Reasons why voting Libertarian (or another third party) is not "wasting" your vote.

[Final-Fan]

sc94597 said:

1. Even if a candidate doesn't win it doesn't mean voting for them doesn't influence the political landscape. The more people who vote for a third party the more votes the other parties didn't get, and they want to tap into that. It isn't the majority who wins elections, but rather the independent voters who can turn that 49% into a 51%. Voting with your conscience tells the candidates of major parties what they should do to win you over in the future. 

2. You don't like the other candidates anyway. Sure, you can say that one of them is the lesser of two evils, but they are still pretty damn evil. Why endorse that? 

3. The current parties are on their dying breaths. Look at how devasted the GOP is by Trump, and unless they change drastically they are in for a demographic problem 10-20 years from now. As for the Democrats, you might not know this because the current president has a D next to his name, but they are in a very risky situation right now. If Republicans win the presidency and keep hold of the house, then Republicans effectively control all three branches of government on almost every level. The Democratic party needs to win this election to survive. Not to mention they have their own schism in their party between progressives and moderates. A third party can very well become a second party in the next fifty years or so. Political change doesn't happen in a night. But it won't get there if you keep voting for shitty politicians

4. Getting more than 5% votes alleviates the pressure of getting ballot access through petition and allows a third party to spend money on other things. Getting 15% opens up the third party to debate in the next election. The benefits of each additional vote does not scale linearly. 

5. The president doesn't really do much. The powers of a president are limited, and the amount of influence you have over their election is miniscule. Showing what your beliefs really are affects a lot more, and can lead to more change on the state, local, and national legislatures - who do make the big changes. While it might seem like a big deal in the short term, it really is not. In the long-term the same things end up happening if you keep voting for the lesser of two evils. 

I added a point 6 for my response that wasn't directly to any of your 5 points.  It's important. 

1&2.  While it is true that non-winners (or outsider candidates/parties) can still have a very significant influence on winners (or the two mainstream party platforms), it doesn't necessarily follow that your vote is best spent on fringe candidacies, even when they hew closest to your own preferred policy. 

In rare cases a third party challenger can get real national traction, such as Perot in 1992 or others earlier in the century, and they had real effect on the political landscape.  I recall hearing that Perot's fiscal policy had a large effect on the Democratic position and may deserve a lot of credit for the 1993 budget that was the biggest step toward balancing the budget which was achieved later that decade.  But casting your vote for perennial fringe parties like the Green or Libertarian or Socialist Party is little more than a protest vote in my opinion, unless there is some factor that would allow that party to have an absolutely huge presence in the election compared to normal. 

If you can actually identify a clear lesser evil between the two main party candidates, I think it's much better to try to influence the tiny margin that you cite, rather than try to indirectly influence whoever happens to win, especially since if the "greater evil" wins they will probably also be more hostile to your preferred fringe party.  It's not a matter of "endorsing" it, even if that's how the candidate will interpret it; it's literally doing what you can as a voter to minimize the damage.  What is more effective at minimizing the damage:  Voting for the mainstream candidate you hate less, or voting for the no-hope fringe candidate you like in the hopes that he will do well enough that his policy platform gains the attention of whichever hated candidate won? 

For some people, party primaries would a better way to try to raise visibility for your preferred policy positions by voting for candidates who support them, giving those issues traction in the intra-party debate going into the election; unfortunately, however, most states don't have a wide range of candiates to choose from, due to the widely spread primary dates and candidates dropping out as time goes on. 

3.  You can't have it both ways.  First you say that Trump is devastating the GOP and that it has 10-20 years to live for demographic reasons; then you say that if Trump wins the Democratic Party will be done for despite being poised for victory in a decade.  By the way, both parties do have extensive experience in surviving a simultaneous hostile White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. 

4.  The Green Party would have to double its popular vote on the national average to meet even the first threshold.  The second is a pipe dream for any of the regular outsider parties. 

5.  This point is the worst of all!  Even if the President doesn't do much directly, he has enormous influence by way of his office in appointing cabinet members, nominating to the Supreme Court and other judges, various department heads, executive orders, the list goes on and on.  The argument that a protest vote isn't a big deal because the President isn't a big deal is just a lie—lying to yourself or the reader I cannot say.  As for our effect on who the president is, I remind you that you just got done claiming that the margin is usually tiny.  "Every vote counts" is no less true for being a cliche, and I know you believe it or you wouldn't have made this thread. 

6.  Honestly, I do support the concept of voting for third parties instead of just sucking it up and picking one of two party lines to tow.  But the place to push for other candidates is usually at the local and state level.  The national level is just not an effective place to do this in most elections, with notable rare exceptions when the electorate is catalyzed by some issue or even personality (Teddy Roosevelt).  Personally I want to see ranked-choice voting of some form implemented, and this is also easier to push on the local level.  When it is accepted there, push for state implementation, and then national!  Then we can really see who the people support.