If that’s why Kamala lost, then explain why Tammy Baldwin is winning Wisconsin and Elissa Slotkin is winning in Michigan.

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First of all I live in Illinois, so my vote doesn’t matter at all. Second, Harris would’ve needed a lot more that 0.3% to win, she lost PA by a solid 2.0%. Even if you do the unrealistic thing y’all do of adding third party votes to your candidate’s total, you’re not going to have enough to win.

But none of that is really relevant. The people who helped Trump win were the people who voted for him. I didn’t help either candidate win because I didn’t vote for either candidate. I helped Kamala exactly as much as I helped Trump.

I don’t really have an interest in continuing this purely semantic argument where I consider myself to be objectively correct about the meaning of terminology.

It’s not really all that complicated. The Democrats represent the status quo. The status quo sucks. The Republicans present themselves as an alternative to the status quo. So, people vote Republican.

All the centrist messaging just makes it worse. The Republicans can explain why things suck by scapegoating the poor and marginalized. But the Democrats won’t call out the rich and powerful who are the actual reason things suck, so instead they just try to tell people that things don’t suck at all. They “reach across the aisle” to people like Dick Cheney who are clearly part of the political establishment which only serves to help Trump present himself as an outsider. They adopt all these right-wing positions on immigration, the military, etc, but the people that appeals to already have a party waiting on them hand and foot, giving them exactly what they want. And all the bad shit he does doesn’t matter to them because they believe in lesser evilism and hate the establishment.

Of course, Trump is part of the billionaire class and isn’t any sort of real alternative to the existing system, but as long as Republicans are able to paint themselves that way, and are the only “alternative” game in town, people are going to turn to them when they dislike the way things are going, no matter how shitty they are.

I felt surprised and confused in 2016 when Trump won, but it’s been 8 years. It’s long past time to start figuring out where the Trump phenomenon came from.

“Insane leaps of mental gymnasics,” like, “Doing nothing has no impact on the election.”

As opposed to “logic,” like, “Doing nothing is a +0 which is neither an increase nor a decrease except also it is a decrease because it’s not an increase and not increasing is the same as decreasing because zero doesn’t exist.”

Tell you what, if doing nothing counts as helping someone, then rest assured that I’ll give Kamala my “help.”

Could’ve said that from the start! You didn’t have to die on this hill.

I don’t especially want to continue the conversation into that with you after it took 20 comments of you slinging insults and shit over something that you now say doesn’t matter to get here. If I have to pull teeth over something so simple, obvious, and relatively unimportant then I see no sense in discussing other stuff.

It’s not as if the terms I was insisting on would make it impossible to criticize my position. There’s no reason you couldn’t have accepted those terms to start and continued the debate.

It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it, you’ll still be as wrong as saying that I’m draining a pool by standing next to it with an empty hose. It’s simply not how language works and you can twist words around and tell me otherwise a thousand times, and it just means you’ll be dead wrong a thousand times.

“At fault for not fighting something” you can argue that, sure. “Benefiting,” or “helping” you cannot. There is no argument, it’s just definitionally false.

Letting the water evaporate is not the same as causing the water to evaporate. Letting Trump win (if he will) is not the same as causing Trump to win or helping him win. The baseline is doing nothing. If I did not exist, then the odds would be the same. Therefore I cannot be said to be helping Trump. That’s just not how language works. Otherwise you could just as easily say that I’m helping Kamala by not voting for Trump, at which is a clear contradiction.

“You’re helping Trump compared to if you had voted Kamala?” Fine. “You’re helping Trump?” False. That is how it is and no amount of saying otherwise or trying to play games with language is going to change it.

Rank them by which benefits trump the most, and you discover that +1 for kamala is better for kamala and worse for trump.

The fact that you cannot understand this is insane.

I understand this perfectly and I have never disputed it. In fact I’ve said it myself.

Your inaction is still a choice that benefits the party you least support, because if you had voted for the party you don’t least support, you’d be benefitting the party you support.

Compared to voting for Kamala, yes, voting third party benefits Trump. But it is not correct to say that it benefits Trump without that qualification.

Even by your own example, not turning the water on will cause the pool to evaporate, which is not as bad as directly draining it, but still causing it to drain more than if you had done something to benefit it.

Lmao. I am not “causing” the water to evaporate. If I gather a bunch of people together to stand next to a pool of water, will each of us “cause” it to disappear faster? Am I causing every puddle in the world to evaporate right now as we speak? This is so ridiculous I can’t even be frustrated or annoyed by your nonsense anymore, you’re just doubling down on absurdity into full clown shit.

Can I drain a pool of water by standing next to it with a hose that’s turned off? By not turning the water on, I am not increasing the amount of water in the pool, and according to you, not increasing is the same as decreasing, and it stands to reason that if I decrease the amount of water long enough, eventually there will be none left. That’s the logic you’re using and obviously it’s nonsense.

In the same way that standing next to a pool with the hose turned off does not increase or decrease the amount of water in the pool, not voting for Kamala or Trump does not increase or decrease their chances of winning.

This is extremely simple. You are being purposely obtuse in pretending otherwise.

Grifters grifting grifters lol.

Republicans: Minorities are eating people’s dogs!

Normal response: No they aren’t, and if a culture does eat dogs it’s no worse than other kinds of meat.

Liberal response: We’re gonna get the actual dog-eating minorities!

Stop letting them define the terms of discourse, stg.

It’s objectively false to say that you “mathematically helped the one you dislike.” If you remove a third party voter from existence, then both major parties receive the same number of votes and have the same chance to win. What you mean to say is that third party votes pass on an opportunity to help/hinder the candidate the voter prefers more/less.

It’s not at all complex, and I am not confused by it. You are just obviously and objectively wrong.

than if you had voted for the side you do want to win.

Of course, as long as you specify that, then you are correct. In the same way it’s correct to say that I stopped a nuclear war today compared to if I had started one. But it is incorrect to say that I stopped a nuclear war with no disclaimer about what I’m comparing it to, and it is incorrect for you to claim that I’m helping Trump by not voting for Kamala with no disclaimer about where you are setting the baseline.

In an objective sense, I am not helping Trump. I am only helping him relative to if I were going to vote for Kamala (which I wasn’t).

It would be much clearer to simply say, “You are failing to take an opportunity to increase Kamala’s chances and decrease Trump’s,” which is 100% true. But you can’t accept that, because that’s using language in a way that’s actually fair and accurate. Instead, you’d rather make the dishonest, false accusation that I’m not merely failing to hurt Trump, but actively helping him. And then you call me names and say I’m “confused” and too dumb to understand when I call out your dishonesty and manipulative use of language.

Than if you had voted for them. You didn’t say that before. When you don’t specify that, the statement is false.

Relative to a baseline of starting nuclear war, I stopped a nuclear war today. That doesn’t mean that I actually stopped a nuclear war in an absolute sense, or relative to doing nothing. If I went around telling people I stopped a nuclear war, I’d be lying. In the same way, it’s false to say that not voting is “helping” Trump, unless you specify that you mean relative to doing something that hurts Trump.

If trump is an option, and you didn’t increase the chance for kamala, you have increased the chance for trump

For example, this is false.

if you do not vote

+0 chance for kamala

There you go, you just said it yourself. Neither an increase nor a decrease.

No, the same which is the same for the candidate you prefer. The chances only change if you vote for them or for their opponent. It is objectively, mathematically false to say that the chances change when you do nothing, it’s not even a coherent statement, doing nothing by definition changes nothing.

if you choose not to, you will decrease their chances

False. If you chose not to, the chances remain the same.

Not voting for the candidate when you could’ve doesn’t improve the opponents odds?

No, it doesn’t. Not voting for a candidate neither increases nor decreases their chances. Voting for a candidate is what increases their chances, voting for their opponent is what decreases them.

Actually mathematically false. You’re saying 1+1=4 because if it doesn’t your feefees will be hurt.

Nope, it’s actually mathematically false, you’re the one twisting numbers around. Remove me from existence and Trump and Kamala’s chances will be the same, so I’m not increasing or decreasing either’s chances.

Voting is in no way shape or form an endorsement of anything

Definitionally, endorsing a candidate is when you say, “This candidate is the best choice and I intend to vote for them.” It doesn’t mean, “I agree with everything this candidate says or does.” If you vote for a candidate, tell people you vote for them, and encourage others to vote for them, that is definitionally an endorsement.

You’re obviously a teenager whose brain has not fully developed. If you’re an adult, god help us.

I’m in my 30’s. You’re just wrong about everything you said.

You’re so predictable. Never have anything interesting or insightful to say, always just here to lambast me for not singing the praises of a candidate I don’t even support. Boring.