Say you hate Trump. Say you hate his guts and everything he stands for. You believe he is a fool, a racist, a misogynist, and a self-absorbed, detestable, all around heinous person. But you believe his policies will create more jobs for Americans, and that his net impact results in the quality of life improving for the highest number of Americans. From an ethics perspective, what takes precedence, and why?
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I think there’s something to be said about the importance of actual character of leaders. Yes, we can always go down a utilitarian road and push for policies that benefit ourselves, but often politicians (including Trump) are just jerking us off for the votes and then implement very little of what we actually want. Comparing this election (and 2016) to earlier elections, I’m frankly embarrassed by the characters we have recently put up. Not to say that all prior politicians were perfectly shiny, but you wouldn’t have to mute both candidate’s mics during a debate between McCain and Obama. There’s a mutual respect there based on decades of tireless work and relationship building. They may disagree vehemently on most topics, but the beauty of the American system is that it is well suited towards compromise. Most of our best legislative action has been a form of compromise across the aisle, which contrasts starkly with today’s political stew. So long story short, I’m disappointed in the lack of character in both candidates, and I don’t think it’s wise to vote purely for utilitarian reasons. We owe it to our fellow citizens to push for leaders with excellent character who will make nuanced, informed, and morally upright decisions throughout their public service.
yes. Looking out for my own best interests
Some people have to vote for DJT because their fracking jobs could be taken away if Biden wins.
Some people have to vote for Biden because their access to healthcare could be taken away if DJT wins.
If you're not in that boat, count your blessings.
Yes. For a multitude of reasons. You’re not choosing a person to work with or be around. You’re choosing a person to do a specific job.
I mean that hinges on the fact that he has better policies. Objectively, democratic economic policy is better for the economy and republican social policy is BS at best. To the question, it is ethical if you vote for whoever you want. Edit: Also, a person's personality tends to influence their policies, so I feel like someone with a terrible personality and questionable morals will have policies that reflect that behavior.
Just an absolutely absurd claim right here, on so many levels.
The joint economic committee released a report saying that GDP grew 1.6 faster under Dem presidents and private-sector job growth was 2.5x as well. Democratic states have higher median household incomes and lower poverty rates. Of states that require the most welfare, 13 or 15 voted for Trump, and 10 of the bottom 15 voted for Hillary. Edit: I also think that has to do with policies that dems champion like education, but still the outcome is pretty clear imo.
I’ve been openly against Trump a lot on this forum. I’ve voted republican most of my life. I truly believe in smaller government, more economic stimulus, and other very typical republican points.
I think the President doesn’t change all that much in terms of policies, Congress barley gets anything done anyway. The President does impact the feeling of America, which goes from bad to worse each week.
Also I’m not sure how much impact the President has on “creating jobs”. My job is literally to destroy jobs, I get paid a healthy amount of money to write automation software that’s purpose is to eliminate some of the manual resources we have at my firm. If I’m good at my job, I’ll eliminate probably about 30-50 jobs this year. It feels weird. But I do think automation, especially AI, will have a far greater impact than any President can have.
DJT does not have the mind to develop a policy. Any policy he might initiate is often based on his latest conversation with a Fox News host. His track record on anything related to business is terrible. He drove four companies into bankruptcy and this is hard to do in an industry in which the house always wins.
The character of a POTUS is essential, as he is the face of the United States. The world has historically looked to the United States for leadership and at the moment, we do not serve in that role. Children should have a leader that they and their parents respect. I am not going to say that it is unethical to vote for this guy but clearly is you vote for him, it means that your are putting your own interests above those of the country.
Vote for what's best for you, its your vote.
At some point you have to think: Do I vote for a person who says nice things but has not done anything in the last almost half a century he’s been in politics (except vote for policies that offshore the US middle class) or do I vote for a giant assh*le loudmouth, but one who puts the interests of the country first, before the interests of the “world”. We are not the world police. We are hugely in debt, and the debt grows every day. It’s unsustainable. Our middle class is rapidly shrinking. We are now a country where you have to pay 250k for a college education to find a 50k/yr job - because we have no manufacturing base, jobs that paid well without requiring a college degree.
We barely make anything anymore - all the while China builds an enormous middle class on the back of its manufacturing power, something that the US did before a small group of elites decided that stock price gains are all that matters and thinks that this is how things should be. And sneer when you challenge this asinine orthodoxy.
Never mistake nice for good. We can no longer afford to lead the world without putting our own house in order first.
If you think this POTUS puts a high priority on the interests of the United States, you have not been paying attention.
If you think the established political class fighting trump puts a high priority on the interests of the United States, you have clearly not been paying attention.
The biggest myths about governments is that "it can create jobs". Unless we're talking about more DMV employees working 3 hours a day getting paid 80k + benefits for doing literally nothing but wasting my tax dollars, the government can't create any jobs. The market creates jobs.
Any attempt for the government to create jobs would usually backfire. All it can do is set a tone for the economy through fiscal policies and regulations (or the lack of) that may or may not impact the economy and hence the job market.
Depends on what your ethical guidelines are. If you're a full utilitarian, then it's not unethical. If you're an utilitarian yet believe the tone of the country set by its leader has a significant impact on your "utility", then the answer might change.
If you're talking about ethics in a layman's view, then it's a difficult question. Essentually, how much would you sacrifice in integrity to get what you want? Is this a "making a deal with the devil" situation or just a simple compromise you have to make?
Thank you, you are the only person to actually even try to address the question I originally posed (so far at least). It seems that everyone wanted to use this post as a platform to rationalize the right person to vote for based on irrelevant factors. I suppose it is a bit of a dealing with the devil situation, which makes it a serious ethical conundrum. I see this as a situation where either way there will be negative ethical repercussions. Trump in office for another 4 years means policy trumps (pun intended) socially taboo or even just straight up egregious action. On the other hand, voting in Biden who is clearly too old to lead properly based solely on character and with policies I don't agree with seems highly irrational. I imagine it would feel like handing a homeless person $5, feels great in the short run but has no real long-term positive impact. Other people have commented about Trump not actually having an impact on job creation. Well his win in 2016 immediately caused the market to jump, and it retained that position for most of his first term. Even amid a pandemic stock prices held their ground pretty well. Not all of that can be attributed to him directly, but there is undoubtedly a correlation.
However, there is an even bigger issue I face, one that is systemic in the US. You really can't seem to truly know both candidates without sinking considerable amounts of time into researching them. Especially with the media taking everything out of context for a storyline (I have lost most of my trust in the media, everything is written from two polar opposite extreme perspectives). It really is hard to decipher fact from fiction. The amount of knowledge you need to really make an informed vote is astronomically higher than it should be, and this problem is not unique to American politics. US law is the same way (both my parents are attorneys, I feel comfortable stating that without a specialty degree it is hard to truly understand the intricacies of many common laws).
I originally posed this question because at a basic level, I do think Trump is an objectively bad guy (but is he worse than your average politician? This I am undecided on), but I don't have the time to fact check every claim the media has made about him (some I do believe to be bad, some I believe to be exaggerated), and for the first time in my life feel like my vote may count for something (I believe this election will be very close). I admittedly don't have time to do thorough research on him, and am basing my vote on the occasional articles I read up on every week or so (politics isn't my thing, I make an effort to be more informed when it comes to major global events, US corporate shifts, but I have always despised politics). It is such a frustrating time to be an American. It is so easy to whole heartedly worship or despise Trump, because he is such a distinct candidate. But like all of history, I dont think it is that black and white. How I approach this issue and decide to vote matters to ME. My rationale from an ethical perspective does matter. In the past I would take the childish approach and note vote (I have done so in the past). I am a libertarian at heart.
Glad to be of help. While I'm a libertarian at heart, I'm also a pragmatist and some sort of a modifird utilitarian. From that perspective, it seems like the right thing (for me) is to support Biden. Not trying to convince you, but just explaining the way I reasoned out my decision according to my "ethical guidelines".
Essentially, my utility for choosing a president is:
Utility = short-term policy gains + long term gains + tone of the country through rhetoric. Both Trump and Biden give me mixed results on the short term gains but Biden gives me neutral to positive figures on the latter 2 while Trump gives me negative utility on them. Hence, I see it more "ethical" to support Biden.
Not everyone will share my utility function because they focus more on the rhetoric or short term gains. People who solely focus on rhetoric and tone will find it more ethical to oppose Trump (the root of "orange man bad" rationale). People who focus more on short term policy gains will find it more ethical to vote for Trump (rationale for shy Trumpers).
As for me, I weigh more heavily on long term gains and the tone than most people.
WASHINGTON — Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administrationsay that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing Tuesday from the American Civil Liberties Union.
People with tunnel vision vote for Trump. They see their proposed manufacturing jobs, their tax savings, their America being made “great” again. Those who are not complete trash themselves do a lot of mental gymnastics to either justify or turn a blind eye when Trump doesn’t outright decry the aryan brotherhood or when things like this come to light.
Most people who bitch about Dems’ tax policies are barely even going to be affected by them. You know who they will affect? Celebrities, CEOs of BBs, tech firms, multinational corporations, etc. And yet so many of those people vehemently oppose Trump and also consistently endorse the Democratic candidate every election year while a bunch of interns on WSO claim that they have to side with Trump because of his policies. This is not virtue signaling on their parts, it is called having empathy.
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I think you should listen to this. James Lindsay is mathematics PHD and lifetime liberal who did not vote for Trump in the 2016 election and has vocally criticized him numerous of times. But he has spent the last ~3 years studying the origins of and academia surrounding Critical Theory, the root of all these gender & diversity studies / equity & inclusion movements that have taken hold of the Left. These movements will be able to grow unchecked (if anything bolstered) under a Biden administration, whereas Trump has already taken steps to ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools and federal departments.
James had no plans to vote for Trump and even stated after the last election he would never vote for Trump's reelection, but he has decided that he has to now based on principle and walks through his entire thought process in the video. This is the real fight, the "culture war," and even if everything else policy wise were equal it would be the deciding factor for why both I and James are voting for Trump. Biden himself is not the most glaring problem, it's what comes with him that we should be more afraid of than anything on his campaign site. If you want to make an ethical argument, make it for voting to support Western liberal values such as the sanity of the individual and merit of free and open debate vs what the self-declared Marxists are seeking to impose through speech regulation and cancel culture.
Couldn't help but give MS.
I'm sorry but this sounds like a long-winded and version of "Biden enabling the Radical Left", which is just equally ridiculous as "orange man bad".
I find it hypocritical that people afraid of the post-modernists (or the "Radical Left") will willingly vote for Trump when Trump has been the figure that made the "Radical Left" louder and actually act out (action-reaction).
Also like I've been saying all along, Trump is just replacing the post-modernists (the "Radical left") with QAnon people. QAnon is growing exponentially. 3+ Republican candidates for Congress are QAnon believers and at least one of them is going to be elected with a 50+% chance. Not to.mentio. how.many QAnon believers are running for office in local politics. QAnon is already a major voting block.
QAnon fights against pedophilia in a way that the Radical Left figjts against racial inequality - both are batshit crazy.
If you chose to flat out ignore this fact, then you're really no better than the Democrats.
I heartily disagree but for some reason I can't likewise toss MS at you :( I appreciate that you're frequently on the other side of me in discussions like this, but I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the video. I'm less articulate than a numbers guy like James or yourself, so maybe hearing it from someone vastly more liberal and intelligent than myself will change your POV on this issue.
The likening of the far left's identity politics movement to the QAnon conspiracy theory is completely untenable. One has full institutional backing, permeates both higher and K-12 education, and has politicians literally trying to bring back race-based discrimination (remember Prop 16 in CA?) and the other is just an extreme conspiracy theory. A handful of Republican politicians supporting the idea that there's a secret cabal of pedophiles among the elites is no different than the Democrats who think that there are Russian's behind every story that makes them look bad. Do the deepest parts of the conspiracy get way too crazy? Absolutely, the idea that Trump is somehow waging a one-man crusade against secret faceless child fuckers is absurd.
For why it's gaining believers at such a high rate (fringe vs people who buy into the whole thing isn't really measured), thank the media coverage for blowing it up to be more popular than it already was combined with the fact that we did get bombarded with a lot of fishy shit the last 4 years or so. Just for the mainstream of the Democrat names off the top of my head you have the latest report that Delaware Police are now looking into Hunter Biden possibly endangering a minor due to content from his hard drive, Biden on video getting a bit creepily handsy with younger girls, the entirety of the Anthony Weiner story, and the fact that Clinton was clearly buddies with Jeffrey Epstein (who kept this odd picture of him). The last one being a conspiracy theorists wet dream with proven ties to intelligence agencies and some of the biggest names in both parties and on Wall Street. In terms of legislation you see Democrats pushing things like the Equality Act in CA which makes it legal to have oral and anal sex with "consenting" minors, Democrats’ Equality Act opens the door to legalized pedophilia.
Biden is absolutely enabling the radical left, he panders to them constantly. He calls Antifa "just an idea" and refused to denounce left wing rioters from Antifa/BLM. This while simultaneously egging on Trump to denounce white supremacy for the 20th time and subsequently defaming the Proud Boys organization as white supremacist when they are literally led by a black man. He was in a town hall last week saying he would support transgender medical intervention for children as young as 8 years old per the question he was answering. He supported the Green New Deal in its entirety up until like 2 months ago, calling for an outright ban on fracking, then suddenly changed position once it became clear that would cost him the EC. Bernie himself is on record as saying Biden will be the most progressive Presidency in history.
Even if we get past all that, I know damn well you are too smart to think that Biden will be running the show. This entire thing has been a sandbag for Harris and will end up just like Cheney + Bush. She is one of the original sponsors of the Green New Deal, has one of the most hard left leaning voting records in the entire Senate, left her position as CA's AG with one of the lowest approval ratings ever (people don't like when you keep innocents on death row), and she was so disliked by even the mainstream left that she dropped out of the primaries for CA because she knew she couldn't even win in her home state after Tulsi nuked her from orbit on the debate stage. This is a woman barely anyone on the left would have chosen through the Primary who now gets redelivered to the top of the candidate pile by a decision completely detached from the voters.
Adding my own views as a separate comment.
Personally, I disagree with a multitude of DJT's characteristics. He's bombastic, an instigator, and toes the line with authoritarian rhetoric in ways where I can understand why some of my left leaning friends are uncomfortable. I think it's just words though, because he had the support to go full authoritarian when the riots got out of control and bring in the national guard (there's plenty of precedent) but he didn't. He respected the authority of Governors (maybe not verbally, but in terms of his actions) and was only prepared to move in when they asked for his direct assistance. When COVID hit, instead of making a blanket decree about how the entire country had to handle things (like Biden says he would do), he left it up to the states to decide how they wanted to utilize lock downs and phase in reopening. I'll keep jerking it around till the cows come home, but the fact that he's the first President not to get us into a new armed conflict in ~40 years is huge to me. His economic policies are cut and dry just better than Biden's, and socially he just seems to be the prime example of bark being worse than bite. Everyone is so focused on Biden's tax increases and flip flopping on the Green New Deal (which has since been removed from his campaign site) but there's so much other stuff on his site to attack. His proposed minimum wage hike to $15 + banning the sale of all guns & accessories (including cleaning kits) from online stores would result in hundreds of thousands of job losses just from the outset.
If we're going just off of character flaws, both candidates have more holes than Swiss cheese. But I've yet to see any conclusive proof that Trump has abused his position in the same way we're seeing Biden allegedly has with the NYPost scandal between his Ukraine and China dealings as VP. Ukraine is especially heinous given that they're highly dependent on our foreign aid to resist Russia (whom the Obama admin allowed to annex Crimea with almost no consequence) and Biden boasted about how he used that as a lever for getting the special prosecutor investigating Burisma's corruption fired. The wider implications of that and its to be determined truthfulness subsequently debunking the entirety of the impeachment parade we dealt with for months should also be a huge point of contention.
The entire media has been dead quiet on the scandal (literally 0 coverage from CNN and ABC last I checked) after months of lying to our faces about "Peaceful Protests." Both Twitter and Facebook are actively working to suppress the NYPost along with anyone who shares the story through even private messages. Biden is constantly redirecting everyone to focus on Trump any time he gets asked a legitimate question instead of answering, and he has had more days calling a "lid" than days actually campaigning . Biden suddenly received huge donations from all over Wall Street these past few months in addition to obvious favoritism from Big Tech. The entire DNC roster fell in line, resigning from the primary race at the last second to coalesce behind Biden (who wasn't even polling top 3 of Dem candidates into Super Tuesday) and ensure Bernie didn't get the nomination again. These are all huge red flags that tell me this is yet again a clear cut non-establishment (can't really say anti) candidate vs the establishment incarnate.
How does this have any upvotes? I went into watching this hoping that a PhD mathematician could make a compelling video for Trump (I am leaning toward Trump, and believe the left is getting out of hand, so bating me into giving you an SB couldn't have been easier). The first nearly 20 minutes of this shit was Lindsay rambling about his background, and adding zero insightful commentary on ANYTHING. I sincerely dont think anyone who tossed you an upvote watched the video. It was so brutal I couldn't make it further.
Your post also had nothing to do with ethics, and the argument you make is completely irrational. I wholeheartedly agree with @Milton Friedchickenman" 's response, and I question your general rationale. It sounds like you are a member of 1984's thought police, trying to stop action (these movements that are growing unchecked) before it occurs. You realize when I read your rationale the first thing I thought of was the Chinese government? I pray the people upvoting you are little 18 year olds who dont know what they're talking about. People that use your rationale are the ones who I believe can justify anything. I hope you are never in a position of power.
Edit: Your other post was much more well articulated, and I do agree with the vast majority of your logic there. I think you just worded it poorly here. I would advise rewording this post because I think the essence of what you are getting at is valid. I do however disagree with Lindsay's line of thinking.
He does have some admittedly weighty context at the start so I guess he's not the style for you, it was just a suggestion don't shoot the messenger. If you do decide to listen to the whole thing then maybe you'll change your tune, he works through a lot of context but summarizes it together in a way I appreciate. The thought police comparison is just flat out poor, this is a movement that's already shown it justifies violence with overtly racist ideologies, so excuse me for wanting to prevent it from gaining an institutional leg in the White House. I'd think that's a fairly reasonable response to a credible ideological threat with mainstream acceptance among academia and the private sector vs some fringe conspiracy theory that boils down to "there are bad people in the government who are clandestine," which almost anyone who pays any attention just rationally accepts at this point.
If we're going to focus more on an ethical argument how about this? New October Surprise fresh for the debate, Joe Biden has alleged financial interests directly with the Chinese communist party. This comes with a full statement that looks pretty damning.. or this is also Russian propaganda and this Tony fellow is a Russian troll!
- Hunter biz partner confirms email, details Joe Biden’s push to make millions from China: Goodwin
My boy James Lindsay! If you haven't read his book Cynical Theories I highly recommend it . . . we're going to need all the intellectual ammo available to fight this ideological cancer.
He's fantastic. Got my copy of Cynical Theories a few weeks ago, check out How to Have Impossible Conversations w/ Peter Boghossian too if you haven't already.
Leaving aside the question of what's "ethical". It's foolish to vote for a guy who has demonstrated over and over and over again that the only thing that matters is what's in it for him. To vote for a guy that clearly puts himself above the needs of the country is foolish.
Also, trump doesn't really have policies, it's been McConnell's agenda. As for jobs, Goldman Sachs estimates that the economy will be just fine under Biden.
Voting for trump for whatever justification you want to use is short term thinking. Anything to gain in the short-term will be outweighed by all of the long-term things that he's screwing up.
Bernie Madoff is now going to run my company 401k. I voted for this to happen because he bought everyone a steak dinner.
What could go wrong? Plus, I got a free steak dinner!
I think voting for a bad person with good policies is better than voting for a good person with bad policies.
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