this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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Political Memes

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[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 12 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Democrats who are actually concerned about Republicans should be pushing hard for ranked choice voting.

These memes make Democrats feel good, but only annoys third party voters.

[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 2 points 15 minutes ago

But, if the goal isn't necessarily to win the election, only to absolve yourself of blame if you lose the election, then blaming 3rd party voters is the stance for you.

Could it be a poor political platform, or just not even campaigning in the state? Maybe it's just not being appealing enough to the 40% of the electorate that doesn't vote. Couldn't be.

I feel like all the hate for 3rd parties is the same as the hate for immigrants. It's all redirection and obfuscation.

[–] AliSaket@mander.xyz 3 points 23 minutes ago

Never forget that in 2016 13% of Trump voters voted for Obama in 2008/12. Maybe the Democratic Party can share some blame, instead of just shaming the voters.

[–] Wisas62@lemmy.world 3 points 53 minutes ago

Maybe if everyone that posted threads like this voted 3rd party, maybe 3rd party would get enough votes for once to push a reelection and get on the radar? Instead of trying to get people to vote for 2 candidates that don't support their needs and/or wants.

You do realize that the winning president has to win at least 50% of the electoral college vote in order to win. If no one president does then the top 3 candidates go to the house of representatives to be chosen. Just the media if this happened would finally put a third party on the radar, even if they only won one state.

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/faq

[–] sumguyonline@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago

Voting democrat or republican gets you a divided republic. The repercussions or their actions are about to reverberate through society. I fucking warned you.

[–] Lightrider@sh.itjust.works 23 points 12 hours ago

A broken system gives you broken candidates.

[–] christian@lemmy.ml 30 points 16 hours ago (6 children)

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of these voters. Maybe I'm just consuming the wrong media, but it feels like third-party voters get 50x the blame nonvoters get for ruining elections with probably something like a thousandth of the population. I basically never see this discussion call out both third-party voters and nonvoters equally.

I keep seeing third-party voters maligned for thinking a candidate has hope to win a national election, I see so many arguments to address why third-party candidates can't win. In spite of that, I have never come across any community anywhere where people collectively believe these candidates actually have a chance. People who consume crazy media can believe crazy things, that's why MAGA is a thing, but there's a whole Fox News etc media machine feeding those people. Is there a forum somewhere with more than ten people where there's a consensus that a third-party candidate might actually win? None of the third party voters I have known or met irl believed this, and I would be shocked if they're all weird exceptions.

Like, please, where are these people congregating to spread the ludicrous idea that a third-party candidate can win a national election? Looking on the recent green party posts on their subreddits, the only thing I see even close is a thread with a headline about "candidates are electable if people vote for them", where the furthest they go in the comments is a few people talking about how big a deal it would be for the party if they got 5% nationally, and a couple other people replying to say the greens won't even get 1% this year but the election is still very important because of some nonsense about incremental gains.

It feels like we've imagined a brainwashing machine that does not exist in reality, rather than admit to the existence of protest votes. Condemning protest votes means condemning protest nonvotes equally, and we'll never have sufficient information about protest nonvoters to reasonably make a claim about how they would have voted. That would severely muddy any attempts to assign blame for election results.

If you're trying to convince these voters to act differently, the way to do that would be to address the arguments they're actually making, like the incremental gains nonsense. If you're addressing arguments they haven't been making at all, then it's worth asking whether you're trying to convince someone other than them.

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 12 points 7 hours ago

Nonvoters suck too.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 0 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Most elections I’m all for third party candidates in the hope that we’ll get one that can make a difference. We have had third parties on the national ballot and we’ve certainly had third parties influence the national debate even without getting a seat.

However the last few elections are different - Trump is so destructive to our democratic institutions, our national identity, any hope of caring for our own people or others. I still don’t see how he is a viable candidate or how any sane person will vote for him. But he is there and it’s a valid point that a third party can be a spoiler. In this case we have a party/candidate who is to the left of the Democrats, pulling enough votes to be a spoiler: your vote to be farther left could very well lead us into a nationalist tyranny, and assuming history repeats abuses of constitutional authority over the law, abuses of multiple scapegoated groups, historical levels of corruption, increased global warming, global chaos. None of us can afford this and while we appreciate your attempt to pull to the left, it could send us over the deep end to the far right

[–] christian@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 hours ago

We have seen exactly zero indications that the republicans might start nominating better candidates anytime soon. The next candidate will probably be "Trump, but less incompetent at implementing his agenda". It makes sense to want to stall as long as possible, but needing a democrat victory every single election from here out is not going to be a winning strategy longterm. If Trump winning is guaranteed global chaos, then there aren't votes we can cast that will do anything other than slightly delay that.

[–] Matombo@feddit.org 3 points 10 hours ago

It's about sending a message: "I care enoug to vote, but both of you are shit" in the hope that in the next election cycle the candidates are less shit.

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[–] RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee 27 points 17 hours ago (14 children)

People get weird close to the election.

People voting green party did so for a reason. Not everyone fits into perfectly shaped boxes for the 2 party system. Many vote 3rd party for leverage for policy change. The narrative of picking the lesser evil doesn't always apply to the narrative of the individual voter.

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