🧩 BND Motif Index · M1017
The perfect is the enemy of the good
Voters are urged to back the flawed candidate over the awful one: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- 10claims filed under it
- 5right shows it came up on
- 4claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Hold your nose
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (0 left-leaning, 0 center, 5 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- right-leaning
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “a ballot box is not a mailbox for you to send a message” “a Christian isn't asking who's free from flaws” “a lot of Christians just end up not voting because they see flawed candidates like we have now” “Cut your nose to spite your face, rooted in idealism” “He still would be better than Ashley Hinson.” “I vote for the GOP because we Americans are sadly presented with two options.” “I would probably still vote for this jackass because he’s still slightly less evil than his opponent” “I would rather have a Democratic representative working on it than a Republican one bc they actively hate you” “if everyone always just votes lesser evil, the bigger evil would never win” “No one's going to be perfect. There's always going to be some gripes.” “Not voting is fully conceding” “Sometimes you're voting for a series of imperfect candidates but the level of imperfection on the Democrat side almost every single time far surpasses”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 0
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the left so far.
Told on the right 6
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
- 2026-11-02 “Republicans unhappy with their side shouldn't hand the keys to Democrats, an unlicensed driver who has wrecked three cars.” 1
- 2026-11-01 “A vote is not a valentine or a sacrament: Christians shouldn't vote on looks, nor refuse flawed candidates, but back whoever slows decay.” 1
- 2026-10-27 “Christians should vote for candidates whose policies slow societal decay rather than seeking flawless candidates.” 2
- 2026-10-22 “Voters should choose the GOP over Democrats because the GOP is the lesser of two evils.” 1
- 2026-10-22 “Leftists vote for what they want rather than for achievable or logistical means.” 1
- 2026-10-20 “Voters punish their own side by choosing bad candidates to avoid imperfect ones.” 1
Retold online 4
claims many people posted in their own words
- 2026-11-04 “Not voting straight-ticket Democratic, as Josh Turek is said to have done, helps the worst people into power; Iowans should still back Turek over Hinson.”
- 2026-10-25 “Not voting concedes the election: staying home or refusing the lesser evil hands the win to the bigger evil.”
- 2026-10-24 “Voters debate whether to support the BC NDP to prevent a Conservative victory or vote for the Greens based on environmental morals.”
- 2026-10-10 “The Democratic Party isn't transphobic: Democrats in power protect trans rights, and any Democrat will treat trans people better than a Republican who hates them.”
M1017 · first seen 2026-10-20 · last 2026-11-04 · what this is · how the index works