Daily reminder:
Jill disappears on November 6th and reappears 3 years and 10 months later. Like clockwork.
Jill disappears on November 6th and reappears 3 years and 10 months later
Good money in it. Russian rubles too.
Do you think she started out earnest and got co-opted?
Has she been a willing accomplice since day one?To sit at a fancy gala dinner with the very definition of what the hard right salivates to be, then to declare that both parties are the same... that is something... that takes some fucking chutzpah.
Daily reminder that Jill stein running wouldn't be an issue if democrats passed comprehensive electoral reform in the states they control. But they prefer to balance this country over a burning pit of fascism over having to fairly compete for your vote.
That sounds too much like work and not enough like bitching.
Makes me wish we had some serious third parties in this country, and not two grifting perennial presidential-election also-rans
The lack of viable ones is less a result of effort on their part or desire for them among the electorate, and more to do with the nature of our voting system. Its hard to develop a viable third party when the system one is operating in mathematically guarantees that only two parties can be seriously competitive with eachother in nationally significant elections, and those parties are already established. They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into, but the only times theyve ever gotten to the presidency have been the couple times when one of the two major parties basically collapses and gets replaced with a different one.
They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into,
That's my point, though. The two biggest third parties in this country aren't competitive in local elections, because they put even less effort in local elections as the two major parties do. They make a performative shot at the presidency every four years, and that's about fucking it. The Libertarians are slightly better (god, what a sentence to gag on) on this than the Greens, but not by much.
STAR vote to make parties irrelevant except at the coalition building level!
Finally, yes! Anyone who wants to vote for a third party should instead spend their time and effort fighting for a different voting system (ranked choice, star, etc) that could mathematically allow a third party to actually succeed.
STAR is good for the existence of ideas but not for actually getting third party candidates elected. It stands for Score Then Automatic Run off. The top two candidates advance to the Automatic Run off. That's just the FPTP with a dressing that makes third party voters feel better.
RCP actually empowers third party voters, is easy to understand, and is already being adopted.
The Green Party was never to be taken seriously by anyone that knows better. It’s always been a spoiler party. This is evident in the fact that seemingly none of the Green Party candidates do jack shit three years out of every four. And when the election cycle comes. They just projectile-shit left and right depending on who’s paying.
Not to mention the significant Russian ties for the Green Party and the clear spoiler effect.
Not to be taken seriously as having a chance to win is different than representing the views of a sub-group of Americans accurately.
We see plenty of sports teams lose year after year and don't ask why people are still fans, do we? Their values haven't changed just because their side loses, they still believe that's the right team to back.
While third party votes wont make a third party candidate win the presidency, it absolutely has an effect on public opinion and discussion, evidenced by how many of these stories are coming out each day bashing third party voters.
It seems absurd to me that democrats think third party voters will respond to attacks on their character, when the reason they wont vote democrat is because of the character democrats display.
As a firm believer in the need for a strong labor party to struggle for the rights of working people as an absolute bare minimum to advancing the struggle for human rights, individual freedom and working class power (while it isn't by default a guarantee for any of those things as it would require the participation of growing masses to even begin to take these problems on,) this party doesn't exist in this election. Principles don't count for shit, only power matters. Before engaging in any safe state strategies, better make sure your math is impeccable since the Republicans can lose the popular vote and still win the election. We can build power for the future, but keep Trump out for now.
If the democrats lose because of people voting for the party that best represents them, then the democrats should maybe consider representing all groups of people in good faith.
Blaming the third party voters is a good way to shame them into agreeing with you in some cases, but in others it has the opposite effect.
I'm not trying to shame anyone for their vote and I cant blame anyone for not feeling represented by the Democrats. If the Greens are actually the party that represents you, go wild. But I doubt it. But voting for Democrats is unlikely to be voting for your interests either.
Everyone has different priorities, that's the nature of political difference. But if we are going to be strictly rational, then its important not to vote against our interests either. This isn't an appeal for lesser evilism, this is an appeal to do what we need to do in November to protect our communities and neighbors from becoming victims of even more state violence than they are under Democrats. But leading up to that day, and on every other day after we build for power. Democratic, organized, working class, educational party work that empowers instead of alienates. Some people have already begun this work but more people need to get involved, and not out of moral imperative, but out of hope and proof that a new way is possible and inevitable if we can actually create such a party.
But the fact is it hasn't been built, we have become comfortable in our exploitation and alienation, and frankly political confusion. A Trump presidency is too dangerous, to deny that he and his creepy cadre fully intend to deliver mass suffering on millions is misguided; and to accept it but do nothing to prevent it is egotistical. If you want to live by your principles we have to create the orgs that will make it possible, we have to shake the system to its foundations, and not just when there is a genocide or a murder of an unarmed black man by cops; but every day. so that when it's time to take to the streets we can show out in greater numbers and organization than ever before, and really scare the ruling class, not to gain concessions but to make it clear that their days are numbered as a class.
This can't be achieved with voting by any possible measure. There is no way to vote that will begin to achieve this. All we can do is slow the bleeding a little longer to create the conditions where we can actually do this work together. So vote against the petty tyrant, vote for the party that we would prefer to resist; that still gives at least lip service to democracy rather than abolishing it in every way they can. And understand that the work hasn't even begun to ensure our future.
Both agree on the point and the proper meme format
I'd have a lot more respect if there was a third party candidate running for my district's house seat.
That would mean they're actually trying to build election infrastructure.
Running for office costs lots of money and time. There are seats that go entirely uncontested, because the incumbent is too popular to challenge. I would love to see a 50-state Green strategy, too. I just don't know who the 500+ candidates are supposed to be.
That would mean they’re actually trying to build election infrastructure.
I'm not sure where this "Greens never try to build anything" theory of politics came from. But if you think partisanship is savage at the national level, wait till you try and run as a Green candidate for municipal office. Talking about bike lanes in the wrong kind of county gets a certain kind of person shooting mad.
City elections are a mess on a good day, and a lot of it really boils down to which person the Mega-Church, the Millionaires, and the Morning Zoo Crew decide to endorse.
Oh I don't mean they need to contest every seat that's an unrealistic standard. But they certainly aren't going to be a real choice until they have election infrastructure in every state. So we're looking at about 100 elections of varying offices. And yeah, that takes time to build. Showing up in the last 6 months of the presidential campaign every 4 years is not how you get elected. AOC and others have shown that mainstream democrats are vulnerable in some of those seats that aren't usually contested. And yeah you're going to get gerrymandered out of seats a few times until you have a large enough group in the state legislature.
Saying it's too much work to expect for a third party is just ridiculous. Nobody is going to just hand you a victory on the national stage.
Local government is fucking awful. Think of an HOA and then make them accountable to the whiniest assholes in town. Just watch any footage of local meetings on YouTube to see what I mean.
I like the sentiment and suggest taking it a step further.
If they aren't starting at the local level then they aren't serious about the national level regardless of when they start discussing the next election.
The far-left people actively saying "Don't vote for Dem" making an easier win for Trump are probably the most stupid people of the bunch.
Revolution is not happening anytime soon, meanwhile let's do something with what we have.
Arguably Revolution would be closer with Trump in office…
Not much of an argument to vote for trump but unfortunately probably true.
Bet non of those people vote in local elections.
They’re all like, the same, man!
Or, running down ballot candidates to actually affect genuine policy change. But no, just run for president to make a small amount of noise and rake in that moron money.
What if I told you that 'building a foundation for the party' wasn't the true intention, but actually to sow discord and chaos in a hope to weaken a perceived "enemy"?
Nah buddy, we always have been and always will advocate for abolition of this idiotic bipartisanship.
You just happen to notice it only when you are begging us to vote for these genocidal neoliberal freaks.
The "election cycle"
The long election cycle exists to purposefully reinforce the bipartisan duopoly by forcing candidates to campaign for 6+ months which is way too expensive for anyone that isn't funded by billionaires. "Campaigning" shouldn't take multiple months we all have tv and phones it doesn't take long to tell us what you stand for and for us to make up our minds about that. Other countries don't have this ridiculously long election cycle
Democrats brining up abortion and housing prices. Republicans lowering gas prices. It's that time of the year.
That's my secret, I'm always talking about replacing First-past-the-post voting with Ranked Choice voting.
Nah, you were all yelling at people talking about it at the beginning, too.
I mean, rig is right in the name...
People talk about it all the time. Ron Paul was a household name. People we're talking about RFK JR a year ago. People were talking about 3rd parties due to Biden's stance on Palestine. People were talking about it after that first debate. All that's fine, but it only makes the two main parties sweat within 30 days of election. That's when all the "throwing your vote away" rhetoric ramps up.
Rather than doing better, working harder, or standing on better policy to turn out the 35% of people who don't vote, it's easier to vilify 1% of the people who do. That's a problem.
I wouldn't worry about it. I'm told that 3rd party voters are too small a bloc to bother trying to earn their votes.
As I understand, it is true that non-voters are already counted out in statistical predictions, so in essence- yes. 3rd party voters while potentially helpful, are irrelevant to the actual numbers counted towards elections.
Please tell that to the people posting 100 memes a day about 3rd parties wrecking the election.
3rd party voters are too small a bloc to carry a candidate, and pandering to that bloc at the expense of alienating moderates is strategically stupid.
It's like you're building the tallest tower. In a tight contest, every block helps, and a small block might be the difference between a success and failure if the competition is close enough. But trading a big block to get a smaller block is just plain dumb. There's no reason to "earn" something that's mutually exclusive with a more valuable something you already have.
The bourgeoisie politicians will be materially fine win or lose, it's the prole voters who will materially suffer due to their "strategic" 3rd party vote. It stands no chance of winning, and there's no mechanism to associate it with specific complaints. 3rd party voting isn't even effective at the intended goal, it's just a bad play.
But hey, go ahead. FA, FO.
Nah dawg. Check my post history (don't actually), I've been advocating (and been getting heavily downvoted) for supporting third party candidates for years
This is not a post about supporting third parties, which is still pointless anyway. This is a post about third parties themselves doing nothing in non-election years. If you aren't a third party candidate this post isn't about you.
It is about them, just not in a positive way.
BTW, for some reason I have them tagged as "Tankie Dumpo", no idea why.
Third parties in the presidential campaign only allow people to vote in a non tactical way. If they actually want to do anything they should start on square one which is to get a single candidate into congress.
The strategy for presidential campaigns should always be to run, get the message across, watch polling, withdraw, endorse until they are big enough. When big enough then open up coalition talks and affect policy by promoting voter reform and couple of key policies.
Doing just the presidency is good for publicity but incredibly inadequate.
And you are no closer to accomplishing your goals....
There is a reason socialists in the US vote for the democratic party: we have influence in participation and have been granted concessions.
Can't, Democrats practice party suppression.
Eh, First Past the Post is party suppression, tbh. When the math pushes us towards two parties, a third party is always at the cost of some other party that is nominally "on the same side".
How dare one political party oppose another political party! It completely flies in the face of what an election is supposed to be about. /s
Blocking ballot access is anti Democratic.
Well it looks like this one’s as good as any:
I’m voting party for socialism and liberation and you can too!
They’re running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.
Psl is active outside of presidential elections, active outside of elections in general and is expanding!
In our electoral system, a vote for a third-party is a waste, and any resources dumped into them is a bigger waste.
A socialist is going to prefer Harris over Trump, but by voting a third party instead of Democrat they're effectively supporting Trump. When the election comes down to the wire, they'll be the ones responsible for a second Trump term.
This has already happened. People voting for the Green party over Al Gore are the reason we got 8 years of Bush.
I don't mind the odd asshole who refuses to play ball, so far up their own ass they think they're so special and that the spoiler effect doesn't apply to their vote.
If that is, they're silent about it.
The second they start advocating for others to join them in their stupidity, they go from a harmless idiot to an active threat to democracy, exactly as bad as the MAGAt they likely are.
Maybe you can't speak for what socialists prefer. It's really odd to say it's third party voters' fault your preferred candidate didn't win rather than your candidates fault they did not attract enough voters.
If everyone left of the Overton window promise to vote for the Democrats regardless of what policies the Democrats propose, what prevents the Democrats from moving to the right?
My vote isn’t a waste. It is counted like any other.
My vote for psl isn’t support for trump. It doesn’t count towards trumps total. Would you say the people unwilling to vote democrat are more responsible for the events of a trump term than the people who didn’t vote at all? Than the democrat party for running a bad campaign? Than the administrative regime that puts its plans into action?
You are mistaken about bush v gore. The Supreme Court installed bush and the Florida recount wouldn’t have changed the result because it wasn’t the whole state recount needed to actually flip the electoral college. Gore won Florida but the recount wasn’t in enough precincts to show that. I have no love for the greens, but they’re not why we got bush.
This presidential election is not the time to be pushing the PSL party. Even if they were much more popular than they are now, they aren't on enough states ballots to get to 270 even if they won every state they're in.
Focus on getting PSL candidates into house and Senate seats and making them more mainstream, not taking votes away from Democrats when the alternative is still Trump.
If winning the presidential election was all that mattered you’d have a good point.
My vote for psl doesn’t take a vote away from democrats because I would not vote for the democrats.
Oh yeah, you're the guys throwing nails on the road outside my wife's school once a month. Hard pass.
.worlders will really upvote anything as long as it's shitting on people they don't like. Exact same behavior as conservatives freaking out over that litter box story or any other made up bullshit.
May I see the school and nails?
E: I have looked and cannot find anything on news sites or social media that references this. If you have a way for me to learn about my chosen party sabotaging a road in front of a school please provide it.
I support third parties but I'd not vote for them because then the vote doesn't count. Voting in local elections is another story though and especially in safe state elections. Third parties should force parties to the negotiating table for running as a coalition when they have enough support.
Just because youre too lazy to pay attention to third parties on non election years does not mean theyre not working.
False equivalency. This is, in fact, an election year. And pushing a presidential spoiler hack backed by Russia isn't a great look anyway.
Oh, they're working, all right — but for who?
The American working class, besides PSL, they the only ones doing so politically.
If you give up and vote for Democrats or Republican's: -you are voting for putting people in prison for marijuana. -You are voting for a party that will pretend to care only to watch key legislation die because 2 senators said "no", despite being from the party that claimed to want the change. -You vote for 2 more years of a locked government. There is no solution to the problems the 2 parties have created by voting for either of them. Nothing ever gets permanently better under either Democrat or Republican. They are the problem. -Don't use Geordi to support your ruling class. Geordi comes from a world that got rid of boomer parties and they run the freaking galaxy.
Your frustration with the system is valid, but you're missing the point. The time to argue about the rules of the game is not in the middle of the game. Between rounds the rules should absolutely be examined, changed, and balanced for the better, but once the game has begun you can only play within what has already been established.
To be fair, Kamala is our third Presidential candidate this year. 😂
you are voting for putting people in prison for marijuana.
Harris has made Cannabis legalization a campaign promise.
You are voting for a party that will pretend to care only to watch key legislation die because 2 senators said “no”, despite being from the party that claimed to want the change.
You are literally complaining about democracy here. If you want more "yes" votes, elect more Democrats.
You vote for 2 more years of a locked government. There is no solution to the problems the 2 parties have created by voting for either of them. Nothing ever gets permanently better under either Democrat or Republican. They are the problem.
Democrats bring progress, and Republicans bring regression. I don't see how not voting is a solution to this problem. If you want progress, vote for the people who bring it.
Don’t use Geordi to support your ruling class. Geordi comes from a world that got rid of boomer parties and they run the freaking galaxy.
Star Trek isn't real.
You are literally complaining about democracy here. If you want more "yes" votes, elect more Democrats.
The last 20 years prove otherwise. Not only could they not pass Bidens' BBB agenda with both houses in 2021, but they couldn't pass universal healthcare or codify Roe with a super-majority in 2009. The only major legislative achievement of the Democrats since the 90s was passing a Republican-designed healthcare plan. That's not democracy, it's disfunction.
Democrats bring progress, and Republicans bring regression.
LMAO, no. The social safety net is a fraction of the size it was 40 years ago, wealth inequality is at record highs, and housing is unaffordable for half of Americans. That's not just from Democrats failure to bring change either; Bill Clinton did as much to gut welfare and deregulate Wallstreet as any Republican. At their best, the Democrats slow the rate of regression, and even that is far from a given.
If you can't see daylight between the parties, and hold that they are identical rather than one being markedly less awful than the other (note: less awful, they still have are awful in their way), then you are as annoying as the people who were screaming back in 2021 that anyone who wasn't voting Biden in 2024 is a monster (please, tell me again how criticizing Biden is the worst thing I can do to keep Trump out of office). Y'all are catastrophizing so hard that you've forgotten how to build political power, and are relying on big orgs to do it for you.
No, no, no! It's not the systemic oppression of the poor and PoCs that's the issue. Or that basic civil rights can be voted and legislated away by a fascist minority. It's because a handful of people don't personify the system's problems into Trump's facade.
