this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Third party? More like ten or twelve! I was gobsmacked when I saw how many presidential candidates were on my ballot who I haven't heard of.

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Hardest job in the world?

Given how big a shitshow the US is, it feels like it's a much easier job than most leaders of state. I'd go as far as to say that if your platform isn't one of complete reform (it never is) it's probably one of the easiest jobs.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

The US being a shit-show is exactly why this job is so hard. You're constantly having to deal with political crap from Congress or the Supreme Court, state governors suing your administration whenever it does something they don't like, opposition pundits calling for your impeachment, and that's not even mentioning America's foreign affairs. There's a reason people call the president of the United States the "leader of the free world".

The US has a geopolitical position to defend and it's a never ending queue of foreign leaders clogging up your phone line and calendar book either threatening you or grovelling to you. And then there is the unique military position of being the commander-in-chief of the most powerful army in the history of mankind. So the president also has to attend military briefings, decide how to maintain and achieve the USA's foreign policy objectives using that army, whether to intervene in foreign wars, and so on. The US just has their fingers in so many goddamn pies that the job of president is unbelievably stressful. Yes, you're the most powerful man (or hopefully next year, woman) in the world, but with that immense power comes a humongous amount of responsibility. You could change the course of human history by merely scrawling some words on a piece of paper. You have the power to fuck up millions of people's days across the world with a stroke of a pen or by shouting some words down a phone.

You have to contrast this role with the leader of a country that is comparatively geopolitically irrelevant—their foreign policy is probably limited to dealing with the regional counterparts and/or the leaders of the USA, China, or Russia. The President of the United States has to deal with every country in the world because if there's one lesson we Americans will never learn, it's to mind our own goddamn business.

Just look at Obama—the man turned from a young energetic candidate to a ready-to-retire late middle-aged man after just eight years in office. Meanwhile, the prime minister of a country like Singapore governed two decades and is still in good condition to continue a career in politics.

[–] TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 18 hours ago

She has a rich list of accomplishments! Like being a Russian asset

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She's also a Russian asset and a vaccine denier.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I hadn't heard the vaccine thing? What did she say?

[–] YeetPics@mander.xyz 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

There should be a third empty block detailing her campaign before September 2024, because that shit was non-existent.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world -1 points 11 hours ago

Not true! Stein had a profound influence on the 2016 election, when she got more votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin than Trump's margin over Clinton in those states. That doesn't necessarily mean her voters would have voted for Clinton, but getting Clinton voters was definitely her job.

[–] GeneralInterest@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If the US had a single transferable vote system then you could comfortably vote for a third party, if you wanted to, without helping out the opponent you dislike the most.

You just rank the candidates, so you could rank Jill Stein as 1 if you want, then Harris as 2, and Trump below that. So then if Stein has fewer votes than Harris and Trump each have (likely) then her votes would transfer to whoever her voters ranked 2nd.

Under this system, a third party candidate is more likely to win (maybe you don't like Jill Stein, but conceivably a third party could produce a good candidate). The ballot under this system looks like this:

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 points 19 hours ago

Australia had this, our parliament is full of complete assholes. The issue of candidates won't be fixed by preferential voting. We're the assholes.

On the plus side Stein is a miles better candidate then Trump and yet his polualty is ludicrious. You also can't make any changes if you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

People at e bizzare, can't vite fkwr Stein bevoase of this and that but a tozic mile long laundry list of shit from other caduaudates is excused.

Hardest job in the workd is laughable, go pick strawberries in baking heat for a week, that's a hard.job.

[–] xenoclast@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The ballot example is bad, but I definitely think this is an improvement on the current system.

As with every system; someone will eventually find flaws and then it'll need updated. Which is how democratic countries should work.

If someone tells you the system is good enough already, you can guarantee they benefit from some inequality.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We've already found the flaws in RCV and STV.

Ranked Choice has some serious flaws.

The first and strangest is the monotonicity criterion.

Ranked Choice is the only system that fails it. What it means is that you can actually improve a candidate's chance of winning by lowering their ranking on your ballot.

Oh yeah, it also still has the spoiler effect, where a third party can fuck over an election. It's just slightly harder to achieve. But the mechanism that forces two parties remains.

It's also hard to count and thus more susceptible to malicious actors.

Some of us have been screaming about these flaws for years.

There are better options. Approval is one. It's dead simple. The ballot instructions are as such. Do you approve of the candidate, mark yes or no next to any, all or none of the candidates listed.

Candidates with the highest approval win.

Approval is immune to the Spoiler effect. It would be a direct improvement vs anything being done in the world today.

And it's still not the best system out there.

That's likely to be STAR.

Immune to the Spoiler effect and also protected vs clone candidates and such, while allowing the voter to show clear preferences.

It also is constructed in such a way that it gets around some of those "one person one vote" laws put in place by the anti-voting reform people.

[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Approval voting absolutely sucks. Not for any mathematical reason, it may very well give us the best results mathematically, but for psychological reasons. If you give approval to both the safe (popular) candidate and your preferred one, then you won't feel you have expressed your preference once the popular candidate wins. If you only approve your preferred candidate and an opposing (very undesirable) candidate wins, you again regret not voting tactically. In either case, you justifiably have no confidence in the results.

Also, as a candidate, how do you get people to not mark other candidates in addition to you? The answer is you don't run on your own positions but attacking opponents. Not very healthy for democracy.

I need to think more on STAR.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

https://www.starvoting.org/

Gives a much better breakdown than I could.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Arizona Prop 140 is trying to implement this exact system. I hope it passes.

[–] ThomasLadder_69@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

And Colorado proposition 131

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[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Can we just say that, going forward, if you're over 70, we don't want you in ANY high pressure leadership role.

Your career is over. Shuffle the fuck off.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 65 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Qualifications considered by those funding her campaign:

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[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Being President of the US is absolutely not the hardest job in the world if clowns like Trump and Bush could do it.

[–] pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz 20 points 1 day ago

There's a difference in doing it and doing it well

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