Wilson said that he likes the idea of a multiparty democracy in theory, and would not be bothered by No Labels’ presidential ambitions in a more traditional election, but that the stakes are too high this year — even if it means depriving voters of options and making them choose between two candidates they might not be excited about.
When was this not the justification for forcing people to accept a candidate they don’t like? It’s like every four years we all forget that the last candidate was sold that way too. Obama is the only semi-exception in that his first campaign was all about hope and change but we all know how that turned out.
The funny part is that we could have taken Obama’s victory as proof that promoting progressive policies works to get a President elected but instead we decided to go back to calling that approach wishful thinking and impractical. Almost as if the goal isn’t to represent the people but rather to ensure Progressive ideas reach as few people as possible.
It’s first past the post, not the party, that is causing this issue. This is very much a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” situation. If democrats want to win elections and have their agenda accomplished, No Labels and similar groups present a real obstacle to achieving the goals of the democratic constituency due to FPTP, so you can’t exactly expect to consider them allies.
There is also the very real fact that these third parties and their candidates have never accomplished a single policy goal while consistently getting republicans elected; the only accomplishment lyndon larouche or jill kelly have is shifting the odds right.
They never have a collaborative mindset, but instead a separatist / contrarian approach to supposedly a difference of political opinion, by the very nature of their party they are not trying to work with liberals they are going their own way knowing full and well they won’t win… why?
Meanwhile Bernie worked with and endorsed the Democratic Party and successfully shifted the current administration leftward with significant legislative policy accomplishments to show for it.
They’ve been saying it every election for at least 30 years and they are freaking out because it isn’t working as well as it used to.
If Biden wants the younger peoples vote he is going to have to do more than spout rhetoric and meaningless nonsense.
Did you see this video during the 2020 election? Still rings true today. A Bernie ad
This is why we need ranked voting.
And find your state’s branch of:
Man how nice ranked choice would be, or even better a system like France’s or Germany’s.
The consecutive rounds system in France is basically a runoff election.
Ranked choice is an “instant runoff” - same outcome but you only have to fill out the ballot once.
Maybe go against the billionaires and megacorporations who you’ve allied with and turned away most of your progressive supporters?
Good.
Americans who don’t want a fascist takeover need to realize that FPTP does not give a single shit about your third-party candidate with ~1% of the vote. Sorry, it hurts but it’s true. If you fail to back Biden, you enable trump. It really is that simple. Is it healthy for our democracy? Hell no - but using the 2024 ballot box to make that statement is foolish, irresponsible, and dangerous. Sometimes the lesser of two evils is the best choice you’re going to get.
Americans who don’t want a fascist takeover
There must not be very many of them, otherwise they could simply all register Republican and take over the party to steer it in the right direction.
The machine has crushed their will. Half of America doesn’t vote. If they did, there would be no Republicans holding elected office basically anywhere.
And risk getting death threats from all the MAGAs? It would probably be a better idea just to start your own party and keep those fucks out.
Let me just climb into my political party cannon and blast off to political party land
Someone posted this link in another thread. The site has ranked choice voting among other things as ways to fix the US political system. Which at times has seemed so broken to me that I believed only a revolution could fix. The site talks about starting local and is optimistic that we could fix it democratically and over the next decade or so (I don’t remember the timeline, just that it seemed quicker and with less drastic measures than I assumed would be needed). https://represent.us/
Bonus, Jennifer Lawrence is involved and in the initial information video.
Something that did stand out was that, currently, whether a policy had 0% public support or 100% public support there was only about 30% chance of the policy/law getting passed. And that 70% of a politicians time was spent raising money to get elected.
That’s not democracy.
No it ain’t and the US has never been a great democracy, far too many people have been systemically disenfranchised from its very inception, but if you ever want the opportunity to experience democracy then Trump can’t win which means Biden is the call to make, the only third party candidate with any traction right now is RFK Jr and he’s both a batshit crazy conspiracist and an obvious spoiler candidate. The only other choice is revolution but that’s not happening in time and even if it does happen that doesn’t guarantee that what comes after will be good. So either put on your fatigues or realize the reality of the situation we’re in vs why it’s not a good system
I can’t fucking stand Biden but he’s not a fascist authoritarian that will usher in Christian nationalism to the halls of power. Trump and RFK are, fuck all three of them but one is a treatable cancer and the other two are pancreatic and late stage lung cancer
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The DNC has hired veteran Democratic operative Lis Smith, best known for her work guiding the 2020 presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, to help oversee an aggressive communications component of its strategy, which also includes opposition research and legal challenges.
Underscoring how important Democrats view the effort, it is being overseen by Mary Beth Cahill and Ramsey Reid, two veteran DNC insiders, who have already started issuing rare public statements rebuking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We’re facing an unprecedented election and we know the GOP is already working to prop up third-party candidates like Robert Kennedy Jr. to make them stalking horses for Donald Trump,” Corridoni told NBC News.
“There is some Jill Stein hangover,” Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research group, said referring to the 2016 Green Party nominee who was seen as a spoiler in places like Michigan.
The group, Citizens to Save Our Republic, is backed by a long and somewhat bipartisan list of bold-faced Washington names, including two former defense secretaries, five former senators, 14 current and former members of Congress, three former presidential candidates and several well-known Democratic and anti-Trump Republican operatives.
Wilson said that he likes the idea of a multiparty democracy in theory, and would not be bothered by No Labels’ presidential ambitions in a more traditional election, but that the stakes are too high this year — even if it means depriving voters of options and making them choose between two candidates they might not be excited about.
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