Bonus question: How many troll accounts do you thing will stop posting too?
Before this election cycle, I was thinking of americans as nice people, victim of a fucked-up country.
Now I realize, nah, they are just fucked up people themselves.
They are too cowardy to fight against fascism, so they accept extermination in foreign land as a necessary evil. An acceptable collateral that we should stop worrying about.
If the tables turns one day, if I have to pick between fighting fascism here and americans getting exterminated, well… I hope you have a place to hide ahah
Some of us are being dragged kicking and screaming into fascism. Some of us refuse to vote for the perpetuators of a genocide and therefore have no voice. Some of us will be fired from our jobs (or banned from various communities across the web including Lemmy) for speaking up about the genocide.
What a childish take. Once you grow up, you’ll understand what nuance is. Maybe when your parents make you get a job, you’ll understand how hard it is to work full time to pay bills and protest a government with a militarized police force at the same time.
Once day you’ll be a big boy, I promise 👍
[x] doubt
The accounts already banned for trolling lol
Almost 40 times now! Talk about having nothing better to do lmao
Third party votes are protest votes in a sense. They’ll still be there, they’ll just protest in other ways.
Better protest vote than Trump at least
It’s the same picture.
Are these other ways just as constructive as pissing their vote away…?
Depends if you pay attention or care for what they’re protesting.
I asked someone which third party candidate they think I should vote for in a thread where they were saying third party is the only anti-genocide vote. Six hours later and I still don’t have an answer. It’s so disingenuous.
They’re using the same playbook the FBI used to split leftists and prevent successful rallying around community leaders in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It’s time tested and it works.
What split the leftists was that time when the Democrats used superdelegates to rig the primary against Bernie Sanders. Nothing kills the Democratic vote more than telling democrats their vote is useless in historic fashion, and in fact, he’s the last candidate Democrats had that could actually connect with people in a tangible way.
I’ll answer for them. Anyone pushing the view points on the matters you desire. A vote for third party is better than not voting at all, as people will just lump you in with people who can’t be bothered to vote otherwise.
That said what matters most is the down ballot. Look up the candidate that most align with your views and vote for them.
That said what matters most is the down ballot.
100%.
Here in Missouri we have an abortion ban and a $15 minimum wage on the ballot, so no matter who you support, your vote makes a huge difference in this election.
At the federal level, none of us have any power, because you get presented with two flavors of the same choice, both of whom have been installed by the 0.01% and will actively work against the interests of the poor and working class; However, in your town, city, and county, you do have tremendous power for change.
Are you really using the “BoTh SiDeS” line? Absolute bullshit.
Are you really ignoring that, no matter who we elect, we get conservative politics?
Well first we need an overwhelming blue wave so the GOP in its current form collapses. Then, as they shift back towards the center, the more progressive part of the Democrats have a better shot at winning. With these razor sharp margins, it will be a race to the center for Democrats as the GOP goes all in with crazy.
Well first we need an overwhelming blue wave so the GOP in its current form collapses.
I don’t know where you’ve been for the last 40 years, but the Democrats are not a progressive party. Look at all of the things that happened when Biden had power that they did nothing meaningful to stop: Roe repeal, cop cities, 2+ trillion for war, child genocide in Israel, rent/grocery/energy bills skyrocketing.
You have to ask me to ignore the daily realities of my life under Joe Biden in order for me to honestly assume Kamala or Trump will do anything meaningful to help people.
You’re either arguing in bad faith, or have no idea how the government works. I said the democrats need a blue wave since they haven’t controlled the presidency, and both houses of Congress for more than a couple months over the past decade. What did you expect Biden to do when you have a Republican controlled House and such a thin margin in the Senate?
Straight-line Democrat it is, then!
I’ll tell you.
Jill Stein. If she’s not on the ballot in your state, write her in. She’s the candidate of the Green Party.
It takes minimal effort to look up the 3rd party candidates in a presidential election.
There is no viable condidate.
If you are doing a protest vote, write in george carlin.
There is no viable candidate
I’ve seen this phrase thrown around a lot this year, which is funny to me, because the ruling parties spent most of this election season stage managing campaign appearances for men who are obviously cognitively impaired.
If you want to end the war in Gaza, vote Harris.
If you want to accelerate it until everyone is dead and the war ends faster, vote Trump, 3rd party, or abstain.
It’s really that simple.
I mean it’s a genocide, not a war. And Harris absolutely has not said she would cease arming Isreal, she is less outspoken than Biden but there is no indication she would end anything.
But Trump gave gift after gift to Isareal the first time and has said he would send more armaments. He without question would make things worse so Harris is the only sane ethical choice.
I agree it’s a simple choice but we need to be realistic that Harris isn’t some peace panacea.
Outside America, many of us really wish you guys would just stop and consider the importance of your election beyond this single issue of the Middle East. Seriously. There’s only so much the USA can do about that, anyway.
Much, much more important is the signal you would send by re-electing an obvious wannabe dictator who has already tried to steal an election. Like it or not, for two centuries America has been the world’s model for openness, democracy, freedom. In the last decade those things have taken a serious hit around the world, and the connection is obvious with Trump’s first election. Democracy and its associated blessings - rule of law, unpoliticized civil service and institutions, press freedom etc - are really fragile. If America gives up on them it’s permission for everyone else to do so, and that’s going to lead the world to some very bad places. The Gaza issue is a complete sideshow by comparison.
I would say, whichever one is polling highest, who has signaled support in any way for the issue. Other things about them don’t matter because they aren’t going to win anyway. In this case a lot of third party votes for a single candidate are probably better than the same number of votes spread across different candidates because it looks more like an organized voting block to politicians looking at the numbers in retrospect, who are the reason to vote at all if you are voting third party, you are trying to communicate via those numbers about how your vote can be obtained or lost.
If I were in their position (and an {even bigger} asshole but that’s implied), my plan would involve claiming partial credit for defeating [Losing_Candidate]. When the new POTUS does things I don’t like, I can also get all sanctimonious and preachy about not having voted for them so my hands are clean. Best of both worlds.
Yes, just like the few two times.
Bonus: they are all troll accounts
I voted third party for my congressional rep. I have the privilege of living in a solid blue district and I did it is a protest, but also because I like the candidate more than the blue candidate. I voted for my favored candidate in the primary, but she lost to a heavily AIPAC funded candidate. I disagree with Israel’s actions and the amount of foreign money in domestic elections. I’ve told very few people this, whether in person or online - more than anything I want it to represent statistical dissent. I would never consider my vote if there were an even remote possibility of the right winger taking the seat.
Foreign money in US elections is illegal. Is AIPAC money coming from Israel? Seems doubtful, as a lot of money flows from the US to Israel already.
Foreign money in US elections used to be illegal. A law that isn’t getting enforced isn’t a real law.
American jews give aipac a veneer but make no mistake it is a foreign agent.
That is true. I say this because there is money that flows in through intermediaries(though still illegal, undoubtedly happens), but I also incorrectly conflated monetary support for foreign interests with money from foreign entities - my apology.
Yep.
Russia still has a war to win. It will not stop.
They usually disappear and come back to blend in by either taking credit for a good win, or a victim to a loss.
Only if the money from Russia and/or China and/or Iran dries up.
No. They will continue to ramble on and on about how “both parties are the same”, and bitch about the person who won. A 3rd party can never win in the USA without changing the electoral system.
I sure as fuck hope we end up with the president who will make those cosplaying MAGAs continue to whine.
This is the most succinct answer.
A phenomenon easily fixed by being intelligent enough to understand democracy and the argument against a 2 party system
I think a good measure of whether something is moral is to imagine everyone doing it and consider if it would make the world a better or worse place.
In the U.S., most people probably don’t vote for a third party because they assume no one else will, so they worry their vote will be wasted. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma: if you vote and no one else does, you lose, but if everyone voted, everyone would benefit.
So, if someone does choose to vote third party, was it the right thing to do? Well, what if every voter acted this way? There’s a good chance the third party could win, and while it’s debatable, it’s reasonable to assume they might be a better choice than the other two.
Ranked-choice voting would solve this issue, by the way.
One party favors RCV much more than the other. I know who I’m voting for.
Yeah, but then, if, say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in, this being the very immoral choice.
Surely a more relevant measure is what can I do that will do the most good. Voting for someone who is better than the other realistic option, this keeping extremists out of power feels like a more moral option than making a pointless vote.
say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in
Not in the case of ranked choice voting. If the 3rd party candidate doesn’t win the vote goes to the number two choice.
Also, sometimes the lesser evil is still evil. Imagine if the vote was between Trump and literal Hitler.
RCV doesn’t “solve” the issue though. The fact that third party candidates can sway elections to the least preferred candidate is known as the “Spoiler effect”, and RCV is also subject to it.
RCV seems to be objectively better than plurality (what we use now), but it and any other ranking-based voting system are still subject to spoilers. One thing that can actually “solve” the issue though is rating-based systems, like Approval Voting, Score Voting, or STAR voting.
Yeah, but ranked choice isn’t in operation, so you’ve got to make the better choice for right now.
Also, in that case Trump would be the better option. I would hope that in a scenario where the republicans had nominated Hitler that the democrats could do better than Trump but if they couldn’t, then yes, voting for Trump in that scenario would be r the right thing to do as voting for, say, Bernie Sanders I. that scenario would let, you know, Hitler become the President.
As a non-US citizen, I’m getting the impression that a big number of left-wing voters are voting for Kamala not because she’s so great, but because she’s not Trump. Similarly, a ton of republicans are voting for Trump because they consider it a vote for the party, not for the candidate, and they sure are not going to vote for a democrat because (insert stereotypical grievances about liberals.)
To me, it seem reasonable to assume, that given the chance, there would be a ton of people on both sides that would rather give their vote to almost anyone else but either of these two, but they don’t because they know that a 3rd party can’t win and this would just risk the greater or two evils winning.
Why I referenced the prisoner’s dilemma is because I mostly see this as a coordination problem. What if instead of tactical voting, everyone just voted for the candidate they actually consider the best one? It’s not at all obvious to me that this would still mean that either of the two main candidates would win. This could very well give rise to a 3rd party.
Also, to return to my original point; it doesn’t seem immoral to me to vote for 3rd party even if that causes Trump to win by one vote. You did the right thing, rest of the people didn’t. If everyone acted like you, it seems to be that this would, in fact, lead to him not winning.
The outcome of your actions isn’t in a theoretical world.
You absolutely would be behaving unethically In that scenario, because you took an action that you knew, with absolute certainty, could only result in either no impact at all, or in making a monster president. There is no theoretical outcome where your action is capable of doing good, and there is a potential outcome where you action does extreme harm.
…yes, and then they will pay attention in another 3 1/2 years…
They will move the goalposts to whatever the issue of the day is. “Buh, buh… Gaza!”
