Of course they’re appealing—they’re scared and desperate to keep people from having any choices beyond the duopoly they cling to so tightly.
Not at all. You’d have to be well detached from reality to think that. Our first past the post voting system ensures there will always be two major parties. Whatever the parties are.
What Republicans understand. Is that it’s easier to win. By taking advantage of the ignorance and hyper radicalization of 3rd parties. They can pull at the disparate groups that vote for their opponent. Basically neutralizing them. Making it much more likely for Republicans to win.
Until we switch from first past the post, 3rd parties will continue to be irrelevant.
The irony here is that the very system you’re defending is the one that keeps real change from ever happening. Clinging to first-past-the-post and dismissing third parties only strengthens the stranglehold of the status quo. If the system is so inevitable, why fear those who dare to challenge it?
West is only on the ballot in 12 states. He literally couldn’t win if he won every state he was on the ballot and there is no reason to believe that he can win even on estate. This is reality however we react to it. It can only practically at the state level be changed by working within the existing parties to make ranked choice or some alternative system the reality. If you build enough support for that you may in the future have a chance of having third parties that can actually win.
In the meanwhile we have to vote for the only party who can protect Democracy in reality because they are on the ballot in every state and essentially virtually locked in for 226 EC votes. If we do that we get to continue working towards that instead of ending democracy in the next 4 year cycle.
I’m not voting for West, and I didn’t write the article, so I don’t really have anything to say about your concerns. But I am not voting for Harris or Trump either.
Then you care less about our democracy than I do
That’s your opinion, and I respect and support your right to that opinion, even if I disagree with it. And I would hope that you respect and support my rights to my opinion.
Seems a weird thing to say that I care less about democracy than you do just because I am not voting for your candidate.
To me, caring about democracy means fighting for a system where real choices exist, not just the lesser of two evils.
If you’re content with a broken system that forces people to choose between two candidates who don’t represent their values, that’s on you.
But don’t mistake my commitment to socialism and real change as apathy—I’m fighting for a democracy that actually serves the people, not just the wealthy and powerful.
I’m voting, just not for anyone in the duopoly.
You are free to disagree, but to say that I care about it less than you is a very odd thing to say.
Voting third party in the general doesn’t create nor even move the needle towards a situation where “real choices” exist outside party primaries.
What happens is that any given third party is more like one major party or the other. Whichever party they are alike if they are popular at all they hurt the party they are like and help the party they are unalike. Thus third parties are always in the current system destructive of their own ends.
Let’s imagine a powerful third party that wants not only to abolish slavery but institute universal reparations for slaves, education for their children, housing, punishment for crimes committed by slavers against slaves. Prison for all those who rebelled against the union and so forth. It would be by my reckoning a very justifiable platform.
If it had run at the same time as the Republicans and become popular enough to make a difference one can imagine it splitting the vote and helping the slavers win.
Every third party in America is exactly like that they by construction and design help their enemies not those who would be their allies.
Ranked choice makes this dilemma go away can vote Green Democrat Republican and be assured that the winner will actually reflect the preference of the majority. We cannot obtain this by going third party at the national level we can only obtain it at the state level where elections are actually held.
You have to engage with the system to change it. As we have throughout history. We didn’t get women’s suffrage via 3rd parties. Blacks didn’t get the right to vote by organizing as a 3rd party. Third parties didn’t give us the new deal. The irony is that you refuse to understand that. You want to end first past the post there’s 2 options. Neither of which involve 3rd parties. The first is using one of the major parties to pass voting reform. The other violent revolution.
You speak as if the system handed us progress on a silver platter, as if women, Black folks, and workers didn’t have to spill their blood and sweat in the streets, fighting tooth and nail against the very powers you claim we should trust.
Third parties may not have given us all the wins we need, but they pushed the conversation, forced the hand of the establishment.
And if you think true change can only come from within the duopoly or through violent revolution, you’re blind to the reality that the system you’re defending is rigged to keep the people in perpetual chains.
You speak as if the system handed us progress on a silver platter, as if women, Black folks, and workers didn’t have to spill their blood and sweat in the streets, fighting tooth and nail against the very powers you claim we should trust.
Quote where I said that. It doesn’t exist. Because it’s a strawman argument. And a weak one at that. Regardless of the struggles leading up to it. It was always one of the major parties that put it over the finish line. And of those struggles. None of them involved candidates for president from 3rd parties. Because they’ve always been irrelevant for nation wide elections.
Third parties may not have given us all the wins we need, but they pushed the conversation, forced the hand of the establishment.
This is an argument for a topic we weren’t discussing. A deflection. Link any significant change directly to a losing 3rd party presidential candidate. With evidence, logic and reason. You can’t. Because they’ve been irrelevant for 250 years.
And if you think true change can only come from within the duopoly or through violent revolution, you’re blind to the reality that the system you’re defending is rigged to keep the people in perpetual chains.
I don’t think that. It’s what has happened. It’s a statement of fact. Not an opinion. And ironically, people like yourself are a significant part of how they keep the system rigged. Incapable of focusing, or accepting the realities of situations. Or showing solidarity with those fighting to actually change things. Instead tilting at windmills quixotically.
I’m still voting third party.
And the oligarchs thank you
Third parties didn’t give us the new deal. The irony is that you refuse to understand that.
I guess a lot of others refuse to understand that too. Becaues I am not the only one voting third party.
And democrats are so scared of that fact, they are trying to keep third-party candidates off the ballot.
The third parties herein are deliberate spoilers for the Republicans. Why do you think west still running despite being on only 12 states ballots. Fucking Jill literally goes to events with Putin.
It’s laughable how desperate you are to defend the duopoly’s stranglehold on our democracy. West and Stein are not the problem—it’s the system that keeps voices like theirs marginalized.
Your attempt to paint them as pawns for Republicans is just another tactic to silence those who dare to challenge the status quo. If you’re so sure they’re irrelevant, why are you so worked up?
Maybe because deep down, you know their message is a threat to the complacency you defend.
I’m actually for ranked choice, instant runoff, etc. I would like to be able to vote for a non-mainstream candidate in plenty of cases. I am just not confused about how voting actually works today. West and Stein aren’t any more confused about how voting works than I am they are aware that the only possible effect they can have is to help Trump in 2024.
Hi! I feel like we just talked about this - there are quite a lot of Democrats who are actually currently pushing, with some level of success, for reforming the voting system away from the duopoly-favoring FPTP system.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense either for you or for some Democrat to support introducing 3rd parties in a big way into the existing FPTP system, splitting the vote and leading to a Republican win. It makes perfect sense to support reforming the system so that 3rd parties can gain traction without being spoiler candidates.
I wonder why you are fighting for that first thing and not that second thing. Seems like fighting for that second thing would make more sense, yes? Definitely more sense than somehow criticizing the Democrats for not wanting the first thing.
Since your goal is obviously good leftwards progress and victory for left wing causes, and all
Splitting implies that we would ever vote for your candidate. We’re not Democrats, we don’t vote for Democrats.
