace didn't choose him. More than that, I sympathize with people who dislike illegal immigration into their respective countries because, well, I can see how it FEELS like, "We built this country to be good and prosperous, and these folks want what WE built while they never built anything like it for themselves" -- but that is a false perception for so many reasons (Was their home a colony or otherwise oppressed? Our ancestors built our countries, but we're just born to them. Climate change is driving equatorial people to Northen climes -- to countries complicit in the climate change that has made their homelands dry and cropless, etc.)
So I don't have a solution for immigration (which Trump harped on constantly). Fixing the climate might help for the long term, but for the short term it won't fix that immediate complaint.
I look at U.S. history and I don't see a strong track record for austerity helping. More the reverse. In The Great Depression, one of the things that seemed to work was letting the government take on debt to give a bunch of people 'stupid' jobs so they could put that money into the economy. Of course, that came with stepp progressive tax rates, too. It was much harder to get rich when the highest brackets were up to/over 90% of income. I doubt the current crop of rich people would allow that to happen in the modern world, but I'd vote for it.
Keep it up! In fact, if you get criticized, you can point out that you'd rather have a leader you CAN criticize than one that gets treated like a God-ling. Point out that one of the differences in the generic liberal versus conservative thought is the idea that a leader might be flawed but generally good at leading versus the idea that everyone needs to support the leader (or the cause) no matter what -- until their transgressions become too extreme and gets them ostracized. Please. Let's criticize early and be ready to replace them sooner rather than later.
Not the person you were replying to, but the "doom" spouter here. I realize you are 100% right that my post might make people less inspired to vote. I'm sorry for that. I was very distressed at the time. My intent was to emphasize that: while a rational person might complain about either candidate, one is substantially worse and we MUST vote in favor of democracy when the other choice (and his advisors) are openly saying they want to dismantle the institutional expertise that understand how stuff works (which materials are suitable for building roads on various substructures, or where groundwater migrates and how to prevent contamination, and yes, how to figure out how a virus works). They call these people "the deep state", which minimizes the reason we want them to keep their apolitical jobs. Of course the experts -- like everyone --will likely have political opinions, but that doesn't mean they are partisan. As long as they look at data and derive truthful results regardless of their personal politics, it doesn't matter. Obviously we should fire those who can't do their job or hide/ignore/promote information such that their results are distorted to favor a personal agenda (also knowing that some data SHOULD be rejected if acquired by dubious means, isn't reproduced in other trials, etc.).
Anyway, I apologize for the negativity. Thank you for calling me out! :-)
Our system only allows 2 options. Any '3rd' option is a vote against your best interests. So is not voting. That said, yeah, I'd vote for a replacement.
I just heard Steve Bannon doing that fascist thing where -- when confronted with the fact that he said on his radio show that he wanted to see particular heads on spikes -- Bannon acted like that was just rhetoric. He didn't really mean it. Except he knows his followers DO mean it. And he's still calling for dismantling the government and remaking it into a permanent dictatorship.
So if that is what it means to vote Republican this election, then I'm gonna be a yellow dog democrat about it.
That can work with ranked choice voting, but we don't have that. Technically, we CAN vote for anyone over 35 and born in the U.S., but practically, this just splits the vote. This worked for Republicans when George Wallace split the Democratic vote such that Nixon won with 43%, and it worked for democrats when Ross Perot split the Republican vote such that Clinton also won with 43%.
Thoughts on the Debate: We're doomed.
Trump was a lying liar and Biden was a hoarse doddering old man who got lost mid sentence....