this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 72 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Ah yes, so the best option is to not vote and let them succeed unimpeded.

I'm all for voting for a better candidate, but we have a broken 2 party system, and it very much is if you don't vote for one of the two main parties, you are pretty much just not voting at all.

I don't vote for this person. I'm voting against that person.

[–] The_Che_Banana 36 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Dems have been nothing but a doormat for the last 30 years, the party of complicity. I'm absolutely positive they've been playing the dupe and moving the US further to the right all the while playing the victim.

Could have fixed the electoral college but didn't. Could have codified abortion into the constitution but didn't. Could have filled RBGs supreme court seat without Senate confirmation regardless of the pearl clutching, but didn't. Could have put pressure on the justice department to get their investigation done with to get the trial for Trump for treason at least started....but fuck me, they didn't.... seriously- they couldn't put a case together in 3 years?????

Could have, should have, would have. Fucking useless.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I agree, but also stand by my point. In a horrible 2 party system, they're simply "not conservative", and so I'm forced to vote for them. That being said, Bernie should have won.

[–] The_Che_Banana 23 points 1 month ago

Bernie got railroaded.

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

They are conservative though.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

In my country we stopped voting the socdem party, because they betrayed the workers. From one election to the next they lost like half the votes.

For 4 years the conservative party ruled. But after that the socdem change their politics we voted them again and had had a fairly leftist government for the last year.

They are slacking again so I plan not to vote next election, hoping thar more people get the memo, they sink again in votes and sit to think on why people felt betrayed, and change for the better.

4 years of conservative party were worthy giving that after the socdems turned left again we conquer a lot of things that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise if we would have keep on voting their moderate centrist version.

We also voted for third parties when they said that it was throwing your vote away, and the other party got almost the same votes as the socdems(too bad they were not that good once they sat on office). My point is that courage is needed to make a change.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 month ago

also known as

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 42 points 1 month ago (7 children)

No.

Look at how the system actually works. There are two choices. Both candidates have to compete for all the people who vote. If you sit out the election that doesn't mean either candidate will try to get your vote; they'll ignore you and go after the people who do vote.

Someone else came up with this analogy. It's like the trolley problem except the there's a third option. The third choice is to throw the switch to "Neither," but "Neither" isn't connected and the trolley kills someone anyway.

[–] Belgdore@lemm.ee 18 points 1 month ago

Or as Rush put it, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My friend, what you wrote totally ignores the passage of time. Everything you wrote is true if we only look at one election, and none of it is true if we consider the passage of time and how pressure operates. If the political party is not getting votes, if all of their candidates are losing, either they will disband or they will find different policies to push.

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[–] ReadMoreBooks@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If 5% of the general election popular vote for POTUS, knowing that the candidate cannot win, still voted for the Green Party platform then what effect would that have upon the Democratic Party platform?

On a five point difficulty scale this is a two. The test gets way harder than this.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a tea trolley.

Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn't vote for the alternative.

All the 'what if...?' games in the world isn't going to change that.

[–] ReadMoreBooks@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Thank you for the opportunity to teach.

If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a tea trolley.

Minimization.

Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn't vote for the alternative.

Red herring.

All the 'what if...?' games in the world isn't going to change that.

Minimization.

This is a bit better than typical nonsense because there's two tactics in a sandwich. Next is usually ad hominem. But, this one may have another trick up their sleeve.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Simply naming fallacies isn't teaching. The point of learning fallacies isn't so that you can just name them and feel like you've made a point.

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[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn’t vote for the alternative.

Red herring.

You're going to have to explain that in detail. Trump got more votes. He won. How is that anything except a cold, hard fact?

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[–] apotheotic 36 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I feel as though there's a significant amount of extra info that isn't strictly conveyed here.

The core issue is that you only have 2 real options in america, third parties may as well not exist. So, come election time, your harm reduction option is to vote for the least evil party.

But that's not the way to solve the issue, and neither is abstaining or voting third party, IMO. The way to solve the issue happens between votes. Picketing, protesting, demonstrating, taking action, making noise. You won't solve the broken 2 party system at election time. But you do have to actually get out and take action, not just say that you will and keep letting the overton window shift right.

(Take with a pinch of salt because I'm not american)

[–] UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But that’s not the way to solve the issue

So...... revolution? It worked once before!

[–] apotheotic 11 points 1 month ago

I mean sure! Take the whole CEO situation and springboard off that, you find yourselves in circumstances similar to pre-revolution France so the conditions are right.

[–] ReadMoreBooks@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The core issue is that you only have 2 real options in america, third parties may as well not exist.

There's false assumptions necessary to reach this conclusion. Typically the false assumption is that the role of a third party is to win. The root cause of making this assumption is often that the scope of evaluation has been limited to one term or cycle.

[–] apotheotic 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not convinced that voting for a third party has any positive effect, in one election cycle or over longer time. But I'm open to hearing your perspective.

[–] ReadMoreBooks@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago (9 children)

The false assumption that most make is that one cycle doesn't effect the next.

However, if a third party garners just 5% of the general election vote for POTUS then their platform and higher quality candidate will be on every ballot in the next cycle.

If there's a third choice on every ballot then the the third party platform places tremendous and immediate pressure upon the platforms of the two major parties. The third party doesn't actually win unless the other refuse to compromise. Long term, the continued threat is of greater value than a subsequent victory.

But, the electoral scheme doesn't work unless leftists trust leftists to determine the collective risk of voting third party for the states they reside in. Even Jacobin failed to trust twice.

Things are pretty fucked. Electoral means are slow. I tend to advocate for boycott, strike, and riot (encompassing a wide scope of wisely breaking laws).

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[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I mean, you're not the first one to say thing. People picket, people protest, people make noise. College students are arrested, protests either get Zero media attention (or worse, are regulated to an ineffective location because of regulations) or the protestors switch to disruptive tactics that actually get noticed and are demonized by everyone for it.

Like I keep hearing this "You have to go out and take action", EVERYONE IS! People are walking up and knocking on people's doors and getting punched in the face. People are outside houses getting cops called on them and arrested. Everyone is now more able to point out the bad actors and exactly how that's effecting the parties and policies.

You have Bernie Sanders and AOC out protesting and "making noise" in the spot light every damn day.

  • third party doesn't work
  • you can't solve the 2 party system
  • The way to solve the issue happens between votes

our election cycle is every 2 years or less depending on the occasion. IT IS ALWAYS ELECTION CYCLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. They have to plan early and extensively to knock off any candidate they don't want (pulling national resources to squash anyone they view "outside" their establishment).

At this point the "make noise" comments need to reiterate what the end goal is for that make noise. You're setting people up to just be angry and upset and protest the inequality or inefficiencies of our system when that's exactly what the politicians want (it's a feature, not a bug). No amount of protesting, a litany of policies at that, will be effective when the complete political spectrum is against change. Take a look at the Civil Rights Era and the voting that was concluded, it looks completely unlike anything we have now.

The political parties have strengthened their stranglehold (I've argued in the past that they are "political parties" in name only, they are more incorporated or an oligarch representatives at this point and should be regulated as such). They listen to power only, the power was taken from the working and lower classes a long time ago. We get our shows we can put on, but it doesn't move the needle anymore. It used to at least force them to talk about moving the needle, even that's gone now.

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[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 6 points 1 month ago

This. I'm in the US and was fully prepared to protest whether Harris or Trump won, I'm opposed to them both in different ways. Trump and team may get me off my ass very quickly though.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

All you do by consistently voting the "lesser of two evils" is kicking the hangover down the road by keeping to drink more alcohol. You know every time that it will get worse and the sooner you get through the hangover, the sooner you could actually move on, but in fear of the hangover you grab the bottler another time.

With the measures you mentioned the problem is in particular that the current Democrats are not caring about them. They assume they will get the votes nonetheless and if they don't it is fine because the Republicans will cover most of the donors interests anyways. Making noise only works, if it is followed by consequences. Leaving political violence aside, the only consequence a normal person can realize is not giving the vote if they aren't heard.

[–] WeUnite@lemm.ee 21 points 1 month ago (5 children)

This is a lie. People just spread this to trick you into not voting so the Republicans win.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This is a lie spread by corporate elites that want to make sure both parties align with their interests instead of having Democrats create a popular platform and win on that basis.

Did you learn nothing from hanging on to Biden until even the billionaire donors got scared by his dementia?

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[–] lseif@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 weeks ago

or voting third party in a backwards outdated voting system like that of the US

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[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The short term effect of voting for the "greater evil" (or not voting at all): straight to the far, far right.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The time to vote for someone good is the primaries, which set what the dichotomy of the actual election is going to be like. In the November dichotomy, voting for the lesser evil is kinda the only option unless you want Big Evil to win.

Yes, it would be better to "merge" the main election and primaries into a ranked-choice vote but that's not happening anytime soon.

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The time to vote for someone good is the primaries

"The time to vote against evil is in the bullshit private competition that the party can and does rig, ignore, or not bother with at all."

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[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Incidentally that's also the effect of not voting for the lesser evil, you can just cut out the two steps in the middle then.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 8 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

So if you don't vote for the lesser evil it gets salty and joins the evil? Yeah i am not voting for that psycho manipulating abusive shit.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

So if you don’t vote for the lesser evil it gets salty and joins the evil?

Not quite. If you don't vote for the lesser evil, it loses influence, which means the greater evil has it easier to shift things over in their direction and control the narrative. They've won after all, so clearly that's what the voters want. The lesser evil will take cues from this.

(It should also be said that this whole meme only really applies to shitty 2-party systems. In a proper parliamentary democracy, you have more realististic choices than "greater evil" and "lesser evil" and don't have to play this stupid game at all.)

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 month ago

Also the lesser evil kills all enthousiam and loses the election.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep, that's why I always vote for the bigger evil.

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[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 weeks ago

Funny that a lot of people see this shit and immediately go but Dem and Rep, this shit applied for a lot of countries that have more than 2 parties. When the more popular parties are all shit people go with "lesser evil".

[–] kittehx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

do you mean of not voting for them?

people don't vote, democrats lose, they think it's because they're too far left and move further to the right. meanwhile republican victories embolden them to push even harder into fascism

[–] jerakor@startrek.website 21 points 1 month ago

I vote for them, they move right. I don't vote for them, and vote third party, they move right. I join their party and vote in their primary's for progressive candidates, they move right.

It's almost like a bunch of really old, well off, lifetime establishment government folks just actually want to be conservative authoritarians. At BEST they are stuck in a mindset of 1969's ideas of what progressive politics are because that is when they became politicians.

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not an American but I would argue that Biden's resignation was in part due to people threatening to not vote. This wasn't a move to the left but organized threats of not voting can make a difference.

Personally, I would vote for the lesser evil unless there was some kind of organized movement. Where I live, we have more than 2 evils to choose from and I choose the smallest of them.

[–] jerakor@startrek.website 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Biden was incapable of clearly communicating verbally for 2 hours straight in a debate. I'd argue that Biden stayed in as long as he did to enable them to feel empowered to force another Kamala on us rather than having to deal with a Warren, Sanders or even a Buttigieg winning the Primary. Kamala was 6th in line in the Primary when she dropped out in 2020.

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago
[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 month ago

Us commies weren't always "far" left.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

With only manufactured circumstance to fuel completely arbitrary result.

Wow.

Stay in school, kids.

[–] Dragon@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

IMO the only way around this problem in the USA is to either (A) get a third party to the point of legitimacy where people will take them seriously be winning seats in the house and senate, and eventually running for the presidency, or (B) win a primary in one of the two major parties. By election day there is nothing to do but vote for the least worst option.

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[–] Dippy 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Things move to the right when the right wins. Things move to the left when the left wins. If the center wins, then things don't move much at all. The lesser evil prevents greater evil

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