If the choice is fascist or less fascist then neither is worth voting for.

"They won't actually fix anything but they might win" is an unbelievably terrible argument

But on lemmy.ml, they told me voting for Democrats means you don’t care about trans people

Part of building a viable alternative is getting enough votes for consistant ballot access and other resources that are afforded by default to the two primary parties. Winning comes in degrees.

If that was really the strategy they would start with local elections.

No. It's "which of these two horrible choices might we influence to make some progress"

You don't get a third choice for the big things. It's mathematically and literally impossible.

Idk about your state, but that is the case here in MD with Greens and the Working Class Party. Also true for the Working Families Party in other states. Presidential elections have a purpose in generating attention, though.

.....are you trying to say that it's mathematically impossible for a third party to be viable?

Because wow, the entire western world outside the US would like to have a word.

Your outcomes are between the candidate who will hurt you and yours less vs the candidate who will hurt you and yours most.

If you're lucky, choosing to not vote will still lead to the candidate that will hurt you and yours less.

Be as pedantic as you want: this is the reality of it.

Do whatever outside of the election season to change that but once the final polls happen, those are the only choices you have.

It's like when you get beat up and you're on the ground. You try to protect your vitals and hope you'll survive to fight another day.

Not voting is idiotic and lazy.

Social reality isn't tethered to logic. A mind virus can open the possibility for a third party victory, math be damned.

We're already past the first step where the general population is tired of the two current options.

You mean where they have ranked choice and a completely different voting system which changes the math?

Yeah, but hope is not a strategy. What's the path to making that happen?

I never said anything about not voting.

The reality is choosing between the two major parties is choosing hurting now or hurting later. Neither will actually do any good. It's pointless to vote for anyone other than a 3rd party, at least then you're not voting for evil.

Yup, cause letting Republicans win=trans victory!/s

The reality is choosing between the two major parties is choosing hurting now or hurting later.

False.

• They'll both hurt now but one will clearly hurt less.
• One will also do more good than the other.
• 3rd party during the final election won't get anything accomplished, because that third party literally has no representation in lower positions of government.

Yet Jill Stein vanishes for four years between Presidential elections and does absolutely nothing to support a third party coalition at the state and local level.

And she somehow deserves your vote for simply not being a D or R? Yeah nah.

Well you have to accelerate miserable conditions if you want the workers to rise up. People might die, but they're just little trash people, so the ends justify the means.

The ONLY chance the US had for a third party was back when Teddy Roosevelt ran in the Bull Moose party. He was already a president with a major party and wanted another run but the party didn't like his socialist agenda. (I'm simplifying)

If he would have won, we probably would still have a 2 party system. 1 of the parties would have adapted to the Bull Moose party.

We need to elect people that will support the change to RCV. Dems seem more favorable to this.

lemmy when you talk about killing politicians 👌

lemmy when you mention third parties 😤

Virtually no one thinks this way. It's entirely a straw man.

Dems seem more favorable to this.

The problem is that you're relying on "vote blue and hope they give us electoral reform out of the kindness of their hearts." It's not a real strategy. Dems have a clear incentive to not enact voting reform, because they survive off of being the lesser evil and effectively coercing people into voting for them. And if you say that we should vote for Dems conditionally to them (genuinely) supporting RCV, that's one thing, but if you're just supporting them regardless then any ideas you have about RCV are meaningless because in practice those ideas aren't affecting your actions in any way.

It's like seeing that your car won't to start and thinking the solution is to drive it to the mechanic. The whole problem is that you can't drive it anywhere. In the same way, the whole reason we need electoral reform is the same thing that prevents it from happening, that we don't have any mechanism for advancing policy goals in the current system. You can't rely on a broken system to fix itself.

What we need is to realize that the current system is FUBAR and organize non-electoral strategies (for example, strikes and demonstrations) to advance policy positions, and we need a dedicated party that's focused on that strategy and able to lay out a clear platform to that end.

She basically works for Russia.

One of them is the "Openly advocates for billionaires" party and the other is the "Discretely advocates for billionaires" party.

People will hold a vote to see if everyone gets punched in the face three times or once. Would you not vote for only one punch?

Just make sure that when you’re candidate wins you go to brunch or the fascists will hear your protest and you’ll get fascism again.

Tbf you can only talk about killing republicans, democrats can do no wrong.

Now remember to go vote in the primaries even though the DNC won a court case on the basis of "we're a private corporation and therefore do not have an obligation to provide a fair process to voters, we can act in the interest of the Party Leaders™ instead," that'll help!

(Wilding, et. al. v. DNC Services, d/b/a DNC and Deborah “Debbie” Wasserman Schultz)

E: haha don't downvote the messenger, it's your precious DNC that did it, go downvote them! Oh you can't because "vote blue no matter who" huh? How's that working out?

Pro-trans? My nuts, they were pro trans when they could use that as a tool to get votes, then they dropped them like a stone the second trump won again to try and pull votes from the right. Same thing they've been doing with POCs since like the 70s, they don't care they just want your votes to keep the insider trading machine rolling.

What's more they (and by "they" I mean BoTh of them) actually have an incentive NOT to fix anything, at least not in any meaningful way, because if say, the Ds actually do get guns banned (or Rs and abortion, etc), then they can't run on it again in the future and that's one less wedge issue to indoctrinate you into the color cult with.

Which anti-capitalist third-party has even a 0.000001% chance of winning enough seats to be an impediment to Trump?

Honestly there's more punchees than punchers, we can take them.

Vote 3rd party, argue with dumbshits that refuse to vote third party because of their self defeating "they can't win" Ouroboros and try and get them to see that the only reason they "can't" win is because of that very attitude, but if they did get the votes they could, in fact, win. Y'know stuff like that.

We need to dismantle a large portion of the primary parties to make third parties viable.

Which third party is against capitalism? Legit curious.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)

Or you could... vote in the primaries?

The US has a convoluted run-off system that really should be simplified, but you can vote to select which of the two finalists will stand in the general election. Of course it falls apart for MAGA and leftist types (basically the same kind of people) that think if the majority of people voted for someone they don't like it must be because the system is somehow rigged.

Everyone in my social media bubble thinks the same way so there's no way people voted for someone who's not MAGA/communist! The system must be rigged!

lemmy.ml will always promote strategies which results in fascists winning. I'd like to think it's because they're just really naive and don't understand how anything works, but it's getting really hard to to keep thinking that's what's going on when their content is basically all about attacking the political opposition to fascism and they don't say a peep about actually opposing the actual fascists.

In most states, primaries are how a party picks its own nominee. Voting in the Democratic or Republican primary chooses which Democrat or Republican is on the November ballot. It doesn’t help a third party at all. Many third parties don’t use state-run primaries; they nominate at conventions. And in closed-primary states, like Maryland, you can only vote in the primary of the party you’re registered with.

The bigger hurdles come before and after the primary. First, a third party has to get on the ballot. That usually means collecting petition signatures or meeting a vote or registration threshold, and the rules differ by state. Then the candidate has to win a plurality in the general election, where the spoiler dynamic pushes voters back toward the two major parties. Primaries don’t change either of those.

Some primary systems make it worse. California and Washington use “top-two” primaries, where only the two highest finishers advance regardless of party. Third-party candidates almost never place top two, so they’re usually absent from the November ballot entirely.

The system is wired against third parties. They have to work significantly harder just to be eligible to be voted for.

That's why you can't "Just vote in the primaries"

winning enough seats to be an impediment to Trump

Trump was already voted out once; and in the intervening four years the Democrats proved themselves to be incapable of impeding Trump.

Here we have a person who has been completely subsumed by talking points. Their brain replaced by propaganda, no longer capable of original thought. Doomed to repeat "Haha I'm right and you can't stand it!" until they die of smug ignorance.

A literal court case affirming that the DNC isn't obligated to respect the will of its voters is "just" a "talking point" or "propaganda?"

Methinks your catchy little slogan "vote blue no matter who" is actually the propaganda/talking point, pot meet kettle.

How many boats of civilians did Binlden order to be sunk? How many heads of state did he kidnap or assassinate in wars of choice? How many American cities did he occupy with military units? How many of his political opponents did he have the justice department charge with baseless crimes? How many Nazis did he dine with?

The Dems piss me off, but saying the only reasons to say they're no different than the Republicans are:

1. Being a fucking idiot ;or

2. Atremptingto prop up the GOP by convincing leftists not to vote against them.

If the goal is to change the system then voting for either one will never get you to your goal.

I want the current 2 party system to die. And that can only happen if a third party wins. That's in my opinion the highest priority item.

In theory, perfectly reasonable, but in practice in a first past the post political system, you are helping whichever of the two main candidates you were least likely to vote for.

There are a few. Off the top of my head the Green Party is the biggest one, and the Labor Party is having a resurgence.

Why do you believe Trump losing the presidency will change anything?