I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
Seriously. I get feeling like you don’t have much of a choice, but not voting is just giving up. Like, you’re actively removing the little choice you have and handing democracy over to an overt fascist.
Literally
Literally, indeed. (An up vote wasn’t enough)
Third party candidates still exist and are legitimate options to vote for despite what everyone wants you to believe.
3rd party is a lost vote. Parties need to start small and build. Everyone knows this.
And how can those small third parties grow if people don’t vote for them?
Start small, at the local level. City, county, school board, or even a state representative. You build up a following starting at a smaller level because there are fewer people to have to convince to vote for you.
Got them into local positions and let them build power in the lower levels before moving up. Voting at the federal level for anyone other than the big two is a wasted vote at this time
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None of the 3rd party candidates has national support or awareness. If you start small, you build support at a local level. People see what you can do and it instills faith while bringing in donations. As more people join the party, your influence grows. A real 3rd party candidate, who isn’t super rich or funded by rich donors looking to spoil the election, has never shown up.
You know what also helps third parties? Votes.
Without votes what purpose do they have in continuing?
There are no 3rd party conservative candidates. The cult of power (GOP) makes no room for competition. 3rd party candidates only exist to split the progressive/non-fascist and are usually funded by conservative donors for that very reason. If a 3rd party candidate was funded by grassroots support and had actually gained popularity by repressing a large constituency, the votes would mean something.
The Libertarian party is a third party conservative party and they did take votes away from Trump last election
I dunno, I don’t feel like a lot of otherwise dems (or at least not more than gop) would vote for RFK. And historically I don’t think the progressive side was voting for Ross Perot (as an independent) or the libertarians who still run within the gop like Ron or Rand Paul.
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Because people smarter than me have done the research and I am merely repeating it for everyone’s benefit.
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Maybe for some local elections. But you really need heavy support, otherwise you’re dividing the vote which can lead to more harm. Some places have rank based voting now though which makes it possible to vote for 3rd parties without dividing the vote. Hopefully that becomes more common.
I get where you’re coming from. I’m definitely in favour of a ranked choice voting approach cause it does a lot more to get rid of the spoiler or dividing vote fallacy.
The entire spoiler or dividing vote hoax is based on this false assumption that the voters carry the responsibility for not voting for a “lesser evil” candidate when that burden of responsibility should instead be on the nominee for not doing enough in their power to win over votes.
With the current election, Biden is being a complete dumbass and is hemorrhaging support from Arab Americans and young people because of his refusal to stop giving weapons and aid to Israel and properly withholding those until a full and permanent ceasefire is reached. He’s also losing support from Hispanics, though the reasons there are more to do with how he hasn’t been doing enough to better the lives of working-class people.
Arab Americans and young people aren’t going to turn around and vote for Trump, or in the off chance he receives a conviction before November, whoever else the Republican nominee will be. They’re more likely to vote third-party or independent or not vote at all, and unfortunately with the latter, that’s when the burden of responsibility becomes shared.
The entire spoiler or dividing vote hoax is based on this false assumption that the voters carry the responsibility for not voting for a “lesser evil” candidate when that burden of responsibility should instead be on the nominee for not doing enough in their power to win over votes
No, that’s just plain incorrect. The spoiler vote phenomenon is an inevitable consequence of our first-past-the-post election system. Whatever you start from, this voting system trends to two parties over time. You can model this and watch it play out. It’s not a hoax. We even saw Ross Perot make a serious run at the presidency in the 90s, and he ended up with zero electoral votes, and 4 years later he did much worse and his Reform party fizzled out and nothing came of it. Because it is absolutely suboptimal in our voting system.
Ah a Trump supporter! Let me know how that works out for you!
Question? How did Trump treat Arabs last time? Did they enjoy the travel ban? The exponential increase in hate towards them in this country?
Once Trump, wins and helps Israel turn Gaza to glass, will helping him win make them feel good? Once Trump puts them in concentration camps in this country, will they be happy?
When, Trump cements his dictatorship so there is no vote in 2028, will they they be satisfied?
I don’t like Biden, but not supporting him now, is supporting a repeat of 1930s Germany…
In the realities of the US electoral system, a vote for a third party is akin to a vote for Trump. Twist and spin all you want, but that’s reality.
Anyone who argues this is either naive, or a disinformation Russian asset.
Why isnt a third party vote a vote for biden?
While technically “possible”, the likelihood of Trump supporters switching to vote 3rd party is very low at this point.
Just about everyone talking about voting third party is a progressive that would have voted for Biden. If they weren’t being duped by Russians.
Explain “duped by Russians”, and how trump voters are not being duped by Russians while unconvinced biden voters are.
They are being duped by Russians… into voting for Trump. But anyway, the question is who the third party voter would have voted for otherwise.
I’m voting for a 3rd party in the general bc my state is a staunchly blue state (every presidential election since 1972) so my vote counts more that way. If I lived in a swing state like WI, PA, GA, AZ, CO, etc, I would definitely vote Dem.
both wouldn’t be happy if you wanted actual democracy (like economic democracy for instance). both will utilize the police and alphabet agencies if they will find it necessary. PRISM was exposed under Obama. Democrats Kennedy and Johnson did not stop COINTELPRO. I’m not even convinced by reducing this to which of them will be weaker and less competent, like you realize the senile octogenarian Biden would fit the description, but that actually makes it easier to control him. Trump on the other hand is harder to control for his own trustees, but at the same time would mean way less stability. Ousting either along with the whole system that brought them into power is a must and I’m quite convinced that it will not be an easy task in either case, especially if you consider that the police force is always a fertile ground for all of the most disgusting trash of the ruling class, like homophobia, racism or hatred towards the poor. Democrats can promise defending the police but will they? Or wouldn’t that be shooting themselves not in one foot, but both?
And lastly, speaking of another Trumpist coup. The situation in the US is not yet comparable with e.g. Spain in the 30s. But back to Biden’s incompetency, y’all should study how the Azaña’s government absolutely botched the coup in July 1936. Then the lack of sufficient cynicism towards the government with “anarchists” taking ministerial positions and disarming the workers was what largely contributed to the Francoist triumph. With no illusions towards the government, there would be no mechanism to blunt the militant social tensions to come but force. And if you are afraid to actually fight for your ideas, you’re already unfree.
100% agree with this. All of it.
I’m deeply dissatisfied with Biden. I’m angry with him for not pressuring Israel, and I was already angry at him even before that. And I will likely end up voting against him in the primary because of it. But realistically:
(1) He will be the Democratic nominee for President
(2) He is an infinitely better choice than the fascist who already attempted a coup once
(3) Either he or Trump will be the next president
There really is only one way to go in the general. Especially if you’re here on Blahaj, which means you’re either LGBTQ+ or at least friendly to us.
Americans: do what you want in the primaries. Vote for Biden in the general, because he will be the nominee. I am not stoked about that, but that’s the choice our system gives us.
Non-Americans: please, please do a bit of research on how weird and fucked up and fractious our electoral system is before going off on someone for voting “undecided” in the primaries, which is how I voted myself. Compared to the nationally-organized stuff you guys seem to mostly rely on, ours could charitably be described as “intentionally byzantine”.
it’s almost like the US is running a software written in the 1700s and that stopped receiving regular updates around the 1960s
That’s… actually not a bad way to describe it.
Also note that we stopped updating our BIOS in 1929, which is the direct cause of this.
The worst part is that your country isn’t even as cool as ancient Byzantium…
i approve this message 🥰
Doing anything other than voting for Biden is essentially a vote for Trump.
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This is such a garbage fucking take. A vote for Biden is a vote to delay fascism for 4 years, which we can use to fight it more effectively. You vote to buy time, and you use that time to fight. There’s not much point in voting if we don’t fight, but if you don’t vote fighting will get a lot harder and things will get worse. Go read a book and touch some grass.
Not if you vote democrats though. 2016 should have been a wakeup call, but wasn’t to the party elites. Then 2020 should have been a wake up call but wasn’t. Now it is 2024 and they are still not waking up.
As long as they are not punished vor being neoliberal far right economists with an imperial war hawk approach to foreign policy nothing will change.
Everyone should vote for a third party imo. If the Dems suddenly need to compete with an actually progressive party, they would need to bring actual progressive politics. Right now they are just becoming more and more like what the republicans used to be, just with some LGBT rights, but only like if it isn’t inconvenient.
Everyone should vote for a third party imo.
How to split the party vote and hand Trump the presidency in one easy step.
Your alternative is the Dems continueing to fuck over the poor people in and outside the US and the Republicans to sucessfully blame it on the libs, but doing the same, fueling an ever far right extreme spiral.
In the end i guess voters get what they deserve for never demanding actual positive change from the party that proclaims for itself to be progressive.
I agree that the democratic party is a shit show. I hate it too. But if the goal is progress, handing Trump the presidency is wrong move.
The correct move is to begrudgingly vote Biden in and work on election reform at a local level. In no way am I suggesting sit around doing nothing and letting the status quo persist.
Ah so you want to give the country to Trump and turn it into a dictatorship, so you don’t get to vote ever again?
That’s some really “SMART” math you have!
with some LGBT rights, but only like if it isn’t inconvenient
So I intend to vote, but this is important for everyone to understand. The democrats are NOT allies. They are only supportive insofar as we are useful producers and consumers.
Look to Palestine and the Mexican border for examples of how well they’ll stand up for us when we become unuseful or unpopular.
We need a system change including the entire removal of our “dEmOcRaCy” – anyone who defends our system as any kind of equitable system is either a lying fascist or a fool – no exceptions
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You’re making a whole lot of unreasonable assumptions about me and misrepresenting my position pretty throughly. Read a book and touch some grass.
Hello from Europe. Please inform yourself about Project 2025 if you haven’t. If you already did and insist on your position to vote 3rd party and still don’t get that you won’t have fair elections in your lifetime anymore when orange cheato & the heritage foundation come into power I can’t really feel sorry for you. I’m sorry for anybody who’ll get dragged with you into a christo-fascist handmaids tale nation, though.
Did you actually think before posting this?
“Not eating pie this weekend is eating pie next weekend!”
“Might as well rear end someone. Not doing it now means you’re going to do it later.”
“Why lose weight? Not dying earlier means you’re just going to die later.”
Many people in Poland half a year ago felt similarly about ousting the ruling national conservatives as well during the last election with historically high turnout. 6 months in and the new government proved to be just as much of a reactionary enemy of the people as that of PiS. They almost fired at the protesting farmers recently
Nothing has changed in terms of abortion laws either, which still remain one of the most draconic in Europe. Recently a young Belarusian woman was murdered in downtown Warsaw in broad daylight.The only response of the “progressive” government? MORE FUNDING TO THE COPS, just roughly a year after another woman was severely traumatized and humiliated by the police just because she sought medical attention after taking an abortion pill. The so-called “lefts” don’t even have enough respect for the female/AFAB voters to leave the government – why would they, after all they WILL employ the media to do this sort of fearmongering in 4 years to save their comfy positions and call it a day.
All this in a (de facto) multi-party system with relatively weak role of the president, so what sort of mental gymnastics must that be in the US where the Democrats were not able to do jackshit about Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and there was and is not even a major party to hold them accountable for that, only the people capable of overthrowing their broken system.
And it’s like that anywhere in the world in this rotten system – best those professional politicians screaming about fascism and creeping dictatorship can offer us is just “fascism with a human face”. Their policies fuel the openly reactionary side precisely because they are just as morally bankrupt, worthless and entrenched.
In case of the Polish parliamentary left, some of them quite likely won’t leave the government because they fear the other 2, bigger parties will seek to form one with the ultra-right Konfederacja. And if that’s the case, then it speaks volumes about the condition of reformists who more and more haven’t been able to form a government that offers anything of value to the broad working masses ever since the Soviet Union dissolved and they felt confident that now it’s time to focus mostly on identity politics and economically become more and more in line with the neolibs, because without KGB backing, the Stalinized, bureaucratic communist parties who nonetheless weren’t really a revolutionary threat lost relevance almost universally.
But then once capitalism’s honeymoon caused by the opening up of new markets in the 90s was over and Marx was once again proven right by crisis after crisis, those foolish lackeys of the ruling class so certain about the end of history didn’t see the writing on the wall and now are running like headless chickens wondering why after three decades of failing their traditional voter base they still hardly manage to stay in power just merely because some people know that the ultra-right is no alternative – and erroneously, but sometimes at least with some cynicism – assume that the reformists will take any notes and change their ways, much like hoping a narcissistic, abusive partner would change their ways – to no avail.
You gonna do better? Then go into politics. Otherwise take your pick.
They use Poland as an example of why voting is bad but ignore Tusk being one of the loudest European voices in backing Ukraine. Sounds convenient for a different major world power tp argue against that…
Bc theyre sooo totally gonna be able to get the proles to their side to overthrow their shackles instead -_____-
I’m in IMT (soon to be renamed Revolutionary Communist International) :)
And don’t act like voting is a blood oath. You’re not pledging undying loyalty to a candidate - you’re saying you’d prefer them over the other plausible options. Nobody gives a shit if they’re your special favorite. You think we love these people? No. They’re just the best we could do, arguing with thousands of other assholes.
If that’s “the lesser evil,” sure, why the fuck would you want more evil? It’s not like staying home means nobody gets to be president.
Even Geralt of Rivia eventually had to admit the the path of ‘choosing none of the evils’ Just Does Not Work.
Yeah, a moral dilemma doesn’t just go away if you ignore it. An outcome will happen. You are invited to influence it. Have an opinion, dammit.
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And electing Trump would be different, somehow. The asshole who supported Israel even harder.
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bOtH SiDeS
About Trumps (or more that of his advisers) connection to Israel
“According to a LifeWay poll conducted in 2017, 80 per cent of evangelical Christians view the creation of Israel in 1948 as a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy.”
“The tenet of Christian Zionism is that God’s promise of the Holy Land to the Jews is eternal. It’s not just something in antiquity,” Ms Oldmixon said. "When we talk about the Holy Land, God’s promise of the Holy Land, we’re talking about real estate on both sides of the Jordan River. So the sense of a greater Israel and expansionism is really important to this community. Jerusalem is just central to that. It’s viewed as a historical and biblical capital.
Beyond the rebuilding of the temple, Israel is also important to evangelical eschatology because they believe it will be home to the final battle of good against evil in which God obliterates his enemies and ushers in the millennial reign of Christ."
Do you think there’ll be any considerations for the plight of the palestinians left if those absolutely bonkers sect of christo fascists will get their 1000 year reign?
Biden at least adressed his concerns about Netanyahu directly within an interview recently. That would never happen under Trump. So they’re far from being equally horrible.
If you don’t vote for biden then you too, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians under Trump. You are personally complicit in the doubling or tripling of deaths, doubled or tripled export of weapons, and the outspoken sentiment of “kill them all” that Trump (your vote) actually expressed.
But good job trying to be a right wing fascist troll and guilting people into not voting so Trump wins.
It is exactly the same as the “personal carbon footprint” BS that corporations pushed to get the attention off the fact that 100 companies that individuals have no control of create over 70% of world emissions. Guilt people into accepting even worse outcomes and conditions by blaming them for things they literally cannot control.
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Ah, so then I assume you are posting this from a government building or prison after being the head of an armed resistance? No?
Oh you are just a basement-dweller who shitposts online to feel morally superior while enjoying the luxury that you hate so much? Imagine that, a hypocrite.
Are you aware that you, personally, are spreading white supremacist ideals and doing absolutely nothing about it besides trashing the others in the working class to feel better about yourself?
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“if you falsely testify that a criminal A didn’t commit the charges against them, you’re contributing to the acquittal of his partner B”
I mean it’s true when you think about it, but at the same time you actually don’t contribute to less evil being there in the world because you’ve breached your oath. Lesser evilism in a nutshell.
And I don’t think I should have to remind y’all that while neither candidate has a good outlook on Palestine… at least one won’t end democracy in the US.
Dunno, looks like there’s more than 2 candidates to me
No there really isn’t, not the way US politics work.
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Create a pledge to vote for a leftist candidate. If it surpasses ~85 million signatures, everyone who signed it will vote for the leftist candidate. Otherwise, they will all vote for Biden, since a minimum of 85 million votes are required to guarantee an election win.
I’d sign that shit, and I bet just about every leftist around here would, too. There’s literally no downside.
It is immensely difficult to get 85 people to agree to do something—never mind 85 million—but still not impossible. You almost definitely won’t be able to get 85 million signatures, but you’re more than welcome to try. If you don’t succeed, however, I encourage you to consider the realm of possibility when filling out your ballot. Voting for a third-party candidate and voting for Mickey Mouse—or a dead guy, or Vermin Supreme, or yourself—are equally irrelevant if the third-party candidate does not stand a chance of winning.
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I wasn’t telling people not to vote. I’m voting
On the other hand, not voting or voting uncommitted in the presidential primary is completely fine. Literally no issue with that
unexpected commentary to come from a mod.
based tho. https://www.vote.org/
With some of the rhetoric I was seeing I felt like it was my responsibility to say something.
Love u bae <3
tyyyy
First of all, I will absolutely be voting in the general, for whoever has the backing of the Democrat party, whether that be Biden or someone else if something unforseen happens. However, I think it’s important to recognize a few key key matters.
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Not voting is an act of protest, but it is a largely ineffective form of protest. Protesting is the way the people voice their concerns, and deliberately not voting is in fact a way of voicing concern. However, this is an emotional, unobjective form.
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Biden, and the overall US war machine, is complicit in genocide. This fact should not be denied for the sake of an election. Simply voting third party is unobjective, this results in the outward fascists taking power, but at the same time, toeing the line results in further entrenchment of liberalism.
How can we resolve the former 2 statements? Simple. Protest loud, as much as you can, during the primaries. Force Biden’s hand.
Just as we can hold people responsible if they vote third party during the general, or not voting, we can also hold Biden accountable. This isn’t simply a matter like Single Payer Healthcare, which would take tremendous effort with the support of congress to pass, this is something in his hands.
I’ll reiterate: if your goal is to help the Palestinian people, there is only one correct path: protest as much as you can, as early as you can, until Biden caves and ceases the genocide. If you do not protest Biden now, while we still have the chance to change his course, then we risk protests lasting even longer and hurting his chances during the General, backfiring.
The Condition for Victory is a swift, loud, uncontestable wake-up call for Biden, followed by rallied support once genuine, positive change is shown to happen. Biden has already started to feel the pressure, and has begun sending some petty aid. Biden cannot risk losing the general, and we cannot risk Biden losing the general either, nor can we stand by and watch Biden support genocide.
Vote in the Primary against Biden, and vote in the General for Biden.
Not voting to protest is as effective as setting yourself on fire in a first world country.
It’s not particularly effective, but is still a form of protest. It’s important to recognize it as such, because:
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It means that there are people who are attempting to have their voice heard
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They can be steered towards better forms of getting what they want if they are shown better forms of praxis.
At the end of the day, protestors are people with goals, and if you can convince them that this goal may be met more effectively otherwise, they can be allies.
Unfortunately, lots of folks here on lemmy seem antithetical to the idea that slow or minor progress still counts as progress. Maybe it’s a communication issue inherent to this format, but the crux of the argument I see most often is “Biden did genocide, genocide is bad. Therefore, any support for Biden is support for genocide outright.”
It seems like an inability or unwillingness to recognize degrees of tragedy…it’s the worst case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m getting pretty damn nervous about the number of folks saying outright that they won’t ever vote for Biden because they don’t accept the premise that, as long as we still have FPTP elections and the electoral college, voting anyone other than the mainstream Dem candidate makes a Republican victory more likely, regardless of the candidates either party puts forward. I know that at least some of these folks are just trolls, but we’re on a razor-thin margin, and in a scenario where 100k votes across a handful of states will likely decide the contest, I worry about even a single person being talked out of participating meaningfully in the election.
It’s exasperated by the fact that, for a lot of young voters, every election they’ve been old enough to participate in has been a boring old white person vs a wannabe dictator and so they’ve started feeling like “it’s the most important election ever” is just a scare tactic to make them vote blue.
I think a key issue here is that you’re combining unlike things and trying to make coherent sense of that, rather than analyzing what is driving people to feel this way.
The first part you mentioned, is a key disagreement you have with people opposing reformism. A significant part of leftist history is the conflict between reform and revolution, whether reform is even possible at a large scale or if revolution will ever be more likely to succeed, and so forth. The people opposing reform are not saying that incremental change isn’t good, but that:
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Incremental change is simply too little, too late, in a modern late-stage Capitalist dystopia
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Because the course of politics in modern first world Capitalist counties like the US follows whatever the interests of large Capitalists are, any meaningful reform will be hindered or even reversed unless the system is overthrown in its entirety.
The second claim, that Biden doing genocide is bad and voting for Biden is voting for continued genocide, is built off of the prior point. Because voting for a right winger like Biden or a fascist like Trump will both result in more genocide, their conclusion is that voting for either is to continue genocide, though it remains implicit that if Biden stopped the genocide, they would vote for him.
I of course believe it would get worse under Trump, so as I already mentioned, I will vote for Biden. However, I also understand that protesting against Biden is the best way to change his course now, rather than later.
The final disagreement you have with these people is the idea that Biden is a “slow good” rather than a “slow evil.” You’re not talking to liberals, you’re talking to leftists, who wish to see some form of Socialism take place in America. Biden is continuing the Imperialist project of American Liberalism at the expense of Workers both inside and outside of the US, you can’t convince leftists that Biden is good, actually.
The truly best way to get leftists to vote for Biden is to get them to see what is directly more beneficial to the international Proletariat, protest voting for a third party or picking Biden and trying to use that time to organize on the ground, which is easier than under Trump. That’s the real key, not to try to convince them Biden is good but slow.
This is actually very useful framing…I’m gonna chew on this for a bit and try to untangle some of my own implicit premises.
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Never said it wasn’t a form of protest. I said it’s not effective and I’d like to add that it’s also very dumb. Like setting yourself on fire in a first world country.
That’s why I elaborated, though if you’re only going to read the first sentence then why even bother replying?
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This is objectively correct and based.
The sentiments in this thread (by large) are objectively correct and based as well. I am impressed with you, 196
o7
I’ll proceed to describe in this post the gigantic amount of political change and sweeping reforms we will achieve when we valiantly protest against the system by not voting up until we get the turnout to 10%:
Yes! Under Trump’s dictatorship there WILL sweeping changes, just not the ones you think. I mean ending democracy in this country will be a change. But you’ll sleep well (until the gestapo comes for you) thinking “you showed them!”.
Yep. We need A LOT more leftists to show up before protesting the vote is useful. As much as I hate Democrats, we’re not there yet. I’ll vote Biden, but I’ll lose sleep over voting for that disgusting ghoul. Still better than the alternative, until the alternative includes dismantling our whole entire system.
Oh, I’ll be voting.
For Claudia De La Cruz.
EDIT: People hard mad about this lmao
So basically you won’t be voting.
You will make no measurable impact on the outcome of the election. The election where one of two specific people will take power. And one of them already tried to end American democracy.
She can win if you vote for her 😘
No she fucking can’t.
Grow up.
Grow up and vote for the genocide, sweaty.
Tell me with a straight face The Idiot would do anything better, vis-a-vis Israel. Lie to me good.
Moral dilemmas don’t go away if you smug at them hard enough.
First candidate to not support genocide gets my vote.
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Yes, idiot child who thinks alternating caps is a counterargument, grow the fuck up.
I am eligible for the US presidency. I am equally likely to win. I am fucking nobody. So is your masturbatory, performative waste of a vote.
Don’t allow fascism to seize a country just so you can feel smug superiority. Asshole.
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Third party candidates might have a chance if we convince our political leaders to switch to ranked choice voting, so we’ll be able to write “I’d like her to win, but I’d still prefer Biden to Trump” on our ballots. In that case, even if the rest of the nation didn’t agree with us, we still wouldn’t have someone who calls immigrants vermin in the white house. With first past the post, nobody who doesn’t have a D or R next to their name has a ghost of a chance.
No one knows who Claudia de la Cruz even is. Unless you want to become her campaign manager, that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you managed to convince two thirds of the people who would’ve voted for Biden to vote for her instead, Trump would still win because half the nation voted for him and only a third voted for her.
She doesn’t have a chance. Grow up and don’t waste your vote. Way things are right now, you only get one.
Ranked Choice is a specific use of ranked ballots and it kind of sucks. You want Ranked Pairs.
Or just Approval Voting, where people check every name they like. Same ballots as now. Most votes wins. It is literally that simple and it matches optimal results. There is no good reason it’s not the default. What we’re doing now just plain sucks.
Okay I mean this is marginally better, at least you’re voting, but still until some sort of change happens a vote third party is a vote thrown away
I’m not suggesting voting third party or protest voting, I personally plan on voting for whoever has the Democrat party’s backing come the general. However, I do want to ask, what do you believe is a realistic plan for gaining that change?
The people that are voting third party or not voting are doing so because they believe that’s the best option for change. Even if I disagree with that, how can we show them a better path?
2000 was decided by hundreds of votes. 2020 was decided by thousands of votes. Don’t play stupid games with democracy, to risk an outright fascist doing the horrible shit he’s openly said he wants to do.
Only two candidates stand any chance of winning.
One of them tried subverting the 2020 election in at least seven distinct criminal attacks. And he’s even more of an Israel fanboy. You gain absolutely fucking nothing by pretending your no-name no-chance nobody is some kind of statement. Make statements with your mouth. Use your ballot to prevent electing a dictator.
Looked her up. What a legend! Will definitely be using her name in plave of blank “vote third party” from here out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_de_la_Cruz
Ah a Trump supporter! Let me know how that works for you once you get Trump elected!
they clearly said they are supporting de la cruz
In the UK you can spoil your ballot if you’re unhappy with the options and is a recorded vote. Perhaps there’s something like that.
It’s not a good tool if one party is likely, but not guaranteed, to win without your vote, but is much worse than the other. You should only spoil your ballot if your constituency is has a large enough majority that your vote won’t matter at all, or none of the parties are less bad than the others.
If you’re voting on the single issue of Palestine in the US presidential elections (not the primaries), then no state has a large enough majority to justify as spoiled ballots, and one party wants to support a genocide while the other wants to discourage it (even if they’re doing a crap job of it), so there is a least bad option to vote for.
It’s not a good tool if one party is likely, but not guaranteed, to win without your vote, but is much worse than the other. You should only spoil your ballot if your constituency is has a large enough majority that your vote won’t matter at all, or none of the parties are less bad than the others.
The first instance is realistically the only case in which it would really matter that you spoiled your ballot, though. In the second example of when you might spoil your vote, it wouldn’t really matter at all, precisely because they have a large enough majority.
Except we have an actual self proclaimed dictator, trying to gain power. These fucking “progressives” are helping him.
As someone with a modicum of common sense, it boggles my mind that these spoiled children think helping Trump seize power is a good idea for anyone including themselves.
I don’t understand the motivation to spoil your vote. First past the post is the shittiest voting system but the rational response is to vote tactically instead, perhaps reduce the majority of your disliked incumbent. Even if you can’t overturn a majority, MPs on smaller majorities may be less arrogant, and less likely to vote for unpopular policies. But sometimes you do overturn a majority. It will happen lots in this/next year’s election.
I don’t think any politician gives a shit about the numbers of spoiled ballots, they literally don’t look even once at those numbers.
I live in maryland so my ballot doesn’t matter much regardless for the presidential election. If Biden loses maryland he loses. And I won’t be voting for him. The worst thing missing my vote will do for him is reducing his popular vote. Since that’s mostly a talking point, good.
its funny(?) how i only see posts criticising ppl for not voting/voting third options but i dont currently see anyone actually advocating for doing that
Might depend on how you sort or what instances you have blocked. I’ve seen a few personally, although not in blahaj.zone as far as I can remember.
Not vote squad was in this very apartment😞
It depends on defederation and users banned from this instance (lemmy.blahaj.zone), instance blocks don’t have any affect on user visibility, just communities and posts to those communities.
There are multiple people advocating for it in this thread…
I stand with Israeli and Palestinian civilians, all of whom are victims of Hamas and the Netanyahu regime.
