The problem with this line of thinking is that it encourages short-term rather than long-term thinking.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, the absolute good to the absolute greatest number of people - we would have been better off if Trump won in 2020. He would have had another lame duck term in a continuation of an administration where he had a lot of restraining voices in his cabinet. He wouldn’t have had the four years to regroup and come back with an entirely different organizational structure.
A Biden win in 2020 guaranteed a Trump win in 2024. It was eminently predictable and it was widely predicted. Biden wasn’t going to do anything to address the actual causes for Trump winning. Biden was only ever going to be a temporary speed bump to fascism. He simply lacked the character to properly confront a fascist movement. He’s not morally capable of it.
Even if you stick to a purely utilitarian framework, even if you believe that harm minimization is all that mattes, sometimes voting for the lesser of two evils is the option that’s going to get more people killed.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it encourages short-term rather than long-term thinking.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, the absolute good to the absolute greatest number of people - we would have been better off if Trump won in 2020. He would have had another lame duck term in a continuation of an administration where he had a lot of restraining voices in his cabinet. He wouldn’t have had the four years to regroup and come back with an entirely different organizational structure.
A Biden win in 2020 guaranteed a Trump win in 2024. It was eminently predictable and it was widely predicted. Biden wasn’t going to do anything to address the actual causes for Trump winning. Biden was only ever going to be a temporary speed bump to fascism. He simply lacked the character to properly confront a fascist movement. He’s not morally capable of it.
Even if you stick to a purely utilitarian framework, even if you believe that harm minimization is all that mattes, sometimes voting for the lesser of two evils is the option that’s going to get more people killed.