2024 Life and Death Game Theory Interlude: Voting is An Affirmative Action
If You Choose Not to Decide, You May be an American
Restating the premise of my earlier post: Voting is an affirmative action. The more difficult voting is, the more turnout will be reduced. A voter in Oregon needs only to fill out and mail a ballot at any point over a period of time before an election. By contrast, some states allow voting only during certain hours on Election Day. Others may add a set of proscribed days and times before then, often only weekend time. Schedules need to be arranged, choices made.
For example, in the time between that earlier post and now, Tammy Murphy has “suspended” her Senate campaign and endorsed Andy Kim. I’m be willing to bike through a little rain to vote for him, so I will probably vote in November. I might, since I’m there anyway, even vote for a President. Consider that an 80% likelihood of voting. Multiply that “decision” by 3,000 similarly-inclined people, and you have an expectation of 2,400 more voters than you would have had if Ms. Murphy were the candidate.
American Voters are Rational
People are rational. They will jump through hoops to support someone when given a reason (see 2008), but we won’t all take a positive action just to oppose someone unless the other choice is attractive. As The Guardian recently discovered:
[A]n inadequate response to that movement at multiple levels of government beyond the White House, could permanently drive away some of the party’s base: progressive and younger voters. Many progressive voters have no interest in showing up purely to vote against Trump; unless they have a Democrat they really believe in, they’ll simply stay home.
[emphasis mine]
The adjective “progressive” is pure blather; that reality crosses political positions. It’s just that “progressives” are Easy to Blame, especially among the “Classical Liberals.” (NOTE: Classical Liberal, like neo-Classical or neo-Keynesian economist, has absolutely no relation to their proclaimed forebearers.)
How To Increase Turnout: Motivate Voters
Indeed, as several of us have been pointing out since 2016, DJT got a lot of traditional non-voters to the polls. If the proportion of non-college educated white men voting in 2016 had been in line with previous Presidential elections, we might well be coming to the end of the Second Second Clinton Administration now. C’est la guerre.
Non-college educated white men have increasingly affiliated with the Republican Party since about 2008. As Jeffrey M. Jones noted in 2019, using Gallup survey data:
They didn’t turn out for John McCain, during the Little Depression. Willard Romney could not attract them either. As the Center for Immigration Studies documented in May of 2013:
If white turnout had been what it was in 2004, 4.7 million more of them would have voted. Of the 4.7 million whites who sat home on Election Day relative to 2004, 4.2 million did not have a bachelor’s degree.
They turned out for Trump in 2016. Again, Dave Chapelle tells you why:
A rational political party would approach an increase in turnout by their major opposition by motivating their voters to turn out. As any good businessperson knows, it’s much more expensive to add a new customer than it is to encourage a previous one to come back. “Vote for us; we’re not so evil” alone will not motivate voters affirmatively, even when you’re not the incumbent.
Testing the Theory
The election of 2020 was a natural test of the affirmative action theory. Non-Oregonians voted by mail, people could drop-off ballots early, and early voting was generally much more available than usual. Turnouts set records. As I noted previously:
[A]bout 27,500,000 more people voted in 2020 than in 2016. Basically an 11% increase, with voter participation going from just over 60% to 66.6%, the highest total since well before American women were legally allowed to vote. (The turnout for 2008 was, until 2020, the highest of the post-Watergate era. The people did not let a crisis go to waste.)
Summary
So let’s be realistic. There are not going to be 155MM+ votes cast in the 2024 Presidential election. People might wish that were not so, but the motivations aren’t there and the processes will be more difficult.
The apparent tautology of “Trump voters love Trump” abides; non-college educated white males may turn out in force, relative to their pre-2016 voting patterns, but even their total, and possibly their percentage, will drop from 2020. They won’t all vote for Trump, of course, but that’s like saying Not All Jews or Blacks or College-Educated Women will vote for Biden. The question is how many, at the margin, will decide not to vote.
How many people, at the margin, are motivated enough to overcome the obstacles and affirmatively vote for a candidate or an issue. In the time between my previous post and this one, Florida put abortion on the ballot. In the time I spent writing this yesterday, the venal, radical Arizona Supreme Court may well have ensured that Ruben Gallego will be elected Senator, which suggests the Democratic Presidential candidate may be able to keep that state in his Electoral College column. Give people a reason to vote, or make it easier to do so, and more people will do it. Ask the state of Ohio.
Voting in the 2024 Presidential election will be more difficult, save in Oregon. The duty of the Party is to give people reasons to vote for their candidate. The Party that does that best, in the context of the Electoral College, is the party more likely to win the election.
a quote from Bokononism, which you are too young to remember [Kurt Vonnegut, “Cat’s Cradle”…I think. But I am too old to remember.]
“Help us to believe the things that make us braver.”
which, by and large, is what Democrats do.
Republicans, by and large, pray, “Help us to believe the things that make us greedy and belligerent.”
I’d vote for Dave Chappelle if I thought he could do the job. So I’ll have to vote for the crook who asks me to be braver and kinder. And, thank you Joel, I’ll have contempt for those who will sit on their hands beccause of the ten thousand things that matter, they disagree with Biden on one of them. They deserve contempt because they have faith in nothing.
I never liked Game Theory, but then again I never liked playing games. This is one of the better takes I’ve seen, though I haven’t looked since grad school
Really need to do something about The Media. That’s the wild card …
Yes, voting is an affirmative action. Voters have three choices–R, D, and Other. In the last 30 years, I have voted Third Party for President every time but once…and I regretted voting for the lesser of two evils then, since he recanted on his campaign promises from Day 1. And guess what. My vote never changed the outcome, though I had the satisfaction of dissenting and saying to myself that I didn’t vote for that particular evil.
What the two evils are seeking is legitimacy. Even if a minority of the electorate votes, and the lesser of two evils wins, the evils backed by the mainstream media portray the outcome as legitimate. Abstention makes no sense. And the two evils just get more and more evil.
However, if a large minority voted third party, it would send the evils a message. Their legitimacy would be put in doubt, as it should be. They might even start to act on voters’ aspirations…though I doubt it. But it might just break the unholy duopoly that runs the country.
When the choice between the evils is reduced to Tyrannosaurus Trump and Genocide Joe, how much more evil can the two evils get? How can you NOT vote Third Party?
because in principle at least the two evils check and balance each other. Today that is not the case. One of those evils has shown it is willing to use force and blackmail. Let that win and you will come to know the joys of one party rule. You won’t like it.
A better plan is to get off your high horse and work with others to make the party of your choice less evil.
A word of warning, however, the world is an evil place and unilateral disarmament is still a bad idea. Ths Israelis may have crossed a line they shouldn’t, but do try to remember what started this episode in 20,000 years of such genocides.
Joe’s genocide could have ended 10 days after Israel began, just cut off the spare parts to the F-16’s and F-35’s in two weeks no serviceable aircraft to deliver US’ bombs.
Israel is no moral judge and executioner is not their right.
paddy
did you forget what happened first? do you know any history? hint: it’s what people do. morality has nothing to do with it. never has.
meanwhile, Biden probably has to think about the whole situation. one of those empire things. nasty job.
last time a president stopped israel, he had to stop Britain and France at the same time. Eisenhower. gets no credit.
it’s you and I who have no right to judge.
I have watched the IDF since 1967!
Institutional murder is their modus operandi.
Been that way since they Pearl Harbored the Arabs in 1967.
paddy
when i asked if you knew any history, i was thinking of the history of the world since, say 6000 BC, not the history of Israel since 1967
but why stop at 1967? go back to 1948. i will post summary below. i do not know if the summary is honest, but i think it’s a little late to worry about ‘oo killed ‘oo, It looks to me like Arabs, not liking a decision of the United Nations decided to kill jews, and the jews of course decided to kill arabs. the summary also refers to U.S. need to worry about balance of power..which may have some relevance to why Biden does not just tell Netanyahu to stop.
paddy
brief “non partisan”? history of Israel 1948.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain under international control administered by the United Nations. The Palestinian Arabs refused to recognize this arrangement, which they regarded as favorable to the Jews and unfair to the Arab population that would remain in Jewish territory under the partition. The United States sought a middle way by supporting the United Nations resolution, but also encouraging negotiations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.
The United Nations resolution sparked conflict between Jewish and Arab groups within Palestine. Fighting began with attacks by irregular bands of Palestinian Arabs attached to local units of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries. These groups launched their attacks against Jewish cities, settlements, and armed forces. The Jewish forces were composed of the Haganah, the underground militia of the Jewish community in Palestine, and two small irregular groups, the Irgun, and LEHI. The goal of the Arabs was initially to block the Partition Resolution and to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Jews, on the other hand, hoped to gain control over the territory allotted to them under the Partition Plan.
After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the fighting intensified with other Arab forces joining the Palestinian Arabs in attacking territory in the former Palestinian mandate. On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command. British trained forces from Transjordan eventually intervened in the conflict, but only in areas that had been designated as part of the Arab state under the United Nations Partition Plan and the corpus separatum of Jerusalem. After tense early fighting, Israeli forces, now under joint command, were able to gain the offensive.
Though the United Nations brokered two cease-fires during the conflict, fighting continued into 1949. Israel and the Arab states did not reach any formal armistice agreements until February. Under separate agreements between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria, these bordering nations agreed to formal armistice lines. Israel gained some territory formerly granted to Palestinian Arabs under the United Nations resolution in 1947. Egypt and Jordan retained control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively. These armistice lines held until 1967. The United States did not become directly involved with the armistice negotiations, but hoped that instability in the Middle East would not interfere with the international balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Joe didn’t have anything to do with this genocide … that’s all on Israel
And the goddamned Trump-suckers
Commie pinko faggot
meh!
Dead Gaza babies and miles of rubble,
At least, somethings the MICC send goes bang!
your tax dollar at work.
“Been that way since they Pearl Harbored the Arabs in 1967.”
Blockading the Straits of Tiran 2 weeks earlier was an act of war, so it is not really the same. The US embargo on Japan probably precipitated the attack, but an embargo it not considered an act of war.
Of course, I am reading the accounts of the winners.
Arne
Read more. There is a point of critical mass where you know enough to begin, at least, to perceive the truth in a sea of lies. Though of course it does not matter. Whatever you and I think will affect nothing, but more than that the present is more important than knowing the truth about the past. What do we do now? In our case it means, at best, voting for, or working for, the candidates who we believe offer the best hope forward. It seems to have worked, sorta, for the last 250 years. Though I am really afraid of the next four years.
coberly
April 11, 2024 at 1:58 pm
What happened to the Palestinian state established by the UN in 1947?
There are two [or more] sides to every piece of “history”.
There is this two state solution that has been pushed out of the memory
paddy
yep. two sides.
I believe what happened to the Palestinian state is tht five arab armies invaded it.
you might want to read the summary i provided for you above. Note the Palestinians rejected it.
But my original point is that the Palestinians rejected a “peaceful settlement” and chose war. I believe Hamas knew exactly what would happen when they started the last episode in this war. They believed they would profit by provoking Israel into massive retaliation.
Doesn’t make me want to see Trump become president again.
paddy
i would not want you to think i don’tcare about the killing of Palestinians.
thing is, though, that you and I can do nothing to stop it. but what you want to do would put US in danger of Trump and Trumpism. And not save one life. While leading us into all the hells of a dictatorship,,,one man rule, or rule by the very rich.
Then there is this….Abraham Lincoln led us into a war that killed a lot of men who should have lived. But his war freed the slaves. George Washington led us into a war that killed a lot of men who should have lived. But his war created “democracy and freedom” as an essentially new, good, thing in the world. FDR led us into a war that killed a lot of people who should have lived. But his war probably saved us from having to live in a world always under the threat of domination by ….well…dictators who were killing millions who should have lived and creating something which, at first in their part of the world, would have been like the hell that Trump represents.
I am not saying that Biden–Netanyahu–are saving us by killing Palestinians. I am saying that there has always been a lot of killing going on that did result in a better world for us, and I at least have had to learn to that wars happen and that I am not in a position to claim that those fighting the war are always evil, Even if they are “only” fighting to save themselves from conquest from some “other” not necessarily more evil than they are.
I opposed, publicly, the war in Vietnam, and the “war” in Grenada and Panama, and Iraq, and Afghanistan…even though I was in no danger of being drafted to fight them
I cannot oppose helping Ukraine fight Russia. I think we should do much more (unspecified). I cannot oppose helping Israel, both for geostrategic reasons, and because as far as I can tell, they are fighting something evil. something that hides behind it’s own people to get away with murder, leaving Israel with very bad choices.
I can’t fault you or your opinion about what to do…it doesn’t matter what you or I think. I do fault your cries of “genocide” which stirkes me as mindless mouthing of someone else’s political propaganda. and i do fault your willingness to see a Trump victory while asserting your moral superiority over the people who do have to make choices of “lesser evils.”
I am also troubled that you asked a “rhetorical” question that i had already answered. you did not say you disagreed with my answer, you just ignored it. I suspect you did not even read it. I think it must be hard to have a useful or even interesting opinion if you ignore arguments and evidence right before your eyes.
This is not directed especially at you. It characterizes most of the opinions I see in comments here and elsewhere by the citizens of our democracy and their representatives in Congress and the experts who tell us what to think.