It has been said a gazillion times over the last few months, but is it getting through to those who need to hear it?
And remember: a “protest” third party vote is a vote for Trump.
If neither Harris nor Trump gets 270 electoral votes…
[If] No one gets to 270 and the House of Representatives, voting on behalf of the 50 states, is entrusted to pick the next president. What could possibly go wrong with that constitutionally mandated solution?
– What if no candidate wins 270 electoral votes?
Edit: I feel like this fact is often overlooked.
Wait… you can actually have someone NOT get 270 votes?
Oh… duh… 3rd parties taking some. You think it’d just be whoever has the most electoral college votes then… Alas, needlessly complicating things.
Doesn’t have to be a 3rd party. With the way proportional voting works in NE and ME, it is possible, however unlikely, that there will be a 269-269 tie vote.
They could tie at 269.
Lol, yeah. The article I linked is from earlier this year and about Biden/Trump/Kennedy, but the gist of it still applies.
Yeah. It has been that way since the founding of the country. The winner not only must have the most votes, they must get half of the available EVs, rounding up. This was learned early on in the history of the US, when four Democratic-Republicans ran for President, and nobody got the required number of votes. This happened in 1824, barely half a century after the US was founded. It resulted in Andrew Jackson (Trump’s role model, BTW), getting 99 EVs, John Q. Adams winning 84 EVs, William H. Crawford (who had a stroke) winning 41 EVs, and Henry Clay winning 37 EVs. Per the 12th Amendment of the US constitution, nobody had a straight majority here, so the top three vote getters (disqualifying Henry Clay) advanced to the House of Representatives. Clay’s supporters in Congress threw their weight behind John Q. Adams, giving him a straight majority over the top candidate, Andrew Jackson, and Adams gave Clay a spot in his cabinet. Capping this shitstorm off was Andrew “Sore Loser” Jackson throwing a fit, calling it a ‘corrupt bargain’, in a very Trumpian temper tantrum.
IMO, what happened in 1828 (and again in 1837 with the VP) is an important history lesson for voters thinking of voting Third Party. Unless you can somehow convince 50% + 1 people to pick your Third Party candidate in 270 EV worth of states, your best bet is to get that candidate to run for a local election and become a vocal proponent for fixing the US electoral system. Because you’d hate to have 269 EV go for Harris, 81 go to a mix of Left-Wing Third Party candidates, and 188 go to Trump, then have the election thrown to the House, where the Trumpian states give Trump the win despite the Left-wing candidates winning in a landslide were those EVs have gone to a single person. And even that’s an unrealistic scenario. Only two people who have not had an R or D behind their name have gotten EVs in my lifetime, and both of them were from faithless electors, NOT from winning an EV. You’re not going to win the Presidency with 1% of the vote. But you WILL throw your state over to the bad guy if your 1% share makes the difference between Harris winning and Trump winning.
There are a lot of reasons why you shoulnd’t vote for third party for US Presidential Elections. The EC is just one of them.
A protest vote to a third party is actually a protest vote to whoever you prefer less. You’re essentially just removing yourself as a voter and making it more likely the person you like less is elected… we often say “third party is a vote for Trump” since most of lemmy is sane - but for a staunch conservative a vote for a third party is a vote for Harris.
I’d encourage everyone to vote regardless of your leaning - having low voter turnout allows more shitty shenanigans.
Yep, we also say that because there are a lot of astroturf accounts pushing Stein and De La Cruz on Lemmy that are hyper-critical of Harris but suspiciously never want to talk about what a shitbag Trump is.
They don’t push them. They just push back against Democrats that invent lies about Stein. It seems most Democrats can’t handle truths about Harris praising and committing to funding war criminals like Netanyahu & Dick Cheney.
we can handle them just fine because the fact of the matter is trump would be way worse for Palestine. There’s a reason Netanyahu prefers Trump.
Stein would be better by your logic because she’d stop sending multibillion dollar thank you checks to Israel whenever they kill American journalists.
no, because stein is a stooge and has no chance at all of winning anyway. that’s the entire point of the article.
Why is she a stooge? You don’t like democracy or you scared Kamala supporting war criminals might mean Stein has more of an impact than you’d like to admit?
Give it up bud. The veil is lifted and no one is falling for it.
No I refuse to support people that are pro genocide. It’s that simple really. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that I voted for that. I was going to vote for Kamala but I just can’t do it unless she changes her position before the election.
You men Shill Stein? What lies are being told about Shill Stein? In what way is Shill Stein being besmirched, and how can I add to it?
Removed by mod
Sounds a lot like MAGAspeak to me.
So being against genocide of Palestinians and Arabic people is now considered MAGAspeak to Democrats?
Trump admits he’s a shit bag, Harris pretends she’s not.
Hope whatever shareblue is calling itself these days finally stops getting funded when Harris loses.
Trump admits nothing, he just lies and lies and lies and lies and deflects and denies and projects and acuses. What planet are you on that you don’t know this? He’s one of the least humble or self aware men on the whole planet.
“Trump admits he’s a shitbag” is just another big fat lie.
YOU admit he’s blatantly a shit bag and then turn right stone and bOtH SideS the whole thing.
There’s literally nothing honest about Trump. He’s an honesty free zone with an ago the size of a continent, the self awareness of an amoeba and the loyalty of a cosmic ray.
K. The genocidal cop pretending to be a wine aunt still isn’t getting my vote.
Because you instead want the worse genocidal racist lying hating minority-bashing blasphemous insurrectionist country-betraying grifter “best king of israel” infantile senile nasty idiot to win. Got it. Two choices: the sane one and the constitution wrecker. You’ve made your choice. Stop pretending it’s because of Harris. It’s because you like his racist shit filled diapers.
Nope, neither of them are getting my vote kiddo. Sorry. I know politics are scary this being your first election ever, but there are always more than two choices.
Just fyi, you’re talking to a self-admitted troll. They’re not worth your time.
That’s because Harris is Satan and Trump is my Daaaaddy
\s
I’m really encouraged by the fact that universalmonk and return2ozma’s posts get heavily downvoted when they push this slop in Lemmy
Yeah, also, Conservatives are more ‘fall in line’ voters, so there’s less vote splitting on the Right than on the Left. Libertarians do appeal to the people opposed to both eyes in the boardroom and eyes in the bedroom on both the Left and the Right, but for the most part, the GQP follows the ‘Vote for the Conservative in the Primary and the Republican in the General’ more than we follow its inverse (replace Conservative with Liberal and Republican with Democrat). And for Republicans afraid of a Trump presidency, come join us and vote for Harris. Then maybe go work on de-Trumping your party after they lose with you helping us. ;)
You… do know that the right gets like…. 4x the 3rd party vote compared to the left. Like what you say is 100% false.
Libertarians+constitution got like 1.2% compared to PSL+greens 0.31% last presidential election iirc.
But also, if the DNC wanted the 3rd party vote they could simply… court it… instead of pissing on it? To say they cost the vote when the DNC continually shot Bernie in the face in 2016, using funds meant to promote the DNC candidate to campaign against a Democrat candidate makes it FOR SURE THE 3RD PARTY VOTERS FAULT. NOTHING THE DNC COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY TO NOT LOSE. THEY WERE PERFECT FOR REFUSING TO ADOPT LEGALIZED WEED, SOCIAL PROGRAMS, MEDICARE FOR ALL, ETC. IN FACT, IT IS GOOD THEY ARE STILL REFUSING TO DO SO AND ALSO REFUSING TO JUST NOT GIVE BILLIONS TO SUPPORT AN ACTIVE GENOCIDE. THAT’LL SHOW THIRD PARTY VOTERS THE TRUE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY!
I like that it’s the Democrats fault for whenever these issues failed, and not the Republicans who universally vote against them. Remove every Republican and I bet we start seeing these issues getting passed.
Talking about simply adopting the policy to the DNCs platform, which they won’t. Not about it actually passing, which they still should be able to do but is out of the question when they don’t even want it.
This was very funny. Thank you!
This government really is held together with hopes and dreams, isn’t it?
It always was. Sometimes that’s stronger than other times.
Ah my favourite AJJ quote: “Hope is for presidents and dreams are for people who are sleeping”
At least it’s the newly elected House that starts its session in January, right?
anakin.jpg
Yes, but unfortunately they vote by state not individually
“Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike.”
^ THIS!
In a Presidential election, whoever gets the most votes wins.
If “Not Trump” is split between 5 candidates, and Trump gets the most votes, he wins.
Here’s a scenario:
Trump - 40%
Harris - 35%
Kennedy - 15%
Oliver - 5%
Stein - 3%
West - 2%Trump wins. Even though 60% of the voting public don’t want him. The “Not Trump” vote failed to coalesce under one candidate enough to block him from winning.
On the other side of the Atlantic there’s usually two rounds, unless someone gets >50% of the vote in the first round.
The second round takes the top two candidates and then people choose between them.
Well I mean I don’t know of all European countries but this is fairly common afaik.
It doesn’t work that way in US Presidential elections.
Yeah. I know.
The US doesn’t have a direct presidential election. You have the electoral college, ie an indirect election.
Correct, but even state by state, if you have multiple people running and nobody hits 50%, Presidential elections are not subject to a run-off election like we saw in the Georgia Senate race.
This is what I keep saying. It’s like my scenario with the Class President. A Nerd and a Jock are running. 51 kids are nerds and don’t want the Jock. 49 kids are jocks and don’t want the Nerd. Pretty clear that the Nerd wins, because more people don’t want the Jock than the Nerd, right? Wrong. If the Jock can peel just THREE votes off from the nerd coalition, the Jocks win it and D&D night is cancelled.
Now re-read that and replace nerds with Liberals, jocks with Conservatives, and ‘D&D night is cancelled’ with ‘Project 2025 is shoved down our throats.’ Then…vote with your fucking head and not your fucking heart!
It’s like this, but Jocks’ votes are worth more than Nerds’.
Definitely. I tried to keep the scenario simple to make it easy to understand, but there is truth in the statement that the jocks have some fingers on the scale of Democracy. I suspect there’s more nerds than jocks. We just have to make sure they all turn out to vote because the cheerleader that is the jock’s politician is pulling out ALL the dirty tricks.
In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?
Whether they would prefer Harris or not is irrelevant, they don’t want Trump. There is only 1 candidate who can beat the Republican candidate and it’s not an Independent/Libertarian/Green candidate.
I don’t understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don’t want Trump.
This doesn’t make any sense.
“don’t want Trump” in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is “why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?”
I’ll try to make it simple then:
They aren’t pro-Harris, they’re anti-Trump.
Problem: “Not Trump” is not a candidate, so splitting the not Trump vote allows Trump to win.
If people really, REALLY, REALLY do not want Trump, there’s only one answer and that’s to support the Democratic candidate who happens to be Harris.
Why Harris? Because she has more support than any other “Not Trump” candidate.
I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn’t matter). My question remains. I’ll rephrase it:
Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?
Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.
Because if they were interested in voting for Trump, they’d be voting for Trump. When the choice is Trump vs. Not Trump, Not Trump wins. Even in 2016 that was true.
What the other person is saying is that you are splitting voters in three categories: pro-Trump, pro-Harris, anti-Trump. But that third group obviosuly doesn’t like either of the two main candidates, not just Trump. And if forced to vote for one of them, there’s no reason to assume all will pick Harris.
A poll in which “First choice is someone other than Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that “Trump” has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.
A poll in which “Anybody but Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.
Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i’ve been asking for in this thread.
Because we’re able to discuss hypothetical things without being literal to prove a point.
That would be fine, if that’s what was happening, but it’s not. The commentor that i responded to, as well as the article that we are all responding to, use this “hypothetical” situation where third party voters all prefer Harris over Trump to justify a chastisement of those third party votes. There is no basis for this assumption presented in the article or within the comments in this thread.
E: added the word “be” to the 1st sentence.
Well, if hypothetically, I was forced to vote, and thn for only one of these 2 parties only… well, I’m not a rich white guy, I’m not racist, misogynistic, don’t believe sharpies change weather… and, I don’t want to find out just how close he would be to starting the next Nazi party. That narrows my options down a bit.
I mean… thanks for the input, but you’re just one person. I too would choose Harris over Trump if i was forced to choose between the two. But your and my personal choices to not a general consensus make. I wouldn’t argue that the majority of 3rd party voters would do likewise without some proof.
… none of this addresses that third party voters may find it more important to vote against BOTH parties than to vote against their least favorite of the two, either… but i’ve raised that point elsewhere.
If you just don’t understand the concept of hypotheticals, you may be on the spectrum, fyi
Don’t use being on the spectrum as an insult. It is unbecoming.
I don’t think hypothetical means what you think it means. Either that or you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is arguing.
The article is implies that 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump voters if it came down to a choice between the two. That is not a hypothetical, that is an unsubstantianted assumption.
It’s not an insult, I’m being serious. The hypothetical is the vote totals given in the comment you responded to. In that hypothetical scenario, voting for your perfect candidate gets your least favorite candidate elected. You seem unable to consider it as a standalone scenario that may or may not be similar to real life voter tallies. That’s a common indicator of neurodivergence.
There’s a third scenario where a protest vote makes sense. In solid states, a vote for a third party could push that party to meet the threshold for getting over $100 million in federal funds for the next campaign. They just need to get 5% of the popular vote to be eligible. Now I’m not saying that this would necessarily lead to some utopia of qualified candidates, but it would help disrupt the higher echelons of politics from both sides that keep the system in place. And before some dumbass comes in and accuses me of “both sides-ing” this, when was the last time congressional term limits was seriously considered for legislation despite having broad support from both sides of the electorate? The top rungs of congress that have been in office since before most of us were born won’t allow it.
A third party gets campaign funds, and then what?
First past the post voting, or at the very least the US version of it, strongly favors two dominating parties. CGP Grey - Minority Rule…
A third party doing anything but fuck things up, is a delusional fantasy. Change starts with election reform. For instance https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
This article is the most logically corrupt piece of statist drivel i have read today. “No, no, don’t vote for who you feel best represent your values. Instead, pretend like everyone else who shares those values is going to team up and vote for the same one of the two people they dislike.” Because, in essence, the “logic” used in this article only works if you assume that all of the third party voters are pulling from one candidate.
The electoral system in the US is broken. In this system there’s a 100% chance that Trump or Kamala will win. That’s not even a question, it’s undeniable fact. So, in this electoral system, if you actually want to have a say in which of these two wins, then vote for that one. Otherwise you’re likely to get the other one. Helping some other candidate get 10% does absolutely nothing to help your values.
As long as first past the post and electoral colleges are a thing in the US, that’s just the reality of the situation.
I disagree. Third party votes do quite a bit to move political platforms. No one wants to leave 10% of the vote on the table when that’s all it takes to seize victory. So they move their platforms to encompass what the 10% are voting for.
if you actually want to have a say in which of these two wins,
That’s just it. I, and many others do not value having a say in which of these two gets elected as highly as we value promoting 3rd parties, speaking our hearts with our votes, and edging towards a better political situation for the next generation.
But yes, the electoral system is broken. And ending first past the post will be the single biggest savior of US politics.
If Trump wins and doesn’t succeed in abolishing voting, the democratic party would be pushed further right, having fielded one of the more leftwing democrats in my lifetime and lost against one of the most clearly bad choices for president of my lifetime. Your precious theoretical better political situation isn’t going to come remotely close to reality in that scenario.
That’s just it. I, and many others do not value having a say in which of these two gets elected as highly as we value promoting 3rd parties, speaking our hearts with our votes, and edging towards a better political situation for the next generation.
And if one of these 2 hasn’t made it clear that they want to erode the integrity (if not right eliminate) all future elections that would be a valid argument. If the Republicans actually had a reasonable law abiding candidate then there would be no problem with people voting 3rd party.
I mean, i’d like to believe that you make that case in good faith. But you have to realize that third party voters are admonished by the status quo voters every single presidential election. Every one. So, while this may be the first time you personally have argued that a third partier should vote for your candidate, third partiers have heard it over and over again. You know all those other elections that didn’t have a Trump in them? Yeah, we heard it then too. So, i’m sorry but the whole “this is the most important election in history” schtick just doesn’t warrant any consideration when you’re hearing it for the umpteenth time.
When was the last time there was a presidential candidate who literally said they’d be a dictator, who says there won’t be any elections in the future, who fails to recognise the previous time he lost, who incited a civil uprising, who says he might murder his political opponents?
“this is the most important election in history” schtick just doesn’t warrant any consideration
Holy fuck. When I was younger I used to wonder how the Nazis ever managed to gain power. I don’t anymore.
Trump has repeatedly stated he would be a dictator on day 1 and refuses to walk it back when asked about it. He encouraged and supported what happened on January 6th.
There has never been a candidate that was openly and fundamentally against democracy like this.
Trump should be caught up in too many legal battles from all the crimes he’s committed to have any time to campaign or be relevant in the election. The fact that he’s not is already a massive failure of our political system.
It’s a massive failure of the legal system, and the legal system is in failure because it has been corrupted by Republican politics.
It doesn’t matter how many candidates third parties pull from.
If no candidate gets 270 votes, the election is decided by the House. That’s at the electoral college level, but see jordan lund’s breakdown above and how a majority “not Trump” votes will be split among candidates but Trump still wins the state because the “not Trump” voters couldn’t get their shit together and coalesce around a single candidate.
And if the election goes to the House, Assuming Republicans maintain control, take one guess who they’re going to elect?
And why is everyone assuming that all of the third party voters would be Harris voters if they were forced to choose between the two main candidates? This is where the logic goes south. It assumes that the third party voters are some homogenous bloc of disenfranchised “not Trump” voters.
Aren’t they though?
No.
Got any evidence of all these right-leaning 3rd party supporters?
Thats not how this works. The one making the claim provides some evidence. The article makes an unsubstantianted claim that the 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump. I asked for some sort of proof of this. And you have responded by asking me for proof refuting their claim. Burden of proof is not on me. I am just asking you, or anyone else to back up these claims, because the authors did not
Lol okay then I’ll assume you’re pulling this whole argument from your ass. Rofl. “Burden of proof” lol what a copout.
Better than throwing your vote in the garbage!
That vote has the power to make a difference. But not if you throw it away on someone with no chance of winning.
First past the post voting mathematically ensures a two party system. Voting third party is useless unless we have election reform. Vote with your mind, not your heart, and vote thinking beyond just the next 4 years.
Complete drivel. Why do liberals think repeatedly telling us the same condescending nonsense without engaging with any of our actual arguments is convincing? There isn’t a third party voter alive who hasn’t heard these arguments.
So while each individual unhappy voter wants to keep their hands clean and not vote, they would each like the other 9,999 unhappy voters to step up and swing the outcome in favor of their preferred candidate.
What third party voter is asking other people to vote for a major party? This is such a blatant strawman that I find it hard to believe that this author has ever had a single conversation with a third party voter.
I’ve had many conversations with “third party voters” here on lemmy. Haven’t found any, at all, not one, who can talk about the faults of the republicans in anything like the length and passion that they can talk about the faults of the democrats, and the national polling says that real third party voters are very rare, so a little bit of Bayes’ theorem says that the “third party voters” talking so loudly and long about why I shouldn’t vote for Harris are far, far, far more likely to be republicans pretending to be left wing or neutral, hoping desperately that they can convince enough potential democratic voters to stay home to swing the election for their favourite - stupid evil country-betraying Trump.
There’s more discourse about the Democrats because there’s less disagreement about Republicans being bad. I wrote up a post about Trump’s foreign policy doublespeak a while back where I called out anyone who might support Trump from an isolationist standpoint. It didn’t get much engagement, but that’s not my fault. Most of my comments are responding to things other people say and there are more Harris supporters than Trump supporters.
I might remind you that Lemmy was developed by communists, so an alternative explanation is that communists are more likely to both vote third party and use Lemmy.
The idea that we’re secret conservatives is so absurd that I doubt you actually believe it, and are just using the accusation as a talking point to discredit the other side. Conservatives are awful at impersonating communists, they don’t read or understand leftist theory and typically can only make it a few hours at most before breaking character and shouting slurs. You’re vastly overestimating their intelligence and creativity. To say that Bayes’ theorem supports your accusation is patently absurd.
At some point, claiming that communists are just conservatives in disguise means claiming that conservatives read more leftist political theory than liberals do. As entertaining as it may be to imagine a bunch of good ol’ boys getting together and starting a book club where they discuss, like, the finer points of Simone de Beauvoir, I think if you’re doing Bayesian analysis you should probably assign that a pretty low probability. They don’t even read their own theory, much less ours.
Except you don’t need to read a lot of theory to endlessly repeat Conservative talking points whilst advocating voter behaviour likely to lead the world’s most powerful military to be controlled by fascists. You must have come across “communists” who just spout putin’s talking points?
Like I said, and you seem to have missed it, not everyone supporting Trump is American, and not everyone supporting Trump is stupid.
Trump himself is really very stupid but he’s worked with some less stupid people who know what lines will track well with different voter bases, and lemmy.ml has swallowed the third party guilt-free-complicity line really enthusiastically, but not as wholesale as it swallowed the push America right to push it left line.
So no, sorry, just as it’s really hard to tell sarcasm about Trump from support, and just as it’s really hard to tell satire about Trump from actual things trump said, it’s almost impossible to tell sincere leftists who were duped into parrotting rightwing talking points about the election from trump supporters busy doing the duping.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I find it hard to believe that it’s a swan. After all, if you’re pissing in the petrol tank, don’t ask me to spend a long time listening to why it’s good for the engine.
Oh, so now it’s that you’re surrounded by secret agents from foreign countries, and that’s the only reason people disagree with you. I’m assuming that there’s no possible evidence that would falsify this conspiracy theory, right?
Superb straw man there.
-
Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they’re left wing and have been duped.
-
Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they’re right wing and doing the duping.
-
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are Americans.
-
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not Americans.
-
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not very clever.
-
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are clever.
You claim that half of these couldn’t possibly exist, because for some reason you think that only Americans approve of Trump, you believe that only Americans want to influence the American election and you characterise all Trump supporters as dumb rednecks or something more offensive, then I point out the even ones exist and you claim I’m a conspiracy theorist. Wow.
You claim that half of these couldn’t possibly exist
Nowhere did I claim this. Kind of funny that you strawman me right after accusing me of strawmanning you.
A conspiracy theory is not something that is impossible to be true, it’s just implausible. It could be that the checkout clerk at my local grocery is an undercover FBI agent, why couldn’t it? It’s just that there’s no evidence for it and it would be pretty unreasonable to assert that, especially if there was no possible way to falsify it.
I could just as easily claim that you’re working for US intelligence, I’d have just as much basis. But I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist, so I don’t. By Occam’s razor and the principle of charity, I assume that you simply believe other things than me. That concept of people having different beliefs and values seems to be something that liberals simply cannot grasp - as if there’s one obviously correct position and everyone else is either stupid or being deceived by bad actors. It’s quite silly.
I don’t espouse any “right wing” positions, and I don’t generally see other people on here doing the same. My criticism of liberals is from a leftist perspective, grounded in leftist values and theory, and drawing from leftist intellectual traditions. It’s just that liberals want to lump anyone who disagrees with them on anything for any reason as right wing in order to discredit and dismiss them.
Kind of funny that you strawman me right after accusing me of strawmanning you.
Er…
Like I said, and you seem to have missed it, not everyone supporting Trump is American, and not everyone supporting Trump is stupid.
Oh, so now it’s that you’re surrounded by secret agents from foreign countries, and that’s the only reason people disagree with you. I’m assuming that there’s no possible evidence that would falsify this conspiracy theory, right?
This you?
-
Voting for Trump or Harris is the same result. Some rich ass who doesnt give a rats ass about me or my community and just wants to funnel money to their rich friends. Its like two-faces double headed coin. Neither gives a shit. Fuck both parties and their candidates.
I see you’re not gay or trans and don’t care about those who are.
What?
You said it’s the same result either way. But Trump wants to persecute if not outright kill gay and trans people. So clearly that doesn’t matter to you.
You made it clear you don’t care about your fellow Americans that the Republicans are actively trying to eliminate.
That’s just Trump though. And… every other republican from the last 30 years.
Notice a pattern?
If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you deserve to get the greater evil.
I think you did some math wrong somewhere.
That’s so obviously false. Why did you think it would sound even remotely plausible?
There’s a trolly going down a track with 5 people tied to it. You can pull a lever to slow the trolly down and it will only run over 1 person, or you can do nothing and it will run over all 5.
This guy: “Anyone who would pull the lever for the lesser evil of running over 1 person deserves the greater evil of running over all of them.”
Except you could pull the 3rd party lever that kills no one, but because that lever dOeSnT hAvE a rEaLiStiC cHaNcE, you’d still pull the lever that killed a person.
More like the third lever is a lever that does absolutely nothing but comfort the person pulling with a dumb sign that says, “your moral purity is still intact”, 5 people still die. Spoiler, your moral purity is not intact, you just lie to yourself that it is.
Or maybe you’re the one coping because deep down you know if everyone stopped licking the boots of Democrats and Republicans, America wouldn’t be in such a dangerous place.
One month before the election is not the time to be building a 3rd party. Why do I already know I won’t hear a damn thing from 3rd party people come December, and they’ll stay quiet until mid 2028?
Third parties are crucial and we can’t vote for them (intelligently) until we change away from first past the post:
Vote for whoever you want. Don’t let anyone guilt trip you because youre not going to vote for their candidate. Everyone wants to cry about a 2 party system but then says a vote for a 3rd party is a vote for trump. You guys are the problem.
In a world without the electoral college (or in one with a House that actually represents the majority of the country), sure. Vote your conscience. In reality, we live in a two party system where the third will always be a spoiler, so voting needs to be approached from a harm reduction standpoint.
And a generation from now we will still be in a shitty two party system if everyone keeps voting for “the lesser of two evils.”
E: spelling
That will be the least of our problems if you let trump win for the sake of protest votes. A generation from now we will be completely fucked with even more stacked federal courts, even worse climate change, continued dismantling of healthcare, a decimated government from project 2025, etc, etc.
“for the sake of protest votes” Not everyone sees a vote for a third party as a “protest vote”. Some see it as a real investment now for a better future for the country.
The points you raise do sound troubling, don’t they? But can you remeber an election in the last 25 years where letting the “wrong guy” win wasn’t posed as the single worst thing possible. The things you mention are bad, yes, but they are also no different than the alarmist rallying cries that have been used every 4 years for the last… forever.
But can you remeber an election in the last 25 years where letting the “wrong guy” win wasn’t posed as the single worst thing possible.
McCain and Romney I fundamentally disagreed with but no one ever claimed they’d be the death of democracy. This is a claim that is very specific to Donald Trump. We don’t just pull it up every single election.
The things you mention are bad, yes, but they are also no different than the alarmist rallying cries that have been used every 4 years for the last… forever.
alarmist? Look at the state of the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v Wade. Look at the state of the climate that’s wrecking us with heat, massive fires, and hurricanes every single year now. These are real, material issues that we’ve been needing to address for decades, and we’re paying the price for failing to do so.
All of this vastly outweighs any nebulous benefit you think will come of voting for a 3rd party, whatever you want to call it.
So this election cycle it’s climate and the Supreme Court for you. That’s great. If you feel Harris will help fix those things then have it. The policies I’m voting for will absolutely help with those issues. Every 4 years there are going to be major major things that folks think their particular guy or gal is going to fix. And then they won’t. And then there’ll be another (or the same) set of things in another four years. I’m gonna go ahead and vote for some real change instead.
you’re voting for nothing friend.
Throwing a vote away on someone with 0% chance is distinctly less impactful than voting for someone with 50% chance.
That depends entirely on the impact you hope to achieve. I am under no dilusion that my choice will win in 2024. That is not the purpose of my third party vote.
Exactly. Democrats have shown if they aren’t held accountable that they will do terrible things. A vote of someone against genocide is statement. If Democrats don’t like that anti genocide candidates can run and participate then they are the fascist.
genocide
It’s like #onejoke but for Russian shills
It’s so predictable to be called a Russian shill when you say an inconvenient truth about the Democrats supreme leader.
So if a 3rd party candidate was somehow elected then we would be forever freed from the two party system? I doubt it.
I think if a 3rd party is ever going to become something viable in a national election then it will have to start small at the state level and work its way up from there. And it’ll take a bunch of states doing that to create any kind of momentum needed to create anything viable at the national level.
I still think voting 3rd party in the presidential election is a monumentally poor choice. It’s a worthless protest vote at this point.
Who said that a single win for a third party candidate would be the death knell of the two party system?
My personal goal is to vote for the candidate who best reflects my values. Always. In every election. At every level. If everyone did this tomorrow we’d be in a much better situation. Obviously that is unrealistic. But so is asking those who vote their heart to compromise their values by voting for a different candidate just because they have a chance of winning. The goal here IS slow generation change. By all means given to us.
Maybe I misunderstood your comment, and I apologize if so. You said we would be voting in a two party system for another generation if we didn’t vote third party. I assumed that meant a 3rd party would have to win to break out of what we have today.
Well, don’t get me wrong, a WIN for a 3rd party IS the ultimate goal. But change happens slowly in politics and in life. Slow and steady support for a three party system will eventually result in that end. Continued support for a two party system, by contrast, never will. I, myself, will continue to place votes for the better of those two eventualities.
I think we agree. I’m supportive of a viable third party if it creates more choice, but it’s not going to start with a presidential election. There are billions being spent keeping it the way it is. I’m sorry about it, but it’s the truth. I would encourage you to push for a 3rd party at the local level rather than to simply put up a protest vote at the national level. An example would be what’s happening in Nebraska where a 2 term Republican incumbent is at risk of losing to an Independent who successfully negotiated for striking cereal workers.
If everyone did this tomorrow we would have project 2025 and get a fascist dystopia, dumbass. The left would splinter and Trump would easily win.
Dumbass, huh? I’ll just leave you alone, then.
Just calling it like it is. You said a dumb thing.
I’ll endorse any candidate that is against killing children.
There aren’t any on the ballot.
Look at how you get downvoted by people that want to kill children. Unit 8200 has entered the chat.
welcome to the "fed’ iverse
Obvious troll is obvious. Go away.
Sorry genocide is inconvenient to you. Do you think they should wipe out all of the Palestinians and anyone against genocide to rewrite history the way you want it?
Removed by mod
“Your country”? Are you even American?
He hates our turds too!
We’re turds because we don’t throw our votes in the garbage?
If you don’t vote for Harris, that day you wish so badly to vote for 3rd party or the next Bernie Sanders will never happen. If you don’t vote for Harris, you’re allowing Trump to take the seat because you don’t want to help Harris.
They know. They don’t believe their propaganda. It’s designed to fool others.
Please don’t speak for me. Thank you!
With how much conservatives straw man liberals, you’re in no position to ask favors.
If anyone actually wants the option to vote for 3rd parties, then a landslide victory for Harris is the best option in this election.
The Republicans are already torn. They stand together with the MAGA insanity hoping to get enough votes by including the crazyness. If the election clearly shows that it’s a losing strategy, they will have to regroup and the GOP will be split. Then when Democrats are clearly outnumbering the opposition, it will also be more tempting for radical left wing to branch out without risking the opposition winning.
When “both sides” are then fractioned into smaller groups, it will finally be possible to get a majority to vote for getting rid of the 1st past the post problem, and make it possible for 3rd parties to get any influence.
But the first step is to make sure the Republicans lose really hard. Voting 3rd party won’t do it in this election.
So glad to see the ratios tipping toward voting! In large communities where it matters, it’s good to know that the bad actors are being downvoted into irrelevance.
Whew the tankies and astroturfers are out in force in these comments. I think we got the gamut going here:
- “I don’t vote for genocide”
- “A vote for 3rd party isn’t a vote for Trump”
- “If we don’t vote 3rd party nothing will change”
- “Jill Stein isn’t a Russian asset”
- “Who cares if Trump wins; they’re both bad / nothing worse will happen l both sides”
- “I literally don’t understand how Trump can win if I vote 3rd party because I don’t understand the difference between voting for and against a candidate”
- “Liberals / Democrats / Harris voters are the real fascists”
Solid work astroturfers! Glad to see you’re still trotting out these arguments despite plenty of Lemmy users discrediting each and every one. Really shows grit and dedication.
Also, calling it now that at least one of them replies with something about how they’re true / haven’t been discredited.
It makes it easy to tag them for future reference or block them at least.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re actually Trump supporters, just trying to get the swing voters to be all pessimistic and get them not to vote or vote 3rd party.
Trump supporters aren’t smart enough to understand how the Fediverse works.
Not all Trump supporters are American and not all Trump supporters are unable to log into a website.
It was obvious exaggeration.
Indeed, but refusing to accept that right wingers masquerade as leftists hands them carte blanche to convince leftists to exclude themselves from choosing the president, forcing the Overton window to the right yet again with loony right wing president and lawmakers.
“Who cares if Trump wins; they’re both bad / nothing worse will happen l both sides”
Trump’s RIGHT NOW basically talking about forming up goon squads and kicking out immigrants on the basis of some law passed in the 1700s and people are still pretending like this dude isn’t basically a Hitler.
“I don’t vote for genocide”
Yeah…about that…a vote that helps Trump is one that not only exacerbates the ongoing genocide in the middle east, but starts up a new one right here. He’s talking seriously about military tribunal and gas chamber type shit in “Operation Aurora”.
deleted by creator
Even if your single issue is genocide Trump is on the worse side.
