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I’ve always and have been ridiculed here on FR for it. The act of voting has two components to it - a positive and a negative! If a bond levy it’s obvious you pull the lever, push the button or mark the ballot yes or no. If it’s an office with candidates it’s still there but it’s subtle. The positive component is to give someone power by voting for them, the negative is to deny them that power by voting for someone else. It’s great if the voting act can be bundled into one candidate - giving them power. However that’s very rare in this day and age. Denying someone power is now the far far more important component then giving one power. Every Rat presidential candidate since Truman were far far too irresponsible (and that slide downward was exponential!) to be given presidential power no matter how flawed the GOP candidate was. So for me every presidential vote I participated in since Carter was to deny the Rat candidate power by voting for the deeply flawed GOP candidate. Not voting or voting or voting 3rd party is surrendering the field. 2020 maybe the first time where my positive component of voting is greater then my negative.

I’ve always [voted the negative] and have been ridiculed here on FR for it. The act of voting has two components to it — a positive and a negative! Denying someone power is now the far far more important component than giving one power.

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When I first read Heinlen's quote about voting a negative, I thought it was smart, but a secondary reason for voting.

But listening to your argument, I'm being to see how it should be preached as the primary purpose of voting! Teach it to new voters! Great education about what the Founders worried about — protecting the Republic from infection and the growth of hard-to-destroy viruses that in due time would surely kill the free Republic.

Glad to hear you consider my guy Trump to be a positive enough force to reelect as your primary reason for pulling the lever!

But let me add one counterpoint that may be significant. A lot people believe that Trump would not have gotten elected had Romney beat Obama in 2012. If true, it's an exception because Trump was worth waiting for, though we didn't know it at the time!

Love to see some discussion on this topic. What say ye: Lurker, Liz, HL27, V K Lee?