VotePact Gives You Leverage Over The Duopoly

-by Sam Husseini,
Founder, Vote Pact

VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other-- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want.

It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election-- which is expected to be a historic first.

Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."

While many establishment Democrats complain constantly that Green Party candidate Jill Stein 'took votes away' from Hillary Clinton and handed the 2016 election to Trump, they effectively block RCV reforms which would solve the problem.

But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.

A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.

If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter opinion.

But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter The Huge Problem with Polls to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.

Some advocate that people voting third party in safe states and 'lesser evil' in swing states, which is certainly a positive step, but it obviously restricts voter choice in 'swing states,' is likely a recipe for muffling national advocacy of third parties-- and it's not scalable. That is, a third party candidate gaining traction would likely redefine which states are safe states, though that seems unlikely this year. VoteTrumpOut lists these as swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, or Wisconsin.

But VotePact can work with two people in any state and it doesn't advocate for any candidate, it is simply a tool anyone can use to strategically vote for their preferred candidate with the radical act of cooperating with someone from the other side of the partisan divide. If needed, the issue of trust in this election can be overcome by people filling out mail in ballots together. A PAC backing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rebranded VotePact as The Balanced Rebellion in 2016, got 37 million views on Facebook with an entertaining video featuring 'dead Abe Lincoln' and helped Johnson score the biggest third party success since Ross Perot. However, most third party candidates seem to have no strategy for electoral success, the Greens this year are saying they are largely out to preserve their ballot access.

Sanders Suspends: What Happened? What Now?

-by Sam Husseini

Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk commented just as Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign: "Bernie made a number of mistakes that I highlighted and broke down in detail. No excuses. Having said that, you're out of your fucking mind if you think I'll forget or look past 'bloody Monday', aka the day Obama got Pete and Amy to drop out and endorse Biden. Saving his campaign."

In fact, the "Bloody Monday" move-- when Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both endorsed Biden just after his South Carolina win and just before "Super Tuesday"-- might be the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the DNC or other establishment forces molded the campaign to producer this outcome.

Consider:

• Kamala Harris and Cory Booker pulled out of the race before South Carolina, paving the way for Biden's win there. Jim Clyburn of course endorsed Biden just before South Carolina. Tragically, Jesse Jackson only endorsed Sanders after.
• Warren split the progressive ranks throughout and ultimately refused to endorse Sanders.
• Even the choices of the candidates was useful to stopping Sanders. Pete Buttigieg was from Indiana and the net effect of his campaign was to deny Sanders a clear win in not-so-far-away Iowa. Amy Klobuchar was from Minnesota and so the net effect of her campaign was to throw that state to Biden so that Biden won something substantial outside of the south on Super Tuesday, making his rise appear national and therefore plausibly inevitable.
• Ostensibly antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard throughout refused to meaningfully criticize the war addicted Biden-- even when she had a clear shot to do so during the debates on his Iraq war lies. Meanwhile, Sanders just kept saying Biden voted for the Iraq war while Sanders didn't. Sanders never meaningfully made the case that Biden played key role in making the Iraq invasion happen and never really tore into his lies.
• Mike Gravel-- who might have really tore into Biden-- was excluded from the debate stage throughout.
• Julián Castro was marginalized shortly after he attacked Biden.
• Bloomberg coming in had the net effect of Warren going after him-- for things she could well have gone after Biden about but didn't. His demise effectively gave the base a sense of weird relief that Biden is the nominee: "Well, at least we didn't get stuck with Billionaire Bloomberg".

You couldn't have planned it better for Biden if you tried. And lots of forces-- from the DNC to the establishment media did try in thousands of ways.

Additionally, the entire "Ukrainegate" obsession-- contrary to a slew of deluded progressive commentators at the time-- built up Biden as the anti-Trump. Trump was trying to attack him, so he must be the one Trump is afraid of was the obvious logic. That was the net effect of the entire media focus on that including the ultimate impeachment (remember impeachment?).

Indeed, in this incredibly vicious cycle, just as many Republicans likely turned to Trump because they felt they needed a corrupt celebrity to stop Hillary Clinton, many Democrats likely turned to Biden for similar reasons this year.

And at a societal level, the pandemic struck chords of fear in people's collective psychology. It was like the Y2K story. As January 1, 2000 approached, people were filled with dread and fear, so that what should have been a time for great hope was a time for just hoping to get by. Like now. The pandemic pushed many people to turn to the familiar, to something that they associate with not being a disaster. (This is the opposite of what happened in 1900-- that period was apparently greeted with great embrace.)

Then there's Sanders' own role, his incapacity-- or more likely, his unwillingness-- to mount sharper attacks on Biden, of shedding his imperial presumptions and more deeply taking on the foreign policy establishment. Sanders' ultimate legacy may be what the late great Bruce Dixon called "Sheepdogging."

So, now what?

As I outlined last month:

There are two obvious responses:

Burn it Down: The impulsive thing to do would be to want to burn down the Democratic Party. It’s possible that the establishment of the Democratic Party would be OK with this-- they seem to fear a President Sanders more than the fear another term of Trump. So, people would stay home or vote for a third party or independent candidate who openly states that they have virtually no chance of winning.

Cave In: Others might insist that no matter how badly the Democratic Party establishment treats its voters, they need to get in line come November and vote for whoever the nominee is. This is euphemistically referred to as “hold your nose and voting.” People have done this for decades and it’s typically resulted in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party becoming more and more powerful.

The first of these will be disastrous because it will help Trump.

The second will be disastrous because it effectively surrenders control of the Democratic Party to the corporate wing, probably for the foreseeable future.

But there is a third choice: The VotePact strategy.

With the VotePact strategy, in the general election, disenchanted Democratics team up with a disenchanted Republicans. They pair up: spouses and friends and coworkers and neighbors and debating partners and ex-facebook friends. Instead of the two of them voting for candidates they don’t want, they pair up and vote for the third party or independent candidate of their choice.

Given the pandemic, all bets may be off. Things could slide into disaster-- or a great new world could be born. One could almost envision the rise of the Stay-At-Home party. People can talk to their loved ones in a way they never have. And they may embrace their neighbors-- even if it is at ten feet-- as the never have before. Zoom could be filled with hopes and dreams and a path might be found to get there. We might be driven by fear and shallow hate and sectarian thinking-- or we might decide to come together as a country and as a world as we never have before.

VotePact takes work. But it's a path out of the duopoly and toward freedom. Given the tumult before us, it is actually a rather moderate proposal, drawing us to a sane center, away from the disastrous paths of both Biden, which gave birth to Trump-- and Trump himself.