Well election is over, the time to start building up a third party is NOW
Didn’t Trump basically promise “no more elections if I win”?
Oh yeah, he did. A few times, even.
3rd party voters didn’t swing a single swing state. That is a demonstrable fact. It’s time to stop punching down.
People will, in a single breath, tell people to exercise their right to vote in democracy and also that voting for the person/party that best represents them is wrong if it’s not a Big Party.
Usually in a democracy the people are represented by parties which they align most with. In my country I can vote for one of seven, which get proportionally represented by a number of seats in parliament. The winning party rarely has more than 50% of the vote, if they do, all the losing parties will become the opposition, and if they don’t they have to combine with another party to have at least 50% of the votes. This assures that the winning party or coalition still has to negotiate their position and decisions every single day. If one party would want the power the current administration in the US has they would probably need 80 or 90% of the votes.
Is it complicated? Yes. Does it make sure the people are represented? Also yes.
In the US if a state votes 51% one way, 100% of the electoral votes go to that party, causing a reality where a party could get less than a majority vote and still win. This alone is proof that the people are not fairly represented and isn’t a fair democracy. In local elections you’ll have a much more nuanced choice but at a federal level it’s antiquated to say the least.
I will say that in a fair democracy, you should vote for your representative, in the US you have no such choice. Be it by living in one state counts as more than another, or the fact that a third party has little to no representation post election.
The issue in the US is that it IS against your political interests to vote for anyone but the least bad option.
The first past the post system simply doesn’t allow for a diverse political landscape.
Rofl, victim complex much? “Punching down” like you’re some repressed minority for having shitty prioritization skills. Jfc
Dont you know?
The people who say they dont want to support genocide but actively choose the worst of the genocide-related options are the real victims here.
Is this why coffee is often served as molten lava? Because all yall blow on your coffee before every sip? I despise all of you. I just want to drink coffee like any other drink
This is one of my favorite things about using an Aeropress. I use half the water to brew the concentrate, which will be just off boil, but then the water I use to dilute to final strength can be any temp I want, so it is immediately drinkable. There are many other advantages, especially if you like to experiment, but this one to me is huge.
Its so hilarious how this ridiculously toxic culture around blaming third party was developed, worked on for months, and then when it came time, the impact of third parties was so utterly irrelevant as to be laughable.
The real beef was with stay home single EDIT issue folks who would otherwise be Dem voters.
Edit for clarity: the above group are historical, nominally Dem voters, who stayed home abnormally this election.
3rd party “voices” were annoying because they only punched at Dems, never at republicans. Interestingly, a few of them migrated to libertarian and conservative instances now
Don’t blame the people staying home. Blame the Democrats for doing nothing to earn those votes but say “Orange Man Bad”. They did the exact same thing in 2016. Democrats ran on maintaining the status quo at a time when no one is happy with the status quo.
The Harris campaign should have campaigned on issues that would attract progressives and others on the left. Instead they tried to get conservatives to leave their cult by touting the endorsement of Dick fucking Cheney and his incredibly unpopular daughter and saying they’ll close the borders and continue funding Netanyahu’s genocide. It’s like Harris didn’t want to win.
If Democrats want to win they need to stop being Republicans.
Edit but in the spirit of conversation: Biden AND Harris are lame candidates that absolutely only maintain the status quo. As you say, voters are unhappy with that.
Edit restructure
I disagree with the conclusion that OMB isn’t valid reasoning. But it’s just one dudes opinion that I’ve laid out in the thread.
Orange man bad was more then enough to pick a rock with a smiley face on it as alternative
People will learn the consequences, regardless of what brought them in our kept them home.
If folks fundamentally can’t play out the math on 2 choices in a FPTP where one is a serial rapist, anti abortion candidate, who is on record for wanting to accelerate Gaza, then I dunno what to say on that. “Status quo” starts looking pretty shiny, which is terrible, but the world we live in.
But now we have trump, and a lot of folks get to say “they didn’t attract me”
None of us would “otherwise be dem voters”. What part of “I’m not voting for you because I don’t support your policies” did you not understand?
Many “normally / historically” Dem voters stayed home. That’s the group I’m referring to by “single issue” section.
I don’t know who you “us” are so why would I speak for you?
Because you’ve been so civil in your reply, I’ll throw an edit on there just for you.
This is all just the same toxic projection that I’ve been pointing out in this thread.
You want to blame third parties but there is basically 0, practically negative evidence for it.
No, I haven’t discussed 3rd parties at all in my comment. I said 3rd party “voices”, reading comprehension meaning “commenters/online personalities” because I noted their movement to new instances.
Edit also note I had a typo in my above “single party” to 'single issue"
Splendid discussion as usual dingdong. Twist then pull up
What do you expect when you just keep putting the same performative toxicity on display?
So much assuming.
My “toxicity” are legitimate concerns to not get trump, who will ramp everything up. Well look who’s here now.
As I said, single issue stay homes, and “alternative” voices that actually only served to strike at Dems are issues I believe shifted the narrative and may have influenced the election.
I made a thread to discuss other influences beyond just punching down at 3rd party platforms.
doesn’t that mean it worked?
No, it was just part of a broader culture of infantalism demonstrated by Democratic apologists. There was no there there. Just people desperate for something to blame for their incompetence.
but like… if everyone is saying “don’t vote third party”, and the amount of third party votes significantly drops as a result, isn’t this what the result would look like?
There is a term for the act of only looking for evidence that confirms your bias. If the “strategy” worked, then why isn’t Kamala Harris president?
And if that wasn’t the goal of the strategy, what point is it that you think was being made in the first place?
i have no idea what the strategy of the us democratic party was, I’m just reflecting on what i’ve on social media over the past month or so (a constant barrage of “don’t vote third party”) and comparing it to the results (very few people voting third party). of course there’s no way to know how much of that was due to said barrage, but we can for sure say that the people telling people to vote third party failed.
What if the deer lives in one of the 43 states that do not matter?
Supposedly if every single liberal-leaning person were to vote Democrat, they (edit: some of them) would have become swing states.
But I think it’s more that people just want an easy target to punch, which makes people feel more in control. Like, it’s not our glorious leader™'s fault, it’s “those” people, over there. And the number of Internet searches for what happened to Joe Biden on the very morning of the election should legit be worrisome to us all imho…
Ngl, I was kinda impressed by storing told about Kamala’s campaigning and dedication. (Or was that simply part of the spin machine?) Maybe she could - no, surely she could have done better? But she also gave it as much as “the establishment” would allow, and came up short.
So now we can either roll up our sleeves and try to fix things… oh who is anyone kidding we’ll just take whatever handouts we are given, as always.
