But I do like that the two major political parties are nervous. That's good for them. They need more of it.

Oh good grief. My facebook feed is full of articles from the democrats saying "Anyone who doesn't support Hillary is a closet sexist."
When will this campaign end.

Can either Trump supporters or Hillary supporters explain to me how they overlook the major flaws in their candidate? Or is it a case of voting for them because they are the lesser of two evils.

I don't think the people who vote for Jill Stein are sexists. Ogion will come on in no time to tell them they are idiots though ;-)

This "lesser of two evils" game puts two much power in the hands of these two parties. Why not use that power and influence to find a candidate that isn't evil?

But heck that's just crazy talk right there. I must be a fringe lunatic or something :-)

Trump is a great candidate, the only one who will uphold the law.

Who benefits most from pushing the "lesser of two evils" argument and the "a vote for X is a vote for Y" argument?

I don't see how Clinton's flaws are significantly worse than those of any other politician, certainly no worse than any other major party candidate in the past several elections. Unless I want to forgo voting entirely during my lifetime, there's a certain baseline that I just kind of accept.

Uphold the law like violating trade embargoes?

One candidate sells herself out to top buyers, and the other has already bought himself out.

Which laws of Acquisition would that be leon?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition

Answer: Only the major-party candidates who have an "establishment" name behind them. Whether or not you agree with the policy proposals or philosophy behind either, you have to recognize that both the above-mentioned lines really only benefit the established status quo of party arrangements.

I'm pretty sure leon was trolling. Trump doesn't seem like he's running a campaign that features "rule of law" sort of language - otherwise, we'd be talking about the constitution or legal specifics more, no? His rhetoric about "cutting deals" positions himself as the strongman who protects those who support him.

Unless you believe everything he's said about politics on this forum is a troll, he is probably serious.

"Who benefits most from pushing the "lesser of two evils" argument and the "a vote for X is a vote for Y" argument? "

Both evils and X an Y?


"Unless I want to forgo voting entirely during my lifetime, there's a certain baseline that I just kind of accept."

Or vote third party and bring the democrats and the republicans to the bargaining table. It is our votes they are courting and if enough people refuse to give them; that's when change will happen.

@TrPrado - you have me there. To date, I haven't really paid attention to political threads on this site. So I don't have a baseline for leon's political or trolling tendencies.

@leon - I apologize. You may have been serious, and we might simply legitimately disagree.

@CA - Bingo. Now I wonder what sources started pushing the "vote for X is a vote for Y" narrative almost as soon as the RNC and DNC conventions were over?

The "vote(X)=vote(Y)" argument is a meme that benefits only established party candidates. It's a really easy and convincing argument to make, because as social creatures, human beings rarely like to leave the herd. Thus, we're stuck with a two party system and trying to figure out which of the two is less evil.

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

@ leon

Yeah, I am sorry too. I disagree with you, but the whole Ferengi thing was out of line.

"It's a really easy and convincing argument to make, because as social creatures, human beings rarely like to leave the herd."

Huzzah!, that means I must be an alpha male! Let's start our own herd :-)

"Or vote third party and bring the democrats and the republicans to the bargaining table. It is our votes they are courting and if enough people refuse to give them; that's when change will happen."

Have you looked at third-party candidates? There's no messiah waiting to be crowned there either.

^ Agreed. At best, a third party victory would result in four years of chaos as the two-parties in congress have to deal with a third wheel administration. Even a significant third party vote percentage accomplishes a statistically measurable metric to inform future establishment party pandering.... maybe they'll listen to the discontent a bit more.

It's telling that most of the competent, yet ideologically disparate, candidates felt the need to run through the existing DNC/RNC parties, rather than try to walk their own path in a third party. What would this election season be like if equal airtime was given to Hillary, Trump, Cruz, Sanders, and Johnson?

My guess is that we would be talking about Sanders v. Johnson, or Kasich if you wanted to pull a GOP candidate.

CBS makes the same mistake of not recognizing that the increase in the debt during the first year of Obama was done pursuant to a Bush budget. For the debt attributable to Obama you have to start with the 2009 budget which runs during 2010.

For starters, most of Clinton's "flaws" are mostly speculative hallucinations with zero substance behind them. Yes, she is a centrist, which isn't really what we need, but for all that she is extremely experienced and has pretty good policy instincts. I am entirely confident that she will improve US health care to the greatest extent possible (given GOo control of the house at minimum), will be better on many environmental issues than Obama, will advance climate action substantially, and will work toward social justice jut as she has since the 1970s. I don't expect her to be a pacifist (which might be ok in some instances) and I don't expect much good on banking or possibly trade. On balance, she is competent and decent. She's not super charismatic, but I don't want or need that in a president. Is she close to big money? Yes, but few politicians aren't. Might she be too quick to go to war? Possibly. Given the differences between Syria and Libya I am not at all convinced she was wrong on Libya since without intervention things might be even worse than they are now. Also, I am certain she'll be better on civil rights and civil liberties. It's a pretty simple case here

Gadaffi was a target because he opposed American interests. Also, Obama has outright stated that the way they handled Libya was the worst mistake of the administration.

"Have you looked at third-party candidates? There's no messiah waiting to be crowned there either."

I have and you're right. However, my aim is not to look for a savior in any third party candidate, but to force the DNC and RNC to wake up and realize that they are bleeding support by putting such abysmal candidates forward. A two party system has devolved into two diametrically opposed forces tying each other's hands.

One side cuts taxes on the rich and the other side spends like revenue stream has never been cut. They’re both trying to force their own agenda’s in spite of one another and have no problem leaving the rest of us holding the bag.

“CBS makes the same mistake of not recognizing that the increase in the debt during the first year of Obama was done pursuant to a Bush budget. For the debt attributable to Obama you have to start with the 2009 budget which runs during 2010.”

Sure CBS, tradingeconomics.com, etc and I make the same mistake of not taking you at your word, but
Even if I go by your numbers and don’t count anything before 2010 (or after 2015 to get close to your number of 18 trillion and not the current 19.5 trillion) that still leaves $5 trillion over five years. AND the first two years of the next administration would still be attributable to him using your logic.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

You’ve said to look at it as debt to GDP (okay) here it is (again):
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp
You have made every attempt to dodge and place the blame on the other party yada-yada, but it is BOTH parties that are being irresponsible.

Rather than looking at the sheer numbers, you should be looking at things as a constant flow. In terms of percentages, not only did Bush increase the national debt by nearly double what Obama did, he put the catalysts in play for a massive destabilization pattern in 2007 and 2008. In the first six years of his term, the deficit floated at around $400-500 billion a year, which is stupidly high already but simply seems to be the way things work. In 2007, 2008, and into 2009 (but excluding the Stimulus Act, because that was all Obama) he upped that number to $1.6 trillion. Overall, he added nearly $6 trillion to the national debt in his terms, a 100%+ increase, but the sharpest inclines occurred in those last couple of years.

Obama added more than $6 trillion to the national debt but he has sharply decreased the national deficit to *below* the $400-500 billion range that Bush held it in during his first term. Last year, the deficit was $327 billion, down from over $1 trillion in 2014. Including the $250 billion stimulus bill in 2009, Obama brought the budget down from a total of around $1.9 trillion in 2009 to $1.2 trillion in 2011, $672 billion in 2013, and the aforementioned $327 billion in 2015 (with a weird outlier in 2014 of $1+ trillion). That's a 56% increase, which is starkly lower than Bush's numbers despite the fact that Obama did the majority of the stimulus spending, passed healthcare, and generally lifted the economy. In actuality, he has been part of a movement to decrease spending, but he can't just make the deficit go away.

All that said, FDR increased the national debt during his terms by over 1000% in preparation for WWII. Woodrow Wilson increased the national debt by 700% - to a whopping $23.9 billion. Ronald Reagan increased the national debt by 188%. Even Bill Clinton, the guy who miraculously erased it all, added $1.3 trillion to the national debt, up 32% from HW Bush. The last surplus occurred under Eisenhower. FDR and Reagan, the two presidents who are idolized by the left and the right, both had a much sharper effect on the debt than Obama *and* Bush did.

All in all, this national debt talk is pretty much a wad of horse shit and there isn't a single person, Ron Paul and his brain child Gary Johnson included, who could get rid of the smell radiating from it.