Idealists Won't Vote for Idealistic Candidate Because He Can't Win Because They Won't Vote For Him
Today, American voters can finally head to the polls to exercise their hallowed democratic right: the right to actively participate in destroying their own dreams of a better country.
The primary season is at last underway. Now is the time when progressives all across America—those who hope for a fairer, more just nation, one in which we wage a meaningful fight against inequality and take concrete steps to live up to our ideals—can at last step into the ballot box, gaze at the name of a candidate who shares all of their beliefs and ideals, and say to themselves with pride, “I guess I’ll vote for the other person, because no one will vote for the idealist.”
If you have participated in any political conversations over the past several months (and you are lucky if you have not), you have encountered this strain of thought. It is the thought pattern of those who consider themselves serious and savvy and knowledgeable political realists. Here is a classic example, though it can be found proliferating across the entire LIBERAL MEDIA. It goes a little something like this:
- I, an idealist who desires nothing more than a truly progressive American future, agree with the positions of Bernie Sanders.
- I don’t think people will vote for Bernie Sanders.
- I will vote for Hillary Clinton instead because it is easier for me to envision her as the winner and I don’t want to “waste” my vote.
Here we have the world’s only scenario in which idealists are able to immediately make their beliefs a reality. Unfortunately, the belief in this case is “the idealist candidate will lose.”
Yes, it is true: the idealist candidate will lose if all of the idealist voters do not vote for the idealist candidate. Funny how that works.
