Jonathan,

Thanks for the thoughtful response. You raise an important point. The third party option is obviously a way of reacting to the current situation that we longer would have turned to next if we had time. A strong finish by third parties (and fourth parties: Trump is actually in 4th place among African American voters) would certainly send a message to the establishment. To me, voting that way seems an appropriate choice only under certain conditions. The first is in a situation where you don’t find one of the two establishment candidates significantly better or worse than the other. It is certainly possible to find both of them unappealing, but still find one to be the significantly lesser evil (for instance, by not advocating war crimes). If you think one is less bad than the other, then I think you have a responsibility to vote for her or him. Of course, this is only true in a high stakes voting context. By this I mean a situation where your vote really matters, as when you are in a state that looks like it will be close in a tight national race. If you live in, say, Oklahoma or DC (which lean heavily toward one party), then you can send signals with your votes without worrying about the outcome of the election. But if you think one candidate is more objectionable than the other and you live in a swing state in a close race, then voting for an alternative party candidate might be morally irresponsible if it contributes to the election of the greater evil. Just ask a liberal who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000…

Thanks for the input, DB