Letters to the Editor: Your 'protest vote' for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
Letters to the Editor: Your 'protest vote' for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
Don't like Kamala Harris' recent comment on guns? The solution is to support gun control, not vote for a Trump-enabling third-party spoiler.
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I mean doyee?
No one's voting 3rd party because they think they'll win, they're just throwing away a vote for Harris. Their statement is that they have no issue with another 4 years of Trump because their demands aren't being met anyway (cough genocide).
You can argue all day about the rationality and lack of utilitarianism, but it won't change anything.
If MLK were alive, he'd probably vote Democrat because he believes there is a solution in comprise over time, and keeping Republicans out is beneficial to that. (He generally favored the more progressive party).
If Malcolm X were alive, he'd probably be protesting just like the uncommitted group, but choose not to vote if his major demand wasn't met, because his reasoning would be that any promised or hypothetical solutions would not come to fruition. (The Ballot or the Bullet)
Both have valid reasoning, and it can obviously depend on the situation, but it bugs me that 50 years later people still don't understand why people choose to vote a certain way.
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection" - MLK
Change won't come overnight (at least without revolution). Like evolution, it requires constant pressure on the system. Changes that are too radical kill the organism.
A long as people think we can jump from Geoge H.W. Bush to Bernie Sanders in one election it's going to continue to fail.
Votw Harris this time. Vote for the person slightly more liberal than her next time, etc. It's a process.
That's one of my issues though, Harris is less liberal than Obama. It went in the opposite direction.
I advocated that Biden step down and allow a primary. Instead they ran with the VP because the DNC is not interested in actually bringing a more liberal or leftist candidate.
Meanwhile Trump has made Bush look good in comparison, so even if he stops running, an equal or worse candidate will simply take his place, and then we'll be faced with a similar problem.
It would take 20 years to make a grassroots movement work, but if we never start it's never gonna happen.
I'm 60. I would argue that 20 years is not a long time. Keep pushing.
Presumably because the US electorate isn't actually leftist or progressive in general and losing swing states wouldn't be balanced by extra votes in safe blue states.
But with the Democratic party, the conversation is ALWAYS "Vote us this time..." or "This election is too important!" They've been saying that for 50 years. Nah, friend. Now is the time for me to vote third party. Tired of waiting.
How is throwing your vote into a hole going to help exactly?
I'm voting for someone I believe in and who matches my values. If the duopoly has a problem with that, then they can work harder to welcome me rather than mock me for not voting for them.
So it "helps" because I'm voting for who I want to. As the system should be.
As it should be but not how it is.
But it can be that way if people stop being so scared to stray from the Duopoly.
Yeah we will just pretend the supreme Court back to being not packed with ultra conservative assholes. You know, something a socialist would give a flying fuck about
You can't get to a progressive candidate this way. A more progressive candidate is going to pull votes more from the left than the right. If you project the results at the point where the progressive candidate starts to matter they just tank the Democrat.If they take 80% of Democratic voters they just lose every state.
This user is 100% full of shit. They know what they are doing full well.
We could also achieve universal peace if everyone just threw down their weapons, and no one would go hungry if everyone would stop being greedy. Unfortunately, people aren't rational, and there's cultural/social constructs that keep these things from happening.
If we want to change them for the better, we unfortunately have to operate within the constraints we're faced with. We can change those constraints with hard work, but can't just act as if those constraints don't exist. It's the same way folks pretend that being "color blind" re: racial issues will solve things. Would be great, but sadly plenty of folks are incapable of not being racist, and historical harms mean that we can't just pretend that perception is the only problem.
This is technically true, but it's quite tough.
If extradimentional aliens from outside the multiverse came in and reprogrammed everyone who was a Dem (and only Dems) so that they suddenly switched and voted for West, we likely would have West as our next president.
The difficulty in the current system is that it basically enforces two parties. Makes people afraid to leave. Reform like RCV would make this easier, and allow for events to snowball (a 3rd party might have a good showing in an earlier RCV round as people are less afraid of having their vote wasted, and then the next election more people are willing to vote for that person, until it's enough to cause an actual win).
It's unlikely that Dems keep the Senate. But with I-WV and I-AZ retiring, if Dems take the presidency and both houses, we might have enough finally to drop the filibuster and push through real reforms... (we did in 2020 but Manchin wouldn't have gone along with it, making it 49:51 with reform losing.)
So your solution is to try harder within the current system, like many others have done for the last 50 years, but this time it will be different! If the problem is with the system, work on changing the system while achieving the best you can until the system has changed. Who you vote for in this election won't have any impact on the system. This will require a different approach. Vote for who you like, but don't fool yourself that this will make anyone with power change their stance or plan. Your actions are part of the system working as intended.
They're hoping to get you to either not vote or vote for Stein. Not one honest bone in this motherfucker's body.
Yeah, I don't know if he a hopeless idealist/useful idiot or a shill, paid or otherwise, but I think it's important to point out the futility of the stance now and then.
I refuse the Duopoly. Voting third party and proud of it.
You refuse logic.
We just got finished fighting a year long battle with the tankies on Lemmy that making the genocide in Gaza their singular issue and abstaining from voting for Kamala is like handing Trump the presidency. It should be a duh doie moment, but sadly it isn't.
Maybe Democrats need to work harder and be more welcoming.
The US isn't causing the genocide in Gaza and it will if anything be exacerbated if we bring in Trump to support Bebe
The US isn’t causing the genocide in Gaza
Peak liberal delusion.
In brief the Israelis stole the Palestinians land both historically and literally continuing to this day. The Palestinians have both historically and to this day retaliated with horrific acts of violence often against women and children. Both sides are immoral shitbags who are fighting for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Arguably at this point Biden/Harris could pull out all the stops and pull all support for Israel in hopes of influencing their decision making. This would probably cause the Democrats to lose the election bringing in the guy who wants to build condos on the rubble and the bones of all the dead Palestinians.
Both have valid reasoning
I disagree.
Based on your downvotes, looks like more people disagree with you.
But hey, don't fret, friend. I know what it's like getting downvoted every comment. Doesn't bother me. Hopefully it doesn't bother you. :)
Ok
Fucking well said. And you have my upvote for mentioning my man, Malcom X. Great post!
No one’s voting 3rd party because they think they’ll win, they’re just throwing away a vote for Harris.
Would you prefer people voting 3rd party not vote at all?
If Malcolm X were alive
Why Malcolm X’s Family Is Suing the FBI, NYPD, and CIA 58 Years After His Death
Do you seriously think X was pro-FBI? Why on earth would he support a candidate who was?
Did... did you even read what I wrote....?
My point was that he is exactly against the system and playing it by voting for a major party. His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose, regardless of whether you vote 3rd party or not at all.
My point was that he is exactly against the system and playing it by voting for a major party.
That's not true.
His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose
That's a wildly inaccurate interpretation
What does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly divided, and Black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determine who's going to sit in the White House and who's going to be in the dog house.
A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.
Straight from his speech lol.
You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.
That's very different from
His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose
He was arguing to abstain from voting without a quality candidates on the ballot. Not to court mediocre candidates by promising them your vote.