Let's go next to our caller from the eight zero to area code is eight zero to Vermont.
If I remember correctly.
Yes, it is.
Yes.
Who's this?
Kayla from Vermont.
Hey, Kayla, what's up?
I was wondering if you had seen the Twitter feud between Glinski and James Yuga about
Jenckes basically posted the lesser of two evils argument with Biden and then added that
you're not morally superior if you decide for your own principal reason or whatever
not to participate in the presidential vote like.
And then Kyle said, does that mean I'm morally inferior?
And Jake said yes and went on for that.
I did not IDL.
I did not see that, Kayla.
I can still comment about the idea of it, but I have.
I mean, I'm going to reveal something to you, Kayla, that I have kept secret for for about
five or six days.
Twitter has become so toxic for me that I have not looked at my replies other than verified
replies for five days.
I have not.
I just.
I'm tweeting and I will check my verified replies, which I know is like I know it sounds
elitist, but I need some way to kind of reduce the toxicity of Twitter and then I'll look
at the things I'm following.
I have not looked just as a test for five days.
I've not looked at my general replies, feed emotionally.
Kayla, I am doing so much better.
Can you imagine that?
Yeah, I don't really use Twitter that much either.
Yeah, Kyle even said that he hated that.
Like the fact that he got into a Twitter feud in the first place.
But the interesting point behind the argument is the voter shaming that's coming from a
lot of people on the left right now who have decided that they're going to vote for Biden,
whether or not they're progressive or not.
And Jamie, shaming people with views like Kyle's, which is, you know, Biden doesn't
meet his standards, you know, war criminal.
I like universal health care.
These are principled things.
And because of that, he's not going to participate.
Like, is shaming them, like, worth it?
I don't think so.
So here's my view on this actual voter shaming.
I don't think it's worth it explaining why you think someone's calculation is wrong.
I think it's completely legitimate.
And the problem is that the line between voter shaming and explaining why you think someone
is wrong can be blurry.
Sometimes it's not blurry, but an allegation of voter shaming can be made to shut down
a conversation now.
I didn't see this feud between Jenkin, Kyle, both of whom were friends of mine.
So, you know, it's hard for me to say specifically whether it was over the line or on this side
of the line.
But I agree it's much more.
Most importantly, I don't think voter shaming will work.
And that's one reason why I don't yeah, it's a good idea.
But explaining to someone.
Listen.
The five things you've said about why you're not going to vote for Biden, to me, they seem
kind of like B.S.
If you just prefer Trump, say it and then I will respect your decision much more.
But concern trolling, which we're sometimes seeing exaggerations of Biden's flaws were
something like, let's just be honest.
And I wish some people would just straight up say either because I think he's better
or because I think it would teach the DNC a lesson.
I prefer Trump just say it.
And I'm not saying Kyle believes that.
I want to be clear.
I would respect the people much more if they just were upfront about that.
Like if you give me these choices, I actually prefer Trump.
Cool.
OK, we just don't have a country doesn't.
Oh, anyway.
Yeah.
Like are they preferring like if you're not making the choice.
Are you saying they preferred Trump necessarily.
Not necessarily, but.
So here's here's why I have been repeating this idea that not participating isn't neutral.
What I mean by that is Trump won and is the incumbent.
Incumbency comes with huge power.
It's tough to remove an incumbent president.
So merely not voting, you might say, well, it's not helping anyone.
Well, when you consider the power of incumbency opting out.
You could argue actually helps the incumbent.
That's sort of like one argument.
The second argument for why not voting arguably is beneficial for Trump is I'm talking specifically
to a lot of the people who say I'm on the left and don't like Trump, but I'm still not
going to vote.
Those folks are folks who specifically have said, I don't want Trump to be the president
and aren't voting.
So they, by virtue of not voting, are helping Donald Trump.
If you have people who are on the right and choose not to vote, of course, they're helping
Biden.
There's no doubt about that.
So when I say not voting isn't neutral and it's beneficial to Trump, it's number one
because I'm speaking to my mostly progressive audience who I believe doesn't like Trump.
And number two, because the power of incumbency does make a nonvote, on balance, more beneficial
for the incumbent.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
I guess that that covers that.
All right, Kate.
We're in Vermont.
Are you, by the way?
Yeah, I am I've met Bernie several times.
No matter what part of Vermont.
I'm in central Vermont.
I'm from my Peltier Montpelier.
Oh, very nice.
I stopped the stop there last time when I was driving up to to Montreal.
Had a great sushi lunch.
You don't think of Montpelier as the place to get sushi, but I got some great sushi there.
Weird.
I don't know where to get sushi.
All right.
Well, today, it might be a tough day given what's going on, Kayla.
I really appreciate the phone call.
Yes.
Thank you.
All right, take care.