Should Bernie Fans Vote Hillary? | Philosophy Tube

1. 

   @remick0

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   I find this video almost 8 years later feeling very sick of voting for 'the lesser of two evils' and I'm at the breaking point where the lesser is still too evil to settle for.

2. 

   @NTryon

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   I could also argue that a third-party vote is still utilitarian, albeit with a longer-term focus: if your goal is to build towards a large-scale break with the (capital-D) Democratic Party, then you need to work towards building an alternative, or at least using the platform of a third-party/independent campaign as a tool for organizing towards such a break.

   There's also the question of whether electoral campaigns are the be-all and end-all of political engagement and whether winning office in order to wheel and deal in policy-crafting should even be the primary goal when leftists do engage in the electoral arena. I personally would argue that using such campaigns to further extra-electoral organizing is far more important, given where our class power actually lies: in the streets and in the workplaces.

   And we can (and should) of course, also debate whether Jill Stein—who lacks the working-class bona fides of a candidate like Howie Hawkins or the leftist oratory of one like Cornel West—is really the best choice for such a strategy, but that doesn't negate the argument that we desperately need to build an an alternative to Hillary, Biden, and the Democratic Party as a whole.

   All of the above is, of course my (and many other marxists') analysis, which you're welcome to disagree with, but please don't say that I'm wholly rejecting utilitarianism by arguing for it.

3. 

   @PaulTheadra

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   looking back, we f'd up abstaining from voting.

4. 

   @DanielBrice7f58a6

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   > but if you are going to vote, he thinks you have a responsibility to vote for something.

   Okay, sure! The something I vote for is NOT TRUMP. I mean, JFC, people, it's not as complicated as y'all think it is. If only people had just… idk.

5. 

   @rekall76

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   but… the only way we exit the two party farce is to exercise our right (nay, our duty, if we want neither front-runner) to vote third-party

6. 

   @teekaa2520

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   Do you not know, that in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?!

7. 

   @ZachariahPvP

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   So interesting to come and watch this video years later as I reexamine my very utilitarian past ideology. I still struggle with what the 'correct' decision is now. And with what I actually believe.

   I think it's easy to dismiss the alternates in the trolley dilemma as caught up in some kind of moral destiny whereby it is easy to kill them. But what about going and shooting 2 people elsewhere in their homes in order to save the 5?

   And does shooting the 2 make it more likely that you're going to have to keep doing this, year after year after year?

8. 

   @SteveBluescemi

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   Was going through PhilosophyTube's older videos and saw this. Wondered if she would get this very easy game theory question right. Nope. Brings up Kant's most famously absurd take on ethics and calls it a "good point". Yeesh. You should allow a murderer to kill your family lest you tell a lie? Give me a break.

   Abstaining from voting because you don't want to be "associated" with the lesser of two evils is pure selfish ego stroking, nothing more. When it is clear that one of two outcomes is imminent, and one of those outcomes is obviously worse than the other, and you have the agency to bend reality towards one of those two outcomes, you do that. Trolley problem, etc. This should not be controversial.

   The deontological prescription is not even consistent with its own rationalization. If you refuse to vote based on a misplaced feeling of "complicity" in the election of, say, Clinton, then you're actually complicit in both possible outcomes. By not voting Trump, you're complicit in the election of Clinton. By not voting Clinton, you're complicit in the election of Trump.

   To illustrate: imagine a functionally equivalent voting system where instead of giving your vote to a single candidate, everyone starts with two votes for both candidates and you're allowed to take one vote away. The vote totals are subtracted rather than added. This is identical to our current system because the vote totals of previous elections can be translated easily into this scoring system with no difference in the results. The only difference is how the individual feels about it psychologically. It now feels like abstaining is a vote for both candidates! But all we've done is add negative signs to an arbitrary scoring scheme. The guilt of voting for the lesser of two evils is just a byproduct of your irrationality. Therefore the deontological/Kantian decision to not vote based entirely on avoiding that guilt is itself irrational. And since there are other considerations at play (i.e. the utilitarian view of external consequences), abstaining from voting is a selfish act too. This moral dilemma isn't real!

9. 

   @thomasfplm

   October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

   A bit late, but I'd like to give my view.
   I'm not completely utilitarian, but I think that voting for the least of two evils being a good option depends on the situation.
   I'll give the candidates as numbers, the bigger the number, the best they are in my view.

   Case A:
   The candidate I want is 4 the options that go to the election are -0.5 (this one being the candidate from my party) and -1.
   I prefer to abstain, as a way to maybe get a better candidate next time and show that I won't automatically support my party in and try to make them change their stance, or risk losing support, if I voted, I would show that they don't need to care too much about what the voters think, as long as the other one is worse.

   Case B:
   My favourite is the same and the one my party chose is the same as before, but the other candidate is -5.
   I'll vote on -0.5, because the damage would be too big to risk.

   The same can be applied in the case of voting for the greens you mentioned, if I think the difference between the two main ones is small, I vote on a third party to either help them grow or to convince the bigger ones to adopt that view.

10. 

    @DelapierceD

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Put this way, it sounds like the trolley problem, which is interesting to me because I have a sense that more of the Leftists I know would switch the trolley, and more confidently answer as such, compared to voting Dems

11. 

    @SashaRomeroMusic

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    I admit, I was firmly in the utilitarian camp for both 2016 and 2020 elections. I vehemently argued against people who equivocated Bernie and Trump and those who took great offense at the machinations of the DNC to eliminate Bernie from the primaries. But this and other leftist videos have gained me a newfound sympathy for the Bernie or Bust folks who could, perhaps, see more of a broken system than what I saw at the time and wouldn't accept anything less than a full solution. I can appreciate that point of view now, so thank you. Utilitarianism may still ultimately be the best choice in any given election, but I can more clearly see how revolution might be so important to some people that utilitarianism seems like selling out.

12. 

    @kirstencorby8465

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Well this is sadly poignant now.

13. 

    @axelhalbardier8874

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    In frenchspeaker countries, we call it "voter pour le moins pire" ("to vote for the less worst")!

14. 

    @danielsykes7558

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Ranked-choice voting and mixed member proportional representation, together.

    For good measure, either the states should apply their electoral votes proportionally to votes within their states or the interstate compact on the popular vote should be passed.

    I could go on, but I shan't.

15. 

    @Mad_S

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    And remember, if you voted you have no right to complain.

16. 

    @SirRebrl

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    I'm glad to see in these comments that I'm not the only one thinking that it's an incomplete view to evaluate courses of action based solely on the immediate election and the candidates available.

    I have come to a firm belief that a pattern of voting for the "lesser of two evils" entrenches a notion in the major parties that they do not have to seek to offer the best candidate, but rather one that enough people will think is "not as bad" as the other party's candidate. In the past two elections in particular, I saw no shortage of people who emphatically did not like the Republican candidate, nor the Democratic, but they were still going to vote for one of them anyway.

    Third parties can offer better. And they're willing to risk it, because they're probably gonna lose anyway so if they win may as well make the best of it. But they can't get election-winning support overnight, or in a single election (I wish they could but I'm not that naive), and the "lesser of two evils" attitude precludes them ever being able to gain traction over time. The only way they can get enough support to pull us out of this "only the major parties can ever win" condition, more people have to vote for the third party candidates that they want, even when those candidates won't win. Just enough support, even if they don't win, can at least improve their standing to get into more debates and garner more support there. And then the major parties would have to offer better candidates to stay on top.

    But as long as we tell them with our votes that we will accept the lesser of two evils, that's all they have to give us.

17. 

    @kendralewellyn2654

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Me from the future: The answer was no. We ended up with Satan's turd instead.

    (Or maybe it was "Yeah, go right ahead, but only in a world where the DNC and media don't immediately misrepresent, mock, or slander any left-than-center ideas that start to be discussed in public.")

18. 

    @KarolaTea

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Isn't every election sort of a no-win scenario? Unless you're talking about a referendum on one question with very clearly defined options, chances are you'll never agree 100% with any party or candidate. I live in a proportional representation democracy, there's usually 6 parties large enough to vote for without potentially 'wasting my vote', and still none of them have policies that I 100% agree with. Pretty much every Sanders supporter I know also had criticisms of him.
    I guess it's just a matter of deciding how much you have to agree with a party/candidate to like them. But that also depends on comparison. A lot of those Sanders supporters might be scoffing at him if there was an alternative candidate more to the left.

19. 

    @kideatspaper3618

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    welp.. it’s 2020 and history has repeated itself. first time i can vote in a presidential election. i never want to vote for the lesser of two evils, but when the other evil is an actual fascist..🤦🏻‍♂️ i hate it here

20. 

    @joannelindstrand4452

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    In 1991, the corrupt Democratic politician Edwin Edwards ran for Governor of Louisiana. People joked that the only way he could win would be to run against Hitler.
    His opponent in the run-off was David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK. An informal campaiJimgn slogan started going around: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important."
    I've been following Trump since the 80s. In those days he came across as a bully, a huckster, and an incompetent real estate developer. His utter criminality only became known outside of New York after he started to run for POTUS.
    I've been watching this shitshow administration destroy the country that I love (because it's my home) for almost 4 years. Enough!
    Biden is no saint, and he's too old for the job, but Vote Blue. It's Important.

21. 

    @conancat

    October 4, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    This video has become relevant again.

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