A third party has literally no chance to win in our system, and nobody gives a single fuck about the miniscule amount of votes they do get - you’re not moving any metrics, or sending any messages, or taking any stands. All you’re doing is helping the worse option win.
So, if you truly hate Palestinians, then by all means vote Stein. If you want to see Ukraine taken over, then please vote Stein. If you want to see our country start murdering every version of queer people, then you really should vote Stein. That’s all you’re going to get for it.
Whether you like to see the truth or not, a vote for a third party is still a vote for genocide.
And abstaining a vote is… still a vote for genocide. People need to get over this desire to make believe that voting makes them complicit in something and instead realize that it’s a cold and rational duty. Vote for the best outcome possible. What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
So much of this dialogue appears to boil down to “America is a fascist country and everyone in it supports fascist policies no matter what they say or do”.
Vote Republican: You’re for genocide. Vote Dem: You’re for genocide. Third Party: Genocide. Write-In: Genocide. Abstain: Genocide. Protest Outside Your Polling Booth: Genocide.
What you do the remaining 364 days of the year will decide your complicity.
Fateful last words of Thomas Matthew Crooks
It’s just naive in my opinion. They say they care so much about Palestine, but refuse to sit down, grow up, and face our current political reality. I would love to have ranked voting, or even just a valid third party choice, but that is not going to happen in the next 3 weeks. And we are still reeling from the repercussions of the last Trump Term. They’ll continue to stack government and courts with the same backwards thinkers to make progress, if any, even harder. They’ll continue to make life harder and more dangerous for not even just minorities, but just anyone who’s not able to buy their way out of it.
But it doesn’t matter! They’re both the same! There is no way Trump could be worse. Because while Palestinians watch Israel’s interpretation of “just end it” with out a cease fire, they’ll die with the knowledge that, somewhere, in another country, a woman is bleeding out in the parking lot because some people wanted to make a point. Oh, boy, won’t that be great? /s
IMO anyone who argues to vote third party right now is a Russian troll.
Well I wouldn’t disagree with out of hand but I would want to see your research on that.
in the first 3.5 years of the question cycle
We are literally always in an election cycle this country is so fucked up
If you’re third party, it’s currently a 2 party system but your end game is ranked choice voting, so throw your vote at the non-Republican who has the highest chance. After all, they use third party candidates such as RFK to siphon votes so you can only guess how strongly they’d oppose any system that disallows them from using that to their advantage. A vote for Republicans is a vote to never ever have third party candidates have any chance in any presidential election, just a strategic tool to help Republicans win
Not sure how to tell you this, but the right wing has, does, and will target ANY Democratic (or 3rd party) candidate that poses a realistic chance of beating them in the presidential election. The right wing doesn’t want or know how to govern, they just want to control, so they attack those that are qualified to govern.
Russia and China support and amplify unserious 3rd party candidates like Stein and RFK Jr with the support of the Republicans, because without splitting the left’s votes, the Republicans would be a powerless minority
The right wing doesn’t want or know how to govern, they just want to control
Thank goodness liberals don’t have this problem.
Big broom sweeping Eric Adams, Lori Lightfoot, Kristen Sinema, and Henry Cuellar under the rug
Russia and China
American politicians would rather fight two more world wars than go to therapy.
I’ll keep saying it: This is not a Mexican standoff you can win because the Dems have an out: the center voter. If you want the Dems to stop going center, they have to win all 3 houses consistently. They’ve had all 3 for only 4 of the last 24 years.
Bernie is the political equivalent of Rambo: Alone, behind enemy lines, with no support.
He had to do guerrilla politics most of his career and has a lot to teach.
I never stopped talking about electoral reform. I refuse to stop talking about it no matter what day it is.
You know who will stop talking about the flaws of the voting system after the election? The democratic party and it’s members. Like clockwork each election. They show their hand and then throw away the cards and expect you to forget they pulled them out and slammed them on the table in the most public way possible.
If you’re complaining about third parties now, you have an obligation to work towards fixing this issue after the election. You may forget, but I won’t. I will beat this drum till the blissful end to my wage slavery existence on this dirty planet.
Then in the next election, there will be much concern over third parties yet again. This meme will be reposted without one ounce of self awareness or shame. Looking forward to that day my blue conservative “allies”.
Removed by mod
To the mods: how was my comment misinformation?
We have been arguing this [if both sides are bad] for 18 months now since most of us joined this site last June. How are these memes not spam or misinformation?
Edit: I meant June of 2023.
Removed by mod
Here goes:
PSL is running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
Here’s your chance to not be like the ops meme.
Under no circumstances should anyone with a functioning brain consider this as a good idea. It’s a sacrificed vote. A worthless ceremonial attempt to “protest” by casting a vote for someone that has a barely above zero chance to win.
It’s nothing more that pageantry and it’s irresponsible.
And there is probably no one that would in good faith, ask you vote for this person that isn’t trying to siphon votes from Harris.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE.
It’s bold of you to assume everyone who would vote 3rd party would otherwise “vote blue no matter who”. Also, not everyone lives in a swing state.
Votes aren’t sacrificed, they’re cast and counted. The count is public so you know they aren’t tossed into a pit after their hearts are carved out with an obsidian knife or burned on a stake or whatever.
I think the description of pageantry probably isn’t one to invoke when we’re staring down the barrel of three weeks of constant detailed media coverage focused on every detail.
I also think it’s pretty vile to describe voting for a party opposed to genocide as irresponsible. Irresponsible to whomst exactly?
A vote isn’t ceremonial or protest (and if it were protest it would be a lot cooler!).
I just want to take a minute to examine the protest vote rhetoric for a second. People only deploy it to imply that a vote they name protest is not valuable, not effective, immature and other pejoratives.
Why would anyone listen to the input of a person who looked at the history of the last twenty years or even the last century and not just thought “yeah, that’s immature, ineffective and worthless” but then tried to convince the people who are voting third party, overwhelmingly young people, of it?
I am literally asking anyone who would vote for either of the two major parties or a third party to consider the party for socialism and liberation in good faith. I don’t care who it siphons votes from. If a party thinks they need third party voters then they can adopt third party platforms.
I don’t care who it siphons votes from.
This obvious admission of entitlement says everything about how you have nothing to lose in this election, and therefore have no one’s best interest in mind aside from your own.
That is of course if we are to even assume that you aren’t here to support a spoiler and disrupt an election.
You’re creating a strawman of me to argue against.
It’s pretty clearly in bad faith. Why not actually respond to anything else I said instead of quoting one short sentence outside of any context and building a bunch of assumptions around it?
It’s laughable to suggest that my vote against genocide has no one’s best interest in mind but my own.
Your claim that I’m speaking from a place of privilege and entitlement also falls pretty flat when it’s the high and privileged place of entitlement that’s defined by rejecting genocide.
Why not try a different line of reasoning.
Because there is no reasoning with you. There never was, and there never will be. You all make sure of that when you refuse to argue in good faith. So to counter- I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
And based on the ratios- it seems to me that they do.
From your perspective what would constitute a good faith argument for me to make?
I’ve tried to be civil and respectful even when I’m being treated with veiled insults and direct baseless accusations even when you finally end up appealing to your viewpoints popularity.
Doesn’t this seem a little beyond parody to you?
Again, I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
Save the false civility. I’m not buying it.
Gloria La Riva, PSL’s 2020 presidential candidate, got a total of 85,623 nationally.
Do you think Claudia de la Cruz will beat that?
Does she have a path to presidency?
Harris or Trump will win and to think anyone else has a chance at this stage of the game is delusional.
She can win if you vote for her.
Really, I think you’d have a really good point if winning were all that mattered.
Election turnout is used to determine all kinds of stuff like funding, ballot presence, event eligibility, media coverage and it does a lot for public awareness.
Plenty of consultants, analysts and workers from the two major parties themselves examine third party turnout when triangulating their platforms and policies.
I don’t think the idea that only candidates who are already in a position to win the presidency should be considered is a very good tack. It’s really hard to defend, relies on some easily disproven misconceptions about the electoral system and if you succeed it just drives people who would vote away from voting at all.
Maybe try a different line of reasoning?
The time to show support for third parties was months ago. Not less than a month from an election
No one in good faith remains to support any third party. It’s mathematically and empirically known there no third party has a remote chance to ever win at this point.
You appear to me- to be here in bad faith and only in bad faith to disrupt an election.
“Support 3rd parties all you want except when it’s time to vote”
“Democracy is voting for my guy”
Oh the time to work towards the change I want to see in my country is months ago? Back then people were saying it was years ago. Years ago people were telling me the same as you, I should have been at it months ago.
I’ve been doing the same thing that whole time.
The best time to support party for socialism and liberation was months ago, the second best time is now.
I explained in my comment that you replied to how there’s so much more than winning to take into account. Surely you aren’t just gonna accuse me of bad faith actions after you ignore my ideas? That would almost be like arguing in img_megamind.jpg bad faith.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for the better of the two presidential nominees then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change?
Why wouldn’t that work?
If I cared more about supporting the democrat or republican policies than about building an alternative, yes.
Of course, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to support republican or democrat policies and don’t trust the democrats to do what they campaign on almost a decade and a half ago, so personally I would never do that.
And I’m here voicing support for a third party which has a platform wildly different than the republicans and democrats so it’s pretty clear I don’t want to support republican and democrat policies at all.
then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change? Why wouldn’t that work?
You kind of clumsily skipped over the main question here.
I promise you I didn’t.
I don’t want to support republican or democrat policies.
Voting for a candidate who is running at the head of either of those parties tickets would be supporting their policies and platforms.
So no, that wouldn’t work.
Don’t worry, I’m gonna vote party for socialism and liberation wherever I can on the ballot too and my distaste for the two major parties softens the more localized the race is, both because the outcomes at stake are unique and the candidates are less doctrinaire.
But no, I’m not gonna vote for a democrat or republican for president but then put the party for socialism and liberation in downticket.
E: wait a minute, if you really thought the down ballot races were what mattered wouldn’t you be positing that I vote democrat at the local level?
What gives? Which one matters, president or everything underneath it?
To address your edit, both the republican and democrat parties are already built.
Have been for a couple years.
But that isn’t building a party.
That’s like building a skyscraper by putting together the top floor first.
