We'll have a long memory as things get worse for working class Americans, minorities and women
We'll have a long memory as things get worse for working class Americans, minorities and women
609 comments
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Not an American, but yikes does this have "Vote with us... Or else!" vibes.
That's not to say I support Trump, but I personally don't think this is the way to convince fence-sitters at all.
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And it’s crazy how normal Americans think this two party system is. It’s like no matter how bad you think your guy is, you have to vote for them because the other side is worse. They always talk about the Labour Party and the Tories as if they think they’re carbon copies of the Democrats and the Republicans and project all their issues into them. They don’t seem to realise there’s like five or six other parties that get a considerable number of votes and have representation in Parliament.
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It is normal in FPTP voting systems. If you are going to vote in a national election in a FPTP system. Especially one with our electoral college system. But aren't looking to explicitly throw your vote away. And you aren't okay with open fascists winning. When things are this close. Yeah there really is no conscionable choice. Unless you happen to live in a state so safe your vote truly could never matter. Like california. Which even that would be unwise. And is especially at a place for anyone from there to tell people elsewhere how to vote. Since they don't have the same privilege.
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Americans have no concept of a coalition.
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It's exactly the kind of thing that feels good to say, but doesn't convince anyone at all. Which is why Republicans keep winning despite ideas that should be extremely unpopular. They tie themselves to emotions about masculinity and patriotism and paint the other side as a source of disgust and fear. While Democrats look at people who support or don't seem eager to stop Trump and say angry things at them, which just makes them not want to help Demcorats.
The "I'm voting, are you?" argument featuring nutty alt-right Maga crazies is far better because it says "hey, you can help stop this nutjob."
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But it's literally how it works in the USA with voting. It shouldn't, but it DOES.
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I dont see that it is "working".
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I mean, yeah? Have you looked around? The or else is getting pretty bad.
Also I want to keep adding it's not just Trump, he's just a pawn. This is Republicans, not Trump. If row did anything hopefully it opened up some eyes to realize they have been on message for a long damn time. Dems should take note.
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If I was on the fence this kind of menacing push would make me reaffirm myself into not voting Dems. For real.
What kind of shitty way of convince anyone is this?
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How else would you propose that the Overton Window shift to the left?
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The American neoliberal experiment started in 1992 when Bill Clinton was president...
The prior (edit: Dem, obviously) president was Jimmy Fuckin Carter...
How do you think the Overton Window has moved since Carter?
We can't afford to keep going with a strategy that clearly hasn't worked for 30+ years...
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The really bad part is when you see how they react when people point out Kamala moving to the left would guarantee trump loses...
Moderates have been doing this since Bill Clinton 30+ years ago.
They always claim nothing else matters but beating Republicans, and use any excuse to move the party right. When voters complain the politician doesn't match the party, we get the above.
They'd rather trump win then progressives, so they point a gun at everyone's head and say it's our fault if they have to pull the trigger.
Hell, in 08 with Obama they did pull the trigger. PUMA movement had them voting R instead of Obama. It's just despite controlling the party, they are a statistically insignificant amount of voters.
A few months ago all these people called us trump supporters for making the (still true) statement that Kamala has a better chance than Biden, and they were all saying Kamala would be a terrible candidate and only Biden can win.
They'll say anything in the moment with no regards to what just came out of their mouths.
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Entirely agree. The people responsible for trump getting votes are the people voting for Trump.
Tactical voting is bullshit of the highest order and the undeniable sign of a fucked up political and voting system, not some sort of political astuteness.
If your voting system can't allow people to express their true choice, you should throw it away. Yes, that means the majority of voting systems around the world are bad and need to be changed. Getting people to recognise that this is even an issue in the first place is a huge battle.
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Yes first past the post elections are fucked, but that’s still the system we have and the one you have to operate under. If you refuse to vote against hitler because you don’t like the voting system, you still refuse to vote against hitler.
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Can confirm, these awful false-equivalences have only further convinced me that liberals will never lift a finger to help anyone.
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I’m not speaking from a place of facts, but I think the sentiment is if you don’t purposefully vote for someone within the two-party system that isn’t Trump, your vote will mathematically be a negative towards votes against Trump.
Not voting/third-party vote = one less vote against Trump/more possible votes for Trump
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Yes, I understand the sentiment. But the tone is off. Sounding like fascists or Marxist Leninist should be the last thing anyone should be aiming for.
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More people should be aiming to be Marxists, don't know why you're trying to draw an equivalence between Marxists and fascists that doesn't exist. You should read Blackshirts and Reds, Communists and fascists have served entirely different classes, the fascists served the bourgeoisie while the Marxists served the proletariat, and funded anti-colonial and anti-Imperialist movements the world over (including funding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
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Abstaining or voting 3rd party to "make Dems listen" doesn't work. If anyone thinks they can play Mexican Standoff, you can't because the Dems have an out: the center voter. Every time they lose, they go to the center to find voters.
And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything. If they don't have all 3 they will go to the center to find voters. Some people call this rachet effect, but really they're looking for voters. Want them to stop 'racheting'? Then give them consistent and overwhelming victories.
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I've thought about that recently.
In Germany, the 2 historically biggest parties were SPD (used to be liberal-democrat) and CDU (conservative) and they often were the ones tugging it out while the smaller parties were filling in as coalition partners for one or the other.
Over time, the SPD splintered into several semi-big offshoot parties (Linke, for example) while the CDU stayed as a whole. As a result, CDU is now commonly a favorite for getting most votes in an election.
Is that consistent with politics across the globe? And if, why do liberal or center parties tend to split up more than conservatives?
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Because conservatives gravitate towards authority, and progressives are looking to break the status quo.
So conservatives value order, authority, and it causes them to fall in line.
Progressives are looking to break that order, believing that things can be better than they are right now. That causes them to infight more often.
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I commonly hear the left is a loose coalition of factions (which can split apart), while the right fall in line. I think there are fewer factions on the right, or the factions are not as far apart, so coming together is easier. They also unite in absolute hatred of the left, so will fall in line to slay that beast.
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Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.
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So vote for them regardless and then they will listen?
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This is an incorrect framing of the situation. You aren't being asked for a Yes/No vote on Democrats. You are being asked if you prefer Democrats or Republicans. Or for this election, if you prefer Democracy or Fascism. If you vote "no preference", that does not communicate "I prefer the Democrats, but want them to move further left", either logically or politically.
There are lots of ways to communicate desired policy changes: letter-writing, primaries (including campaigning/funding for candidates), protests, marches, press, social-media, etc. Voting against your interest is not one of them.
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And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything
The odds of Democrats keeping the Senate seem dismal. So it sounds like we're giving the party license to do nothing for another two years
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I live in a red state, and the Democratic Party cannot even get enough warm bodies to ruin for every office here. The Libertarians do better with their candidates than the Democrats.
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The obviously the tactical strategy is to vote libertarian
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so you think if we vote for them no matter what they do, they will start representing our wishes out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of Aipac's who come to them with palletloads of cash? Thats... an interesting theory.
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First, again, they go to the center when they lose. If they don’t lose, they don’t need to go to the center to find voters.
Second: They will do what
peoplevoters want. That is the whole point, voters. Right now the voters are voting for brutally slow progress. That's what they get when they give Dems control of all 3 for only 4 years every 24 years. Want faster progress? Then be the voters that vote for faster progress by giving Dems consistent and overwhelming victories.In addition to that, I really think Dems want left policy. They do it when they can despite it costing them elections. According to your logic they would never have done the ACA, or green energy, or EVs, or union empowerment (inb4), or student debt forgiveness, or Chips act, or Pact act, etc, etc. But they did, and it cost them.
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And in their trips to the centre they keep seeming to forget that they keep shifting further and further right
Centrists are a curse here
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This is exactly why we need ranked choice voting.
Winner takes all essentially demoralizes and alienates voters and drives people who agree with each other to fight because they're trapped in a broken system.
So instead of fighting the system, it's easier to just blame other people and alienate more of them against your cause, shooting yourself in the foot with ignorance. It's kind of disgusting.
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I'd settle for getting rid of the electoral college at this point. We could've had at least 4 years of Al Gore setting us on the right path to avoiding the worst of climate change yet here we are having to put up with a potentially third popular vote upset in recent history.
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Ranked choice is more plausible than removing the EC. Ranked choice already exists in some places and the Dems have a proposal (but are lacking the votes) to implement it for Congress.
Removing the EC would require a constitutional amendment so 3/4 for the House and Senate and ratified by 3/4 of the states. Or maybe it's 2/3 for some of those, but either way it needs bipartisan support and why would the GOP remove a system that got their guy elected twice this century?
There is some kind of interstate compact thing to get around it, but making a huge change to elections via sneaky shenanigans won't go over well at a time when a lot of doubts about election integrity have been widely promoted. Wrongly promoted, but still, doing sneaky things about elections is a real no-go right now.
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Why is it so common to blame the third party vote for democrats losing in 2016? It sounds like if the democrats would take an anti-war stance like the green party does, they would have won most of those votes too?
Seems more appropriate to expect the party to reflect the population rather than the other way around.
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Al gore won that election
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Why not both?
(Oh yeah, the fundamentally corrupt and undemocratic system concocted by literal slave masters.)
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Unrelated to the message - that's a bad use of the meme, doesn't fit at all.
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As non-american I agree you guys should definitely vote Harris, despite Dems being terrible Trump would absolutely be worse on each topic Dems are bad. That being said, rethoric of this post is straight up facist. Using threats of personal consequences for "wrongly" exercising ones right to vote is wild.
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It's not a threat, dumbass. It's a warning. There will be personal consequences, but they'll be perpetrated by the MAGAs. And we will blame you guys.
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It sounded like a treat with the very personal "we" and "you". But calling it fascist is a bit too much. Fascism is a right wing mass movement for when capitalism goes down hill (usually blaming some minority for it), so it should support capitalism in it essence. I didn't get any of that from this meme.
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I'll vote Dem, but I am ashamed beyond measure of the Dem party. Despite the public doing all they can to stop Trump, the actual candidates running against Trump are sitting on their asses and refusing to take serious action. This "Blue Wave" is not approval FOR Harris-Walz, but rather DISAPPROVAL for Trump. Dems are ultimately more responsible for fascism in the U.S. than their voters.
All in all, the entire United States Government is at fault. This is just one reason why I want an independent Cascadia.
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It's sadly the same story in the UK the public are sick and tired of the Tory's bullshit. Unfortunately the Labour Party has never been soo right wing. Normally they they wouldn't have have stood a chance on such an authoritarian, uninspiring manifesto but here we are. The cynicism of the people in charge of the Labour Party stinks to high heaven. They fucked the party while the left were in charge then purged them when they retook control. I'll be lucky to still be about by the time the left ever get control again.
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Canada is setup to have a Conservative majority after the Liberals utterly ruined everything for 2 and a bit terms. The Liberals are a centre-right party that campaigns as a centre-left party and it has caused a huge rightward-drift.
We're pretty screwed because somehow people think the solution to unaffordable housing and whole industries being captured by oligarchs is austerity.
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Fuck right off with that "Dems are just as much at fault".
It's the system that sucks, and it's the Republicans that exploited the system.
It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't problem. Dems can't win by playing the game by the rules, but if they stoop to the Republicans level, then they are just as fascist.
You gotta see the conundrum, right? Dems take the high road and they lose, dems take the low road and they're fascist, too.
The only option is to pull out as many stops as possible, while working within the rules to either get moderate conservatives (the ones that hate Trump, at least) to switch to Harris. Which means that the big-tent-party gets bigger by expanding to the right.
So they do stuff like observe that Trump's whole schtick is "I'm not the incumbent". That didn't work well for him in 2020. Getting Biden to step down and throw the entire GOP campaign off kilter was, IMO, brilliant. Yeah, it sucks that there was no real primary...but there's also the issue of optics when primarying an incumbent president.
And I don't think the pageantry of a primary would've accomplished anything. It would've shattered the party even more with infighting while Trump and the GOP leaned back with their popcorn and pulling out sound bites to twist on Fox and OAN to rattle their own base even more. And in the end the Dems would've just chosen who they wanted to and half the parties voters will be just as, if not more, pissed, and end up boycotting the election as a result.
And then they get to really punch Trump where it hurts, by saying things like how he's now the oldest person to ever run for president of the US. You just know that's gotta burn.
Honestly, Harris/Walz is probably the best they could've offered up, not because they are great politicians (although they are), but because this is a battle of appearances and personality, and the two of them have it in spades.
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Harris will hold any announcement of dropping weapons shipments to israel till the very last day to see if the polls tell her she will get away with supporting the genocide and still winning the election. The more doubts she has, the more she might flip. So might as well hold your vote till the last second and play out this game of chicken.
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If you have a problem with this line of reasoning then your actual problem is first past the post voting.
Abolish first past the post voting and you can finally actually vote for things you like, rather than against things you hate, but we're stuck in first past the post voting, so, you must vote strategically.
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Just curious, do you really expect Republicans or democrats to support legislation to end their stranglehold on American politics?
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"In 2023, 74 bills were introduced supporting ranked-choice voting and 57 of these bills had only Democrat sponsors. In fact, just eight percent of the total bills received bipartisan support."
No, but there's one party that has shown support for it and one party that has attempted to outright ban it.
It's an easy choice.
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Dictatorships are a terrible place to live because the wealth of the nation doesn't depend on the citizens. Illiterate slaves can dig-up a mine.
Democracies on the other hand are better places to live not because the people are better, but because the wealth of the nation is dependend on the productivity of the citizens. That's the only reason you have a highway to the hospital.
Vote in the party you think will enact change, and protest / halt the economy until changes start happening. Right now politicians and corporations don't care nobody is happy, it's not affecting their bottom line. Id argue in recent years they accelerated their abuse because there are no consequences.
The parties in place won't do it themselves, the people need to do it
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You wanna change the Democratic Party? Maybe vote more than once every four years. State and local elections have garbage turnouts and this is where right wingers shore up their power (because they ALWATS vote). You need to vote every election, always. You want left leaning Democrats in office? Their careers start small, at the local and state level. Vote for them there and support them as they gain experience and reputation.
But this griping about the electoral process and lack of choices in a national election is just lazy bullsh*t. Yes, a vote for anyone other than Harris is a vote for Trump at this point.
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When do you think the last fair Dem presidential primary happened?
Every progressive I know votes in every election from dog catcher to president, but with how deregulated campaign finance laws are, how is a candidate going to compete in a non presidential year when corporations and foreign governments donate millions in the primary to the neoliberal?
Then if they do win the primary, they have to be at the Republican getting the same money, and the DNC and state parties don't support them because they also take the same money?
Like, I get what you tried to say and I wish it was that fucking easy.
But it's not as long as money is free speech. We can't change that until we demand the party stops taking that money in primaries against other Dems, and backs progressive candidates that make it to the general like they back moderates.
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So is a vote for anyone other than trump a vote for Harris?
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No. There are less Republican voters. That's why a non/3rd party vote benefits Trump more than Harris.
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I am a libertarian minarchist. Look it up before you form ideas.
I don't like Harris but I'd much rather have her over Trump. And that's how I'll vote.
I strongly recommend everyone should research your local elections and vote for candidates that best represent your views and mindsets on a local level. The FPtP system makes third parties mostly unviable in influencing national policy.
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I too will vote Harris, but I think it's important to understand that voting out of fear is not going to fix our extremely broken two party system. Voting third party is not a vote for Trump, I think it's often a vote born of a broken two party system.
Despite knowing that I can't bring myself to vote third party out of fear that I may not get another chance to vote if Trump takes power.
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That is the system though. Democracy isn't really about getting what you want. That's impossible under any system other than a dictatorship where you are the dictator. Parasocial psychology has lead a lot of people thinking that Trump getting what he wants is what they want. But that won't work out well for anyone.
Democracy is really about removing the worst people from power and preventing them from getting power in the first place. Over many years in something akin to natural selection you can have progress. But like evolution, it goes slowly.
Voting third party isn't a brave choice, it's just a fantasy. Even in a proportional representation system, it's still a fantasy, just you'd see maybe a few powerless people sitting in a legislature complaining on C-Span (which nobody will watch) instead of on social media.
Politics is about power and compromise. Vote for a representative that has a reasonable chance of winning, and write to them to encourage them to compromise closer to your position on things. That's actually effective, people that go on about a fantasy world where they just tick a box and whatever they want will happen are just being silly.
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Honestly I think fears of a dictatorial takeover are way overblown. Not that I think he doesn't want to, I just think he can't, and even if he did I think it'd be 5min before he was shot by someone close to him (probably one of his own "security" team tbh.) And if that fails then a $100 price on his head and a greenlight is all we really need to get the job done by a private citizen, hell increase the reward and some of his own supporters will join in, they have no scruples.
I'm not saying we should vote for him, I'm just saying I don't think we have to worry as much as some people think we do.
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...i'm a progressive libertarian: the terms used represent something entirely different from the perversion of twenty-first-century political branding...
...i've begrudgingly voted democratic in the past two election cycles only because i draw a hard line at open fascism; i'll never forgive the republican party for forcing my hand and look forward to a future after they've imploded and i can resume voting for causes i support rather than the enemy of my enemy...
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Much respect.
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Negging is a normal and effective way to pursuade people. Things must be going great for you.
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Abstaining or voting third party is an exercise of choice. If you want your candidate to win, vote for them, as we all should do.
Vote for the candidate you support. If you don't support any, you can choose not to vote.
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Abstaining is the pinical of lazyness, it is my opinion that those who do not participate give up their right to complain about politics until the next election. If you like none of the candidates write in Batman, spoil your ballot by drawing dicks on it, I dont care, you showed up and that alone is the important part.
And before you what-about-ism areas where voter supression is happening or heavily gerrymandered districts? Yes, this is a problem that must be fixed, but not participating also dosent help that either.
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Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s what it boils down to. I always see it like this: even if I don’t get the result I want, I’ll at least have the satisfaction that my vote cancelled out someone else’s who’s voting against my interests.
So make sure you show up, or someone else who DOES gets to decide for you.
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This is not about "exercising choice". This is about affecting the outcome.
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Vote for the candidate you support. If you don’t support any, you can choose not to vote.
Yes, those are all choices. Just know that everyone else understands the reality of what your vote (abstention) actually means in practice. So just know that you're being judged.
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Your "judgement" is absolutely meaningless today and it will stay meaningless in the future. Who do you think you are?
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"If we lose we will blame you until the end of time."
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These aren’t memes they’re shite propaganda
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This is false
Every county in my state always votes red. Due to the way elections are held in this country, it does not matter how I vote. I could vote for Harris, on the tiny chance that enough others will as well, or I could vote 3rd party, and at least increase the percentage of voters doing that so that it doesnt seem as useless next time. Hell, I could vote for trump and there would still be no difference.
Don't alienate your allies if you want them to stay allies
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The people that dont even understand the electoral college always yell the most about just shutting up and voting straight party.
It's what Republicans do, and it is a lot easier to live life like that, basic tribalism is what we evolved for:
Us good, them bad
They're 100% right on the "them bad" in this case...
But half of that basic tribalism is never criticizing "us good", which is incredibly fucking dangerous.
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Not every “red state” has enough blue people in it to flip, but voter turnout is absolutely the issue in most states. You wanna vote third party and feel connected to some little clique, fine. But don’t expect the Democrats, or the country, to ever change for you. Make your vote valuable.
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You wanna vote third party and feel connected to some little clique, fine.
🤡
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Vote local elections as well. It's the only place you can have real impact.
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This is why the American system is weird af.
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What's weird about never voting for who you actually want because money buys votes and so the type of people you'd really like to see run never make it past your local dog catcher position so your only real option to avoid the absolute worst case scenario is someone who will continue atrocious acts because they have no real control as the previously mentioned money controls electoral outcomes so they're held hostage and you're left seeing an ever further lurch towards outright fascism against your own citizenry?
Oh. Yeah... That.
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If you're voting for the lesser evil, you are still voting to reduce harm.
Remember that. You can't save everyone, but if you save NO ONE that's on you.
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Dont worry about those who are already dead, what does that matter right?
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No, the blame lies squarely on the DNC for deliberately ignoring the loud and clear message from third party voters that genocide is a red line in the sand. The blame further lies with the liberals supporting a decaying Empire and never lifting a finger to help anyone, just showing up at the ballot box every 4 years while the US commits manmade horrors beyond comprehension.
Join an org, like the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) or Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), this mess can't be undone by supporting the Dems harder.
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Unfortunately, it's not a "red line in the sand," no matter how much you keep repeating it. While a majority of people in the US disapprove of Israel's actions, a tiny fraction of voters (less than 2%) consider it their primary voting issue, an even smaller fraction of that number would consider withholding their vote or voting third party over it.
While you may not like it, it's not the major concern for American voters. If you'd like to withhold your vote or vote third party about it, be my guest. The only likely scenario that would result from that would helping Trump get elected. If you're honestly concerned about Palestinians, you'd be wise enough to not enable an even worse situation for them. There's a reason Israel's leadership wants Trump to win and encourages the left to revolt about Palestine.
You're getting played by Israel, who is using your short-sighted feels to enable them to enact long-term reals, which in their case might very well be the full extermination and displacement of all of Palestine. To truly bring that into being, they, at they very least, need Trump to win. Fundamentally you are siding with Israel over Palestinians, and the immediate sense of moral superiority you feel about it is precisely how you're being manipulated.
Read your history. Using the left's lack of political pragmatism to aid in hard-right political takeover isn't new. Your Bush-ist "you're either with us or against us" simplification of the world and political calculus makes you an easy mark. You are, quite literally, a tool of Israel at this point.
And the best part, from Israel's point of view, is you get to feel good about it. Win-win (for Israel). You're trying to march Palestine right into the grave while telling them you're helping them the whole way.
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Have you ever wondered what thoughts must go through a person's mind after making just the worst decision in their lives? Like a father who fell asleep at the wheel because he didn't want to stop at a motel to save a few bucks, and now he's in the ICU watching his wife and child slowly dying in front of him?
That's gonna be you if Trump gets elected. Good luck with that.
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Your idea of the "worst decision of their lives" is forced on Palestinians daily because of the party you support.
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Yeah dude, it would totally make sense to listen to all 3% of those third party voters over the 97% of people who aren't stupid enough to throw their vote away in such a dumb fashion. That's how you win elections!
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Smug liberals will be condescending regardless of who wins any election.
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They said condescendingly.
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liberals
Does use even have a proper liberal?
All I see around is corpo's dog laps, culture war warriors doing circle jerk with alt right.
Both parties are just corporatist extracting value via the state for personal gain.
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You don't wanna be called idiots, don't do idiotic things.
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Threatening people is a great way to win them on the side of your cause I hear. /S
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If Kamala looses: All of the blame gets put on third party voters for not "voting hard enough" (especially if she wins the popular vote and looses in the electoral college). Absolutely none of the blame gets put on her supporting genocide, her vague positions, the fact that her campaign page contains very little about her views or policies, her support of fracking, her general support of oil and gas, her support of genocide, and her support for imperialism. Of course that could all be incorrect but Kamala refuses to dispute those claims.
If Kamala wins: She will do basically nothing, compromise with the Republicans, allow states to ban abortion, allow states to restrict womens rights, allow states to ban trans healthcare, generally allow the far-right to do whatever they want, and continue to fund genocide. When all of this happens third party voters will be blamed for "not voting hard enough" and Kamala will take no responsibility whatever.
Regardless of outcome the next election: The Democrat candidate will be even more right wing because leftists didn't "vote hard enough", they will be even more bipartisan and even less progressive. All of the Liberals will demand everyone vote for this candidate yet the candidate will make no attempt to implement any popular policy. Americas rapid decline into fascism will continue and nobody in power will do anything to stop it.
Once again I ask the question what harm is reduced by "harm reduction"? If anything a more accurate term would be slowing down fascism. But what Liberals refuse to answer is what practical purpose is there to slowing down fascism? Congratulations you get maybe a few extra decades from fascism but then what? Clearly Liberals are buying their time but what exactly are they buying their time for? What is the grand strategy? We've already seen the Democratic Candidate clearly use fascist rhetoric, how long is it until these compromise candidates compromise the rights of minorities? How long until they compromise on Fascism? I would vote "harm reduction" if I knew that at the end of it all theres a plan to eventually fight back but I dont think there is one. I think the Liberal plan is to keep doing "harm reduction" indefinitely, however even if you're a hardcore liberal you have to acknowledge thats a fundamentally unsustainable plan.
TLDR: The only people responsible for Democrats not getting elected are the Democrats themselves and their corporate sponsors who hold them back from instituting popular policy, I get its easy to pin the blame on some group but fundamentally thats little more then a logical fallacy.
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"loses" not "looses"
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It's crazy how if I vote third party, or not at all I am both voting for Harris and for Trump, depending on who you ask.
My theory, and it is just a theory, is that Trump wins the electoral college vote, but Kamala wins the popular vote by a wide enough margin that by the next election, if there is one, they start to abolish the electoral college. Maybe then a third party candidate could actually make some changes.
I think the fact that Walz spoke out against the ec shows that even he thinks this is a likely outcome.
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Unlikely, both parties love the electoral college because it destroys any chance of a third party victory.
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What type of Nostradumbassery is this? You have no clue what Harris is or is not going to do. What YOU are doing however, is predicting her behavior in such a way that it conveniently falls within the boundaries of some ideological fantasy of yours that involves you as the hero, chanting
“i tOLd yOu so!”
to anyone dumb enough to listen.
None of what you said is even remotely accurate or based in any semblance of reality in which it could even be challenged properly. The only thing to do at this point is to simply dismiss it as nonsense. .
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I said that myself, however if Kamala refuses to officially document any of her positions then I think its fair to go by her interviews and statements. Im her public appearances she has expressed support for Israel, publicly abandoned anti-fracking while supporting "energy independence", and made it very clear that she would compromise all of her positions in the name of "bipartisanship".
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"I don't want to vote for the party giving free weapons to a genocidal dictator."
"Oh, so you're literally a fascist?"
🤡
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But listen bro... If you don't vote for kamala, trump will fuck over Palestinians even harder. Can you live with yourself, 💩 Lord?
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Because Dems are the slightly lesser evil doesn't make them not evil 🤡
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The old "if you're not with us then you're against us" position. How about the dems adopt policies that inspire people to vote for them.
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Not jailing women for miscarriages is not enough?
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The difference between the Dems and republicans is one pretends to represent everyone equally, the other does not. Both need to make their capitalist masters happy.
That being said. Dems are doing harm less quickly than the republicans are, so vote for them.
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It is better to be feared in politics than to make people admire or love you. When people are worried about "What if the other guy gets in?" instead of "When the dude I want gets in, what what will they do for us all?" it allows the slow ratchet towards autocratic shitheads like Trump.
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So…. What has any 3rd party candidate done to earn your vote?
What has any 3rd party candidate done to even prove that have the ability to do jack shit if they were to accidentally get elected to begin with.
Oh, and lastly, where the fuck do the 3rd party candidates go in-between elections when for three solid years- they’re nowhere to be found?
See? If all you do is complain, yet have no viable solution, then all you’re doing is complaining. And no one is obligated to take you seriously.
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So…. What has any 3rd party candidate done to earn your vote?
Claudia De La Crúz of PSL has a program I agree with and believe is necessary.
What has any 3rd party candidate done to even prove that have the ability to do jack shit if they were to accidentally get elected to begin with.
PSL organizes year round, every year. They develop internal party infrastructure, protest, run a news site, educate others on Marxist theory, assist with strikes, and are even supporting disaster relief efforts recently due to the hurricanes.
Oh, and lastly, where the fuck do the 3rd party candidates go in-between elections when for three solid years- they’re nowhere to be found?
PSL does what I said year round, every year.
See? If all you do is complain, yet have no viable solution, then all you’re doing is complaining. And no one is obligated to take you seriously.
PSL has a viable solution, you can read their full party program here.
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Funny, Republicans are saying the same thing the other way around. I hope both parties die out fast.
Both sides saying the other will destroy us. The parallels go way farther than anyone is willing to admit. Voting for the "lesser evil" has only led us to this two party system where substance is lost. It is impossible to vote objectively (I always vote) and expect less than regression. My state has become a haven for one side with over a million people moving to this state for political reasons.
I can vote Republican to pretend like things are better while not changing, or getting worse. Or I can vote Democrat to pretend like they aren't going to approve everything Republicans want anyways. Or I can vote for the best candidate who has no chance to win but I have a semblance of pride while the election is predictable in my district and state anyways. Yet I have to not share who I voted for because I will be blamed by both sides for their own engineered and predictable failures.
I am going to get a lot of hate on here for being honest about the situation. I no longer care about that. No I am not a plant from Russia or one of the parties. And, yes I do believe those entities are really helping the division, pushing false narratives and mal-information. However, I do not blame them for the problems. The problems have been engineered from within our own borders. That is a whole other topic with volumes of evidence and books.
We the people have been made ignorant and angry. I don't know how we can recover from this, but I know life is going to suck, no matter who is elected president next month. It WILL only "get worse for working class Americans, minorities and women." And I have no clue how or when it will end. Everytime there is progress and opportunity, there are Americans turning against it while using it for self destruction. I feel horrible for the generations inheriting our chaos and possible destruction.
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Just think, all Harris has to do is condemn the genocide in Palestine and 3rd party voters would vote for her.
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They would rather ask people to vote for someone who supports genociding their family than ask for a candidate who opposes genocide and that speaks volumes about their priorities.
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Is it too much to ask for? I voted De La Cruz and I would do it again. And no it's not a vote for trump. Who says I would have voted Harris if I didn't vote for her?
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But she'd lose the massive Jewish population voters, who all majorly vote blue.
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Israel against the USA means Israel has no reason not to ally with someone we dislike, then it wouldn't take long before the entire Middle East is united against the US.
Yay?
Depends on your POV... not a yay from me. At some point you have to decide whether or not risking another axis of powers against us in ten years is worth the lives of the innocent.
But then that's the trap, isn't it? Win-lose.
Downvoting without an idea, huh? Guess you're in the same place as everyone else. You know there's no way this gets fixed without violence playing out. It's in the powers that be.
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Posters like this always assume that their candidate is the other option if the person doesn't abstain or vote 3rd party.
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I get this, but playing it safe is going nowhere. Trump was elected not because he was a decent candidate, but because he was a gamble that paid off in spades.
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Can’t wait for Blue MAGA to win so they can go to brunch and not do any form of direct action or mutual aid for 4 years while the genocides continue, then shit on leftists for not voting hard enough at the next election.
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"We woulda won if it wasnt for you stinky rotten leftists voting third party!"
-Hilary Clinton (probably)
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Not sure what you expect them to do about the Chinese genocide against the Uyghers, or the ongoing Darfur genocide. That said, it would be nice if they did would at least try something.
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China is a bit confusing to me with religion. They officially are atheist, but permit nearly any religion as long as you don't attempt to convert people, or replace Chinese architecture and symbolism with religious symbolism. Except for local mythology of course, although it was banned in past years and only recently promoted by the government. Most interesting thing I read recently is that minors aren't allowed in religious buildings, presumably because they can't decide for themselves yet, but I might not understand the nuance of that law.
Thats all to say, I have no idea what's the right move for religion moving forward, just in general. I generally think its a bad thing but that could be an American perspective.
I also have no idea what should be done for the Uyghurs, and I'm not sure if I'm entirely convinced that limiting a cultures religion at all is by default cultural genocide.
I know nothing about darfur though, though it sounds familiar.
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Right. Because we have all been so lucky to be in the receiving end of all the generous policies and the overwhelming selfless charity from those third party candidates!
I for one am overflowing with love and blissful ass-kissery for all the work those candidates have done for everyone- every year in between the elections!!!
Let me list all the things they’ve done for us all:
- ……
Yaaaaaaaay!
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Blue MAGA
How to immediately give away the game. Try harder.
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The harsh reality is that leftists, in their outrage over Gaza, are being manipulated to serve the very forces they claim to oppose. Netanyahu, with the same calculated cynicism as Putin, is using this moment of crisis to bolster his own political survival by helping Trump’s re-election bid. AIPAC, already firmly in the Republican camp, is actively working to secure Trump’s victory, just like the leftists—though they may wear different masks. At the core, both groups are contributing to the same outcome: Trump back in power, where Netanyahu and his far-right allies can continue their genocidal wars unchecked.
Leftists may express moral indignation and feel superior in their righteous anger, but at the end of the day, they are playing right into the hands of Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin. They are weakening Kamala Harris, who has a precarious balancing act between Jewish and Arab-American voters, and ensuring that Trump and his cronies can capitalize on this division. Despite their different emotional reactions along the way, both AIPAC and the leftist protesters are on the same side when it comes to the pragmatic analysis: they’re both paving the way for Trump’s return to power. And that’s all the Republicans, Netanyahu, and Putin truly care about—using anyone, even their critics, to achieve their goals.
It’s deeply ironic that a group that prides itself on its materialist analysis can’t seem to distinguish between what they think they’re fighting for and what they’re actually enabling. They claim to oppose imperialism and oppression, yet their actions are directly aligning with the interests of Netanyahu, Trump, and their right-wing allies. For all their talk of understanding power dynamics, they’re blind to the fact that they’re advancing the very agenda they claim to detest.
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Or, you know, Kamala could just come out and denounce the Israeli Genocide.
This oft repeated spin straight out of the Political Propaganda 101 book that it's all the lefties' fault for not supporting the Democrat Party whilst their leaders unwaveringly support what is well on its way to become the 21st Century Holocaust rather than it being the fault of the Democrat Party leaders for unwaveringly support what is well on its way to become the 21st Century Holocaust hence they risk losing leftie votes, would be hilarious if it wasn't such an obvious insult to the intelligence of most people.
That the argument always boils down to "these very important people can do whatever the fuck they want no matter how evil and any consequences of that will be the plebes' fault since should have supporting them" (the kind of "logic" an abuser uses) betrays the tribalism hypocrisy that it really is (hence its obvious subservient mindset) rather than the well intentioned advice it tries to pass itself as.
If the objective was truly and only to Stop Trump, the everybody would be equally pushing for it, but apparently it's not as the Democrat Party leadership refuses to stop supporting what's the biggest evil in this century (so far) and instead send their minions around to parrot the abuser's Book Of It's Your Fault You Made Me Do It claiming that the fault for the consequences of the choices the Democrat Party leaders is really of everybody else but them.
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This response reeks of naive idealism wrapped in self-righteous moralizing. It’s easy to demand that Kamala Harris "denounce genocide" as though it’s a magic wand that will instantly change the geopolitical landscape, let alone the electoral map. To put it bluntly, if she does that, she will almost certainly lose the election. Would that it weren't the case, but the world (and the United States) doesn’t work that way, and acting like it does betrays a complete lack of understanding of realpolitik. The Democrats are navigating a complex minefield of domestic and international pressures, and while you sit on the sidelines demanding moral purity, your actions are doing nothing but helping the very forces—Trump, Netanyahu, and the far-right—that thrive on division.
Claiming that it's somehow more virtuous to tear down Harris for not meeting your purity test while ignoring the consequences of a Trump re-election is either willfully ignorant or disturbingly reckless. You cast aside the actual stakes—continued authoritarianism, eroded democratic institutions, and worsening conflict—because you're too blinded by your own self-congratulatory sense of moral superiority. If the goal really is to stop genocide and halt far-right imperialism, then, no matter how you cut it, your tactical ignorance is making you an unwitting ally to the very people perpetuating it.
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Dumbest hot takes on the Internet be like:
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voting third party is bad? first past the post problem
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And how will voting 3rd party help?
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In the USA? It won't, your voting system is fundamentally broken.
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approval voting!
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People need to be sharing this video about first past the post more, because if you haven't heard this very specific voting information then any intelligent person would think this was just stupid tribalism:
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Cgp would make an amazing president
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Ah yes, fascism light. No wonder people are voting third party lol.
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Fascism is Capitalism in decay, and the US is a dying empire. They go together
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Not understanding the concept of the Secret Ballot and it's consequences
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I sure wish more of these people that are all hung up on an issue would vote in the primaries. You know, where you have at least a slim chance of changing things.
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Given how Harris was chosen, I'm really not sure this is the year to make that argument.
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It was Biden/Harris. He stepped down, but that doesn't suddenly mean that she has to. And with the way the rules around succession and such are worded, especially campaign finance, she was the only choice. Because she was already the VP nominee.
But most importantly, Biden stepped down for the good of the country, and Harris has stepped up.
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This is just not true voting third party or not voting means you are voting third party or not voting. This reasoning is senseless so if I vote Lu Cruz I'm helping Trump, Harris, Stein, etc.. all win no I'm not. No reason to vote for a candidate who will run fascistic policies which Trump and Harris both will. Electoralism is a dead end in broken system built to maintain the status quo.
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you're only kidding yourself. the election doesn't give you points for process. it only gives you outcomes. and as things are right now in the US, there are two. you either contribute to outcome 1 or outcome 2. there is no other kind of action.
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This is all true, except in a bubble where you use first past the post voting.
You're talking about sane elections. Americans live in a edge case:
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we will have a long memory
Could there be a single more empty threat from a burger-munching American? The whole world will laugh at you for thousands of years until you recede into myths about a people so callous and stupid it beggars belief.
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If you vote democrat no matter what they do (and voting in spite of the current regime committing a genocide communicates that you will do exactly that), they have no incentive to take your interests at heart, and will move in the direction of the interests of the highest bidder. And this is an observable effect: fairly consistently throughout the years (and this goes back to at least Clinton), the policies and positions of the dems are exactly those of the republicans four years ago, aside from some meaningless posturing and vibes. Look at where we are with the border wall for example, or the children in cages at the border (more now than under Trump), or abortion (FOUR years of a dem president, and nothing has been done, despite promises).
You vote blue no matter who people are flushing your democracy down the drain. For the love of god, make your vote count and vote for something for a change. Vote Jill Stein or Cornell West. Or if you like murdering tens of thousands of innocent children (as we've done under the Biden regime), vote Kamala "most lethal fighting force in the world" Harris. If you're lucky, you might be paying for the murder of Iranian children next.
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Even from across the ocean I can see the shitshow that is your electoral system. Third parties won't work as long as that dumb First Past the Post system is kept up, so you're completely wasting your vote.
The kids will be killed by the Genocidal State of Israel anyway. Your only choice is if you want to watch from a broken system of democracy, or a dictatorship.
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The change you want to see won’t happen from the top because of the electoral system. It needs to happen from the ground up. It’s in the local elections and primaries where you need to push for “radical” candidates. That’s also how the US can get rid of the FPTP system.
Pushing for a third party once every four years won’t do shit and will only help the candidate who will actually lose the popular vote win the race.
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Would be nice if that was an option one could take without consequences, but it isn't. Doing that will help Trump.
The system is fucked. As long as it's FPTP and one of the two parties fronts a fascist, you have to vote against the fascist or be complicit in helping fascism.
Sucks to be US-American, but it's true.
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For the love of god, make your vote count and vote for something for a change. Vote Jill Stein
Actual Jill Stein quote: "we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of MI. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without MI."
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I'm so fucking tired of seeing this garbage fucking everywhere on this site. With high(ish) scores like this.
I honestly just hope it's because lemmy is easy to game or something.
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For one, they’ll all stop come November as they do every election cycle. And two, they actually get downvoted quite often. It’s just some of them have little fan clubs that follow them around.
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Neither decision will save medicare, social security, education or the middle class.
Harris will do what she can, same as Biden has, but neither has any effect on disinformation, bigotry, division or inequality beyond shaking their fingers in disapproval, if it even is disapproval and not just saving face for us.
Trump and his kind are a virus. I'm not saying there is no solution, but the current methods our society governs by aren't doing a solid job of dealing with it, to a point that they may even be making it worse by being too cowardly to put a foot down. They won't save America. They're as much a part of the corruption as the corruption. They'll only go as far as to protect themselves.
I don't make these predictions with any sort of supernatural foresight. It's what Biden and Obama did, it's what Harris will do, keep the seat warm until it's red again while the planet dies, respective kings and queens of the ashes.
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The two-party system is perfect. George Washington and John Adams had it wrong when they claimed a two-party system would be an evil. No policies of third parties have ever been adopted by either of the two big parties. No political candidate would ever dare switch between and third party and that of one of the big two, sometimes multiple times over their career. Useless. Certainly the political spectrum is sufficiently represented as a two-dimensional line depicting left, center, and right? Issues such as monetary policy, interventionalist policies, border security, personal liberty, states' rights, federal powers, and debate of democracy vs. republic have already been solved and merits no further discussion. All 335 million Americans' ideologies fit perfectly into either of the two big parties' platform and always have. No other party besides Democratic and Republican have ever dominated US politics. Political parties are so paramount to the existence of America that the founding fathers went through great lengths to outline their implementation in the Constitution.
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When you shit inside the skulls of your enemies, but they use that shit to form shitty opinions about life and politics :(
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Eh, it's not like USA presidential election is based on a majority vote anyway. Electoral college and all that shit
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Doesn't working class cover women and minorities?
Or does Beyonce suffer with the rest of us?
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First of all, you might as well one would be helping Harris by not voting for Trump lmao. Why would not voting for either help one of them?
Also, while I would have her win if I had to choose between the two, I don't like her at all and wouldn't bother voting if I lived in the USA. The impact of a single vote is so small, even in a swing state, and the chances of one's vote being the decisive one as well, that I really wouldn't place much importance on whether I vote.
Of course upholding a system of social incentives for voting by shaming those that don't vote for your favourite candidate might make sense, I think it also promotes a very toxic political climate.
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If you’re feeling disturbed by this rhetoric but you don’t want to vote for the greens, consider party for socialism and liberation. They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.
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And what are their chances to win currently?
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0, they aren't qualified in enough states to get 270 electoral college votes, and even if they did get 270, the electoral college would disqualify them. PSL is a revolutionary party, they participate in bourgeois elections so you can signal strength, protest vote, and draw attention to the party itself so more people join.
You're not understanding leftists if you think they can enact change electorally.
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I wouldn’t know, I’m not much of a gambler so the odds aren’t really in my mind.
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How about they also crawl back into the hole they come out of every 4 fucking years...
This isn't how political parties work. You don't just show up every four years and run for literally the highest office in the nation, and then disappear for another four years when you inevitably lose (and "coincidentally" become a spoiler).
This is why nobody takes them seriously.
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Psl is active in elections other than presidential, run candidates at the local level and take part in protests and aid.
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To convince Greens or Carlins (people who don't vote because the Democrats are still too evil from their point-of-view) to vote for Democrats, you need to understand yourself and them. Once you do that, you'll be able to offer more convincing arguments to support your position.
If you're voting for Democrats, you possibly agree with the following scale of evilness:
- 10 Hitler
- 9 Stalin
- 8.5 Trump
- 8 Republicans and people who vote for them
- 7
- 6
- ~5-3 elected Democratic party members
- 2
- 1 you
- 0 Jesus
The thing is that Greens and Carlins see the world very differently:
- 10 people making the biosphere unlivable thru overpopulation
- 9 factory farmers and commercial fishing companies
- 8
- 7 Hitler, Stalin
- 6
- 5 George W. Bush, Putin
- 4 Trump, Republicans, and people who vote for them
- 3 Gore, Obama, Democrats, and people who vote for them
- 2
- 1 Sanders
- 0
- -1
- -2
- -3
- -4
- -5
- -6
- -7 them
- -8
- -9
- -10
The Greens' and Carlins' priorities are very different. They may think that choosing to make the biosphere unlivable is the worst thing you can do, because without a biosphere that supports life, nothing else matters.
They may think that torturing trillions of fish to death every year, and enslaving hundreds of billions of animals in torturous conditions every year, is worse than all genocides and wars in all of history combined. They think that supporting even a single genocide is bad.
They may think that given the choice between popular Hitler, popular Stalin, and unpopular Gandhi; they'd rather vote for Gandhi than the popular lesser evil, because that specific evil is omnicidally evil. It's better to vote for good and fail, than it is to vote for evil and succeed.
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One of the parties CENCORED the EPA from using the word climate change and dropped the USA out of the accords.
HOW FUCKING BRAINDEAD WOULD YOU HAVE TO BE TO LET THAT BASTARD INTO THE OFFICE AGAIN!!!-
The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands, and the United States is producing more oil than any country ever has. [...] “If you were to show someone who came from Mars the line of U.S. oil and gas production over the last 15 years, they probably would not be able to tell whether a Republican or Democrat was in the White House,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. [...] The reality is the United States is already dominant. The country is expected to produce 13.2 million barrels of oil per day on average this year — millions of barrels more than Saudi Arabia or Russia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/08/16/biden-oil-drilling-production/
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For me its even simpler though. All of these logical shenanigans are the circular energy that fuels the myth around the unchangeable two party system. If people simply voted for the candidate based on their values and policy, literally everyone to a T, it would shatter the two party system into fragments, and we would have to do something to accommodate them.
Thats at least my theory, although I still voted Harris because in my case my vote is in a place that matters. I would say I'm about half and half happy and upset about it but thats the best I could manage with the circumstances.
I do think momentum is building though if we can continue it through the coming years.
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No it wouldn't, the two largest parties from that first vote would eventually consume everything else and then we'd be right back where we started.
Unless you intend to abolish FPTP, arguing your intention to vote third party is mathematically the same as arguing your intention to vote for the 2 party candidate who is least like you.
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I'm getting real tired of all the posts full of people not able to imagine any other system than the current one that funnily enough only the US still clings to
You guys really treat politics like sports teams.
Get out there and vote third party all the way through. Force another party into the reckoning because voting democrat or republican is still eventually going to fuck you all over, it just varies the pace depending which one you chose.
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It's because the current system is the current one. Currently. We aren't living in fancy lala land.
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I'm getting real tired of all the posts full of people not able to imagine any other system than the current one that funnily enough only the US still clings to
Why should we talk about things that aren't implemented when speaking about real votes? I'd love if STAR or something was on place, but I'm not using that system for the election in less than a month; FPTP is the only way I can vote today, so it makes sense to talk about it on the lead up to the election.
Get out there and vote third party all the way through.
Shit take, voting third party when one option is talking about being a dictator on day one is tacitly endorsing the dictator.
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voting for a third party is fine.
I personally think it's impractical since the democrats have advanced progressive policies these past 4 years that probably dovetail with any third party candidate a voter likes, but any vote an American voter casts is a valid vote.
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Third party vote is a protest vote to deny the regime legitimacy.
Voting for either party is a vote of confidence in the regime. It only makes sense to participate within this framework if you feel like you benefiting from the current arrangements.
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When I vote for a third party, I am voting for the candidate I most strongly identify with.
you know, like in a democracy.
"Voting for either party is a vote of confidence in the regime."
this is incredibly naive.
voting third party as a "protest" is like holding your hand under a blowtorch.
yeah, you'll get some attention, but it's not really going to help you out and you probably didn't have a good reason for doing it in the first place.
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This is a perspective than can only be held in a political system that has devolved to a two-party system.
If you step out of that, it stops making sense. A democracy allows for people to express their actual opinion. Anything less than that is not a proper democracy. I'd argue there are no "third parties" in a proper democracy.
You might be saying that the American regime is illegitimate, it's unclear.
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