That is not a valid argument by any possible mean. Everybody has the right to vote whatever they want of course, but saying what you said is like saying "people eat meat to piss off vegans more than because they like it". And regardless, the driving motive of something doesn't change the end result of such something.

People need to take responsibility for their actions. They voted for Trump and their is the fault of the current state of things. Period. The reasons behind why they did it don't matter and, frankly, it's also nobody's business.

Now try convincing someone. That is what I tried to do throughout the entire election, but the propaganda machine is treated as fact by many here.

These people get hung up on the idea that we can never leave the two party system, meaning no third party candidate will ever get elected.

Here in Utah, we did manage to give McMullin 20% of the vote, but that was still marginally less than Hillary (after salt lake county) or Trump.

Or... it's nothing like that?

I mean, I get the impression that some portion of people did vote for Trump to piss people off, but that's not what the parent was talking about. Saying that they "voted against Clinton more than they voted for Trump" means they cast a vote to avoid what they saw as the worse outcome.

Let me ask you a loaded question though: Are you white?

I am, and have had only good experiences both in NYC, LA, SF as well as a bunch of small towns.

If you are not white, or dress differently, or are transgender, I can guarantee you which of a small town or a big city would be more embracing. (On aggregate, there are of course outliers on both sides)

You cannot claim that people who didn't vote don't support Trump (or vice versa, don't support Hillary). There simply isn't any data to support this.

> Also keep in mind that most "Trump voters" voted against Clinton more than they voted for Trump.

Citation needed.

You simply fell prey to a focused disinformation campaign that actively tried to prevent intelligent voters from voting and that worked, probably well enough to influence the outcome of the election. That's a hard pill to swallow and you'll probably tell me and yourself that of course that's not what happened, but it wasn't an accident you felt that way. The Russians are very, very good at disinformation and always have been.

You're smart enough to accumulate huge karma here on HN so I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out how voting works. Hopefully you'll manage to fight the confirmation bias you'll likely look for to justify your past actions and be able to make your future actions matter. A great many people wish they had your vote. Please make it count.

Also, it really reads as just a not-very-thinly-veiled accusation that people who do not vote for the candidate that you want to win are stupid and/or naive. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that, necessarily, but you might as well just say it. I disagree with both the rhetoric and the conclusion entirely, but your opinion is what it is.

Personally, I think this kind of thinking leads to the negative outcomes that pervade our political system. Even if third parties have no chance of winning, the idea that they might not be able to bank on the votes of people scared of the "wrong lizard" might force them to moderate their political stands.

And just like in every previous election, no one "listened" to the voters who voted for the spoiler candidates. No one said "if HRC or DT had just done x they would have gotten more of the Green Party or Libertarian voters." People who vote for spoiler candidates self select themselves into a group where they guarantee the winning and losing major parties don't care at all what they think. Voting for a spoiler candidate means the major candidates don't have to care what you think, and they don't, so you end up with even less influence than if you had voted for one or the other of the potential winners.

My third party vote in CA arguably has a bigger effect than a major party vote in CA, for the presidency in the general election.

By population, that's substantially less true - nothing I do in the ballot box is going to make a dent in a 60-40 split in CA, and quite a few will have to think just like me before it does. If you're in one of those parts, vote accordingly.

I assume, like me, OP was there. We tried to talk sense into voters, but this was the biggest concern for most of them. Here in the US, we have been stuck in a two party system for decades simply because of this (flawed) logic.

Most Americans won't change their behavior to effect a greater change unless they are sure that greater change will be happen because of their relatively insignificant effort. This is why we struggle so much with climate change, the two party system, monopolies, etc.

Irrelevant. What is relevant is that you can't claim that people that didn't vote at all aactually voted for Trump, which is necessary to support the upthread claim that nearly half of Americans voted for Trump. Less than 1/5 of Americans, and less than 1/3 of registered voters, voted for Trump.