Post #3813282

2026-07-07 05:33 UTC

VBNMW is just a social campaign to try to keep the party cohesive. The voters individually decide if they follow it. I understand no one is like, checking who people vote for but I keep seeing people blaming Trump and his policies on those who didn’t vote, or who decided to vote for a 3rd party. Even in the case of something egregious, it’s probably still better than the alternative though. I feel like I need an analogy here so we don’t get caught up on specifics. Let’s say one party wants to serve mushrooms for dinner and the other one promises no mushrooms, but there will be instant rice. Person A hates mushrooms but doesn’t mind instant rice. They might think people who hate instant rice are over reacting. Person B hates both mushrooms and instant rice. They wonder why person A thinks they should just shut up and eat it instead of having spaghetti, which everyone loves. And someone decided you are only allowed to have two choices. How on earth can that be representative? Does the severity of what people are asked to accept just keep increasing over time?

Replies (1)

@Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 2026-07-07 05:57

This is in a similar vein as Bill Clinton who had sex with an intern in the presidential office (“consensual” gets pretty fuzzy when one party is an intern and the other is her boss, the president of the United States). The party line then was that we voted for policies not personal morality. And he left office as one of the most popular presidents in modern history. But recently Republicans have just stopped expressing shame (as opposed to apologizing or making excuses) and the media just moves on, so I do think the bar has been dropped and it’s why I don’t think this is necessarily fatal.

Open ##3815900