Edit - oops, posted before I read to the end of the thread and saw the lock. Trainwreck indeed my apologies.
As I said in my post, 3rd party/swing voters being or not being the deciders of just the election result is beside the point. Like it or not, symbols matter- and there is great symbolic value in a candidate losing in a bonafide popular vote (and EC) landslide. If trump loses 48-46-6, then trump and the rest of history can just chalk that up to bad luck vis a vis corona. trump losing 60-40 is definitive evidence of repudiation, and I think that repudiation is important in establishing what our shared American values are going forward.
I agree that protests have value, but where we disagree is about which protest has priority at this time in our history. If it's 2012 and you decide to vote third party because Obama is a status quo neoliberal and Romney is a status quo Bill Buckley conservative then whatever. Big deal. Who cares. The status quo typically does not pose existential threats to our institutions. But if you vote third party this year, what does it say? It says that you think trump is just the same old, same old status quo Republican politician as always and that your single issue concerns are more important. But in my opinion, anyone who thinks trump is part of the same old group of status quo politicians who push their agenda hard but do so within the bounds of established norms, rules, and laws should have his head examined.
Ultimately, what is your third party vote about? Primarily 2A, civil rights, and small government, right? Enforcement and strengthening of 2A doesn't just exist in a vacuum. It exists within a framework where we respect the Constitution, respect checks and balances, respect Congress's power of the subpoena, respect the independence of the judiciary, respect the independence of the Attorney General, DOJ, and FBI, respect the tradition of having Senate-confirmed executive positions instead of "actings" so your subordinates have accountability, respect conflicts of interest and financial separation, respect the Hatch Act, and respect the FEC chair when he says "It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election."
At every step of the way trump undermines this framework while also subverting the rule of law, so for me, it begs the question when I hear people are going to vote trump or vote third party: Why on earth should I care about the issue you care about, when either explicitly or implicitly, you don't seem to care about the undermining of the framework that makes your issue enforceable?
That's well said and articulate as usual.
Though I don't really accept at face value your assertion that
your protest (a bigger popular vote win in the face of an EC loss) is more important than
my protest (refusing to vote for a terrible candidate despite how stupendously awfully terrible the other candidate is).
There are some echoes here of some previous disagreements in this thread about how people taking to the street in a non-socially-distanced way to protest police brutality was a "good gathering" but Trump supporters going to a rally to help him get re-elected to promote the issues they care about was a "bad gathering". Point being - a protest isn't much of a protest if it's not upsetting someone on the other side.
If my 3rd party vote upsets you, it's working as a protest.
The other catch is that conservatives have not ever, do not currently, and can't really foresee a future when Democrats even pretend to care about the issues they care about. Take your pick on abortion, 2A, immigration, religious "freedom", reparations, or any of the other top 5-10 issues ... they don't pretend to care and they don't actually care, not enough to make genuine compromises, anyway. At least, where "compromise" is actual compromise, rather than the the progressive cake-eating phenomenon where every year the Democrats "compromise" by taking a little more, then a little more, then a little more, and then cry "why won't you compromise" when there's pushback.
You can argue that Republicans aren't much for compromise these days either, but I'd just point out that they've been ceding ground continuously for decades on all of those issues. You might characterize it as hard-won progress against terrible stodgy old prejudices, but the undeniable truth is that what's acceptable to Republicans today is different than what was acceptable to Republicans 10 or 20 years ago. That's actual compromise.
Anyway, you're right in that my 3rd party vote is primarily about civil rights (of which the 2A is just one) and non-intrusive government. I probably shouldn't say I'm for "small" government, as what I really want is effective government (as big as it needs to be) that leaves its citizens alone while still doing the tragedy-of-the-commons type things only government can do and dissuading predatory abusive harmful behavior via worthy agencies like the FDA, NTSB, CDC, OSHA, etc. Bonus points to abolish predatory abusive harmful agencies like the DEA and ATF. I'm a libertarian but acknowledge that the pure libertarian Ayn Rand fantasy is an ugly unworkable dystopia.
Bottom line, neither the current Republican or Democrat parties or their candidates fit that bill, and I don't feel any kind of moral obligation to support either one. If the Democrats want me to vote for their candidate, maybe the motivation they need to nominate one I can get behind is another 4 years of Trump.
