this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Canadian here,I still think it a good idea to start now. Harris could have been elected you would still need a third party or fifth. I believe Americans have been brain washed against it being even possible.
It isn’t possible without getting rid of the Electoral College.
But the chances of that were also flushed down the drain.
Lots of elections are not tied to the electoral college. Aren't there elected judges, sherrif, senators, etc, state level elections. Oh no it's useless if we can't have a 3rd party president win the next election. So we'll just keep hoping the nice billionaires win the next one. My province has been voting a party that only place people in our province and will never be in power. The rest of the country is often pissed off because we still manage to defend our values by being in the opposition.
But most third parties aren't oriented to winning or holding office. Honestly if you look at the rhetoric of lots of them they seem to be more oriented towards keeping Democrats out. I don't vote for democrats. I vote against Republicans. But every time I go vote in local elections. There are many many offices I leave blank. Because Republicans are running unopposed. I've said many times I would love to see third parties running for these offices that Democrats aren't concerned about. But they don't seem to be concerned about those in all but one or two states. And even those are kind of iffy.
Part of why that happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKgNrshVdMw
I am of the opinion that Adam generally makes everything better. And his talk about reigniting community. As an anarchist that resonates intensely. But that video has nothing to do with why no third party groups bother to campaign at all in red states where Republicans are running unopposed. There are no green party candidates for local offices. There are no Democratic or Social Democratic candidates for local offices if we have a Libertarian it's a right-wing libertarian and there will often worse than the Republican but that's the closest we ever get to third party out here I think Adam is 100% on the right track for what Democrats need to do. But what third parties need to do is actually run for local and State office. As well as the stuff that Adam spoke of.
Absolutely, and guess how many offices, both state and national the Green Party - arguably the biggest current 3rd party in the country has? G’wan guess.
That’s right! 153 people in the country were elected as Greens so the Electoral College doesn’t come close to applying. As far as representing my political preferences in the Water District Board of Directors or the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, they’re bringing the revolution to the halls of power slowly but . . . Well, slowly.
As for those billionaires who decide who runs, I don’t really like to be called a billionaire mostly because i’m about a billion dollars short of it, but I have a say in my parties’ candidates by participating.
If everyone scrabbling to eke out a tenuous coalition had any support we’d be getting somewhere with third parties. But we’re not largely because there isn’t support for them. The people in here blowing hard about “oooh don’t vote, it’s all a scam” and “gEnOciDe JoE” do absolutely nothing to support any political organization, and that’s why they disappeared - they were never going to do anything anyway, they just had a mandate to shit on the Democrats and that job is done.
Libertarian party is the strongest third-party and has 186 elected representatives
Gross, almost worse than republicans
And I say the Green Party is gross because it’s worse than democrats
I stand arguably corrected.
So just stop rather than trying to get more elected? Absolutely wish Harris had been elected rather than fuck face mctarrifs. But USA don't even have a centre-left, it's right and far right. The Dems keep losing to the far right, why would they bother moving aven an inch left if there is no one there ?
His full title is actually: his excellency, rapist in chief, pedophile plenipotentiary, amorphous adulterer, freelance felon, the dishonorable Donald Jerkface Trump.
You'd have to define center-left in terms of American.
On here, center-left is deemed to be the malodorous goblins of corporate sleaze, but left is wanting trump to win, so - I dunno. It's weird.
Lemmy != Average america either...dominated by Americans but a very specific set.
TBH other than blatantly and aggregiously lying their ass off in the last referendum about what a split would be like, the BQ actually have decent policies and it would be nicr for all provinces to have that at the federal level.
Then BC would get the number of seats it should have at least.
The point I'm trying to make is influence. Strongly Voting for bloc pulls the other parties policies toward our point of view so they can get at least some seats. Or risk being a minority government. Having a Bernie/ Cortez party running on the left for Senate and the house would have much more pull than they have now. They still could say voir for Harris as president but pour out his on the rest of the ballot. But I can tell even the ideas that they could start changing is offensive.
Not at all, in fact Bernie is in the unofficial largest 3rd party (sorry Libertarians), the Independents. Now of course that's not a party as such, but that was his compromise.
If Bernie and AOC say jump, I'll say how high. But Nothing's new there and we're totally fuX0r3d for the next four years because Jill Stein and a russian op doppelganger crew decided trump for all. Third party? We'll be lucky to have the remnants of a civil society.
Bernie said vote for Harris, but all the "leftist" trolls just ignore that part.
It was a complete coincidence that their positions aligned exactly with russian troll farms. What were the odds?? Amazing.
Only because FPTP is hot garbage. Single Transferable Vote, Ranked Choice, etc are not incompatible with the Electoral College.
Why wouldn’t 3rd parties work in Congress? We already have caucuses and intra-labels like Blue Dog. Bernie still wears a D, as did Manchin.
I constantly see establishment Dems point to X as why we cannot change the voting/election structures, but rarely to never see the same voices agitate to change those same structures. The DNC and RNC like the duopoly, and actively defend it.
Stop. Being. Wrong.
Democratic senators want to amend Constitution to abolish Electoral College
Electoral College ‘needs to go,’ Walz says. Other Democratic candidates have agreed
Democratic voting bill would make biggest changes in decades
It’s usually a good idea to read the sources you’re citing, instead of picking links after a cursory web search:
So glad we’re making performative amendment suggestions AFTER they lost control of all branches of government. They know this is not going to pass in the current Congress, but “we tried” right? Why is it suddenly a priority after a crushing loss, instead of taken care of during the Obama supermajorities or tacked onto a NDAA or similar ‘must pass’ bill? 🧐
C’mon dude, at least browse to the third paragraph…
Voting rights and curbing money is admirable, but not part of what I meant. Reform voting systems, not just eligibility and access
Do these articles NOT show you Dems “agitating” to change those structures? Including the VP nom? I say that a cursory search showed them, and if I were to fuck with enshittified google enough I’d find many more examples.
Would you admit you were wrong then? Perhaps mistaken? Doubt.
So yeah I didn’t finish my doctoral thesis on easily disprovable lies to enable a foregone conclusion, only to illustrate that the huge leaps you made were wrong. I haven’t personally interviewed the 450 members of the DNC either, so your pronouncement that they like and defend the duopoly may be so - but I doubt it.
Defend it with what. Are they preventing third parties from forming? The 53 that are said to exist today must have thwarted them, then. Defending it in seekrit underground caves, hand-in-hand with “christian” nationalists, chanting in latin or lovecraftian? Is there even a NY Post article about it?
Did they refuse to let a russian stooge share the debate stage to continue her bad-faith campaign to throw the election to trump? Yeah they did, and so they should - fuck that bullshit.
Speaking of defending, what about your vaunted third party advocates stating plainly and openly their determination to throw the election to trump? Need a cite for that?
You can falsely categorize the Dems as status-quo mongers but (a) that’s false, (b) some good is better than all bad, (c} you can affect change by participating with them, and (d) third-parties have got nothing, and in four years everyone gets to trip over themselves to have this exact same russian argument again.
Name one third party that has any shot at being elected to national office in four years. Cite your sources, less than a thousand words, papers under your desk, #2 only.
Establishment Democrats forcefully pushing no, not really. Dick Durbin meets that bar as the Senate whip but I can’t find a text of their proposal to see who/how many cosponsors they have - or if it even exists beyond a press release. Waltz is a DC outsider plucked from the Midwest to play the role of VP - be everything the president is not. And like your own linked article quoted, the campaign cut his feet out beneath him immediately and repeatedly.
You have to convince me I’m wrong, not get huffy and claim superiority in an attempt to bully complicity. Your retort is lacking in convincing argument, but is oozing condescension and assumption that I’m bad-faith greeenie/russian bot/.ml tankie spoiler position.
“We have a robust free market, look see? There’s dozens of competitors who all fight for the bottom 5% of the total” what a libertarian ass argument. If we applied anti-trust scrutiny to the parties, there would be forced breakups and structural barriers to them entrenching their grip. There used to be more than two parties that got EC votes in the US, evolving going through schisms and mergers as they react to electoral realities. As a natural reaction to FPTP though, those who failed to combine into an 800lb gorilla, get mauled by the one that did.
Stein is controlled opposition, yes. But you’re swinging at ghosts - I want STV/ranked choice/etc and third party coalitions in Congress, not a token protest vote without a meaningful platform or experience.
AOC just got blocked by Pelosi herself from the exact kind of ‘change from within’ you argue for.
Voters (and spoilers) organized and ran a massive protest and advocacy campaign over Palestine and routinely got told to shove it, from the DNC stage, abandoned support on campuses, shunned and removed from rallies, and generally shunned.
Unless you’re a donor or regular attendee at $3k-$500k per head fundraiser, or are one of the vanishing small intersectional group of voters who get microadvertised to death with focus tested messaging, you don’t matter to them. Your vote is already counted in, because what other option is there? Ooooops.
Circular reasoning. After Citizens United money is what runs elections, and the Democrats insist on looming over the left wing political landscape and beating minority challengers, reinforcing the “losing prospect” narrative for third parties. Europeans manage to build actual coalitions all the time and govern effectively, listening to coalition parties (and thus voters who elected that strand of politician) whilst still managing to run an effective government.
America can legitimately be better, but you have to dare to hope for it, not resign yourself to the lesser evil every cycle, and then shout down everyone else who isn’t. Massively cut election donations and establish universal FEC funding, and ditch winner takes all voting. Otherwise we will continue to see the ratchet click rightward, while the lesser evil just slows the metastasizing fascism - are you okay with that future?
AOC voted to protect the rail corporation from a union strike. We deserve better representation.
You have to prove you’re right, as you made the ridiculous unsupportable claim. I’ve already proven it, you refuse to admit it. Let’s move on.
Uh, sure. Or we could apply RuPaul’s Drag Race scrutiny to the parties and put tape on their doors to make sure they’re not sneaking out. They’re not businesses with products and markets. There’s a fundamental reason we don’t treat them like businesses (although the analogies are admittedly obvious). It’s because your scrappy, revolutionary Pokémon Go party deserves to meet, advocate, advertise, and run for office without being audited by the Shithole State Assessor and OSHA.
So, again, no.
. . . Agree? And? The resulting duopoly - a foregone conclusion - means boo Democrats bad? What’s your point. EC is mandated duopoly. Let’s get rid of it and whatever your point might be can be rendered mercifully moot.
Well, we’re in agreement there. I’m not jazzed about the coalitions only because I think it’s another porkbarrel trap and I don’t have a good sense of how it would work, but, yes.
DoMA was an insult to humanity and all supporting Democrats should have been defenestrated from office. Ironically, the legal challenge was also from Democrats, so. I dunno. Politics.
I’m OOTL since Nov. so not sure what this is in reference to, but if existing officeholders can hold trump to anything I’m not necessarily against it.
Yes. And it was a huge win we wouldn’t have otherwise had. Clinton spent all his first term capital on H4A and the rest of his initiatives were bought-and-paid for with more cops and less welfare or some other political extortion. Obama got it done. It’s better. It’s not possible from any other party, period. Some good. You’re welcome. Thanks for hating the people who did the good.
Yeah the protection was honored by all branches so let’s definitely lose the 80’s & 90’s to conservatives by repeatedly running on that. All you need to do is roll back other progress and find the career politicians willing to be sacrificed. Oh, the party is all-powerful, and can just make them do it? Lol.
Look at this shit - abortion is illegal and these fuckers STILL won. You want them to spend everything on a constitutional amendment to support what was already legal - and fail - to prove they’re genuine? That’s stupid. Yes they should have done everything to protect that right, they failed. AND THEN lost again. I realize it sucks. Politics sucks, what a revelation. Compromise is less fulfilling than heroic purity. Huzzah we’ve cracked it. Please.
Fuck “chatter”. We’ll get boatloads of chatter daily in the next four years. I’m out this time.
Yeah. Which was bullshit. Pelosi needed to go awhile ago. AOC is young. And by the by, your wildly successful third parties are not chairing House Oversight anytime this century. So. You just wanna lay down in the road and die? Okay, but that is a super weird strategy for change. Good luck? I guess.
Yeah. Voters and spoilers. Demanding action, instant change. Spoilers. And voters. What a fantastic wedge. Worked a treat. And now, Palestine is well and truly fucked. Nice work, voters and spoilers.
I suppose we keep on with the camps and so on and hope the trump admin is more receptive? Heh. Oh well. We tried to explain this a hundred ways but it was not a discussion. No one was interested in understanding anything except now, today, immediately. Well. Anyway. You got what you wanted there. Why, I don’t know. It’s the opposite of good, but you demanded it. Okay then, now it’s here.
No. Being active locally is free. They do listen. If you want to cut all ties with Israel and you are upset that haranguing the Poughkeepsie chair of the DNC isn’t getting it done, I’d suggest you reset your expectations of how national politics works. Coincidentally, that applies to third parties too. It’s hard fucking work if you’re not relying on corrupt racists and batshit evangelicals.
Yeah. It’s a republiQan tactic and Democrats want to change it. Third parties should be helping.
You mean they win elections? Why, if it only takes money? Couldn’t Jill Stein or literally any and/or all of the 52 other parties cobble together enough for a freaking House seat or, god, Sheriff of Bumfuck or something? No. They can’t. The “losing prospect” is a chimera. Quit believing in it.
Do they? Well good for them, that’s nice. Except the ones that don’t amirite? England, France, Germany, Australia - all having a little bit of a time with the relative conservative elements aren’t they? Hey howabout that Brexit, huh? Goddamn.
And with Mississippi having a larger GDP than Germany, and a lot of challenges Germany doesn’t have, let’s just say it’s possible an EU style governance may take more than one election cycle from naked authoritarianism.
Very often it means hoping and resigning. The shouting down is an attempt to recognize we’re in serious jeopardy, but alas the idiots, thieves, and newly enlightened have eschewed knowledge, understanding, or responsibility and we are utterly fucked because of it. As to the OP, where are they now.
Agreed. And if it ever happens, in the history of this country as we know it, it will be a Democratic initiative. A mythical Congress of strong, independent, national third parties working together for common good in the next four years is more than a joke, it’s a fucking lie. You can DO - right now, today, as a Democrat, or you can NOT DO today or at any other time in the next at-least-twenty years, as a third party.