(no subject)

[flaviomatani]

There still seems to be a sort of Rapturist view of politics for some people in which we don't get the options we want so we walk out and don't vote for a Macron or a Hillary because they're evil too, even if the alternative is so so much more evil... I've come across a few examples of this recently and don't quite understand it...

Comments

[miss_s_b]

Me either

[flaviomatani]

Interesting take on this by ninshubur in the comment below.

[ninshubur]

It's a certain aloofness that relies either on the idea that their vote doesn't matter or that they won't be personally affected, so their voting (or non-voting) is purely rooted in a deep adversity towards supporting anybody or anything else other than somebody or something that is a good fit for their own beliefs. It's a position guided by moral absolutes rather than utilitarian considerations. It's politics of the heart and not of the mind.

Which is of course not a terribly useful strategy if you are essentially reduced to chose between two or three options. It works a lot better in systems like the Dutch system for example, where you tend to have broad coalitions of small parties.

Interestingly enough, I think that especially in the most outspoken proponents of this strategy, this may be mere posturing and those people may well sneakily vote in a rational manner in the end. I am also sure though that it will make people who have a deeply felt need to be "virtuous" shy away from doing the most sane thing and simply vote *against* what they find the most unpalatable option in absence of a viable option that they approve of.

[flaviomatani]

We used to see a lot of that in the left back in Venezuela, where Teodoro Petkoff used to call them 'the Jehova's Witnesses' of the left' -it often was a case of 'I'm in the right and damned the rest of you lot who are wrong', even if keeping my stance of being right makes the situation worse. But running (or aspiring to run) a complex society is in great measure about listening to what others have to say, often settling for not getting all you want (however much you may feel you're right and they're wrong) and meet in the middle so you can achieve positive outcomes in the long run.

[miss_s_b]

I think that especially in the most outspoken proponents of this strategy, this may be mere posturing and those people may well sneakily vote in a rational manner in the end.

I am dead set certain that this is correct.
And yeah, research into electoral behaviour in the UK says that a clear majority of people vote against, not for.

[flaviomatani]

We used to have a lot of that in Venezuela in the days before Chávez. There were two main parties, one II International, slightly left of centre Social Democratic party, the other one a conservative slightly right wing 'Social-Christian' party. People kept voting for the other party every five years as they couldn't possibly be as bad as this lot currently in office....