this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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"Hey, let's vote for a candidate who literally cannot win from a party that hasn't done the necessary work to become nationally viable because I don't want to be part of the two party problem even though if we do so it will guarantee that a felon rapist who incited an insurrection, stripped women of a human right, and illegally attempted to overturn an election will win." - Dipshit 3rd Party Voters
Just as stupid as Trump supporters, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, they got what we told them they'd be getting. Why aren't they celebrating?
Thanks for helping Trump win! Palestine is so saved. This whole thing wasn't about you feeling morally superior at all.
But you're SUPPORTING GENOCIDE when you vote for the candidate most likely to get the fewest people killed! While the people of Palestine are about to be annihilated, my own right to marry is about to be taken away, and all of my trans friends are going to lose access to the drugs that keep them from killing themselves, I can rest easy knowing that I didn't engage with the system at all
Nope. Voting for the slightly less evil politician doesn't mean you support genocide anymore than pulling the lever means you support innocent people being run over by trolleys.
There were exactly two paths the trolley could go down as of November. You can pretend there weren't, but the only option any individual had other than Harris or Trump was to assassinate one or both, and I'm not interested in getting iced by the SS
Unless you think there's some magic number of comments you can make on the internet that will somehow convince enough voters to ditch the two main parties. Of course, you would have to be incredibly naive to believe in that magic number.
Objectively false. More than three paths literally on the ballot. Ignoring the pre-November time frame. Ignoring the possibility of write-ins. You are deliberately leaving things out in your framing - you're lying.
Yes, I could have voted for anyone I wanted, and there were still only two people who could possibly have been elected. Any vote for anyone other than those two literally didn't impact the election.
Name an American politician that has committed genocide.
Andrew Jackson.
Fair point!
What did Hitler do? Spew rhetoric, tour around, and orchestrate/direct resources into genocide. That is precisely what the U.S. president and Congress have done. You may want to pretend the imaginary national line between Netanyahu and Biden somehow means Biden's hands are clean, but he has funded, armed, rhetorically supported, militarily supported, and blocked nearly every ceasefire effort at the UN Security Council against the genocide. It is a U.S. genocide, and everyone following it is completely aware of that. Why is it that you think State Department officials are resigning, and Aaron Bushnell lit himself on fire? It would be far quicker to name the U.S. politicians who aren't complicit in the genocide. Between Congress and the presidency, depending on how strict you want to be, that's between 1 and maybe 30 (Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, etc.)
Not even addressing that historically you don't even need to dispel that national boundary. Not even under George W. Bush. Yet alone the genocide of the Native Americans.
bUt hITLeR!!!
So…. You can’t name one. Thanks for playing.
Try again.
And you’re done because you have nothing. Listen dude… You swung, you missed. You’re not exempt from being called out, or being made to own your shit.
So…. You’re not.. done?
For the record, NONE of them committed genocide. None of them have the authority to do so. And none of them were even brought on charges for doing so.
Complicit? Perhaps. But not a single one of the people you mentioned committed the act at all.
What you’re doing here is angrily spreading blatant misinformation.
Absolutely tremendous brain energy
Point A. Mathematically, the third party voters did not cost you the election. Not in terms of the raw popular vote comparison, not in terms of the electoral college vote comparison.
Point B. No candidate is owed your vote. A "third party" candidate must be judged on the same merits as a "first"/"second" party candidate. The first and second party candidates are both complicit in genocide and/or genocidal incitement. They are literally war criminals. The only argument you can make for the preference of the first/second party candidates is not based on merit, but popularity alone. It's circular logic to justify a population voting for a candidate on the basis of popularity - "we must vote for them because we're voting for them". This only appears to make sense when viewed in terms of an individual choice, but the logic completely breaks down when viewed in terms of group behavior. I cannot stress enough that this is an absolutely basic question in terms of civic engagement in a so-called "representative democracy", and yet a staggering amount of you have not even thought about it.
Start from scratch on the logic. What is the ENTIRE framework we're using to select candidates, as a population? When compared against other frameworks, how do we evaluate which framework is ideal, based on its long-term consequences for a society? If you have not already thoroughly answered this question for yourself, you are not qualified for this discussion in the first place.
All of that is fine and dandy except we live in reality.
Reality is a cold hearted bitch. The actual choices were between the status quo, with the occasional bone thrown out way, and billionaire backed fascism, where all of us will be actively fucked for at least the next four years, and likely longer because the fascists are unlikely to ever allow elections where they have a chance of losing.
Those were the only choices, not voting or voting third party was exactly the same as voting for the fascists. Congratulations, you did it, Trump won.
I saw these responses coming and worded my comment correspondingly. Read. More. Carefully.
Absolutely right on point A.
Point B: This is wrong and you've obscured the idea. " we ( potential third party voters ) must vote for them because we ( left voters as a whole ) are voting for them " It's not circular logic, they are two different groups.
So as someone who wants the DNC ( and the GOP ) to disappear, here's what I think are the important questions:
IMO a good idea would be a threshold system. So anyone can join the party and say, " I will vote if there are X commited voters ". If not, the party stands down. They get to build support without spoiling the vote.
This is all theoretical of course since the US may have just had it's last election.
I have an answer for 1. and that answer is "Never". a third party is never viable as long as we have First Past the Post voting.
As for 2, you don't put any effort into third parties until after we fix the voting system. You work within the system and push for voting reform, or else it will never happen, and we'll be stuck with First Past the Post forever.
The game plan is to push for one of two options, either Approval or STAR. Those two voting systems are the only Condorcet compliant systems that can fix our mess of an election system. There are some other fixes that come afterward, like ditching Primary elections (they're not needed under Approval or STAR) and ditching the electoral college, but those can come after we fix the core problem.
To reiterate, you cannot solve anything of the problems of our system from outside it. You must hijack one of the two parties and use that to fix things. The same way the Evangelical racists hijacked the Republican Party in the 70s and 80s.
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Point A is absolutely true.
Point B would be true in a world where the US is a properly functioning and fair democracy. It is not. Elections are popularity contests, and the easiest way to become vastly more known and popular than other candidates is by throwing money at it. Without big donors, your party doesn't stand a chance. At best you have zero impact, at worst you act as a spoiler candidate and get the exact opposite of what you want in power.
In such a system, candidates aren't owed your vote. You owe your neighbors to vote in such a way that potential harm is minimised. A 3rd party vote, if unviable, is never that. In the US electoral system, it doesn't make sense to vote for someone, it makes sense to vote against someone. Which is a deeply sad reality and shows that the US is in dire need of electoral reform.