You’d think midterms would be a great time to get your name out there and run high profile candidates to win House districts led by charlatans…
ranked choice voting (or similar)
If we could have both of these, it would be American democracy—only better!
I like Approval Voting for single-winner elections and Sequential Proportional Approval Voting. Approval is way easier than RCV in every sense (RCV is complex enough to disenfranchise minorities) and it gets more accurate results because it doesn’t have spoilers (RCV actually does, they’re just different than what you’re used to).
Approval is great for third parties because their full support in the final results, which RCV doesn’t always do. Those results are important because they influence voters in the next election, helping little parties build up legitimacy even when they lose.
It’s currently in use in Fargo and St. Louis, and of course they’re very happy with it.
Yeah, as long as we can get rid of lesser-of-two-evils voting, things would get a lot better.
Right; ranked choice seems to have a lot of momentum behind it. There are a lot of other possibilities with pros and cons. I don’t think it’s worth bickering too much about what makes the best one. I do know first past the post needs to go. If ranked choice is being pushed, I’ll go with it.
Just gonna throw STAR voting into the rink for the hell of it. Any of these systems is better than FPTP and I would endorse any of them in a local push for better voting.
I used to mention AV a lot, but STAR is my preference now. Of course, any improvement to the voting system makes it easier to further improve the voting system (which is why improvements are against the interest of either of the main two parties - they will not help)
Democrats have shown a willingness to work on it. If you look at Wiki’s map of ranked choice states, the ones that fully or partially adopted it are mostly blue states. The ones that banned it are almost all red states.
That’s pleasing news. Thanks for disabusing me of some unwarranted pessimism
Let’s say one voter gives all candidates 5 stars each, except 1 who gets no stars; and another voter gives no candidate any stars, except 1 who gets 3 stars?
Couldn’t tell you the outcome unless you actually gave me the actual votes for each candidate. For personal impact, the first voters has communicated “anyone except this guy” and the second has communicated “I don’t like this guy but I hate every other option”.
STAR does have the risk of having more than two candidates win with the same rating, but the chances of that happening are astronomically low - even in town elections. You’d have to be using an insanely low number of voters for it to even be plausible.
Let’s say 101 voters each give Trump 5 stars.
Let’s say 100 voters each give RFK JR 3 stars, Biden 2 stars, and Stein 1 star.
Let’s say 100 voters each give Biden 3 stars.
301 voters
200 gave Biden stars
101 gave Trump stars
however,
Trump gets 501 stars
Biden gets 500 stars
RFK Jr gets 300 stars
Stein gets 100 stars
1401 stars, and with 501 Trump wins.
I’m not totally opposed to the idea, but it seems to have some weakness.
EDIT: just realized the math is off. 101 giving 5 stars each is 505 stars. Doesn’t change outcome, just the math’ll be slightly different.
It feels like you do not fully understand the system yet.
Yes trump and Biden win the most stars, and trump has
15 more stars.Then runoff happens. It’s now a two-person race between the two individuals with the most stars.
Each person has their vote count towards the candidate they gave more stars to, with equal ratings being treated as abstained votes.
I am taking your writing to mean that if a candidate isn’t mentioned for a group, then that group gave zero stars to that candidate. So that is now 200 voters who gave more stars to Biden than trump. Biden 200 - 101 Trump. Biden wins.
The star count only matters for the first stage in narrowing the playing field to two candidates. The actual vote then occurs in runoff. That is not a flaw. The system operated as intended, and the candidate preferred by the largest portion of society won.
505 not 501 stars: thanks for the correction.
Runoffs can be done without stars.
Runoffs would improve either form of counting.
I want to expand the House to proper proportionality and staff it by sortition.
I still think an elected chamber is important. Might be better to create a third chamber filled by sortition. Legislation needs to pass 2 out of 3 chambers of Congress to get to the president. Call it the “House of Jurors” or something. It would consist of 5,000 members divided proportionally to by state or territorial population and selected by sortition among registered voters for a term of two months or until they quit (people can quit immediately if they don’t want to serve). There is no formal debate, but members can talk to each other. No legislation can be introduced. Their only job is to show up and vote. The meeting place is a football stadium, once a week. Scantily-clad cheerleaders will be present for halftime and there will be free beer, Coca-Cola, and Costco hot dogs. Participants get $20,000 for their trouble. Accommodation provided free of charge at a hilariously large Motel 6.
All of this would probably still cost less to the taxpayers than Congressional salaries and expenses. And besides, what are corporate interests going to do, bribe five thousand people? Lol
I still think an elected chamber is important.
Senate
The composition of the Senate is very problematic and also entrenched in the constitution and requires unanimous ratification to change.
If I recall correctly, that’s how the president of the government in The Songs of Distant Earth was chosen.
Proportional Instant Runoff Voting is usually just called Single Transferable Vote (STV). But there are others, the best one being Comparison of Pairs of Outcomes by the Single Transferable Vote (CPO-STV) which is STV but implementing Condorcet’s method instead of IRV.
IIRC something happens if one manages to get 5% of the vote, which would enable them to more seriously compete the following election. So, the pitch is they aren’t trying to win this time but for the election after - if they can get 5% this time. Didn’t get 5%. Next election rolls around: rinse and repeat.
It’s a pipe dream. In 2016 we had two of the most disliked candidates running in the big two, and an uncharacteristically decent looking candidate running for the LP. That was prime time for the LP to get that coveted 5% and start making wheels turn. They got 3% and remain on square one. We will not EVER see better conditions for a 3rd party success than Trump v Hillary v Johnson. Not with fptp.
If 3rds want to ever actually get their shit together, they need to work together for reform like ranked choice. Their differences in policy don’t mean squat until then, so wake me up when that shit starts to happen. (it won’t happen)
Ross Perot was the last time a 3rd party actually made some noise. He took 18.9% of the popular vote, founded the reform party, then withered on the vine.
In following elections, the Reform party would go on to nominate Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader as Presidential candidates. It also ran Jesse Ventura for governor, and even Trump had a brief turn in there.
Not so much withering on the vine as being completely incoherent.
(If you don’t know about Pat Buchanan, since he’s been out of the limelight for a while, he was basically all the worst impulses of racist GOP voters back in the 90s. Exactly the kind of people Trump uses as his base now.)
and IIUC caused a war-mongering President, and former CIA leader, whose popularity less than 18 months before the election at one point was above 90%, to lose.
Localist parties can probably win as well. I think there are some observations that can be made from UK elections, which also use first-past-the-post.
- Local political parties can win. The Scottish National Party did well in Scotland for several years (until their poll numbers collapsed after their former leader quit and got arrested)
- It makes more sense for small parties to pour all their resources into contesting a small number of seats than to contest and lose a large number of seats. The UK Green Party spent a lot of effort to get their leader elected to Parliament in the Brighton Pavillion constituency.
- Local representation matters. When your party controls several seats on a local council or devolved assembly, they have more chances to gain visibility or even govern. US parties should spend a lot more effort on state legislative races than the presidential one.
- Vote-splitting is less of a concern when one ideology is already overwhelmingly dominant in a region. That is a good region to try to win. For example, the DC Statehood Green Party is the second-largest political party in Washington, D.C. because the DC Republican Party is tiny and terrible (polls in the single digits). That’s a good place to try to win some seats.
Not to mention, a third party did get 5%+ with Perot and the Reform Party. But I don’t think Reform even exists anymore, and if they do, they’ve done a terrible job of making themselves known.
They’ve been trying their strategy of “get our name out during presidential elections and hit 5%” for a long time now, and it’s clearly a losing strategy.
I mean tbf I’ve seen the libertarians and greens run those races too, it’s just that being a third party under fptp bites those candidates just as hard as their presidential candidates.
Also having such a hopeless position means they’re not actually accountable to their supporters, meaning refusing to actually try to build a movement doesn’t actually hurt them.
Isn’t it weird that people only pay attention to third parties every 4 years? Maybe that’s why we only have two shitty choices.
Volunteer. Get educated. Quit blaming others.
Aren’t you literally blaming others in your comment?
Third parties should be running House candidates and putting ads on airtime for them. You aren’t going to win an election if it’s based on people doing research instead of you doing heavy advertisement.
Third parties should try doing anything noteworthy to get attention. The parties and their candidates don’t deserve anything intrinsically.
There’s plenty else they could be doing… outreach in off-years, for example. Start on campuses building awareness and building the kind of word-of-mouth and grassroots supporters you really need for a campaign. Having your name on the ballot isn’t enough. Having rallies isn’t enough. You can’t ask the people to come to YOU, and the media certainly won’t give you any coverage… you have to reach out to THEM.
Third-party candidates don’t have much money. They typically don’t have corporate donors and dark money funneling in, and individual contributions simply aren’t enough.
That is true… of a traditional campaign. But we live in an era where people can get millions of devoted followers by twerking on a webcam. A savvy third party that uses the internet effectively to build followers and then spreads into the greater population through word of mouth could conceivably work. Heck, it’s not all that different from how Trump managed to build his base.
I’m not sure exactly what such a thing would look like for a third party candidate with some kind of scruples, but it shouldn’t be IMPOSSIBLE.
Third parties should be running
Housegrassroots candidates and developing a support system. That’s how the teabaggers took control. Of course they had the financial backing of wealthy conservatives.But then the argument would be “we lost this house seat because of the 3rd party”
Not when the seats are heavily garrymandered, anyway, and only one party is normally running in that district. Gerrymandering can be an opportunity.
Some third parties have a thesis that their message is inherently superior to the other parties and would win simply by the virtue of being morally right. Gerrymandered districts are the perfect opportunity for them to prove that.
Yeah but like this you can vote 3rd party every four years and then do nothing else and then you can go on Lemmy and claim you’re both anti trump and anti genocide and have the moral high ground.
slightly higher ground.
Isn’t blaming others what third party is all about?
A few might be more idealist, and likely more ideological.
State parties are focused on local elections consistently, but nobody notices.
I had to shut someone down saying the same thing as this post and it’s ridiculous that someone thought repeating this idiocy was a good idea.
chances are, they probably are, but corporate media is never going to give them any airtime so you never hear about it
In my state if a Democrat doesn’t run for a seat. Chances are a Republican is running uncontested. I leave large parts of the state ballot blank because Republicans run uncontested ON EVERY BALLOT. Even presidential years. And while I rarely vote FOR anyone. I always vote AGAINST Republicans. Well them and Rand loving economic liberals pretending to be libertarians. Which is basically the same thing.
Those are perfect races for third parties to get into
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If we had god-damn Approval Voting you could literally just vote for everyone but the evil candidate and that would actually help everyone else and hurt them. “Anybody but Dr. Evil” would be a legit PAC interest group.
Yeah, Libertarians and Republicans are so alike: both want drug legalization, massive military cuts, removal of a lot of tariffs and immigration restrictions, and having 38 year-old gay men running for President—2 peas in a pod.
If that’s so, then why would most of those “Libertarians” vote for Republicans over Democrats who better align with those goals? Every time I’ve ever asked a Libertarian when there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate running who they were going to vote for. Or read about such a situation. It’s always been the republican.
Liberals larping as libertarians say so much contradictory bullshit. Take so many actions against their own stated goals. They say they want those things. Yet they won’t take the very basic goals to achieve them against the actual people responsible for it. Wealthy business owners. They want wealthy business owners to be their rulers. The problem with government isn’t that it exists. It’s that it’s been captured by wealthy business owners. Why do we have so much military around the world? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many tariffs in place? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many restrictions on immigration in place? To protect the work Supply and low wage Workforce for wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many drugs made illegal. Because it suits the wealthy and powerful.
And yet these so-called Libertarians would do nothing against those people. The man that coined the phrase Libertarian and defined what Libertarianism is showed what needs to be done. And these so called Libertarians rejected Libertarianism and it’s creator.
If that’s so, then why would most of those “Libertarians” vote for Republicans over Democrats who better align with those goals?
They aren’t really Libertarians. They might vote GOP because they read the Libertarian Party platform and didn’t like it.
Therefore, we favor the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims, such as gambling, the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes, and consensual transactions involving sexual services.
…
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world. We oppose any form of compulsory national service.
…
We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders.
They want wealthy business owners to be their rulers.
Many want no rulers.
The problem with government isn’t that it exists. It’s that it’s been captured by wealthy business owners. Why do we have so much military around the world? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many tariffs in place? To protect the interest of wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many restrictions on immigration in place? To protect the work Supply and low wage Workforce for wealthy business owners. Why do we have so many drugs made illegal. Because it suits the wealthy and powerful.
and with less government, arguably, they’d have less of a tool to promote their interests.
Yes they aren’t Libertarians that’s what started this whole debate here. They are economic liberals. Libertarians believe in public ownership of Natural Resources etc. Economic liberals on the other hand pretending to be Libertarians reject that and many other basic parts of libertarianism. But are absolutely in line and all for the part of the “Libertarian Party”.
Pragmatically I’m anarco-communist/Libertarian. Dejacque Libertarian. Not the nutty Rothbard/Friedman Ayn Rand worshiping economic liberals. There have to be people in charge. You, strictly speaking can’t have “no rulers”. In capitalist systems especially. Someone always accumulates wealth and power. Using that to rule. Rothbard economic liberals enable those types. The only way to deter them is with the aggression principle. Under threat of death or dissolution that they must stay small, and accountable to the people they serve. Preferability enforced under the authority of groups of community councils. Or similar smaller granular governing groups that are as voluntary as possible.
There is NO functional mechanism under Rothbard economic liberalism to fight capitalist theft and collusion. Individuals can’t effectively vote with their dollar. Not when it comes to necessities. Likewise Rothbard economic liberals have NO functional mechanisms to protect freedoms. Nor can Rothbard economic liberals accurately identity freedoms. If you have ACCESS to a freedom others do not. That’s a privilege. Often made possible via the exploitation of other weaker groups. Not a freedom. For something to be a freedom, it has to be something everyone has easy access to. Not a remote possibly of access to.
Marxist Leninist call themselves Communists. They aren’t. Rothbard economic liberals call themselves Libertarians. They aren’t. To the credit of Rothbard economic liberals they pay lipservice to the problem of Republican social interference and oppression. To their damnation they refused we didn’t actually do anything about it. Or help impacted and oppressed groups. Often choosing to vote policy-wise with Republicans and their regressive policies over Progressive and even Democrats trying to give people real freedom. I may not agree with dresses and Democrats if they are generally capitalist. But at least they aren’t Rothbard economic liberals.
Use that as a point: “We’re too radical for the pro-2-party-state media.”
Bernie is okay, though. I’m sure you hear less about all US candidates in general during midterms, especially when the average congressional district is unlikely to have one running every other election.
Bernie does it the right way. Build a base of support to influence people who will then influence the politicians.
Most politicians are going to make platforms based on polling numbers and a general sense about what the voters want. Kinda how things are supposed to work in a representative democracy. The politicians are supposed to represent the people when passing laws and setting policy.
As nice as it sounds in theory to be able to check a box beside the name of a person that agrees with you already, it’s just not feasible because everyone has different ideas and different priorities. So you gotta check a box beside the person that’s most likely to be sympathetic to your ideas and priorities (and actually has a shot of actually being a representative) and then make some noise to convince them they should do something about the issues you care about.
I didn’t really catch the distinction between what Bernie does and what any other politician is doing. In both cases you check a box for who you think represents you the most. Bernie just has to try a little harder to stay on the ballot.
Bernie just has to try a little harder to stay on the ballet.
He does a good job staying on his toes.
Nice catch
On point, one might say.
Well now i’m just piste
Bernie does it by basically replacing the local democratic party in his races though
He’s an independent that acts as the 1st party
This is my point though. It should be a higher priority for running a candidate in every congressional district and running local ads for them.
The hard part is getting people to run for office, getting funding for the campaign, organizing events and groups and managing staff to accomplish the goal of getting on the ballot and even then having a chance of winning is a bit of a long shot.
And worst of all, if you’re less moderate than the adjacent party then you’re going to split the vote of that party’s constituents and lead to the opponent’s party winning.
I don’t disagree, but the hard part is how you become a serious political contender. The fact that they’re unwilling to do so speaks volumes.
Democratic socialists also have had a small but established coalition in the house and Senate for decades too.
The third party situation currently is inherently going to draw candidates that are not practically minded. Any one that might align with a third party platform but have any hint of practicality go participate with one of the two likely parties.
In some areas, it’s not even two parties, it’s just one of the two. In those areas, you’ll see both left and right candidates in the primary for the practical choice, and the other mainstream party devolves into the same state as “third parties”, with far out impractical people trying to run.
Election reform to make third party candidates viable would lead to more practical sensibilities in those third parties
See: Jill Stein, whoever the fuck the Libertarians are running now, Gary Johnson.
What’s "far out’ and “impractical” about Jill Stein’s platform?
Jill is polling a lot higher this year, but instead of taking about her platform, the media goes “Uh-oh! This could benefit Trump!”
I would say that Jill Stein’s platform is broadly impractical. It’s largely a wishlist of “things that would be cool if they were the case” generally bereft of “how it will be acheived” and ill equipped to deal with harsh realities.
The most pervasive issue is her platform asserts that it will do things that are beyond the authority of a presidential administration. Much of what she promises are the responsibility of congress, not the executive branch. She promises ranked choice voting but that’s not even the authority of the federal government, that’s the states. She even goes so far as to declare that foreign nations would basically act the way she tells them to. Meanwhile the Green Party despite fielding a presidential candidate is utterly missing in enough down ballot elections making it a guarantee that such a hypothetical presidential win would be lame duck from inauguration.
There’s also some inconsistencies. Like allowing the UN Security Council to hold Israel Accountable, but at the same time wanting to abolish the UN Security Council.
Then the flat-out bad ideas, like disbanding NATO. Her platform reads like she believes Russia would just be nice if NATO didn’t exist, that the US and NATO is the cause of the invasion of Ukraine. Maybe there was an opportunity there in the 90s if the world had helped Russia differently in the wake of the USSR collapse, but that opportunity, for now, has passed. Fairly sure if she had her wish that we’d probably see Taiwan fall to China, South Korea fall to North Korea (with Chinese and Russian help), and Russia take much of eastern Europe.
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partially to keep the Democrats from straying too much from environmental concerns.
She should focus solely on the environment and climate change then instead of “WiFi causes cancer” and promoting vaccine hesitancy. She should also develop a facts based viewpoint on nuclear energy instead of fear mongering.
We have modern reaction designs that can consume existing nuclear waste. We literally have more nuclear waste around than we would if we were doing more nuclear projects.
IIUC, renewables are becoming less costly compared to nukes than nukes.
Who’s stopping people from challenging Stein?
If only 0.1% were US Green Party members, that’s still 1/3rd a million.
Nuclear reactors are quite expensive, but they provide some benefits we can’t get from other renewables. They can be used to provide a consistent base load of power to the grid, and if we pick a good base load, we’ll minimize time periods where we have extra or insufficient energy from solar and wind. And like I said, we can use nuclear reactors to burn nuclear waste. Being able to destroy waste is a big boon.
It’s not on the general population to replace Stein. It’s on the Green Party to appeal to the general population. In that regard it may actually be best that they don’t field a presidential candidate. Hear me out. Right now you have just a small group of people who are voting on who should be the Green nominee. That person is going to be reflective of the small group, but will lack general appeal. It’ll be someone who the Greens want, but not someone who the people in general want.
Democrats and Republicans are able to do this because they’re large enough that their nominee has to be approved of by a substantial part of the population. That’s something third parties don’t have, and their candidates will be alienating. Libertarians are a good example where the small group wants to get rid of drivers licenses for instance, but the general population is absolutely against it.
Instead of asking about challenging Stein, we should be asking if any candidate chosen by the current Green party would actually be desired by the general population. And I don’t think that is currently possible with how small and niche the party is. This is why they need to focus on local and state and congressional races.
Libertarians are a good example where the small group wants to get rid of drivers licenses for instance, but the general population is absolutely against it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZITP93pqtdQ
0:22
And partially to collect more money from Putin for a third folk rock album.
Edit: For anyone else that wants in on or doubts that trainwreck here is her second album on bandcamp
Presumably one needs relatively little money for that, and why are you defaming folk rock?
and now for a Russian band that plays Brazilian-influenced music that’s acoustic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rovmW_mbaOI
3:15
Because before she wanted to be president Jill Stein was using her wealth to try and be a folk rock hero
Where does it say that?
Why does it have to be on Wikipedia to be true?
https://somebodyssister-steinselcer.bandcamp.com/album/circuits-to-the-sun-somebodys-sister
Here’s her album you can also find it and some of her covers she did on discogs.
It helps if it’s on Wikipedia.
let’s see:
okay, TIL: thank you.
It seems it lasted until the end of the 1990s.
and you seem to not like her because she’s soft on Putin—which is legitimate.
any other objections?
Actually many of them do try that, it’s just that they’ll only ever relevant enough to reach a wide audience during presidential elections when more people are tuned in, disgruntled, and actively looking for alternatives before the cycle repeats itself.
Slaps Table THANK YOU!
I would not be surprised if a lot of money was funneled into third party campaigns during general elections by PACs of the two main parties as a spoiler strategy. I would be shocked if you tracked campaign contributions to the Green party and to Jill Stein in particular, and didn’t find that most of it came from some Republican PAC. If Jill can siphon any votes from Biden, all the better for the Trump campaign.
The Democrats probably do it, too, except Republicans locked out dissent with the “Thou Shalt Not Defy Our (current) God, or we’ll destroy your local race with vengeance next chance we get” tactic, and it works. Many Conservatives may disagree with Trump, but they’re all terrified little bitches of standing up to him because they’ll get dumped on an lose their jobs if they do. So there’s fewer spoilers for Democrats to fund.
But I’d be real money that most of Stein’s financing comes from conservative PACs, and that’s why you only see her pop up out of here gopher hole once every 4 years.
There was just an article I saw today about Republicans helping Cornel West’s campaign in Arizona
I would be shocked if you tracked campaign contributions to the Green party and to Jill Stein in particular, and didn’t find that most of it came from some Republican PAC.
A lot of Russian money, too.
Maybe. I’m not that suspicious, and I think even Jill would balk at that if she knew.
I don’t believe she’s intentionally trying to be a spoiler, or is immoral. I do think she must be fantastically naïve if she thinks she’s doing anything other than helping Trump.
I mean the woman who supposedly paid her own way to go to a celebration of a Russian propaganda news station gala, to promote “peace” where she got to meet Putin and afterwards bragged/complained about how she only gets air time over there?
OK. Wow, I didn’t know. I don’t really track her.
That’s unfortunate; I guess there aren’t really any strong moral leaders, after all.
Generally speaking, there’s very few- if any- moral people that can stay successful in politics. Bernie. maybe AOC. But I wouldn’t be shocked to find they have a few skeletons, too.
Everyone has skeletons. Expecting people to be saints is unreasonable. I just think there are particular sins we don’t need in our leaders.
Drug use? Fine; whatever. Sexual picadillos? As long as it isn’t little kids, I don’t care. Cheating on their spouse? I don’t care. That’s between them and their spouse. I really don’t give a shit that Trump was using prostitutes; I do care that the hypocrite Christians are looking the other way on that one. But IMO, none of this is a major influence on their ability to do their jobs.
But: taking money from foreign interests is bad. I wish we could illegalize all organized “funding”. Money in politics is a huge problem that we haven’t solved.
She dined with Russian oligarchs at an RT party, so I don’t think she’d really balk at it.
Stein and West from Biden, Oliver from Trump, and RFK Jr from both.
You can track green party campaign contributions via the federal election commission. You don’t need to incorrectly speculate. Jill Stein isn’t getting republican money; in fact she just qualified for federal matching funds from individual donors.
Are you aware of just how much money is hidden behind shell PACs? I’m speculating because I don’t have the resources to track down who’s behind who; who’s behind who on every contribution.
Individual contributions are safe, and it’s good for her that enough individual donors she qualified for matching funds. I mean, it’s a pretty low bar; $5,000 in (each of) 20 states, but, yeah, it’s good for her. It’s enough to run how many national ads, do you think? It’s nothing compared to the millions being spent by the other parties, and - you did make a good suggestion. I should go and see just where her contributions are coming from.
I’m not an investigative journalist, and my interest in this is so low even posting comments on Lemmy is taxing my patience. But I will say: better statisticians than myself have said that Ralph Nader had a significant spoiler effect on Al Gore; Ralph Nader gave the presidency to Bush. I contributed, because I was young, ignorant, and I hated Tipper Gore; and I voted for Nader.
Nader never had a chance; he didn’t come remotely close to being elected. By voting for Nader, I was helping Bush.
Bernie helped sink Hillary; his lukewarm endorsement, and the vitriolic intrangency of his base, tipped the scales. If the Bernie Bros had all voted for Hillary, history would be much different. We wouldn’t have an activist, right-wing supreme court - the single biggest damage Trump caused in his term.
As long as the US uses the Electoral College and First-Past-the-Post voting, this is the reality. Idealism will not fix it: voting for third parties won’t fix it. No third party will win even a single state, much less the election. And while I try to have patience with idealists, I don’t think the world can afford to faff about with people like Jill Stein. The world can’t afford to have younger people learn the hard lesson I did. Votes count, but only votes for major parties. Other voters may as well stay home for all the harm they’ll do.
Jill can’t siphon votes from Joe, because the votes dont belong to Joe: they belong to voters, and it is up to politicians to earn votes.
Well, by your post history, you’re merely an antagonistic troll, but: you’re wrong.
So forget about 3rd parties, let’s all endorse the Democratic candidate who will, among other things, tariff EVs—and protect the historically pro-EV Big Three (/s)—and get more Gazans murdered with costly war munitions.
Who knows, they might change within a few elections.
Yup. And in the meantime, work to support the change to government that’s needed to allow third parties a chance. Support Approval Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting, or whatever is being most successful at your local level. Lobby your representatives to eliminate the electoral college. Support NPVIC, especially if you live in a state that hasn’t yet signed on.
You said forget third parties. OK. Trump wants a 10% tariff across the board on all imports. He’s said he thinks the Israelis agent going far enough, and should exterminate the Palestinians. He’s already cost women choice over their own bodies.
So, yeah. Work for initiatives that will allow real change; and in the meantime, swallow your gorge and vote for the lesser of two evils, because that’s the only kind of vote that counts.
Yup. And in the meantime, work to support the change to government that’s needed to allow third parties a chance.
those parties that spoil votes for the Democrats—the only practical party—the one we must all support lest Trump, Dubya, or whoever, wins.
Support Approval Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting, or whatever is being most successful at your local level.
and in exchange you support Democrat policies and the war on Gazans.
Lobby your representatives to eliminate the electoral college
You’ll need a constitutional amendment for that, and the lower-population states will oppose that if the alternative to the Electoral College is merely a nation-wide popular vote.
What’s next? Get rid of the Senate?
You said forget third parties. OK. Trump wants a 10% tariff across the board on all imports.
Presumably some environmentalists dislike Biden’s 100% tariff on EVs less than Trump’s 10% on EVs—not as bad—and might like a 10% tariff on cars that run on fossil fuels. A 10% tariff on smart phones might encourage domestic manufacturing, which is in areas that’s more regulated, as well as reuse old ones.
With all this money supposedly coming in from tariffs, and offsetting income taxes, hopefully people will demand that he reduce the latter and/or or increase spending (without increasing debts).
Meanwhile, with those outside the US getting less US money—because they can’t sell as much to Americans, because of the tariffs—exports will fall as imports will.
It’s ebb and flow, Mr. Beal: a balance.
He’s said he thinks the Israelis agent going far enough, and should exterminate the Palestinians.
How worse has the GOP been on Israel compared to the Democrats?
James Baker, apparently 13th of June 1990
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADcALMO5wf4
0:45
He’s already cost women choice over their own bodies.
If Texans who were/are female and/or progressive voted Green Party instead of for Biden or Obama, their situation wouldn’t be much worse.
Though I tend to be pro-choice, I don’t think abortion is that big an issue either way.
Almost half of all Texans won’t get pregnant because they are men.
perhaps 1/4th of Texan women are sterile and/or post-menopausal.
perhaps 10% are pre-menstral.
Most of the rest take contraceptives and/or engage in non-procreative sex.
Relatively few rapes lead to pregnancy.
Abortion isn’t totally banned and it’s legal in New Mexico.
Besides, a disproportionate number of the children born who’d otherwise be aborted will be racial minorities, Hispanics, and poor whites, and half will be women, and notwithstanding many leftists’ hyperventilation, I figure a majority of these very young Texans will grow up to be Democrats.
So, yeah. Work for initiatives that will allow real change; and in the meantime, swallow your gorge and vote for the lesser of two evils, because that’s the only kind of vote that counts.
The lesser of 2 evils is still evil: vote your heart and your conscience (or someone far more close to it).
Besides, a second Trump Presidency might be what Americans need to smarten them up.
calling me names doesn’t change whether what I said is true. what I said is true. your article at no point gives ownership of the votes to anybody but the voters.
They’re not simply ‘third parties’. They are political parties organizing around every kind of issue, local or not, without any support or exposure and against the two major parties. What happens is they typically have to caucus with one of two parties anyway to not be fighting both.
Third party candidates and their voters are some of the most engaged political operatives out there.
Presidential elections are the only times the vast majority of people even look or engage in politics whatsoever. That’s actually the rare point in time every four years where there is enough visibility for any party, even the two major ones.
Is it the only point in time where they’re able to be visible, or is it the only point in time that they choose to be visible? I’m of the opinion that it’s the latter, and it’s because of a terribly flawed philosophy.
Third parties have been trying to gain visibility through presidential elections for decades, and it’s been completely unsuccessful. They’re arguably in a worse place than before, since Perot was able to get at least >5% with Reform. It speaks volumes that the third largest candidate behind Trump and Biden is RFK Jr, without any contest at all.
Let that sink in. A party that RFK Jr established at the beginning of this year is polling significantly better than the Greens, Libertarians, and anyone else. I wager the others combined aren’t even more than RFK Jr. It’s very clear that whatever they’re doing isn’t working. It doesn’t matter how engaged their supporters are if they’re pursuing an objective that has demonstrably been a failure.
I don’t think any third party has the power to choose their visibility, which is kind of my point. If they had the resources of influence (capital) to spend on media exposure they probably would.
Third parties have been trying to gain visibility through presidential elections for decades, and it’s been completely unsuccessful.
My view is most third parties are not fielding presidential candidates specifically because you’re not wrong: it is not a successful strategy to campaign for that office as a third party.
But moreso, I would refer back to what I said about how most end up as a caucus within the two major parties. In a sense third party politicians have to actively obscure any willingness they have to break from the status quo.
I wager a viable third party would absorb existing key caucuses from the existing two parties, rather than fully challenging and replacing everyone.
Third party doesn’t have to be just for the presidency. It generally is anything but that.
Can’t really disagree with anything you’ve said. I especially agree with you that third parties should be looking at other offices and not the presidency. They can affect change far better that way.
If third parties were more effective then the screaming about them “stealing votes” that are supposedly owed to the two main parties would just be louder.
Just like the two main parties are not owed votes, neither are third parties owed votes. If a Democrat has to earn my vote, then so too do third party candidates. And they’ve done an incredibly poor job of doing so.
Don’t get me wrong, you have a good point. I just find the third parties to be completely unserious and not at all focused on actually making a difference. I would prefer for them to be more effective and to actually try to earn my vote instead of just running on “I’m not the other two!”.
It’s my opinion that the FPTP system not only disadvantages third parties with game theory, but it also leads to batshit insane third parties that really aren’t serious.
When third parties start winning races, you see states and other election institutions finding new ways to exclude them.
I’m reminded of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was created to freeze out the League of Women Voters (who had been running debates since '72) by transferring governance of the debates to the heads of the RNC and DNC. This effectively cartelized the debate process.
After 1996, when Republicans blamed the third party contender Ross Perot of throwing the election to Clinton one too many times, the CPD raised the criteria for participating in debates to each candidate needing 15% support in national polling, functionally excluding all non-major parties.
But this pushed the more radical elements into the primaries, as we witnessed in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024. Long-shot candidates could find a podium on the stage with as little as 2% national support in the Dem or Republican primaries. The primaries have become a de facto third party venue, as a result. And this has created a crisis of “elect-ability” that party leaders are attempting to tame in their own way, by freezing out challengers through their own arcane procedures and rules.
It feels increasingly like we’re going back to the old Smoke Filled Room model of candidate selection.
Democracy. The most functional kind. Trust me, I’ve tried every democracy ever and this is the one that works. I’m that guy
The interesting thing is, the US has helped setup several democracies over the years. Not once did they encourage a US style system.
That’s mainly because the U.S. system is antiquated in all sorts of ways and basically everyone understands that, iirc Ruth Bader Ginsburg specifically said the constitution was outdated and that modern framers of a constitution would be much better off looking at Germany’s and South Africa’s than the United State’s for inspiration.
Also getting sued into the ground.
If this lame post from OP was accurate it would say “Isn’t it kinda weird that I only think about third parties every 4 years?”
Because they do exist during all of the other years, if you’re paying attention
Oh I think about them a lot more often, especially when I look at my midterm ballots and see the occasional third party candidate for a local race, and there’s been absolutely no campaigning nor advertising effort. Or, when I see a race that a Republican is running unopposed, and third parties have wasted a perfectly good opportunity in running a candidate there.
If third parties want to win, they cannot rely on people doing personal research beforehand. I like to do so, but I’m certainly in the minority.
That has been a big issue that led us here, that people started taking Memes at face value.
You’re spot on. There’s far more I’d like to say about third parties (and have been in the comments). Memes don’t lend themselves well to longform opinions, and most discussions need to be longform.
They’re better as a starting point for conversation instead of actual conversation.
The “get your name out there” idea is the problem.
For a third party to be successful they’d need to first build a massive grassroots movement behind it. That takes a lot of effort and may not be successful.
And what happens if you build that grassroots movement but the Democrats say “hey people seem to care a lot about this issue so lets put it on the platform.” Then what if the Dems actually deal with that issue? Well then that grassroots movement was a success! Except the leaders of the movement may not “get their name out there” as their name isn’t on a ballot that everyone sees.
Basically US third parties are mostly about giving name recognition to a few individuals (who may or may not have brain worms) so they can get on TV and have some notoriety. People voting third party feel like they’re sticking it to someone… when really the people they’re sticking it to don’t have enough votes to do much and the people they’re voting for just want to be on TV.
Pretty much the entire operating philosophy and goal of third parties is wrong.
Like you’ve said “Getting your name out there” has been a complete failure. I think it’s safe to say at this point that it doesn’t work. If Democrats or Republicans had used it as a strategy, they’d be rightfully dragged.
The “do well enough to get national funding” goal hasn’t worked either. Ross Perot got 8% with the Reform party, but no ones even heard of that party.
This is why I consider third parties to just be grifts and scams. Either that, or they’re truly stupid.
Much past very local elections, absolutely. City and maybe county elections don’t have this problem since nobody really cares. It’s an entirely different ball of wax.
The real problem is making the jump past that into “real” positions.
Is this meme format supposed to imply that water is bad for you? Because that’s what I get out of it.
The format is supposed to have water being the better option after trying the other shittier alternative, but the op butchered the usage.
