That sounds too much like work and not enough like bitching.
Makes me wish we had some serious third parties in this country, and not two grifting perennial presidential-election also-rans
The lack of viable ones is less a result of effort on their part or desire for them among the electorate, and more to do with the nature of our voting system. Its hard to develop a viable third party when the system one is operating in mathematically guarantees that only two parties can be seriously competitive with eachother in nationally significant elections, and those parties are already established. They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into, but the only times theyve ever gotten to the presidency have been the couple times when one of the two major parties basically collapses and gets replaced with a different one.
They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into,
That’s my point, though. The two biggest third parties in this country aren’t competitive in local elections, because they put even less effort in local elections as the two major parties do. They make a performative shot at the presidency every four years, and that’s about fucking it. The Libertarians are slightly better (god, what a sentence to gag on) on this than the Greens, but not by much.
There are more than just two third-parties if that’s how you want to refer to them. There were three others you didn’t mention in my state, all different on policy. Third-party doesn’t by default mean green or libertarian.
They said “biggest”, not “only”.
Which I will admit is only partially accurate, the AIP (a paleoconservative party, far right) is the largest after the Libertarian Party (which is not even remotely libertarian in policy). Then Green (which doesn’t actually do anything on any of the ideologies they claim to support), followed by another christian nationalist party, and then parties so small they are a margin of error on the national stage at best, combined.
Single-state parties have no relevance nationally.
Isn’t the AIP just part of the Constitution Party, which itself is, as a whole, smaller than the Greens?
Not really, there was a split in the AIP where some stayed with the Constitution Party (specifically in CA, not in UT), and others stayed purely AIP, then they went with a splinter name for those who didn’t stay with Constitution called America’s Party. Which is bonus funny, because a few decades before that there was another split with some becoming the American Party (northern conservatives).
In terms of membership though, the AIP still keeps all of them, making them the largest by membership IIRC. Its… weird. So AIP is technically larger, but its really split into a lot of factions. UT is still where the bulk of the membership is though I believe. Numbers wise though, if you shoved them all in one place, they still wouldn’t even make the top ten list of cities by population in the US. The Green Party membership numbers wouldn’t hit the top 100.
I’m going to double check though, its been a while since I looked in on those loonies…
EDIT:
Wikipedia numbers for quick checks, the LP actually has less members than I thought. As of 2022, 727k. Green has 211k, AIP has 919k members, and Constitution has 154k members.
In terms of votes in the 2020 presidential election, the LP got 1.8 million votes, green got 400k, an much to my surprise, the Working Families Party got 386k! Letitia James, btw, ran in the WFP ticket ~20 years ago or so. They still have some folks in office in Philly, and had previously won some state seats in CT. They make use of electoral fusion to support Democrats where they don’t have a chance to win or there is a risk from pulling from Democrats to a loss against republicans, and are, as far as I know, one of the better 3rd parties out there. Membership is still low though, looks like only 65k. I know they are in my state, though it looks like they don’t have ballot access yet. Hmm. Maybe worth seeing if they are trying for anything locally by me to see if I can support them.
EDIT 2: THEY DO! This is exciting, they have someone up for my district! I’m disappointed with myself for not seeing that, running under the Democrat ticket but a WFP party member - that is fantastic news.
Folks, this is the sort of third party you get behind. They work together against the far right, and have a defined focus on social democracy and progressive policy.
Still, a lot of people are seemingly treating all third parties the same as they do the Green party, which then affects all of them in public opinion.
At the national level, yes. The only thing they are is a spoiler party in federal elections. Hopefully that changes in the future, but to do that we need to get away from FPTP, and those 3rd parties need to go local first to get recognition.
Local level is an entirely different territory, and there are quite a few third parties in offices.
But in a federal election? Yeah, they are only a spoiler, nothing else.
But see you are doing exactly what I said, applying criticism of the Green party to all third parties. Its the green party that doesn’t participate in local elections. I don’t mind third parties trying different strategies. For better or for worse, whatever the green party is doing at least gets it talked about a ton, which has to be worth something.
I like the sentiment and suggest taking it a step further.
If they aren’t starting at the local level then they aren’t serious about the national level regardless of when they start discussing the next election.
I’d have a lot more respect if there was a third party candidate running for my district’s house seat.
That would mean they’re actually trying to build election infrastructure.
deleted by creator
A third party
Running for office costs lots of money and time. There are seats that go entirely uncontested, because the incumbent is too popular to challenge. I would love to see a 50-state Green strategy, too. I just don’t know who the 500+ candidates are supposed to be.
That would mean they’re actually trying to build election infrastructure.
I’m not sure where this “Greens never try to build anything” theory of politics came from. But if you think partisanship is savage at the national level, wait till you try and run as a Green candidate for municipal office. Talking about bike lanes in the wrong kind of county gets a certain kind of person shooting mad.
City elections are a mess on a good day, and a lot of it really boils down to which person the Mega-Church, the Millionaires, and the Morning Zoo Crew decide to endorse.
Local government is fucking awful. Think of an HOA and then make them accountable to the whiniest assholes in town. Just watch any footage of local meetings on YouTube to see what I mean.
Oh I don’t mean they need to contest every seat that’s an unrealistic standard. But they certainly aren’t going to be a real choice until they have election infrastructure in every state. So we’re looking at about 100 elections of varying offices. And yeah, that takes time to build. Showing up in the last 6 months of the presidential campaign every 4 years is not how you get elected. AOC and others have shown that mainstream democrats are vulnerable in some of those seats that aren’t usually contested. And yeah you’re going to get gerrymandered out of seats a few times until you have a large enough group in the state legislature.
Saying it’s too much work to expect for a third party is just ridiculous. Nobody is going to just hand you a victory on the national stage.
But they certainly aren’t going to be a real choice until they have election infrastructure in every state.
Infrastructure costs money and manpower. Money tends to come from people looking to buy political favors. You can’t dole out political favors if you’re not in power. So power entrenches itself, with a single party dominating a particular seat by way of a patronage system.
And yeah, that takes time to build.
It has been built. Show me a state and I’ll show you a Green Party chapter. But it also decays without reinforcement. And it decays rapidly when the party becomes a scapegoat for deficiencies in one of the Big Two.
We see this with Libertarians as well. Every time the GOP loses, they take a big chunk of blame. People lose enthusiasm as they start getting yelled at by MAGA psychos accusing them of being Deep State agents of the Dem Party. Etc, etc. And eventually, they fold back into the GOP, rather than solidifying as their own party, when the GOP big dollar donors entice them into the tent again.
I suspect that’s what we’ll see with Greens. A mix of public shaming and private bribing will reincorporate them into the Dem Party where they can be more easily controlled.
To be fair the Greens have made a massive mistake with Jill Stein. They aren’t going to be the big third party that eventually breaks through unless they seriously reform. But no, a chapter in every state is not the infrastructure you need. Not beyond the most reductive meaning at any rate. You need to be a household name. You need to have been present in the state level political scene already. Election infrastructure is hundreds of people showing up every day to make millions of calls. Thousands of volunteers papering neighborhoods. Supporting PACs and local relationships to generate endorsements. A hundred members who meet once a month isn’t going to cut it.
To be fair the Greens have made a massive mistake with Jill Stein.
She’s been the sacrificial lamb election cycle after election cycle because she’s willing to do the job. If Cornel West hadn’t withdrawn, I could have seen him as a better choice. But given the smearing every Green candidate since Nader has endured, I don’t really blame him for wanting to stay out of the mud.
You need to be a household name. You need to have been present in the state level political scene already.
You need billions of dollars to operate at that level. Hell, even the party primaries are these enormous luxurious affairs. So much of this really does just boil down to money, which comes from people looking to buy access to the candidates.
Supporting PACs and local relationships to generate endorsements.
Who are the local Green candidates going to get to form PACs on their behalf? You either have a die-hard ideologue like Perot who bankrolls the entire party out of his tech industry fortune, or you have a scattered amalgamation of independent activists who congeal around a third party banner.
When you’re getting enough house seats and state legislature seats you can start working on PACs, nobody is going to give you a PAC before you’ve done the work.
When you’re getting enough house seats and state legislature seats
Where do you get the money to build the organization to win these seats? States don’t just give them away. A house district can run north of 600,000 residents and cost more than half-a-million in donations to compete in. Even state legislative races are enormous, expensive affairs. And that’s before you get into the incumbency racket of gerrymandered seats and access journalism.
deleted by creator
A third party could absolutely work but it must come from the bottom up. FPTP sets a high bar but not an insurmountable one. The Green party will never work without reform because they’re doing nothing but spoiler work every four years.
Can’t, Democrats practice party suppression.
Eh, First Past the Post is party suppression, tbh. When the math pushes us towards two parties, a third party is always at the cost of some other party that is nominally “on the same side”.
How dare one political party oppose another political party! It completely flies in the face of what an election is supposed to be about. /s
Blocking ballot access is anti Democratic.
Could you have maybe posted this when it was relevant to this election cycle?
Oh nope, you’re just here for the karma.
Take your fucking block and EAT IT RAW
Or, running down ballot candidates to actually affect genuine policy change. But no, just run for president to make a small amount of noise and rake in that moron money.
Change only happens when its convenient /s
I’ve been staring at this for two hours but I still don’t get it.
And it was only posted 8mins ago, impressive
Are you going to explain it or are you going to just keep making fun of my math skills?
Outside of the uses in math and physics, time can be seen as a recurring pattern of ages or cycles.
The first three panels state the obvious and the fourth doesn’t make sense to me.
and that’s ok
You are being made fun of.
If you make fun of someone and they don’t get get it, did you really make fun of them?
People talk about it all the time. Ron Paul was a household name. People we’re talking about RFK JR a year ago. People were talking about 3rd parties due to Biden’s stance on Palestine. People were talking about it after that first debate. All that’s fine, but it only makes the two main parties sweat within 30 days of election. That’s when all the “throwing your vote away” rhetoric ramps up.
Rather than doing better, working harder, or standing on better policy to turn out the 35% of people who don’t vote, it’s easier to vilify 1% of the people who do. That’s a problem.
If you give up and vote for Democrats or Republican’s: -you are voting for putting people in prison for marijuana. -You are voting for a party that will pretend to care only to watch key legislation die because 2 senators said “no”, despite being from the party that claimed to want the change. -You vote for 2 more years of a locked government. There is no solution to the problems the 2 parties have created by voting for either of them. Nothing ever gets permanently better under either Democrat or Republican. They are the problem. -Don’t use Geordi to support your ruling class. Geordi comes from a world that got rid of boomer parties and they run the freaking galaxy.
No, no, no! It’s not the systemic oppression of the poor and PoCs that’s the issue. Or that basic civil rights can be voted and legislated away by a fascist minority. It’s because a handful of people don’t personify the system’s problems into Trump’s facade.
Your frustration with the system is valid, but you’re missing the point. The time to argue about the rules of the game is not in the middle of the game. Between rounds the rules should absolutely be examined, changed, and balanced for the better, but once the game has begun you can only play within what has already been established.
Don’t argue with the pootinbot
To be fair, Kamala is our third Presidential candidate this year. 😂
You are a bad actor and so are half the people replying to you
you are voting for putting people in prison for marijuana.
Harris has made Cannabis legalization a campaign promise.
You are voting for a party that will pretend to care only to watch key legislation die because 2 senators said “no”, despite being from the party that claimed to want the change.
You are literally complaining about democracy here. If you want more “yes” votes, elect more Democrats.
You vote for 2 more years of a locked government. There is no solution to the problems the 2 parties have created by voting for either of them. Nothing ever gets permanently better under either Democrat or Republican. They are the problem.
Democrats bring progress, and Republicans bring regression. I don’t see how not voting is a solution to this problem. If you want progress, vote for the people who bring it.
Don’t use Geordi to support your ruling class. Geordi comes from a world that got rid of boomer parties and they run the freaking galaxy.
Star Trek isn’t real.
You are literally complaining about democracy here. If you want more “yes” votes, elect more Democrats.
The last 20 years prove otherwise. Not only could they not pass Bidens’ BBB agenda with both houses in 2021, but they couldn’t pass universal healthcare or codify Roe with a super-majority in 2009. The only major legislative achievement of the Democrats since the 90s was passing a Republican-designed healthcare plan. That’s not democracy, it’s disfunction.
Democrats bring progress, and Republicans bring regression.
LMAO, no. The social safety net is a fraction of the size it was 40 years ago, wealth inequality is at record highs, and housing is unaffordable for half of Americans. That’s not just from Democrats failure to bring change either; Bill Clinton did as much to gut welfare and deregulate Wallstreet as any Republican. At their best, the Democrats slow the rate of regression, and even that is far from a given.
If you can’t see daylight between the parties, and hold that they are identical rather than one being markedly less awful than the other (note: less awful, they still have are awful in their way), then you are as annoying as the people who were screaming back in 2021 that anyone who wasn’t voting Biden in 2024 is a monster (please, tell me again how criticizing Biden is the worst thing I can do to keep Trump out of office). Y’all are catastrophizing so hard that you’ve forgotten how to build political power, and are relying on big orgs to do it for you.
Both agree on the point and the proper meme format
I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m told that 3rd party voters are too small a bloc to bother trying to earn their votes.
As I understand, it is true that non-voters are already counted out in statistical predictions, so in essence- yes. 3rd party voters while potentially helpful, are irrelevant to the actual numbers counted towards elections.
Please tell that to the people posting 100 memes a day about 3rd parties wrecking the election.
3rd party voters are too small a bloc to carry a candidate, and pandering to that bloc at the expense of alienating moderates is strategically stupid.
It’s like you’re building the tallest tower. In a tight contest, every block helps, and a small block might be the difference between a success and failure if the competition is close enough. But trading a big block to get a smaller block is just plain dumb. There’s no reason to “earn” something that’s mutually exclusive with a more valuable something you already have.
The bourgeoisie politicians will be materially fine win or lose, it’s the prole voters who will materially suffer due to their “strategic” 3rd party vote. It stands no chance of winning, and there’s no mechanism to associate it with specific complaints. 3rd party voting isn’t even effective at the intended goal, it’s just a bad play.
But hey, go ahead. FA, FO.
Math is hard, though, can’t they just treat voting like a fun self-indulgence and not something that affects peoples’ lives?
The dems are FA and will FO. Opposing genocide is not “pandering”.
Again, the Democratic politicians will be just fine if they lose, the rest of us won’t.
Plenty of people aren’t fine now, and the democrats don’t care. Elections are won by politicians and campaigning. You can be mad at voters all you want, but it’s up to politicians to go out and get the votes.
I’ve said the same thing twice which you have ignored both times:
The politicians will be fine. The people who suffer are the voters. It is up to the voters to vote in their best interest. You can be mad at politicians all you want, but you have to look out for yourself, and sometimes that means holding your nose and voting against the evil that poses a greater threat to you, your loved ones, and the vulnerable among us.
Who suffers when you proudly declare that fascism lite didn’t do enough to earn your vote, while fascism extra strength rounds up minorities and declares women to be property?
Nobody is going to suffer from my vote or non vote.
Women, immigrants, and minorities are “nobody” I guess. Cool, good to know.
Nah dawg. Check my post history (don’t actually), I’ve been advocating (and been getting heavily downvoted) for supporting third party candidates for years
Third parties in the presidential campaign only allow people to vote in a non tactical way. If they actually want to do anything they should start on square one which is to get a single candidate into congress.
The strategy for presidential campaigns should always be to run, get the message across, watch polling, withdraw, endorse until they are big enough. When big enough then open up coalition talks and affect policy by promoting voter reform and couple of key policies.
Doing just the presidency is good for publicity but incredibly inadequate.
Or the democrats could deal with the fact that there is a substantial group of people that don’t trust them or the republicans. Better not talk about why that might be right?
I think there is definitely political space for a left wing populist anti establishment party, you can either do it with Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht type of party proper anti corruption social democrat or green.
Unfortunately the Green party is who everyone talks about but there are other third parties, and especially ones that participate in local elections more. I am interested in reading more about the Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht party style though, thank you for referencing it.
This is not a post about supporting third parties, which is still pointless anyway. This is a post about third parties themselves doing nothing in non-election years. If you aren’t a third party candidate this post isn’t about you.
It is about them, just not in a positive way.
BTW, for some reason I have them tagged as “Tankie Dumpo”, no idea why.
And you are no closer to accomplishing your goals…
There is a reason socialists in the US vote for the democratic party: we have influence in participation and have been granted concessions.
deleted by creator
I didn’t realize putting Marx in your name entitled you to the ability of gatekeeping socialism from everybody who doesn’t live in your imaginary socialist world and instead have to deal with the political realities of the system they are operating in.
deleted by creator
I don’t support capitalism.
I live in a capitalist world and currently only have a choice between capitalism that can be negotiated with, or full blown fascist flavored capitalism.
If you hate liberalism more than you do fascism, you aren’t a socialist.
deleted by creator
I am confused because Trump made the comment regarding committing murder on 5th Avenue as explanation of his cult’s loyalty, but you are claiming that is a Biden thing. I’m also unsure of the relevance, seeing that Biden isn’t one of the two choices you are being given to elected as your next president…
I’m regards to Palestine, there are two options: the democrats and working towards a peace deal, or Trump, who wants to finish the job of eradicating Palestinians. Voting for anybody but Harris is a vote for total eradication in this case, and I’m not going to let you pretend that isn’t the case if we are to continue this dialog.
My goal is to never vote for the Dems or Republicans after 2016 so thanks for telling me I’m no closer but I think I am.
Knowing that I’ve made that commitment to myself let’s me vote for the candidates I actually want, without fear of “causing the worse of the two” to win
Pretending a spoiler candidate has a chance of winning and getting zero percent of what you want doesn’t make you more moral than the people who vote for the furthest left candidate with the ability to win and getting 5% of what you wanted.
We have an obligation and a moral duty to fight fascism at the ballot box. Voting for a fascists’ spoiler because the spoiler pretends they are on your side is not strength on your part, it is cowardice.
We have an obligation and a moral duty to fight fascism at the ballot box
Nah the whole thing is a joke. The Dems are corrupt but the Republicans are worse, so I feel a moral obligation to support neither.
If you admit that Republicans are worse, than you have to admit that voting for spoiler candidates who help elected Republicans is the worse option than just voting democratic.
You can’t admit that Republicans are worse than use what little political capital you have to help them while pretending you are more moral than those of us who vote democratic.
You are just sniffing your own farts and pretending you are better than those of us who you leave behind to actually make the decision to help as many we are given the ability to.
Your point would make a lot more sense if the continuous “Dems vs Republicans” for decades didn’t bring us to this point. But alas, we’re in a bad spot where “this election” is the “most important” one yet. Yeah right lmao. Cya at the ballet box
No, you won’t see me at the ballot box. You will be getting high off the false morality injection voting for some dingbat gives you, while I will be trying to prevent a fascist with intentions of being a day one dictator from taking power.
So you’re the kind of person staring at a forest but all you can make out is a tree. I do imagine that kind of willful ignorance helps to comfort you. The reality is the best you will ever influence, while feigning ignorance to how things actually work, is a tree. Maybe one day you will open your eyes and recognize the potential influence for change you could have harnessed if your kind attempted to constructively change things within the constraints we were born into rather than cutting off the face of your allies while being or feigning ignorance in reality.
Nah I’m the kind of person who realizes a constant vote for the “lesser evil” is a slow slip into facism, and I would rather rip off the bandaid instead.
Nah I’m the kind of person who realizes a constant vote for the “lesser evil” is a slow slip into facism, and I would rather rip off the bandaid instead.
“I want fascism as fast as possible” is a hell of a take, but one that seems frighteningly common amongst .ml users.
The far-left people actively saying “Don’t vote for Dem” making an easier win for Trump are probably the most stupid people of the bunch.
Revolution is not happening anytime soon, meanwhile let’s do something with what we have.
Arguably Revolution would be closer with Trump in office…
Not much of an argument to vote for trump but unfortunately probably true.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
No, because I actually understand how capitalism works and know that screaming at the most marginalized people to “VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO” won’t change anything even in the face of genocide.
Removed by mod
Yes I do, now cry about how your moral universe will smite me while Kamala bombs kids.
Its just fucking wild watching the pro-gun lot declare Kamala and Joe Biden to be committing genocide when you know for a fact that they’d have a meltdown if you applied the exact same logic to Walmart or the owner of the gun the child shot the school up with.
Don’t get me wrong, America needs to stop selling Israel weapons, other than Iron dome related and very limited defence stuff. Thats the road map to peace in the middle east right there.
But I could watch them try and take the moral high ground over it all day. They literally have no idea they’re doing it either:
"No, clearly they know that, ultimately, many of those weapons will be used to commit atrocities, including killing children. A brief look at the numbers shows it to be inevitable. As such, any government that allows to sale of these things is also culpable and has to put an end to it.
Again, not idea they’re doing it, at all.
But hey, who knows, maybe the other guy, the one in bed with the gun-toting too psycho-christians, maybe he’ll “turn their back on Israel.”
Maybe i got you wrong and if so i apologise but i had to get that off my chest all the same.
Haha the audacity Western libs never ceases to amaze me. You’re comparing a genocide to a tragic but at all equivalent. American children are not endanger of being erased from existence. And most of the shootings are driven by the right wing fascism in your own government and society.
I’m neither an American nor a Liberal.
Yup, I did compare them but I never said they were an equivalent. Thats something you made up. More so, none of the things you said are mutually exclusive to what I said and I’m attacking the very same right wingers you seem to allude to being against too.
Just a bizzare reply.
Democrats brining up abortion and housing prices. Republicans lowering gas prices. It’s that time of the year.
