Look, whatever you think of Jill Stein, she can only be a threat to democrats because they are vulnerable to arguments from the left. If you don’t want to be vulnerable from the left, adopt some of their popular ideas. Putin isn’t tricking Americans into being anti genocide, or into wanting universal health care.
She isn’t so much making arguments from the left, but arguments from fantasy land. She thinks wifi is bad for kids brains and that we can stop using fossil fuels AND nuclear by 2030. Most of what she says simply had no basis in reality.
The no fossil fuels by 2030 one definitely is. Mostly she is drawing both-siders who think (incorrectly) that both sides are just as bad as each other.
No, but why would you trust the word of someone who makes those arguments?
If she thinks wifi may cause cancer, that we can totally phase out fossil fuels with no loss in quality of life by 2030, that we should phase out nuclear energy, and that we should entertain vaccine skepticism… Why should I even bother to listen to an anti science quack like her?
I want the genocide to end. I want someone in power who wants it to end and has a plan to make it end. Everything Jill Stein has said suggests to me she has no idea how reality actually works, nor that she has any ideas on how to achieve her stated goals. She’s just virtue signaling.
Now, a good leader can’t do or plan everything. They aren’t going to come up with every solution. That’s what they have advisors and like-minded allies in Congress for. If Stein was elected, she would have no fellow Greens in Congress, and we have no guarantee that she’d actually pick experts as her advisors – I’d actually expect the contrary from someone who thinks Wi-Fi causes cancer. But we don’t really know because the Green Party is utterly ineffectual and just cosplays every 4 years.
You’re missing the point. Nobody has to trust her word. She doesn’t have to be right about everything, she just has to be correct on this particularly important issue. Nobody thinks Jill Stein is going to win. Nobody. So they don’t have to imagine how she would implement her platform. It is irrelevant.
The problem for the democrats is that they are so WRONG on this one thing (genocide), that a certain subset of their potential voters can’t bring themselves to vote dem. Some of those voters may be bluffing and some may not be. Dems will roll the dice and hope for the best, rather than come out against genocide (my prediction).
So how do you know that she’s actually against genocide and not just saying it to get some support? If nobody has to trust her word, then why believe her there?
What has she done? Is she organizing demonstrations to protest against Israel and in favor of a cease fire? Is she using her party apparatus to fundraise and donate 100% of proceeds to Gaza aid? Is she trying to speak with Biden, Blinken, or even Democrat congressional members who agree with her?
Or is she just lazing on Twitter and saying how awful it is while also excusing Russia’s casus belli into Ukraine?
This whole thing is symbolic of her failure, lack of seriousness, and grifting. She isn’t actually doing anything for the causes she claims are super important and her top priority. She’s just being a Twitter activist and saying she’s very concerned. Stein doesn’t do things. She says things. Her actions don’t reflect any convictions.
How many times can I tell you that you’re missing the point. None of what you said matters! When Biden or Harris can barely even pretend to be against genocide, and continue to be responsible (via their current positions of power) for arming the Israelis, that is an acute emergency. The only reason that a potential dem voter is considering voting for Stein instead, is that, #1: she’s on the ballot, and #2: she’s against the genocide.
Any of your attacks or criticisms of her are irrelevant as long as those two things are true, or until Harris makes a drastic change to her policy.
I know there are plenty of arguments to hit the dems on from the left. However, most of the attacks I’m privy to seem to be more about establishing leftist cred than actually doing something productive, and Jill Stein is one of the best examples of this.
Yes, but then being unwilling to take any concession is not. The green party could, for example, pull itself off of ballots in key states or elections when the Democrats agree to their policies.
Running a doomed to fail candidate that only weakens the likelihood of the most left candidates and pulling progressives out of the Democrat party is a bad move.
Say what your will about RFK, he’s getting political power from Trump by dropping (if Trump wins). What will the green party get? Nothing.
Dropping and endorsing after concessions is the real way for a minority party to weld power. Running no matter what is just delusion that works counter to any goal you might have.
It’s not clear to me what you mean here. Are you saying that AOC is attacking Jill Stein in order to bolster her own “leftist cred”, or that Jill Stein is chasing “leftist cred” by attacking democrats?
If it’s the second one, then I would just refer you back to my previous comment. Any attacks from Jill Stein could be easily defused by adopting a few popular planks. If you actually meant it the first way, then yeah I kind of agree!
Jill Stein attacking others on the left to establish leftist cred, just like so many other leftists we see on the net.
We have so much more in common than we have differences, and we could get a lot done if we were to band together - but instead we do the right’s job for them by dividing ourselves.
I don’t think that’s a very charitable interpretation of what is easily explained by honest political differences. People can and do work together when possible, but there are also issues too important to compromise on.
You’re painting “so many leftists we see on the net” with that same brush though. Is it so hard to believe that there are people genuinely to the left of you politically? What “actions” do you need to see from Jill Stein? She’s been running for office, giving interviews and speeches that platform issues that the dems are weak on. If nothing else she’s forcing democrats like AOC (and you, presumably) to engage with these ideas or risk political consequences. If we didn’t have 3rd party candidates to the left, there would be even less pressure on the dems to adopt leftist policies.
She could start by dropping out of the race, endorsing Kamala, and then putting every dollar she has into organizing for national ranked choice voting so that hopefully once in my life I can vote my conscience at the same time I vote pragmatically.
I sincerely doubt there is much room between where Stein is at on the issues and where AOC is at on the issues - the main difference is that AOC is not running for president and making it easier for despicable people who don’t care about anything to win.
That basic strategy is why you rarely see people shitting on Bernie. He manages to pull the conversation to the left while not fucking everything up by being a spoiler.
Kamala and Walz are more left-leaning than any dem ticket in ages. If the purpose of the Green party is to move the democrats left, then they should drop out to reward them for moving left.
Why would they stop now in that case? “More left-leaning than any dem ticket in ages” is not a very high bar. Shit, it’s so low, you can’t even slip “opposes genocide” under it!
Dems: “Wow, we moved drastically to the left and it’s still not enough to satisfy these Very Important Leftists. I guess they’re a lost cause as a voting bloc, considering that we’re already running a platform trying to get the widest possible spread between left and right voters that will only win on a handful of percentage points. Time to see if we can peel off any right-wing voters again.”
I will never be satisfied with our government even if Democrats control the whole thing. But I recognize that there’s nothing I can do to change that because this country is full of people almost entirely unlike me and I should vote for the Democrats because they’re the least worst party that can win.
In France, Left-leaning parties got together and decided which ones had the best chance in each ‘district’ of winning, and the other parties would drop out. They did this to ensure that the Le Pen led Fascist party didn’t have a chance of winning. Sure, the aftermath hasn’t been pretty, but no neo-Nazis running the country.
Here in the USA, we should be doing the same thing, except the Green Party isn’t in this to win it. They’re in it to throw bombs. They’re in it to disrupt the ‘evil Democrats’. And they have help. Jill Stein was photographed sitting down with Putin, who really benefits if we’re ruled by Fascist Republicans. Republicans have been caught propping up the campaigns of alternative Leftist parties. And even Netanyahu is hoping Jill Stein pulls enough votes from Kamala Harris so that Donald Trump wins.
As always. This is a School SGA election, we’re the 51 Nerds arguing amongst ourselves, and the 49 Jocks, including the Book Girl who is pretending to be one of us, are watching as we argue our way into handing the SGA to the Jocks, so they can cancel Book Club, Chess Club, D&D Night, and everything else we support, because we’re too busy arguing with each other to realise that the only way we beat them is by delivering at least 49 votes to Nerd Boy on Election Day.
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This poster would have you believe that your vote cannot result in you getting the worst possible outcome. Allow me to make it clear that yes, you can screw yourself and those you care about if you make the wrong choice on your vote.
Let’s take a class of High School students. The class is pretty evenly divided between Jocks (49) and Nerds (51), and there’s an election for the SGA coming up. Looking at the numbers, it looks like the Nerds have a good chance of winning, by two votes, but let’s say that this isn’t as clear as the numbers show.
The candidates are pretty distasteful for a lot of students at the school. On the Nerds’ side is a geeky boy, with square glasses, buck teeth, and a taste for pocket protectors. This kid is stereotypical Nerd, with the personality to match. He’s vaguely unpalatable, being too much into D&D and video games, but he’s also really damn smart, and his platform are things the Nerds would really like – pushing the school to fund after-school activities like Book Swap, the D&D Club, Debate Team, Chess Club, and so on.
On the Jock’s side is a pretty blonde cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen and heart-throb for many a boy in that school. But she’s a massive jerk, with an entitlement streak a mile wide, known for throwing temper tantrum(p)s when she doesn’t get her way, and a platform that includes taking all the money that would have gone to the nerdy after-school activities and putting it into prom and sports.
Of course, this stereotypical school of the 1980s will use the voting system used by the USA back in the 1980s, the classic voting system of First Past the Post, where all the votes are counted, and at the end, the one with the most votes wins.
In a 49 to 51 election, it’s clear that the Nerds win by a squeaker, but that’s not how elections work in the USA, and Cheerleader has a secret weapon. Most of her friends are of course fellow cheerleaders, dance team members, and athletes. But counted among her number is a bookish girl who is good with her studies, someone that were you to glance at her, you’d assume she’s with the Nerds. But she and Cheerleader have known each other since they were toddlers, and while Bookish Girl is smart, she’s also desperate for attention and acceptance. Bookish Girl is Cheerleader’s key to victory.
Cheerleader and Bookish Girl sit down after school and go over strategy. It’s clear that the numbers don’t support Cheerleader. All 51 Nerds are pretty sweet on that whole “Nerd After School Activities” thing. But they aren’t all as firmly dedicated to voting. For one thing, Nerd Boy is not well liked, with no social skills what-so-ever. He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t get a girl easily, and is awkward around girls and does things that can easily be styled as being demeaning and degrading to girls. Nerds are also notoriously flakey when it comes to making appointments when those appointments collide with what they would rather be doing.
Bookish Girl suggests three strategies to Cheerleader. They are:
Have one of Cheerleader’s groupies make an accusation against Nerd Boy that he inappropriately touched her. This should peel off two girls, who are known feminists.
Set up a nerdy game on the day of the vote, drawing out a handful of gamers.
Run Bookish Girl as a third party spoiler, who will say she stands for even more nerdy things so that she can peel off people who think Nerdy Boy can’t or won’t do the job.
Let’s say Election Day, 3 gamers skip out on the vote, one of the feminists stay home on the accusations, and the other, plus two more Nerds, vote for Bookish Girl. The tally of votes comes out to:
49 people vote for Cheerleader.
44 people vote for the Nerd Boy.
4 people do not vote.
3 people vote for the Bookish Girl.
Remember what the rules were? The one with the most votes wins. Those 7 kids ended up denying themselves and the 44 other kids the Nerd Boy’s platform. Hopefully they’ll enjoy the prom they’ll be excluded from and the constant bullying and teasing by the Jocks, because there will be no book club to go to, or D&D night to play in, or so on.
Really, all Cheerleader needed was for Bookish Girl to run, with a side dose of that other cheerleader’s accusation (let’s just call her Tara Reade…), and it’s 49 to 48 to 3, which is STILL a win for Team Jock. And that’s how narrow our elections are today.
You may think that Harris is a lockin to win, and you’re convinced by someone like this poster that you can vote third party. The problem is you can’t know how many Jocks and Nerds are in this school. Are there 55 Nerds and only 45 Jocks? Can you vote for the Bookish Girl over the Nerd Boy because Nerd Boy did something you don’t agree with in Junior High, or because he dissed your favourite pop culture icon, or he’s a GURPS player rather than a D&D player, or so on, and Bookish Girl is idealic? How will you feel when you wake up the next morning and come to school and see that Jocks won 45 to 44 to 11, and you and 10 other people are absolute dufuses who let the nerd activities go by the wayside?
And to make this REAL…how will you feel come the next morning if you wake up, see your State went to Trump, and thus gave Trump the 270 EVs he needed to win. Remember, Trump’s Jock-favoured activities can be read about in Project 2025…
In conclusion, you shouldn’t listen to dufuses like this poster. We saw what happened last time we let them poison our minds. Your vote CAN get you the absolute worst outcome, and the only people who want that to happen are accelerationists and Trump Plants. I’ll leave it to you to determine what THIS poster is.
Politics works very differently in France. There, in a multiparty parliamentary system parties often make temporary alliances together in order to form a functioning legislature. This is great for the smaller parties because they get a chance at real political leverage for their constituents. “You want to block the Nazis’ legislative agenda? Fine, but you must agree to stop selling weapons to Israel.”
The closest thing we have to such leverage in the US, is the ‘threat’ of 3rd (or “spoiler” if you prefer) parties. Imagine the whole US electorate as a kind of “parliament”. You are the democrat party, and you’re worried you won’t have enough votes to win a majority outright over the republicans. Why not build support among smaller electoral groups by making some concessions to them?
In regards to your long copypasta: I do not give a shit who you or anyone else does or doesn’t vote for. That is, as ever, for the individual to decide. Read every comment I’ve ever made, and I promise you won’t find me telling anyone who to vote for or even who not to vote for.
What I cannot stand is when people pretend like there isn’t a choice, telling people how they “have to” vote, telling people that a vote for x is really a vote for y, or pretending that the only people who disagree must be shills/bots/Russians/tankys/etc. I’m just out here trying to explain how some of us genuinely see things.
If you actually read my ‘long copypasta’, you’d actually understand why you shouldn’t vote for x, and why a vote for x is really a vote for y. It’s really clearly laid out and easy to digest, and makes it clear how your withholding your vote because we didn’t give you the concession of running D&D instead of GURPSabandoning Israel to the tender mercies of Iran and HAMAS with Russia waiting in the wings to show how America is anti-Semitic and filled with ‘fascist Leftists’ just ends up getting the CheerleaderRepublican elected and getting D&D night completely cancelledRepublicans into office and Israel given more guns to spark the End Times fight the Christofascists want to see happen.
This shit is important to a whole bunch of us. In particular, I’m worried about it because Christofascists particularly hate my Black Bisexual Goth Pagan wife. That’s why I am calling this nonsense out. Maybe that’ll help get you to see it from our side, now that you explained it from your side?
None of what you are writing is particularly “clearly laid out and easy to digest… etc etc”. Doesn’t mean I don’t understand it, but hey, the author and the audience don’t always agree. For example, we would both likely say similarly about my writing and your reading.
Don’t think I’m not sympathetic to your fears and concerns. I am. I do worry about the future quite a bit. I worry for my own family, friends, community, country, planet… I also have a Palestinian friend. She has lost many friends and relatives to the bombs that we send to Israel. Every day she worries for the ones who yet remain alive. Knowing her, and hearing her stories helps me to empathize with Palestinian suffering, but even if I didn’t know her, I still would.
So yes, I do empathize with you and your fears, but I cannot trade what might happen to your family (or mine) for what is happening right now in Palestine.
So yes, I do empathize with you and your fears, but I cannot trade what might happen to your family (or mine) for what is happening right now in Palestine.
Hey, guess what, you’re not! Nothing here is being traded! Rather, you’re voting for genocide in the US and genocide in Palestine! How brave of you!
I mean I have to agree that it’s disgusting and pathetic that almost every western mainstream political party is complicit and the rest are silent at best.
But, if you can stand me saying it, I think we actually have a chance to change the party. A Dem ticket like this is a once in lifetime event. If they lose I would be surprised if I ever see one this good again in my lifetime. If they get in, and if they get in with a strong majority, I can see it fundamentally changing the party. Every dem who blames the left for losing elections will turn to dust instantaneously ( don’t fact check me on this ).
I don’t really know what effect it’ll have because I’m just some guy. But I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I think it could fundamentally change the DNC. It could disempower the right of the party and bring leftist ideas into the political mainstream. It won’t be perfect, but it could be something. It could be huge.
The spoiler effect is a geometric problem, a problem of the relative positions of candidates. It has nothing to do with how strong or good of a candidate someone is.
I do think RCV would be a better system than what we have now, but I have very little confidence that it could ever be implemented without some loopholes that would essentially undermine it.
Look, whatever you think of Jill Stein, she can only be a threat to democrats because they are vulnerable to arguments from the left. If you don’t want to be vulnerable from the left, adopt some of their popular ideas. Putin isn’t tricking Americans into being anti genocide, or into wanting universal health care.
She isn’t so much making arguments from the left, but arguments from fantasy land. She thinks wifi is bad for kids brains and that we can stop using fossil fuels AND nuclear by 2030. Most of what she says simply had no basis in reality.
Are those the arguments you think that are siphoning off democratic voters?
The no fossil fuels by 2030 one definitely is. Mostly she is drawing both-siders who think (incorrectly) that both sides are just as bad as each other.
No, but why would you trust the word of someone who makes those arguments?
If she thinks wifi may cause cancer, that we can totally phase out fossil fuels with no loss in quality of life by 2030, that we should phase out nuclear energy, and that we should entertain vaccine skepticism… Why should I even bother to listen to an anti science quack like her?
I want the genocide to end. I want someone in power who wants it to end and has a plan to make it end. Everything Jill Stein has said suggests to me she has no idea how reality actually works, nor that she has any ideas on how to achieve her stated goals. She’s just virtue signaling.
Now, a good leader can’t do or plan everything. They aren’t going to come up with every solution. That’s what they have advisors and like-minded allies in Congress for. If Stein was elected, she would have no fellow Greens in Congress, and we have no guarantee that she’d actually pick experts as her advisors – I’d actually expect the contrary from someone who thinks Wi-Fi causes cancer. But we don’t really know because the Green Party is utterly ineffectual and just cosplays every 4 years.
You’re missing the point. Nobody has to trust her word. She doesn’t have to be right about everything, she just has to be correct on this particularly important issue. Nobody thinks Jill Stein is going to win. Nobody. So they don’t have to imagine how she would implement her platform. It is irrelevant.
The problem for the democrats is that they are so WRONG on this one thing (genocide), that a certain subset of their potential voters can’t bring themselves to vote dem. Some of those voters may be bluffing and some may not be. Dems will roll the dice and hope for the best, rather than come out against genocide (my prediction).
So how do you know that she’s actually against genocide and not just saying it to get some support? If nobody has to trust her word, then why believe her there?
What has she done? Is she organizing demonstrations to protest against Israel and in favor of a cease fire? Is she using her party apparatus to fundraise and donate 100% of proceeds to Gaza aid? Is she trying to speak with Biden, Blinken, or even Democrat congressional members who agree with her?
Or is she just lazing on Twitter and saying how awful it is while also excusing Russia’s casus belli into Ukraine?
This whole thing is symbolic of her failure, lack of seriousness, and grifting. She isn’t actually doing anything for the causes she claims are super important and her top priority. She’s just being a Twitter activist and saying she’s very concerned. Stein doesn’t do things. She says things. Her actions don’t reflect any convictions.
How many times can I tell you that you’re missing the point. None of what you said matters! When Biden or Harris can barely even pretend to be against genocide, and continue to be responsible (via their current positions of power) for arming the Israelis, that is an acute emergency. The only reason that a potential dem voter is considering voting for Stein instead, is that, #1: she’s on the ballot, and #2: she’s against the genocide.
Any of your attacks or criticisms of her are irrelevant as long as those two things are true, or until Harris makes a drastic change to her policy.
I know there are plenty of arguments to hit the dems on from the left. However, most of the attacks I’m privy to seem to be more about establishing leftist cred than actually doing something productive, and Jill Stein is one of the best examples of this.
Calling for an arms embargo is productive.
Yes, but then being unwilling to take any concession is not. The green party could, for example, pull itself off of ballots in key states or elections when the Democrats agree to their policies.
Running a doomed to fail candidate that only weakens the likelihood of the most left candidates and pulling progressives out of the Democrat party is a bad move.
Say what your will about RFK, he’s getting political power from Trump by dropping (if Trump wins). What will the green party get? Nothing.
Dropping and endorsing after concessions is the real way for a minority party to weld power. Running no matter what is just delusion that works counter to any goal you might have.
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It’s not clear to me what you mean here. Are you saying that AOC is attacking Jill Stein in order to bolster her own “leftist cred”, or that Jill Stein is chasing “leftist cred” by attacking democrats?
If it’s the second one, then I would just refer you back to my previous comment. Any attacks from Jill Stein could be easily defused by adopting a few popular planks. If you actually meant it the first way, then yeah I kind of agree!
Jill Stein attacking others on the left to establish leftist cred, just like so many other leftists we see on the net.
We have so much more in common than we have differences, and we could get a lot done if we were to band together - but instead we do the right’s job for them by dividing ourselves.
I don’t think that’s a very charitable interpretation of what is easily explained by honest political differences. People can and do work together when possible, but there are also issues too important to compromise on.
She wants to play them off as honest political differences anyway.
When her actions match her supposed intentions then I’d be more willing to give her charity.
You’re painting “so many leftists we see on the net” with that same brush though. Is it so hard to believe that there are people genuinely to the left of you politically? What “actions” do you need to see from Jill Stein? She’s been running for office, giving interviews and speeches that platform issues that the dems are weak on. If nothing else she’s forcing democrats like AOC (and you, presumably) to engage with these ideas or risk political consequences. If we didn’t have 3rd party candidates to the left, there would be even less pressure on the dems to adopt leftist policies.
She could start by dropping out of the race, endorsing Kamala, and then putting every dollar she has into organizing for national ranked choice voting so that hopefully once in my life I can vote my conscience at the same time I vote pragmatically.
I sincerely doubt there is much room between where Stein is at on the issues and where AOC is at on the issues - the main difference is that AOC is not running for president and making it easier for despicable people who don’t care about anything to win.
That basic strategy is why you rarely see people shitting on Bernie. He manages to pull the conversation to the left while not fucking everything up by being a spoiler.
It’s the Dems that should do that, they have more to lose and more power and money to get it done, no?
Hah!
Kamala and Walz are more left-leaning than any dem ticket in ages. If the purpose of the Green party is to move the democrats left, then they should drop out to reward them for moving left.
Why would they stop now in that case? “More left-leaning than any dem ticket in ages” is not a very high bar. Shit, it’s so low, you can’t even slip “opposes genocide” under it!
Dems: “Wow, we moved drastically to the left and it’s still not enough to satisfy these Very Important Leftists. I guess they’re a lost cause as a voting bloc, considering that we’re already running a platform trying to get the widest possible spread between left and right voters that will only win on a handful of percentage points. Time to see if we can peel off any right-wing voters again.”
I will never be satisfied with our government even if Democrats control the whole thing. But I recognize that there’s nothing I can do to change that because this country is full of people almost entirely unlike me and I should vote for the Democrats because they’re the least worst party that can win.
In France, Left-leaning parties got together and decided which ones had the best chance in each ‘district’ of winning, and the other parties would drop out. They did this to ensure that the Le Pen led Fascist party didn’t have a chance of winning. Sure, the aftermath hasn’t been pretty, but no neo-Nazis running the country.
Here in the USA, we should be doing the same thing, except the Green Party isn’t in this to win it. They’re in it to throw bombs. They’re in it to disrupt the ‘evil Democrats’. And they have help. Jill Stein was photographed sitting down with Putin, who really benefits if we’re ruled by Fascist Republicans. Republicans have been caught propping up the campaigns of alternative Leftist parties. And even Netanyahu is hoping Jill Stein pulls enough votes from Kamala Harris so that Donald Trump wins.
As always. This is a School SGA election, we’re the 51 Nerds arguing amongst ourselves, and the 49 Jocks, including the Book Girl who is pretending to be one of us, are watching as we argue our way into handing the SGA to the Jocks, so they can cancel Book Club, Chess Club, D&D Night, and everything else we support, because we’re too busy arguing with each other to realise that the only way we beat them is by delivering at least 49 votes to Nerd Boy on Election Day.
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This poster would have you believe that your vote cannot result in you getting the worst possible outcome. Allow me to make it clear that yes, you can screw yourself and those you care about if you make the wrong choice on your vote.
Let’s take a class of High School students. The class is pretty evenly divided between Jocks (49) and Nerds (51), and there’s an election for the SGA coming up. Looking at the numbers, it looks like the Nerds have a good chance of winning, by two votes, but let’s say that this isn’t as clear as the numbers show.
The candidates are pretty distasteful for a lot of students at the school. On the Nerds’ side is a geeky boy, with square glasses, buck teeth, and a taste for pocket protectors. This kid is stereotypical Nerd, with the personality to match. He’s vaguely unpalatable, being too much into D&D and video games, but he’s also really damn smart, and his platform are things the Nerds would really like – pushing the school to fund after-school activities like Book Swap, the D&D Club, Debate Team, Chess Club, and so on.
On the Jock’s side is a pretty blonde cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen and heart-throb for many a boy in that school. But she’s a massive jerk, with an entitlement streak a mile wide, known for throwing temper tantrum(p)s when she doesn’t get her way, and a platform that includes taking all the money that would have gone to the nerdy after-school activities and putting it into prom and sports.
Of course, this stereotypical school of the 1980s will use the voting system used by the USA back in the 1980s, the classic voting system of First Past the Post, where all the votes are counted, and at the end, the one with the most votes wins.
In a 49 to 51 election, it’s clear that the Nerds win by a squeaker, but that’s not how elections work in the USA, and Cheerleader has a secret weapon. Most of her friends are of course fellow cheerleaders, dance team members, and athletes. But counted among her number is a bookish girl who is good with her studies, someone that were you to glance at her, you’d assume she’s with the Nerds. But she and Cheerleader have known each other since they were toddlers, and while Bookish Girl is smart, she’s also desperate for attention and acceptance. Bookish Girl is Cheerleader’s key to victory.
Cheerleader and Bookish Girl sit down after school and go over strategy. It’s clear that the numbers don’t support Cheerleader. All 51 Nerds are pretty sweet on that whole “Nerd After School Activities” thing. But they aren’t all as firmly dedicated to voting. For one thing, Nerd Boy is not well liked, with no social skills what-so-ever. He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t get a girl easily, and is awkward around girls and does things that can easily be styled as being demeaning and degrading to girls. Nerds are also notoriously flakey when it comes to making appointments when those appointments collide with what they would rather be doing.
Bookish Girl suggests three strategies to Cheerleader. They are:
Let’s say Election Day, 3 gamers skip out on the vote, one of the feminists stay home on the accusations, and the other, plus two more Nerds, vote for Bookish Girl. The tally of votes comes out to:
Remember what the rules were? The one with the most votes wins. Those 7 kids ended up denying themselves and the 44 other kids the Nerd Boy’s platform. Hopefully they’ll enjoy the prom they’ll be excluded from and the constant bullying and teasing by the Jocks, because there will be no book club to go to, or D&D night to play in, or so on.
Really, all Cheerleader needed was for Bookish Girl to run, with a side dose of that other cheerleader’s accusation (let’s just call her Tara Reade…), and it’s 49 to 48 to 3, which is STILL a win for Team Jock. And that’s how narrow our elections are today.
You may think that Harris is a lockin to win, and you’re convinced by someone like this poster that you can vote third party. The problem is you can’t know how many Jocks and Nerds are in this school. Are there 55 Nerds and only 45 Jocks? Can you vote for the Bookish Girl over the Nerd Boy because Nerd Boy did something you don’t agree with in Junior High, or because he dissed your favourite pop culture icon, or he’s a GURPS player rather than a D&D player, or so on, and Bookish Girl is idealic? How will you feel when you wake up the next morning and come to school and see that Jocks won 45 to 44 to 11, and you and 10 other people are absolute dufuses who let the nerd activities go by the wayside?
And to make this REAL…how will you feel come the next morning if you wake up, see your State went to Trump, and thus gave Trump the 270 EVs he needed to win. Remember, Trump’s Jock-favoured activities can be read about in Project 2025…
In conclusion, you shouldn’t listen to dufuses like this poster. We saw what happened last time we let them poison our minds. Your vote CAN get you the absolute worst outcome, and the only people who want that to happen are accelerationists and Trump Plants. I’ll leave it to you to determine what THIS poster is.
Politics works very differently in France. There, in a multiparty parliamentary system parties often make temporary alliances together in order to form a functioning legislature. This is great for the smaller parties because they get a chance at real political leverage for their constituents. “You want to block the Nazis’ legislative agenda? Fine, but you must agree to stop selling weapons to Israel.”
The closest thing we have to such leverage in the US, is the ‘threat’ of 3rd (or “spoiler” if you prefer) parties. Imagine the whole US electorate as a kind of “parliament”. You are the democrat party, and you’re worried you won’t have enough votes to win a majority outright over the republicans. Why not build support among smaller electoral groups by making some concessions to them?
In regards to your long copypasta: I do not give a shit who you or anyone else does or doesn’t vote for. That is, as ever, for the individual to decide. Read every comment I’ve ever made, and I promise you won’t find me telling anyone who to vote for or even who not to vote for.
What I cannot stand is when people pretend like there isn’t a choice, telling people how they “have to” vote, telling people that a vote for x is really a vote for y, or pretending that the only people who disagree must be shills/bots/Russians/tankys/etc. I’m just out here trying to explain how some of us genuinely see things.
If you actually read my ‘long copypasta’, you’d actually understand why you shouldn’t vote for x, and why a vote for x is really a vote for y. It’s really clearly laid out and easy to digest, and makes it clear how your withholding your vote because we didn’t give you the concession of
running D&D instead of GURPSabandoning Israel to the tender mercies of Iran and HAMAS with Russia waiting in the wings to show how America is anti-Semitic and filled with ‘fascist Leftists’ just ends up getting theCheerleaderRepublican elected and gettingD&D night completely cancelledRepublicans into office and Israel given more guns to spark the End Times fight the Christofascists want to see happen.This shit is important to a whole bunch of us. In particular, I’m worried about it because Christofascists particularly hate my Black Bisexual Goth Pagan wife. That’s why I am calling this nonsense out. Maybe that’ll help get you to see it from our side, now that you explained it from your side?
None of what you are writing is particularly “clearly laid out and easy to digest… etc etc”. Doesn’t mean I don’t understand it, but hey, the author and the audience don’t always agree. For example, we would both likely say similarly about my writing and your reading.
Don’t think I’m not sympathetic to your fears and concerns. I am. I do worry about the future quite a bit. I worry for my own family, friends, community, country, planet… I also have a Palestinian friend. She has lost many friends and relatives to the bombs that we send to Israel. Every day she worries for the ones who yet remain alive. Knowing her, and hearing her stories helps me to empathize with Palestinian suffering, but even if I didn’t know her, I still would.
So yes, I do empathize with you and your fears, but I cannot trade what might happen to your family (or mine) for what is happening right now in Palestine.
Hey, guess what, you’re not! Nothing here is being traded! Rather, you’re voting for genocide in the US and genocide in Palestine! How brave of you!
And Ukraine. Don’t forget Ukraine.
I mean I have to agree that it’s disgusting and pathetic that almost every western mainstream political party is complicit and the rest are silent at best.
But, if you can stand me saying it, I think we actually have a chance to change the party. A Dem ticket like this is a once in lifetime event. If they lose I would be surprised if I ever see one this good again in my lifetime. If they get in, and if they get in with a strong majority, I can see it fundamentally changing the party. Every dem who blames the left for losing elections will turn to dust instantaneously ( don’t fact check me on this ).
I don’t really know what effect it’ll have because I’m just some guy. But I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I think it could fundamentally change the DNC. It could disempower the right of the party and bring leftist ideas into the political mainstream. It won’t be perfect, but it could be something. It could be huge.
I lost that kind of optimism years ago.
The spoiler effect is a geometric problem, a problem of the relative positions of candidates. It has nothing to do with how strong or good of a candidate someone is.
I do think RCV would be a better system than what we have now, but I have very little confidence that it could ever be implemented without some loopholes that would essentially undermine it.
Do you think Australia/Ireland have those loopholes too, or is there something else we need to fix first before it’ll work here?
I’m not familiar with how elections work in those countries, but from what I do hear, Aussie politics is pretty rightwing.
Brilliant, thanks for outlining this. So tired of the Russian / Putins Puppet line from idiot Democrats