There is a stark difference between the two sides. A republican could (in theory) vote for a right leaning dem and not be disappointed because they voted with the party and against the other side.
I used the words “right” and “left” only because of the physical construction of the meme; I’m really only talking about people on the left in this scenario. There are some people who just vote Democrat because they’ve always voted Democrat, their parents always voted Democrat, they never considered voting for anyone else. That’s pretty derisively represented by the drooling idiot on the meme, though honestly I have nothing against those people. This is just usually the starting place for people who are on the journey (and indeed there are some former straight-ticket Republican voters who go here too, like me–shudder).
Then there are people who have to consider whether the Democrats also deserve their vote; people who will consider voting for the Green Party, or some other left-leaning third party, if the Dem candidate is somehow not up to their standards. For the most part, no shade against these people; there might be some problematic thinking behind it, but it’s probably fine.
And then on the “genius” end of the spectrum (so named merely because it’s where a lot of people are ending up) we have the people who have decided that since everything is broken anyway they may as well just vote straight-ticket Dem because that’s the way to cause the least amount of harm (as you quite rightly put it, “prevent the next hitler from taking office”).
I’m by no means equivocating the two sides. If anything this is about people on the left choosing between Dems and third parties, but it’s more about people moving from naive to complex to simple.
I used the words “right” and “left” only because of the physical construction of the meme; I’m really only talking about people on the left in this scenario. There are some people who just vote Democrat because they’ve always voted Democrat, their parents always voted Democrat, they never considered voting for anyone else. That’s pretty derisively represented by the drooling idiot on the meme, though honestly I have nothing against those people. This is just usually the starting place for people who are on the journey (and indeed there are some former straight-ticket Republican voters who go here too, like me–shudder).
Then there are people who have to consider whether the Democrats also deserve their vote; people who will consider voting for the Green Party, or some other left-leaning third party, if the Dem candidate is somehow not up to their standards. For the most part, no shade against these people; there might be some problematic thinking behind it, but it’s probably fine.
And then on the “genius” end of the spectrum (so named merely because it’s where a lot of people are ending up) we have the people who have decided that since everything is broken anyway they may as well just vote straight-ticket Dem because that’s the way to cause the least amount of harm (as you quite rightly put it, “prevent the next hitler from taking office”).
I’m by no means equivocating the two sides. If anything this is about people on the left choosing between Dems and third parties, but it’s more about people moving from naive to complex to simple.