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talkpoliticsSkip if you are American-Primaried-Out.
On the attitude: "I want X to win the primary or I stay home in November!"
I've seen a bit of this online from both Hillary and Bernie supporters... but mostly I see it from third parties (in the media) talking ABOUT Bernie supporters. How prevalent it is, in which camp, is its own argument, but I have some ideas about how the sentiment takes hold, and I can see why it would be more prevalent on the Bernie side (and in case you don't already know, I'm a Bernie supporter).
The commonest source, which all sides are prey to, is just the regrettable consequence of the adversarial nature of an election. Tribes form, identity is invested, ego is at stake, and tactical, rational, voting is forgotten in the face of the LOSS of face. That's the obvious source, and its presence, to some extent in all factions, is kind of unavoidable, primate hierarchies being what they are.
But there is another source of the sentiment which I think is deliberately cultivated by committed partisans. It starts as a motivational technique, which eventually gets internalized to the detriment of the interests of the partisans that hold it. I saw it a bunch back in the long-ago-times, when I was a Libertarian.
Interested partisans, somewhat more outside of the mainstream than is typical for moderate American politics (because calling them "fringe" would be pejorative ;) ) want their candidate to win, or their platform to be expressed. The most common argument they run up against when trying to convert the like-minded-but-more-moderate, is the "electability" argument. The logic is obvious. "X is too Extreme! X's Extremity will alienate the middle! Vote for X-lite, or else, Y will win! And we don't want Y to win, do we?"
Well, any standardly deployed argument begs for a standard rejoinder. The standard retort to the "elect-ability" argument, is what I call the “equivocation” argument. "Hey guys, X-lite is really JUST LIKE Y. There's no real difference between X-lite and Y! X-lite is really just a crypto-Y! So, voting for X-lite as a tactic to avoid Y is a sucker's game! You might as well vote for X, because ALL the alternatives are just various sorts of Y’s!"
Whether or not X-lite is indeed a crypto-Y, is irrelevant. In some elections I suspect they are, in some not. But irrespective of any particular election’s specifics, the equivocation argument can be very powerful, because it uses as its fuel political cynicism and disengagement.
And that’s kinda shooting fish in a barrel.
On the attitude: "I want X to win the primary or I stay home in November!"
I've seen a bit of this online from both Hillary and Bernie supporters... but mostly I see it from third parties (in the media) talking ABOUT Bernie supporters. How prevalent it is, in which camp, is its own argument, but I have some ideas about how the sentiment takes hold, and I can see why it would be more prevalent on the Bernie side (and in case you don't already know, I'm a Bernie supporter).
The commonest source, which all sides are prey to, is just the regrettable consequence of the adversarial nature of an election. Tribes form, identity is invested, ego is at stake, and tactical, rational, voting is forgotten in the face of the LOSS of face. That's the obvious source, and its presence, to some extent in all factions, is kind of unavoidable, primate hierarchies being what they are.
But there is another source of the sentiment which I think is deliberately cultivated by committed partisans. It starts as a motivational technique, which eventually gets internalized to the detriment of the interests of the partisans that hold it. I saw it a bunch back in the long-ago-times, when I was a Libertarian.
Interested partisans, somewhat more outside of the mainstream than is typical for moderate American politics (because calling them "fringe" would be pejorative ;) ) want their candidate to win, or their platform to be expressed. The most common argument they run up against when trying to convert the like-minded-but-more-moderate, is the "electability" argument. The logic is obvious. "X is too Extreme! X's Extremity will alienate the middle! Vote for X-lite, or else, Y will win! And we don't want Y to win, do we?"
Well, any standardly deployed argument begs for a standard rejoinder. The standard retort to the "elect-ability" argument, is what I call the “equivocation” argument. "Hey guys, X-lite is really JUST LIKE Y. There's no real difference between X-lite and Y! X-lite is really just a crypto-Y! So, voting for X-lite as a tactic to avoid Y is a sucker's game! You might as well vote for X, because ALL the alternatives are just various sorts of Y’s!"
Whether or not X-lite is indeed a crypto-Y, is irrelevant. In some elections I suspect they are, in some not. But irrespective of any particular election’s specifics, the equivocation argument can be very powerful, because it uses as its fuel political cynicism and disengagement.
And that’s kinda shooting fish in a barrel.
