It has been said a gazillion times over the last few months, but is it getting through to those who need to hear it?
Censorship is alive and well at .world, huh? I’ll leave y’all turds to your echo chamber then and block your infantile instance. GFL!
Is the person censoring you in the room with us right now?
There’s a third scenario where a protest vote makes sense. In solid states, a vote for a third party could push that party to meet the threshold for getting over $100 million in federal funds for the next campaign. They just need to get 5% of the popular vote to be eligible. Now I’m not saying that this would necessarily lead to some utopia of qualified candidates, but it would help disrupt the higher echelons of politics from both sides that keep the system in place. And before some dumbass comes in and accuses me of “both sides-ing” this, when was the last time congressional term limits was seriously considered for legislation despite having broad support from both sides of the electorate? The top rungs of congress that have been in office since before most of us were born won’t allow it.
“Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike.”
^ THIS!
In a Presidential election, whoever gets the most votes wins.
If “Not Trump” is split between 5 candidates, and Trump gets the most votes, he wins.
Here’s a scenario:
Trump - 40%
Harris - 35%
Kennedy - 15%
Oliver - 5%
Stein - 3%
West - 2%Trump wins. Even though 60% of the voting public don’t want him. The “Not Trump” vote failed to coalesce under one candidate enough to block him from winning.
In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?
Because we’re able to discuss hypothetical things without being literal to prove a point.
That would be fine, if that’s what was happening, but it’s not. The commentor that i responded to, as well as the article that we are all responding to, use this “hypothetical” situation where third party voters all prefer Harris over Trump to justify a chastisement of those third party votes. There is no basis for this assumption presented in the article or within the comments in this thread.
E: added the word “be” to the 1st sentence.
If you just don’t understand the concept of hypotheticals, you may be on the spectrum, fyi
Don’t use being on the spectrum as an insult. It is unbecoming.
I don’t think hypothetical means what you think it means. Either that or you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is arguing.
The article is implies that 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump voters if it came down to a choice between the two. That is not a hypothetical, that is an unsubstantianted assumption.
It’s not an insult, I’m being serious. The hypothetical is the vote totals given in the comment you responded to. In that hypothetical scenario, voting for your perfect candidate gets your least favorite candidate elected. You seem unable to consider it as a standalone scenario that may or may not be similar to real life voter tallies. That’s a common indicator of neurodivergence.
Whether they would prefer Harris or not is irrelevant, they don’t want Trump. There is only 1 candidate who can beat the Republican candidate and it’s not an Independent/Libertarian/Green candidate.
I don’t understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don’t want Trump.
This doesn’t make any sense.
“don’t want Trump” in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is “why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?”
I’ll try to make it simple then:
They aren’t pro-Harris, they’re anti-Trump.
Problem: “Not Trump” is not a candidate, so splitting the not Trump vote allows Trump to win.
If people really, REALLY, REALLY do not want Trump, there’s only one answer and that’s to support the Democratic candidate who happens to be Harris.
Why Harris? Because she has more support than any other “Not Trump” candidate.
I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn’t matter). My question remains. I’ll rephrase it:
Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?
Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.
Because if they were interested in voting for Trump, they’d be voting for Trump. When the choice is Trump vs. Not Trump, Not Trump wins. Even in 2016 that was true.
What the other person is saying is that you are splitting voters in three categories: pro-Trump, pro-Harris, anti-Trump. But that third group obviosuly doesn’t like either of the two main candidates, not just Trump. And if forced to vote for one of them, there’s no reason to assume all will pick Harris.
A poll in which “First choice is someone other than Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that “Trump” has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.
A poll in which “Anybody but Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.
Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i’ve been asking for in this thread.
Complete drivel. Why do liberals think repeatedly telling us the same condescending nonsense without engaging with any of our actual arguments is convincing? There isn’t a third party voter alive who hasn’t heard these arguments.
So while each individual unhappy voter wants to keep their hands clean and not vote, they would each like the other 9,999 unhappy voters to step up and swing the outcome in favor of their preferred candidate.
What third party voter is asking other people to vote for a major party? This is such a blatant strawman that I find it hard to believe that this author has ever had a single conversation with a third party voter.
I’ve had many conversations with “third party voters” here on lemmy. Haven’t found any, at all, not one, who can talk about the faults of the republicans in anything like the length and passion that they can talk about the faults of the democrats, and the national polling says that real third party voters are very rare, so a little bit of Bayes’ theorem says that the “third party voters” talking so loudly and long about why I shouldn’t vote for Harris are far, far, far more likely to be republicans pretending to be left wing or neutral, hoping desperately that they can convince enough potential democratic voters to stay home to swing the election for their favourite - stupid evil country-betraying Trump.
There’s more discourse about the Democrats because there’s less disagreement about Republicans being bad. I wrote up a post about Trump’s foreign policy doublespeak a while back where I called out anyone who might support Trump from an isolationist standpoint. It didn’t get much engagement, but that’s not my fault. Most of my comments are responding to things other people say and there are more Harris supporters than Trump supporters.
I might remind you that Lemmy was developed by communists, so an alternative explanation is that communists are more likely to both vote third party and use Lemmy.
The idea that we’re secret conservatives is so absurd that I doubt you actually believe it, and are just using the accusation as a talking point to discredit the other side. Conservatives are awful at impersonating communists, they don’t read or understand leftist theory and typically can only make it a few hours at most before breaking character and shouting slurs. You’re vastly overestimating their intelligence and creativity. To say that Bayes’ theorem supports your accusation is patently absurd.
At some point, claiming that communists are just conservatives in disguise means claiming that conservatives read more leftist political theory than liberals do. As entertaining as it may be to imagine a bunch of good ol’ boys getting together and starting a book club where they discuss, like, the finer points of Simone de Beauvoir, I think if you’re doing Bayesian analysis you should probably assign that a pretty low probability. They don’t even read their own theory, much less ours.
Except you don’t need to read a lot of theory to endlessly repeat Conservative talking points whilst advocating voter behaviour likely to lead the world’s most powerful military to be controlled by fascists. You must have come across “communists” who just spout putin’s talking points?
Like I said, and you seem to have missed it, not everyone supporting Trump is American, and not everyone supporting Trump is stupid.
Trump himself is really very stupid but he’s worked with some less stupid people who know what lines will track well with different voter bases, and lemmy.ml has swallowed the third party guilt-free-complicity line really enthusiastically, but not as wholesale as it swallowed the push America right to push it left line.
So no, sorry, just as it’s really hard to tell sarcasm about Trump from support, and just as it’s really hard to tell satire about Trump from actual things trump said, it’s almost impossible to tell sincere leftists who were duped into parrotting rightwing talking points about the election from trump supporters busy doing the duping.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I find it hard to believe that it’s a swan. After all, if you’re pissing in the petrol tank, don’t ask me to spend a long time listening to why it’s good for the engine.
Oh, so now it’s that you’re surrounded by secret agents from foreign countries, and that’s the only reason people disagree with you. I’m assuming that there’s no possible evidence that would falsify this conspiracy theory, right?
Superb straw man there.
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Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they’re left wing and have been duped.
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Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they’re right wing and doing the duping.
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Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are Americans.
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Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not Americans.
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Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not very clever.
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Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are clever.
You claim that half of these couldn’t possibly exist, because for some reason you think that only Americans approve of Trump, you believe that only Americans want to influence the American election and you characterise all Trump supporters as dumb rednecks or something more offensive, then I point out the even ones exist and you claim I’m a conspiracy theorist. Wow.
You claim that half of these couldn’t possibly exist
Nowhere did I claim this. Kind of funny that you strawman me right after accusing me of strawmanning you.
A conspiracy theory is not something that is impossible to be true, it’s just implausible. It could be that the checkout clerk at my local grocery is an undercover FBI agent, why couldn’t it? It’s just that there’s no evidence for it and it would be pretty unreasonable to assert that, especially if there was no possible way to falsify it.
I could just as easily claim that you’re working for US intelligence, I’d have just as much basis. But I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist, so I don’t. By Occam’s razor and the principle of charity, I assume that you simply believe other things than me. That concept of people having different beliefs and values seems to be something that liberals simply cannot grasp - as if there’s one obviously correct position and everyone else is either stupid or being deceived by bad actors. It’s quite silly.
I don’t espouse any “right wing” positions, and I don’t generally see other people on here doing the same. My criticism of liberals is from a leftist perspective, grounded in leftist values and theory, and drawing from leftist intellectual traditions. It’s just that liberals want to lump anyone who disagrees with them on anything for any reason as right wing in order to discredit and dismiss them.
Kind of funny that you strawman me right after accusing me of strawmanning you.
Er…
Like I said, and you seem to have missed it, not everyone supporting Trump is American, and not everyone supporting Trump is stupid.
Oh, so now it’s that you’re surrounded by secret agents from foreign countries, and that’s the only reason people disagree with you. I’m assuming that there’s no possible evidence that would falsify this conspiracy theory, right?
This you?
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What a dreadful article. If you’re not in a swing state, and you’re in the minority, and you have been for the last 70 years, why do you think anything is going to change this time? Your vote never made a difference before and it almost certainly won’t this time, either. Vote for whoever you want to vote for.
It’s just embarrassing to write an article like this and forget about the electoral college.
It’s just embarrassing to write an article like this and forget about the electoral college.
You say that as if you don’t realise that the electoral college is exactly why it can’t possibly achieve anything to vote third party other than risk your least favourite candidate winning.
You act all high and mighty and snide and then completely miss the point. I’m not impressed.
What, you think it’s snide to point out that a poorly written political article was poorly written? Jesus. All they had to do was mention that everything is extra complicated because of the electoral college. It would have added three or four sentences, and it would have made their article relevant and true.
Or maybe you had a problem with my wording. Do you think I should have been more delicate, to avoid hurting the author’s feelings? (I don’t think they’re going to read my comments, but even if they did, the odds are good that they would care about my view about as much as you do.)
It’s more what you were high and mighty about - you claimed that the article was missing the fact that there’s an electoral college, whilst yourself missing the entire point of the whole article which is wholly based on the fact of the electoral college.
So if you hadn’t missed the entire point of the article, or if the entire point of the article wasn’t based on the failings of the electoral college system, your criticism of it might have had merit.
So just as you missed the point of the article, you missed the point of my post, which wasn’t about your impoliteness, but rather your hypocrisy.
This article is the most logically corrupt piece of statist drivel i have read today. “No, no, don’t vote for who you feel best represent your values. Instead, pretend like everyone else who shares those values is going to team up and vote for the same one of the two people they dislike.” Because, in essence, the “logic” used in this article only works if you assume that all of the third party voters are pulling from one candidate.
It doesn’t matter how many candidates third parties pull from.
If no candidate gets 270 votes, the election is decided by the House. That’s at the electoral college level, but see jordan lund’s breakdown above and how a majority “not Trump” votes will be split among candidates but Trump still wins the state because the “not Trump” voters couldn’t get their shit together and coalesce around a single candidate.
And if the election goes to the House, Assuming Republicans maintain control, take one guess who they’re going to elect?
And why is everyone assuming that all of the third party voters would be Harris voters if they were forced to choose between the two main candidates? This is where the logic goes south. It assumes that the third party voters are some homogenous bloc of disenfranchised “not Trump” voters.
Aren’t they though?
No.
Got any evidence of all these right-leaning 3rd party supporters?
Thats not how this works. The one making the claim provides some evidence. The article makes an unsubstantianted claim that the 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump. I asked for some sort of proof of this. And you have responded by asking me for proof refuting their claim. Burden of proof is not on me. I am just asking you, or anyone else to back up these claims, because the authors did not
Lol okay then I’ll assume you’re pulling this whole argument from your ass. Rofl. “Burden of proof” lol what a copout.
And remember: a “protest” third party vote is a vote for Trump.
If neither Harris nor Trump gets 270 electoral votes…
[If] No one gets to 270 and the House of Representatives, voting on behalf of the 50 states, is entrusted to pick the next president. What could possibly go wrong with that constitutionally mandated solution?
– What if no candidate wins 270 electoral votes?
Edit: I feel like this fact is often overlooked.
Wait… you can actually have someone NOT get 270 votes?
Oh… duh… 3rd parties taking some. You think it’d just be whoever has the most electoral college votes then… Alas, needlessly complicating things.
Lol, yeah. The article I linked is from earlier this year and about Biden/Trump/Kennedy, but the gist of it still applies.
A protest vote to a third party is actually a protest vote to whoever you prefer less. You’re essentially just removing yourself as a voter and making it more likely the person you like less is elected… we often say “third party is a vote for Trump” since most of lemmy is sane - but for a staunch conservative a vote for a third party is a vote for Harris.
I’d encourage everyone to vote regardless of your leaning - having low voter turnout allows more shitty shenanigans.
Yeah, also, Conservatives are more ‘fall in line’ voters, so there’s less vote splitting on the Right than on the Left. Libertarians do appeal to the people opposed to both eyes in the boardroom and eyes in the bedroom on both the Left and the Right, but for the most part, the GQP follows the ‘Vote for the Conservative in the Primary and the Republican in the General’ more than we follow its inverse (replace Conservative with Liberal and Republican with Democrat). And for Republicans afraid of a Trump presidency, come join us and vote for Harris. Then maybe go work on de-Trumping your party after they lose with you helping us. ;)
You… do know that the right gets like…. 4x the 3rd party vote compared to the left. Like what you say is 100% false.
Libertarians+constitution got like 1.2% compared to PSL+greens 0.31% last presidential election iirc.
But also, if the DNC wanted the 3rd party vote they could simply… court it… instead of pissing on it? To say they cost the vote when the DNC continually shot Bernie in the face in 2016, using funds meant to promote the DNC candidate to campaign against a Democrat candidate makes it FOR SURE THE 3RD PARTY VOTERS FAULT. NOTHING THE DNC COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY TO NOT LOSE. THEY WERE PERFECT FOR REFUSING TO ADOPT LEGALIZED WEED, SOCIAL PROGRAMS, MEDICARE FOR ALL, ETC. IN FACT, IT IS GOOD THEY ARE STILL REFUSING TO DO SO AND ALSO REFUSING TO JUST NOT GIVE BILLIONS TO SUPPORT AN ACTIVE GENOCIDE. THAT’LL SHOW THIRD PARTY VOTERS THE TRUE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY!
This was very funny. Thank you!
I like that it’s the Democrats fault for whenever these issues failed, and not the Republicans who universally vote against them. Remove every Republican and I bet we start seeing these issues getting passed.
Talking about simply adopting the policy to the DNCs platform, which they won’t. Not about it actually passing, which they still should be able to do but is out of the question when they don’t even want it.
Yep, we also say that because there are a lot of astroturf accounts pushing Stein and De La Cruz on Lemmy that are hyper-critical of Harris but suspiciously never want to talk about what a shitbag Trump is.
They don’t push them. They just push back against Democrats that invent lies about Stein. It seems most Democrats can’t handle truths about Harris praising and committing to funding war criminals like Netanyahu & Dick Cheney.
we can handle them just fine because the fact of the matter is trump would be way worse for Palestine. There’s a reason Netanyahu prefers Trump.
Stein would be better by your logic because she’d stop sending multibillion dollar thank you checks to Israel whenever they kill American journalists.
Give it up bud. The veil is lifted and no one is falling for it.
No I refuse to support people that are pro genocide. It’s that simple really. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that I voted for that. I was going to vote for Kamala but I just can’t do it unless she changes her position before the election.
First past the post voting mathematically ensures a two party system. Voting third party is useless unless we have election reform. Vote with your mind, not your heart, and vote thinking beyond just the next 4 years.
I’ll endorse any candidate that is against killing children.
Look at how you get downvoted by people that want to kill children. Unit 8200 has entered the chat.
welcome to the "fed’ iverse
Whew the tankies and astroturfers are out in force in these comments. I think we got the gamut going here:
- “I don’t vote for genocide”
- “A vote for 3rd party isn’t a vote for Trump”
- “If we don’t vote 3rd party nothing will change”
- “Jill Stein isn’t a Russian asset”
- “Who cares if Trump wins; they’re both bad / nothing worse will happen l both sides”
- “I literally don’t understand how Trump can win if I vote 3rd party because I don’t understand the difference between voting for and against a candidate”
- “Liberals / Democrats / Harris voters are the real fascists”
Solid work astroturfers! Glad to see you’re still trotting out these arguments despite plenty of Lemmy users discrediting each and every one. Really shows grit and dedication.
Also, calling it now that at least one of them replies with something about how they’re true / haven’t been discredited.
If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you deserve to get the greater evil.
I think you did some math wrong somewhere.
There’s a trolly going down a track with 5 people tied to it. You can pull a lever to slow the trolly down and it will only run over 1 person, or you can do nothing and it will run over all 5.
This guy: “Anyone who would pull the lever for the lesser evil of running over 1 person deserves the greater evil of running over all of them.”
Except you could pull the 3rd party lever that kills no one, but because that lever dOeSnT hAvE a rEaLiStiC cHaNcE, you’d still pull the lever that killed a person.
More like the third lever is a lever that does absolutely nothing but comfort the person pulling with a dumb sign that says, “your moral purity is still intact”, 5 people still die. Spoiler, your moral purity is not intact, you just lie to yourself that it is.
Or maybe you’re the one coping because deep down you know if everyone stopped licking the boots of Democrats and Republicans, America wouldn’t be in such a dangerous place.
One month before the election is not the time to be building a 3rd party. Why do I already know I won’t hear a damn thing from 3rd party people come December, and they’ll stay quiet until mid 2028?
That’s so obviously false. Why did you think it would sound even remotely plausible?
