Im thinking about the 2022 election for MA governor. Charlie Baker has been pretty terrible with the vaping ban (I don't vape, but that's straight up authoritarian), but I'm conflicted: is it ever OK to vote left? part of me feels you should always vote right, even for RINOs, since the alternative is simply worse. however, some republicans can be pretty shitty too.
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At this point, it is never ok.
There is nothing the Dems can offer that outweighs all the bad that comes with it.
Only to fuck with them in the primaries by voting for their most unelectable candidate
At the national level, never. That is almost 100% infested with grifters. At the state level, sometimes provided they speak out against identity politics and global warming (yeah I know the name has been changed to hide their ignorance).
There are rare, strategic circumstances, and only in open-primary states, where doing this can be useful. Take, for example, the situation in 2008: it was Hillary vs Obama, and I believed that Obama would be a nightmare for America.
So, I crossed the line and actually voted for Hillary as the lesser of two evils, just to keep Obama out because, it seems, I was one of only a handful of people who'd actually been doing my homework. The guy had lots of very unsavory aspects to his person that no one in the legacy media seemed interested in examining. That, for me, was the biggest red flag: the fact that the media worshipped him the instant he announced, told me everything I needed to know.
So, if you can't decide, and the GOP putz is truly toxic, find out which Dem the media has a boner for, and vote for the other Dem, but only if the Republican would be worse. With regard to Baker, he tempered his stance on the vaping ban, but the fact that you concentrated on one issue to form your overall impression of him indicates that you're still rather inexperienced.
Look at his other actions AND combine them with the fact that he's in a heavily blue state which, by necessity, impacts his stance. He should be compared against Romney, another leftist Republican governor, to see the direction of his potential danger to rightwing ideals. Bottom line: investigate what his stance has been on Trump and MAGA.
Ever hear of the Blue Dogs? Pelosi and the Democrats ran a bunch of congressional races to the right of the Republicans, and won the house. She then told the Blue Dogs to sit down and shut up. They did, and most of them were gone in the next election.
Also, about that vaping problem: Parents are going ape shit over this, because otherwise healthy kids have died from vaping, and some will have lifelong ill effects.
I agree that the problem looks like a bathtub gin (contamination) problem, but there will be overreaction on this issue, for a while.