I don’t think that you need any more proof that all of these pop up third party efforts are simply republicans funding some of the most ostentatious left wingers out there in order to ratfuck democratic presidential efforts. none of these people can win 270 electoral votes because they aren’t on enough ballots to get there. FACT.
anyone who tells you that they can still win is a political idiot who doesn’t know what they’re talking about and should be ignored or someone with a vested interest in making sure that democrats get fewer votes than they should letting the only other viable party option win. left wingers included.
if there were a real serious third party looking at real electoral victories they should start organizing at the local level with a real long term strategy of growth and do it for all years, not just the ones divisible by 4. by not doing anything except in a presidential election year they are only reinforcing and perpetuating the “corrupt duopoly” they hate so much.
I’m happily voting third party. :)
You’re happily reducing the number of votes that the major party candidate who you think will do the most harm needs to receive in order to win your state.
Only if you assume their vote is owed to some candidate instead of earned. They could just as easily sit out, like the majority of the US does. The default is voting for no one, thus nowhere does this reduce votes any candidate needs. You cannot assume the default is voting for the candidate YOU like, and that any deviation from that is ‘taking votes away’ from someone who never earned them it the first place. They were never Harris’ votes to begin with.
No, sitting out is the same as voting 3rd party. You are having the exact same statistical effect.
There is no “default”. There is no “sitting out”. It’s just how math works in a FPTP system. You are actively choosing which of the 2 parties’ candidate to support, regardless of what you choose to do. Voting 3rd party and choosing not to vote both support the smaller party. That party is the GOP in this case.
I am well aware they don’t like hearing that voting 3rd party/not voting is supporting Trump, but it’s absolutely true. They just don’t want to vote strategically, they want to feel good about their vote. That’s much less likely to bring about positive change in my opinion.
it’s all about party purity for them.
I’ll be honest here. I’m not a registered democrat. never have been. I find myself aligning mostly with the greens on a lot of issues. but I’m never voting for a green. because I know that if I want stuff that I favor to happen, voting for a party that never campaigns, never organizes, and never puts up credible people who have done the public service work isn’t just a fool’s errand it’s political idiocy. that’s why I vote for democrats.
I know they aren’t perfect. but I also know they know how to organize and get shit done politically, even if they water down their own legislation to appeal to their conservative wing and water it down even more to appeal to republican who will never vote for it but I digress.
the point of elections is to set the government at whatever level to go in the direction you want. and voting for the option that will only win in a microscopic probability but is more likely to make it easier for the party and candidate I vehemently disagree with to win is beyond stupid, it’s purposefully destructive. to what end? it makes no sense.
Its absolutly untrue that sitting our support Trump. By definition it supports no one. It doesn’t change the numbe of votes either candidate needs to win, it simply doesn’t add anything to either. This is quite literally mathematically true.
Also there is always a default. Default is what happens if you do nothing or change nothing, which means by necessity default is not voting. Thats how defining a default works. In fact, US citizens arent even registered to vote by default, you have to do it yourself. Thats why people have been pushing automatic voter registration.
They’re writing assuming the audience is sane and has at least a schoolchild’s understanding of 20th Century history.
Nothing is owed. There is the greatest threat in my decades of voting. I’m sick of Dems playing this stupid us-or-worse-game, but this time is genuinely frightening. If I believed a leftist third party could win, I’d vote there. Failing that, I vote for not-the-fascist and continue investing in local elections. The right figured this out four years ago. Why haven’t we?
Great post and I am going to use some of this info in my replies. Well said.
Lol they are disagreeing with your insanity
Yeah, pretty sure he replied to the wrong comment again 🤣
That’s not the part they are going to use, of course, they will pick like this:
“I’m sick of Dems […] a leftist third party could win, I’d vote there.”
Exactly! Thank you for using logic and reason! Rare thing on Lemmy these days. Also prepare for your downvotes as a result. :/
Im used to idiots, I’ll be fine. Not voting doesn’t magicaly cause either candidate to need more votes. Thats simply not how math works, it just doesnt add anything. If you have to walk 10 miles and I decide not to carry you one mile, you don’t end up having to walk 11 miles.
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Removed, civility.
Only if you assume their vote is owed to some candidate instead of earned.
It’s just math. There is no state where a 3rd party presidential candidate will win.
You cannot assume the default is voting for the candidate YOU like
I don’t. That’s why I used non-partisan words and didn’t name any candidates.
and that any deviation from that is ‘taking votes away’ from someone who never earned them it the first place
I never said that you’re taking votes away from a candidate. I said a vote for a third party is reducing the number of votes that one of the major party candidates needs to receive in order to win. The winner is the one who receives the most votes, and that is going to be either the Democratic or Republican nominee (show me a poll that shows any 3rd party candidate leading either of the major party candidates in any state if you disagree). A vote for any other candidate just lowers the total number of votes either of them needs in order to win.
I should have clarified, though, that I’m speaking of states where there is no RCV.
Every vote for Harris is stealing a vote from third-party candidates who represent real change. By sidelining those voices, you’re indirectly helping Trump win!
If you really want to avoid a Trump win, supporting a viable alternative outside the two-party system is the only way to push the conversation forward.
Every vote for Harris is stealing a vote from third-party candidates
Sorry but that’s an absolute shit take. I didn’t mention any individual candidate or party. I didn’t say voting for a third party is a vote for opposite major party candidate. It’s just basic math that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in a state wins that state. If you think there is a state where any third party candidate has a chance of winning please show me the polling that backs it up. Otherwise, just admit that the winner will be the nominee from one of the two major party candidates, and admitting that acknowledge that basic math says the more 3rd party votes are cast, the fewer votes there are between the 2 major party candidates for one of them to overcome. You can be pissed off about it all you want, but it’s reality.
If you really want to avoid a Trump win, supporting a viable alternative outside the two-party system is the only way to push the conversation forward.
Unfortunately that is just idealist naivete. I vote in the major party primaries to try and get either the least crazy republican (gerrymandered districts) or the most progressive democratic candidate on the ballot. The only thing that will break the duopoly is to get RCV in every state, and the presidential election has fuck-all to do with accomplishing that.
I think they’ve switched candidates they’re voting for a few times, since they don’t have any values other than getting MAGA in office and their preferred candidates don’t have any values other than receiving foreign money.
They’re mad every time they get called out on campaigning for MAGA. So of course we get “no u” style responses, whether or not it makes any sense whatsoever.
It’s the very duopoly you’re stuck with that makes real change impossible without challenging it. While ranked-choice voting (RCV) is important, dismissing third-party voting as useless only keeps the system locked in place. Voting for a third party is part of pushing for bigger reforms like RCV—it’s a step towards showing there’s demand for alternatives outside the same old two-party narrative.
It’s the very duopoly you’re stuck with that makes real change impossible without challenging it.
Indeed. But no 3rd party candidate has received a single EC vote since 1968. Voting 3rd party for president in the general clearly isn’t doing a god damn thing to shift the parties.
While ranked-choice voting (RCV) is important, dismissing third-party voting as useless only keeps the system locked in place.
I never said it was useless. But it’s true that voting for a less popular left-leaning is going to reduce the number of votes that the most popular right-leaning candidate needs to receive to beat the most popular left-leaning candidate.
Voting for a third party is part of pushing for bigger reforms like RCV—it’s a step towards showing there’s demand for alternatives outside the same old two-party narrative.
I don’t think you will get the ear of the Democratic party by skipping the primaries or voting in a 3rd party primary. They don’t know how you vote in a general, so you showing up in their primary is the only way they know reliably that you have opinions for their direction. Bernie succeeded in shifting the Democratic party left by running in the Democratic primary. Lets do that at the local levels, especially for primary candidates who support RCV. There’s pretty much no chance we can get RCV as a federal law, SCOTUS would absolutely knock it down as unconstitutional, so that fight has to come through the state legislatures.
Bernie succeeded in shifting the Democratic party left by running in the Democratic primary.
And look how bad they screwed him by choosing Hilary. How’d that work out?! lol
I liked Bernie and would have voted for him too.
But I am not listening to the duopoly any longer. I’m voting third party. Proudly.
If you really want to avoid a Trump win, supporting a viable alternative outside the two-party system is the only way to push the conversation forward.
Ok so this is bad faith or you clearly have no idea how this country works. Or maybe even both.
So let me get this straight… In order to avoid another Trump term, we must vote for a party that, mathematically, has no chance of winning? Taking votes from the only candidate running against Trump that might win in the process?
Let’s remember that Trump said he will not run again if he loses. That means winning in 2024 is the only way that “another win” can happen.
So please, I would love for you to explain to me, how voting third party in 2024 will “avoid a Trump win”?
Again, and perhaps you just don’t know how elections here work, but these candidates can not possibly win.
That’s not hyperbole, they are literally incapable of securing the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Please tell me you understand this. Like you get the basic arithmetic being used here, right?
So with that said… I would LOVE to hear how voting third party will avoid another Trump term.
part of me shitting on third parties is the fact they enable the bad stuff they want to happen, see the elections of 2000 and 2016. but it also needs to be pointed out, repeatedly, loudly, this other point you just nade:
IT IS STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE TO WIN ENOUGH ELECTORAL VOTES TO BECOME PRESIDENT.
they don’t have an answer for that. if they do respond they never address that specific point only saying well enough people just have to vote third party.
none of these people have any clue how our government or elections or voting works. I’ll bet some of them are convinced that because the cheneys endorsed harris it means she’s an even bigger genocider even though they both have said they don’t agree with her politics except for the politics that preserve the constitution. they’re dead enders man.
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Removed, civility.
IT IS STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE TO WIN ENOUGH ELECTORAL VOTES TO BECOME PRESIDENT.
saying it doesn’t make it true
In this election cycle, as well as all previous ones, their statement is accurate. In the future? Who knows. But their statement, as written is correct.
No one cares about this impotent propaganda made for idiots
I’ll take this as capitulation.
It is. They have to create a strawman to support themselves. “Because people are choosing the best fit from the only two viable candidates, they are choosing based purely on which is more popular.”
Feel free to take it however you want.
Every vote for Harris is stealing a vote from third-party candidates who represent real change. By sidelining those voices, you’re indirectly helping Trump win!
If you really want to avoid a Trump win, supporting a viable alternative outside the two-party system is the only way to push the conversation forward.
K
"No, you don’t get it, once they get to 5% they are automatically on the ballots. Once serious candidate Jill Stein no longer has her own inept team as the obstacle it is all over for the duopoly! 1 in 20 people voting for her is realistic and it’s not like there is a possible disastrous outcome that could occur.
“I couldn’t possibly vote for the duopoly since that makes me complicit. I’ll just spend tons of time online campaigning for MAGA, which does not make me complicit because of reasons.”
Great news!
I love how blue MAGA is simply incapable of comprehending why leftists don’t want to vote for a fascist-adjacent party that regularly marginalizes, victimizes, and takes advantage of its leftist coalition members.
Their minds short circuit and it’s always Russian bots or fascist anti-fascists or something equally ridiculous.
As the contradictions of the collapsing American empire grow too large to ignore, this behavior from the center will continue.
To answer the point, yes I’d rather vote for Claudia than Harris. Because in your propagandized mind, a Republican victory is the worst case scenario.
To leftists that have been paying attention to the DNC’s politics and how they serve the American empire, a DNC win is the “bad guys” winning. Just the same way a GOP win would be.
In democracy-based forms of government, candidates need to earn votes. In fascist authoritarian governments, you owe the candidate your vote.
Really weird how yall are projectin not understanding how government works, but I’m glad I could clear that up for you.
It’s really a shame how every accusation from liberals is a confession. Oh damn, yet another time MAGA and blue MAGA held hands. I just keep running into that for some weird reason.
Blue maga is a weird term y’all made up for accelerationist purposes. Didn’t read the rest due to that term
Great post, brother! Here’s my upvote. :)
In general, I agree that voting for a person isn’t going to bring about the change that I am sure we both wish to happen, but I would like to say that the choice for most blue MAGA people isn’t about that?
The choice for them is voting or staying at home, as for them, a third-party vote is akin to picking the couch. For a lot of them, the mask-off MAGA movement restricting abortion and further eroding minority rights is still too much to bear to not vote blue. In general, most people on the left I talk to still vote in spite of the fascist-adjacent rhetoric.
Yes, you’d be right to say that harm reduction is futile, and a line has to be drawn somewhere, but fuck me if I choose to live with the guilt of voting morally than picking the option I deem helpful to the most amount of people realistically.
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