If your third party doesn’t run candidates in local or state elections, it’s not a real political party.
Might be nice if most of those third parties ran for lower offices once in a while too rather just go for the highest rung on the ladder.
You don’t see too many Greens running for state legislature… or even city council. Sure, one or two here or there, but no collective effort. The Libertarians barely have their shit together and yet they still constantly field candidates up and down the ballot.
The Green Party does run candidates in more left-leaning areas… Not that they do a whole lot better in those races, but they do try more than just POTUS
Those candidates would probably do better as independent, for all the party support they don’t get because people like jill stein blow it all on a useless presidential bid.
And let’s say, hypothetically, a miracle does happen and she wins the election. She has zero support from congress, a congress that more or less hates her. There’s not a lot she’s going to be able to do, considering.
You’re right that Stein would have very little support in Congress if she won, but that’s not in the realm of possibility, but to say that lower office runs would do better as independents misses some of the peculiarities of the American electoral system:
- Elections in the United States are longer, more burdened with minutiae and uniquely expensive compared to other democracies. Without the organizational support of a 3rd party (mostly libertarian and green parties in the US as others lack numbers and resources), candidates struggle to even get ballot access for lack of money and volunteers getting signatures and clearing regulatory steps
- Speaking of regulatory hurdles, running a presidential candidate every four years in enough states maintains ballot access for down-ticket races
So you’re right that independent runs wouldn’t have the baggage that comes with third party association, but you’re missing that there are very real benefits to that association.
Of course, if we had public campaign financing and rank choice voting, working class voters could unite and not be divided against one another… Almost like it’s that way by design 🤷♂️
What… benefits…?
how much funding has down-ballot candidates ever gotten from the green party? Go ahead. Publish the numbers.
how much campaigning does Jill or other national green leaders do for the state office candidates? (none?)
Green party candidates are basically independents who align with a certain je ne sais quoi. they build their own campaign, source their own funds, and generally have extremely limited party support. If there’s party help at all, it’s strictly at the local level, with multiple people helping each other out.
The national Green Party does extremely little to help down ballot.
I don’t know about the other parties, but to my knowledge the only third party that has “significant” support down ballot are the libertarians, and even that is… dubious. yes. Elections are way more expensive than they should be.
But again, you’re missing my point: Bernie Sanders, as an independent, has done entire orders of magnitude more good runing for senator than Jill Stein has ever accomplished. He should be the model for how to get 3rd party influence at the federal level, not someone who has yet to win any election anywhere.
Here and there, as I said. No coordinated effort.
Honestly, third parties are a hard thing to discuss considering the two biggest ones in the US are fundamentally unserious. I still keep an eye on the Working Class Party locally.
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Any third party that’s really serious should be building candidates from the ground up, running in local elections where they could win the small seats and have an influence on policies which reflect their goals. That would not only gain experience for those individuals, it would build awareness of the party itself. Those candidates could then run for nonpartisan state offices, again building awareness and acceptance as well as their experience. Nobody should just be jumping into the Presidential election from some idiotic unrelated background like real estate or reality show hosting or stealing from cancer children or bankrupting their own casino… Oops, my brain went off the rails there, good thing I’m not responsible for anything important.
This is ahistoric. Every single successful or near successful third party went straight for the presidency.
B-B-B-But Dems bad!1! (/s)
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They’re using the third party for what they were intended for, to run interference on the winning side.
But bOtH sIdEs
…what?
Booooth siiiiiiides
It just doesn’t seem like it makes any sense here
When your party supports genocide vs. When the other party supports genocide.
The time? When it counts least. The place? Abstract thought.
It most counts in the first 3.5 years…ya know, when there’s time to build enough support to do more than take away votes from the major party you’re nearest
Many Lemmy power users would say that you can’t criticize and protest an incumbent last year here, because there is an election coming up. It always counts, especially if it’s inconvenient. You might have had to cast a ballot for Biden if people didn’t speak up and demand better.
This don’t speak and fall in line rhetoric is why there is a continued rightward side. Obviously getting rid of first pass, electoral college, etc are the way to achieve real reform, but those will never be implemented without massive pressure. It happens locally, but exposure and understanding of these ideas is more impactful and reaches a larger audience when on a national stage when the whole country is watching.
(Vote Kamala, but demand better.)
Hank is grinning cause he’s hoping the people will do anything for 3.5 years. He’s then frowning because after not doing anything for 3.5 years the people talking about the duopoly and third parties chose the laziest option of voting against their interests in the only time in the last 4 years when the conclusion was actually forgone.
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This comment has some real I dont understand or acknowledge the consequences of my actions, vibes.
the consequences of my actions
Who is the president and who did you vote for last time?
Biden and Biden. Voted for Bernie in the primary, couldn’t get him to the nomination, then I put on my big boy pants and voted Biden because the alternative was Trump. It’s pretty simple.
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A vote for a third party would have resulted in either the same consequence or worse. The difference is you get to pretend to be detached from it because you didn’t directly vote for the guy. Spare me the self righteous bullshit.
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Two questions.
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Do you think that this barrage of personal attacks sways anyone to your side or solves anything at all?
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What is your alternative? Your solution? Vote 3rd party? Green? Libertarian? Vote for Trump? Don’t vote at all? Please. Share your wisdom so that we may learn! You shit on me for merely participating in an election, thereby making everything that happened after personally and wholly my fault, I guess. What would you have had me do otherwise? How the fuck do you suggest we fix things, smartass? Or are you just here to rage and attack and be completely useless?
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Genuinely curious, do you believe wrong ways to protest exist?
