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I vacillate between Trump, Kamala, and some random third party bozo. I live in SF, so my vote matters exactly 0 for federal; it's not even clear what strategy I should vote with since it doesn't matter anyway. The person I think would genuinely be best in terms of outcomes? The person most aligned with my values? The person less personally revolting? The person who an additional vote for would send the strongest message about how I feel about the ruling elite? Or by voting at all am I giving legitimacy to a system I detest anyway?
Local elections are a bit more interesting. I'm thinking of adopting the principal of only putting thought into local elections, and just voting R down the line for statewide and higher races (and, for primaries and such, the more electable R). The core issue with California is that it's a single party state; if Democrats faced meaningful competition, we'd get more competence and less corruption.
By "a system" do you mean "the eventual winner(s)" or "democracy"? Voting against the eventual winner(s) gives them less legitimacy, while giving democracy more legitimacy.
Even if it's democracy you detest, though, it's got a commanding lead in public legitimacy, and it's hard to see how withholding your contribution will help change that. Half the point of a democratic state is that it naturally co-opts its own most effective enemies. If you want a revolution but not enough to drag yourself out the door to participate in the Regularly Scheduled Peaceful Revolution, you're probably not going to be participating in the violent revolutionary meetings or the guerrilla terrorist attacks either.
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Lately I've tended to think that your vote for President not mattering due to being in a solid Red or Blue state shouldn't make you actually not vote for President because, even though it doesn't actually matter legally, people do pay attention to the National Popular Vote. It can and probably does affect the extent to which a candidate feels they have a mandate from the people to perform bold actions and the extent to which individuals complain that somebody "didn't really win" because they didn't win the NPV.
And so, I will vote for Trump despite being in a deep blue district (Manhattan) that has no chance of him winning.
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In the primaries, is it of more value to try to get more electable Republicans, or to get less crazy Democrats?
Imagine having a primary...
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For California in particular, I think more electable Republicans. Less crazy Democrats would be good and probably closer to my actual policy preferences, but having a single party system itself seems to lend itself to bad governance (at least in the context of American politics). Moderates and extremists will have different policies and spar with each other, but they close ranks when there is corruption or something that could affect the reputation of the party as a whole.
Unfortunately, California is now a one-party state. Barack Obama or Kamala Harris themselves could not win if they ran as a Republican.
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