cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/151111
With the dust is settling from their defeat on Tuesday, it’s becoming clearer that there was some incredible malpractice going on in the Democratic party. As shown in the tweet I linked, Biden delayed dropping out even though his team knew it was going to be a complete blowout for Trump. Then, we have Harris’s campaign spending over a billion dollars and still losing all of the swing states she needed to win.
For all the Democrats who would never vote Republican and would have never voted third party, are you now considering voting third party in future elections? If not, what would it take?
If not, what would it take?
A viable third party candidate. Before anyone says it, Jill Stein is not it. Alternately, a voting method that allows voting third party without just enabling a GOP sweep (again).
It’d be great if this resulted in some major revision of the Democratic party from within, but I’m not holding my breath. I will, however, continue voting for the “less bad viable option” if the “more bad option” is on par with Trump.
That’s fair, but if the Democrats are also running candidates that aren’t viable or not running viable campaigns, then you’re just compromising your principles for nothing.
It was actually self-defeating to run on a platform that got an (enthusiastically received) endorsement from Dick Cheney.
It’s about who has a chance of winning. If you’re trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you’re kidding yourself.
I’ve said this before and I’ll continue saying it: Trying to inject a 3rd party candidate into the presidential race is foolish. A much better tactic would be trying to push for 3rd party candidates in smaller races for local / state government, or congress. Doing that is a lot easier, and can make small incremental changes that add up over time. There simply isn’t a realistic way for a third party candidate to compete in the presidential race until the voting system is changed.
If you’re trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you’re kidding yourself.
I’m not trying to argue that. I’m saying that it’s becoming apparent that the Democratic party is in such bad shape that they had no chance to beat Trump either. If they fail to make significant changes, to their personnel and their platform, they are going to keep failing in subsequent elections. If they’re going to lose anyway, then there’s got to be a point where progressive Democrats start voting with some dignity for third party candidates.
A decent human being doesn’t vote for the most principled candidate, they instead vote for the candidate who would hurt the fewest number of people by winning while (importantly) actually having a chance of winning.
Moral absolutism isn’t moral, it results in people getting hurt, because whoever adheres to it decided for themsevles that their principles are more important than fellow human beings. The sooner you realize this, the better.
I will never vote for genocide, turns out there’s at least 15 million like me. You enjoy being responsible for this genocide and any expansion of it Trump does, as you voted for it.
A truly progressive third party that also actually has a prayer of winning. They would need a groundswell of individual small donors making up much of their campaign funding because mainstream ain’t gonna fund them, so good luck with that.
Despite a billion dollars in funding, the Democrats campaign didn’t have a prayer either. And I have a hard time calling their platform progressive at all. Anyone who liked it more than that of the Greens or the PSL would have just voted Republican.
You’re ignoring the “prayer of winning” part. Until then, I’m voting against the bigger asshole.
Yes, but as it turned out, Harris didn’t have a prayer either. If you weren’t voting for Trump (I assume you consider him to be the bigger asshole) it didn’t matter if you voted for Harris or any other candidate. So unless the Democrats make big changes to their platform and the people running their campaigns… well, it’s insanity to expect a different result. There’s got to be a point where progressive Democrats decide that they might as well vote with some dignity for third party candidates.
So, the green party. Good thing a bunch of far right idiots didn’t spend the last 8 years implying a licensed medical doctor at the head of the party was a Russian spy.
I wrote her off many years ago for reasons I don’t remember, but know had nothing to do with that. Also, COVID proved being a licensed MD isn’t a reliable yardstick.
You could run a modern campaign with nothing but social media memes and volunteers.
Bernie Sanders did that, and it did great. It wasn’t enough to win, partly because the Democrats fucked him.
At this point, you’ll have to contend with massive social-media operations which are working against and shaping the narratives that most of the country use as a substitute for news, to understand what’s happening in the world. I think the time to be able to do it has passed, for a little while, without on-the-ground anti-electoral organizing on a massive scale.
See who you can find in your area. It’s about to get real, I think.
Lemmy, 1 week ago: “A THIRD PARTY VOTE IS A REPUBLICAN VOTE!”
Lemmy, today: “WE SHOULD ALL BE VOTING THIRD PARTY!”
A week ago, a third party vote for president was a vote for Trump.
The presidential election is over. Now is the time to rejigger the political gameboard.
Ranked choice voting or similar.
I’m vastly more in favor of Approval Voting, truth be told. Most anything’s better than what we have now, but ranked voting systems of any sort tend to have issues similar to FPTP, whereas Approval or Score voting don’t. Approval Voting is also dead simple, since the only change is that you can vote for as many candidates as you want.
Sanders got fucked in 2016 and the Democrats who get nominated aren’t great and yes it’s partially the Democrats’ fault they got so few votes in 2024. I strongly disagree that it’s chiefly their fault, but that horse is out of the barn now, and also the barn is on fire now and connected to the house with the children inside.
There will be some incredible shit going down in the next few years. It’ll be a challenge to have any sort of elections in 2028 that have anything non-Republican in any position to win anything. I don’t think it will happen.
If you want to have a conversation about how we get left-wing values to win in future elections, start with how we fight to preserve basic freedoms like elections that don’t have Trump’s election integrity squad in charge of them, and free speech online, and the military not being used against American protestors.
I hope I’m wrong but I think some real shit is going to go down real soon. I don’t think we should assume elections are going to be normal and then plan from that assumption.
If left-wing values can’t win in 2028 it will be because the Democratic candidate runs as a knock-off Republican again, which isn’t going to win either.
Give it a rest. I can argue back my point of view to you, and we can go back and forth a little, and it’s pointless.
I can guarantee you that people in large numbers will get their doors kicked in by the police and hauled away, and laws will get passed that make it a crime to be anti-Republican. How wide a scale and how bad that all will get isn’t certain, but I think it will be pretty bad.
Your days of pointing at the Democrats as the problem need to stop, and their days of pointing at the Bernie Sanders crowd and the Palestine protestors as the problem need to stop, because even if we (edit: don’t) do put all that bullshit aside and start fighting together against the real enemy for real, we might not win. I really don’t care who’s right anymore. Before the election, I did. That stuff is over.
The more people who are still convinced that their own side needs to be made into the enemy in any respect, the harder that fight will get, and it’ll already be hard, and bad.
I can guarantee you that people in large numbers will get their doors kicked in by the police and hauled away, and laws will get passed that make it a crime to be anti-Republican. How wide a scale and how bad that all will get isn’t certain, but I think it will be pretty bad.
If you can better define and quantify your expectations, I might be willing to take the other side of that bet.
