I just want to jot down my responses to idea that "a vote for the Green Party is a vote for Trump." (All of the arguments can apply to any discussion of third parties as a "wasted vote.")
Either a) a vote is symbolic expression and one I have a right to interpret as I please,
OR
b) its value is only derived from whether or not it leads to a win.
If b, then
* Every vote for Biden in Oklahoma is a vote for Trump. With 0.00% of the votes counted, I am calling Oklahoma's 7 electoral votes for Donald Trump. There is no way for people in red states to avoid this moral censure.
* We can actually go further -- if you fully believe b, then last election a vote for Hilary was a vote for Trump. Simply look at the result!
Oh, you want to get out of that somehow, perhaps talking about probability? (You can't talk about intent; otherwise I get to simply vote how I want -- willing that my one vote would be the maxim that other voters would follow, as it were, not the kind of pathetic, bungled attempts at compromise we kept getting) [1]. Once you start thinking about probability, however, you have a very complicated terrain, not simple slogans for simple moral intuitions.
For one, thanks to the electoral college, in at least 80% of states, people can vote Green with total impunity. If the Party got 5% of the national vote, it would lead to greater ballot access, federal funding for the party, and a structural force to make Democrats have to move left if they want to keep voters. If that's valuable to someone who lives in a non-swing state, which ground do you want to use to say they shouldn't?
Secondly, people who live in swing states who like the Green Party could involve themselves in a kind of vote swap with someone in non-swing state. Even better, the Green Party voter in a swing state should seek to leverage several votes for their one vote.
Also, this world of probabilism with a mandate of maximizing the chance of winning means every vote in the primary for a candidate who has high unfavorables with marginal voting groups in the primary (like Biden's problem with young people) is a partial vote for Trump [2]. This is conditional on your ability to convert them into voters, and in this instance doing so in spite of not offering them anything.
So, why not just lie and say Biden will offer things? A lot of this has to do with the mental habits of his online supporters. Remember, the mandate of middle management is to try to extract loyal behavior from people to organizations that will not give loyalty [3]. When you are at work, you cannot explicitly offer people benefits you don't get them for fear of legal action. Staying in that habit of mind leads management class Democrats to try other tricks. Since Biden is such a bad candidate, they are left with shaming and deflection.
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[1] In reality, what happens for candidates like Kerry, Romney, Biden is a kind of cascade effect. Kerry looked invincible in the primaries. Turned out, he had only convinced Democratic primary voters in a few early states that he was electable and then his winning elections in Democratic primaries was taken as proof of concept.
[2] The correct answer was probably Warren -- she offered populist policies filtered in a way bougie people can listen to. This would lead to grumbling on both sides, sure, but the marginalized would get what they care about, policy proposals, and the bougie would get what they want, style. She misplayed her hand very badly, but was punished for it in ways far above the causes. I mean, look at Biden. . . Some of you can't right now, but I take great comfort in knowing the day is soon when people will see him for who he is, either after defeat or after his one term. For now, there are those who are trying to construct a God-Emperor and cannot see the lack of clothes. Deflection is a hell of a drug.
[3] This is a big reason the "vote swap" idea really doesn't work. They want your vote for free. The people the highest up want to destroy your capacity for political imagination, and middle management is used to doing what they are told and then getting extremely irked at people punching up.
