> Obama supporters were all for mass surveillance when it was their guy doing it.

Not many of the Obama supporters I know.

Of course they were more willing to forgive it! That's going to be the case. Partly because humans don't like admitting they were wrong. Partly because it's legitimate to trade off issues against each other. Partly because we're introducing selection bias - if it's enough to turn you off Obama entirely, you're not an "Obama supporter".

But there's miles between overly generous forgiveness and support. It was commonly named as an area where they were disappointed in Obama.

And yet that disappointment didn't translate into voting for other candidates -- and I'm not talking about voting for Romney or Trump, there were plenty of other options the whole time -- so in the end it is of no value.

There are exactly 2 choices that are possible for any first-past-the-post voting system.

Change that (which I support) and we can talk 3rd parties.

I supported Sanders 2016 primary and his 2012 primary threat to Obama, after having voted for Obama in 2008. Once the options became Obama (and now Clinton), I voted for those simply because the alternative means more coal, less regulations, and more religious right.

That is to say, you voted for the surveillance state. There were other candidates running, you know.

No, that is to say they were not presented with the option to cast a meaningful vote for or against the surveillance state (in a general election) and so chose to use their vote to speak about other things.

The only reason third-party isn't a meaningful vote is because of people who tell themselves that it isn't a meaningful vote.

No, the reason a third-party isn't a meaningful vote is because we have a voting system that means any vote for any but the two most-likely-to-win candidates has a basically zero chance of affecting the outcome. The reason these particular parties' candidates are the two most likely to win is, certainly, because everyone understands them to be the two most likely to win... but we don't fix that by simply pretending it's not the case.

Your comment is beyond ironic given who it's directed at.

That doesn't make the house less on fire now.

It does suggest that perhaps the folks who were waving off the firefighters earlier don't make the best decisions.