2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Wow - the concern trolls were right. [View all]kenfrequed
(7,865 posts)As to the first point, the population of the country is always increasing. The largest number is not significant. What would be significant would be the percentage of registered voters or the percentage of people able to vote who do so.
As to the second, the raw number of Stein voters is only relevant in as much as it occurs in those states where Hillary did not already win. So you have to ignore vote for her in solidly blue states.
And then you have to look at each of those states where Stein's vote might make a difference. In those cases, in order to be rational, you need to actually subtract Stein's numbers from 2012 from the votes cast in 2016. In all honesty, these are hard core Greens that no one should have ever counted on to vote Democratic. I wouldn't have even tried to rely on them to support Bernie Sanders. If that number still makes the difference then maybe an argument could possibly be made.
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As far as Gary Johnson voters go, they were libertarians to start with and only would have considered voting for a Democratic candidate in terms of issue or policy intersection. In this case the reluctance towards military action and support for legalization of cannabis might have made a difference. Both of these are areas where it is theoretically possible that they might have considered a Democratic candidate who was closer on those issues. Again though, they were too far away on most any other issues to be considered reliable. Bernie might have been able to razor some of them away, but honestly I think Johnson still would have walked away with a percentage point or so.
The thing about third party voters is that they aren't usually ignorant. Fanciful, idealistic, and often foolish, but not ignorant. They decided on what they thought was important and voted on it. Imagining them all to be potential democratic voters is naïve. And thinking that you are somehow going to magically receive all of their votes without catering to them a bit is downright idiotic.
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This castigation of third parties, while entertaining and good for a headline, is ultimately stupid. This is the kind of story that excuses professional pundits for getting it wildly wrong and professional politicos for making stupid mistakes during an election. It is the kind of story that simply exists to prop up the existing strategy and mentality of existing political parties and those apparatus that undergird the existing establishment.