You're viewing a single thread.
3rd party voters didn't swing a single swing state. That is a demonstrable fact. It's time to stop punching down.
People will, in a single breath, tell people to exercise their right to vote in democracy and also that voting for the person/party that best represents them is wrong if it's not a Big Party.
Usually in a democracy the people are represented by parties which they align most with. In my country I can vote for one of seven, which get proportionally represented by a number of seats in parliament. The winning party rarely has more than 50% of the vote, if they do, all the losing parties will become the opposition, and if they don't they have to combine with another party to have at least 50% of the votes. This assures that the winning party or coalition still has to negotiate their position and decisions every single day. If one party would want the power the current administration in the US has they would probably need 80 or 90% of the votes.
Is it complicated? Yes. Does it make sure the people are represented? Also yes.
In the US if a state votes 51% one way, 100% of the electoral votes go to that party, causing a reality where a party could get less than a majority vote and still win. This alone is proof that the people are not fairly represented and isn't a fair democracy. In local elections you'll have a much more nuanced choice but at a federal level it's antiquated to say the least.
I will say that in a fair democracy, you should vote for your representative, in the US you have no such choice. Be it by living in one state counts as more than another, or the fact that a third party has little to no representation post election.
Just as a side note, those models are not invulnerable to manipulation. In my country it's the same, but the central government is ruling from one of the flimsiest coalition governments, with the same lack of power that goes along that dumbasses still claim they are solely responsible for. The opposition claims they 'won' because they got more votes than any other party (which should have also made it easier for them to form their coalition and they weren't able to) and now it is getting so bad and stupid (and troll factory brigaded) that people getting convinced by the rhetoric are trying to pass off the US electoral system as a success story.
It provides more representation, but it does not provide infallibility. I think we have the technology today to do considerably better than what we had several centuries back - in fact, to a large extent we could be voting ourselves on key issues instead of letting it fall back to representatives and false promises if we wanted to. The biggest problem isn't that people in a democracy aren't on equal grounds when grasping different issues and yet they can be radicalized to vote out of rhetoric more than those who would and should be more informed. I think we could have better democracies if we shifted to meritocracies, where you could vote on issues only if you certify you were more informed and the history, reality, and minutiae that govern those issues through exams. But that would also create a system that could be gamed.
Any system can be corrupt, and in democracies it's not just the political candidates but society as a whole when it becomes complacent, ignorant, yet loud and willing to break the system for those that manipulate then into doing it.
Yea, and I would never claim it's perfect, there are no perfect systems. But one of the most powerful nations being that vulnerable to manipulation is something to witness.
Yeah, that's right. You have the freedom to make bad choices and the government can't stop you. But other people can still make fun of you. People calling you dumb because of your bad decisions isn't a violation of your rights.
Voting in your best interests is dumb, and people should mock you for it. Got it.
It doesn't matter who you vote for, just go vote.
Yeah it does. Don't vote for Nazis
Corrected. Your vote doesn't count if you vote for Nazis. Don't be a literal Hitler.
In 2000 they 100% did and we're still paying for that shit.
The problem isn't that people voted for Jill Stein. The problem is not enough people voted for Jill Stein.
The left is so broken in this country that we can't even get a candidate to 5%! And yet, we're supposed to stop Trump?
You know what 5% of the electorate could do?
Ensure the GOP loses every general election and participate in primaries to move the Dems to the left.
That's how you make change in our system. Not by throwing away votes.
People have been trying to move the Dems to the left for decades, and look at what we have now.
They've been trying by bitching about the party every couple years when the primaries they don't participate in select the wrong candidates.
Not true, Gore won Florida in 2000 but it was stolen by the supreme Court in favor of Bush https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
Even with all the bullshit the Court pulled, Bush ended up winning Florida by such a razor-thin margin that it would have only taken 0.5% of Nader's Florida voters to tip the election to Gore.
Third-party voters gave the GOP the opportunity to steal the election.
This is why the left keeps losing. We couldn't unite behind Nader or Stein or any of our other candidates.
But not the near majority of conservatives. The five hundred voters are entirely to blame.
Nader got nearly 97,421 votes in Florida. After the Supreme Court stopped the count, Bush won by 537 votes.
The environmentalist voters stopped Al fucking Gore from being President.
You need to self-examine and understand the wrong headeness of this kind of thinking.
No liberal or progressive will ever win another election if they adopt this mindset.
You know what makes them win even fewer election? Allowing fucking Donald Trump to win the Presidency.
Vote dem in the general election, and change the party in the primaries. It's literally the only path leftward in our system of government. Doing anything else moves the government further right.
Allowing fucking Donald Trump to win the Presidency
And you know who did that? You know who allowed that?
Democrats allowed that. They did it by blaming third parties before any votes were cast. They did that by blaming Muslim and Arab votes who didn't want their friends and families to be bombed by US tax payers. They did that by telling voters they "had no other choice" when they clearly, clearly did.
If you are going to own this now obviously broken and defunct rhetoric it seems like you are committed to, then you own this loss.
If you can't change your approach and recognize the changes that need to be made, you are the primary thing aiding and abetting fascism in this country, because Donald Trump could not have won without Democrats and their apologists online being committed to this now obviously failed strategy.
We've had a 2-party system for over 200 years. You aren't changing that by believing super duper hard in a third option.
What you have to do is change the parties. Party direction isn't set by losing general electionsm It's set by choosing better candidates at the local level and in primary elections. Voting for a third party or choosing not to vote at all will never, ever move the country in the direction you want. It's impossible.
The GOP is cancer, and right now the Democratic party is chemotherapy. It sucks, the side effects can feel worse than the disease, but it's the best way to fight and survive.
Voting third party is going to a spirit healer. It's playing make-believe and letting the cancer spread.
You threw the election with this approach. You need to understand that.
This exact approach to rhetoric and myopic view of what is possible just handed the government over to fascism.
That was my first presidential election. Naive year 2000 me thought "Oh wow this is a huge obvious problem, and Australia already fixed it! It'll be a part of the Democratic platform by 2004."
To this day, I vote for any Democrat who supports ranked choice voting (or any clone-independent voting system).
I'm gonna love it when all your guys excuses run out and you're finally going to have to answer to yourselves.
I won't care then though. I'll probably be in a camp somewhere. but I'll be thinking of you all 😶 alot.
Rofl, victim complex much? "Punching down" like you're some repressed minority for having shitty prioritization skills. Jfc
Third party voters are in fact a repressed minority
They are the minority
And their beliefs are repressed with constant anti-third party voting sentiments
So working to change this situation, 3rd parties contested every house and senate seat. Right?
What are you asking? If third party voters want to contest all congressional seats? Or if there is a third party candidate who contested congressional seats?
No matter what you are asking, what party are you asking about? 3rd party isn't a party itself, there are no general 3rd party beliefs and actions. Are you asking about the libertarian party, the largest third party by registered voters? Or the Green Party who had Jill Stein take the most 3rd party votes this year? Or some other party?
You want change. But a president alone cannot achieve that. A president needs house and senate support.
By building a mandate in these two chambers, 3rd party's can start to drive change. But only if they contest the seats.
You're right, but voting third-party for presidency and your own states' congressmen are not mutually exclusive. You may vote third-party for both.
Even without a supporting legislative branch, a third-party president may have influence through vetoes alone. Presidential vetoes on bills have historically had high success rates to get congressional bills denied. There is also always the off-chance that something like H.R.5140 gets passed, and a lot of politically relevant seats become available for a third-party president to assign bodies into without question. Not likely, but nothing will ever even have the chance to change if you continue to vote for the primary two parties
I agree with your premises.
But without contesting house and senate seats, we'll...
This couldn't have been cornier if you'd said it's harder to come out as conservative nowadays than as gay. Do better.
Say something of substance
"i'm oppressed because of my political opinions" grow the hell up. oppression is when people target you for something about yourself you can't change. oppression because of political views is just people telling you you're an asshole and you refusing to listen
Right, because alternative candidates definitely aren't discriminated against as far as ballot access or getting into debates or...
did you even read my comment?
Nobody said oppressed. Repressed. The word is repressed, as in all beliefs that don't fall in line with the two primary parties are repressed.
are your beliefs being repressed? or are people just telling you not to waste your vote and risk a trump victory?
no self respecting leftist will shut up about how you can't vote your way out of fascism and you need to be doing more. come on. do better.
Any self-respecting leftist can see that voting is a civic duty. If you can't even vote for your interests at the ballot box, you've failed democracy.
obviously you have to vote. but you can't just vote. and if you vote third party you might as well not have voted.
Dont you know?
The people who say they dont want to support genocide but actively choose the worst of the genocide-related options are the real victims here.
Did any Trump voters actually say "genocide"? The ones I've met call it "the war".