[orange dude, angry, fist raised] I will protest against both sides of the evil capitalist elites that are ruining society by voting for an anti-system extreme!
[pink gal, looking candid] Since your protest is based on human values and a desire for more social justice, this means you're going to vote far left?
[pink gal, looking scared] Isn't that right?…
[orange dude starts laughing so hard tears comes from his eyes and his hairpiece starts flying]
Protest voters helped elect Trump and I won’t be convinced otherwise, nor will I stop holding them accountable.
I don’t love most of my Democrat politicians either, but at least I voted against what we have right now.
Illegal vote suppression elected Trump, but even if it hadn’t, you should blame Democrats before blaming people who voted for third party candidates. Now, if you’re talking about people who “protest voted” by voting for Trump (in both the primaries and the election), then sure. Those people did, in fact, play an instrumental part in electing him.
Why blame Democrats? Well, beyond just kinda being Republican-lites:
Democrats are the bare minimum “harm reduction” party, and I don’t bare any ill will toward people who voted for them rather than a party that would actually try to effect change, but the opposite mindset - blaming third party voters for not voting for Democrats - is very shortsighted. And as third party voters have never had the power to enact RCV or STAR voting or otherwise improve the system, blaming them instead of the Democrats who have had that power is inane.
I’ve voted for a Democrat every single presidential election that I’ve been able to, but I honestly wish I hadn’t. I’d much rather there be more visibility for third parties, and for more people to feel empowered to vote for third party candidates.
I definitely blame the system for allowing all that illegal voter suppression.
And I definitely blame Democrats for being such a shit party and doing such a shitty job.
But I also blame people who didn't vote, or protest voted. They still enabled what is happening, and commentary on how the Democrats didn't woo you (not you you, the "you" that is making the argument) to their side is childish. The time to hit hard on making change to allow better options is in between elections, not when the choice is full-on fascism and significantly less fascism.
And those of us still harping on the point is because the no-vote people still don't think they did anything wrong, and will continue the behavior in the future. And frankly, as small of a chance as there is, we're more likely to convince those people to vote next time than we are to, currently, convince the government to fill the systemic gaps in or convince the Democrats to... stop being... what they are (though some are making some headway there, which is great! Let the Leftists take over the Dem Party they way the Teabaggers took over the Republican Party!).