If only there was some kind of proven road map where countries who has been dominated by their ruling elite using the two party trick went on to form a kind of labour movement that forced a third choice on the ruling class…
glances at the current state of the UK Labour party
It’s been known to work for a bit, but its also been known to collapse right back into the old two-party dichotomy. I think the hysteria around third parties baked into every election since the Bush Era SCOTUS-powered election theft in Florida is overblown, particularly when so much of the electorate lives in one-party dominant states. But I’ve also noticed successful outsider parties - the German Greens, France’s En March, the UK Liberal Dems - seem to embrace Corporationism as quickly as any of their German Christian Democrat / French Socialist / UK Tory peers.
And then there’s always this specter of fascism floating on the edge of the political establishment. Your Alternative for Germany, your National Front, and your UKIP create this existential crisis for liberal voters, such that they’re persistently terrorized into voting the “safe” centrist candidates in while ostracizing any candidate actually running on the things they say they want.
The Ruling Elite have the effective roadmap to keep the proles in line. Continuously finance a paper tiger on the right-flank of the election cycle. Make immigration a boogeyman issue that mobilizes the reactionaries within the state to turn out in droves. Then dangle a weak liberal as a release valve - a Starmer or Biden or Macron or Olaf Schultz - that nobody particularly likes, but the liberal-leaning base are told is “electable” because they can win the support of the conservative national media.
People are bombarded with this false choice - weak liberal or strongman conservative - decade after decade, all the way around the edge of the Atlantic, until the institutions these weak liberals are supposed to support are falling apart and the strongman conservatives can easily take over.
Its a doomed system.
The labour party is certainly flawed but you have to remember all they’ve given the people of the UK, in the brief times they’ve been in power (relatively speaking).
I’m not claiming it will fix everything but I would argue that the UK and just about every country thats had a labour movement that got into power benefited from it. Well, the 99% did.
Unless you know when the revolution is coming, it might be better to make alternative arrangements. Short of running to the hills and joining a commune, we’re quite deliberately not given any other option than to vote for better oppression.
The labour party is certainly flawed but you have to remember all they’ve given the people of the UK
You’re going to have to fill me in, because it seems Keir took office and immediately declared that there is no money left in the banana stand.
They couldn’t even restore funding to the H2 connection from Manchester to London, and that’s shit that was already paid for.
True or not, it would take something very special for the new Labour government to have already of given things to the people of the UK, seeing as Parliaments only been back for 2 weeks, don’t you think?
I mean, I have moderate expectations at best. I hope they don’t make things worse but, at the same time, I also think they’ll fall well short of achieving time travel.
Were you expecting time travel? I think you might be disappointed, if so.
I also think they’ll fall well short of achieving time travel.
It’s crazy when something as simple as rejecting the Cass Report and ending the instructional abuse of Trans People is equated with SciFi tiers of impossibility.
I’m sure that made sense, followed on naturally from the conversation and didn’t just sound like unhinged ranting and deflections in your head, at least.
Oh no. JK Rowling has entered the chat.
Hey bro… just for vote my guy tho, trust me bro. You are not a bigot, is u?
Actually most people are not aware. So its better to spell it out.
no it isn’t.
LOL and how do you suppose we make third parties viable? Thoughts and prayers?
Smaller elections. Get state representatives, win a few seats in the house, a few senators… When your party actually contributes to governing then you can discuss running for president. Until then you won’t beat Nader or Perot
Not by voting for people in elections they can’t win. Vote at the local and state level or in primaries for people who will enact voting reform.
Like who?
I don’t know where you live so I don’t have any relevant suggestions, sorry.
Name anyone anywhere
Changing the voting system so that third parties are actually possible.
You need a cardinal voting system, otherwise you’ll fall prey to Durverger’s Law and Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.
I favor STAR, it’s the best system designed to date.
The problem is that these systems are way more complex and have edge cases where someone unpopular gets elected. Making major changes to a system that has worked for 248 years seems like a recipe for disaster.
and have edge cases where someone unpopular gets elected
As opposed to the current system, where someone unpopular always gets elected?
Making major changes to a system that has worked for 248 years
It hasn’t worked. It’s deeply flawed and we currently use the worst-possible process, rooted in ancient history.
Changing the voting system so that third parties are actually possible.
And why would anyone do that when everyone takes time out of their day to express their approval for the existing 2 parties?
Progress is slow. Start with killing the popularity of the second party/party you absolutely don’t align with/party that will move the needle away from your party first.
I’ve never voted for a major party presidential candidate in my life. It has never cost anyone anything, because I used to live in a deep red state and now live in a deep blue state. There’s a better chance of helping a candidate hit thresholds that would qualify them for things like campaign funding, then there is of Tennessee or Illinois being the pivotal swing state. The vast majority of Americans are in similar situations, there’s only a handful of states where your presidential vote matters at all.
Despite this, and the fact that I’ve voted for Democrats down ballot, liberals hate me, and are always trying to fight me over it. Why? Because the presidential race is the only thing anybody cares about. For all the countless, identical debates over the presidential race, I’ve seen virtually no discussion on here of other elections. Culturally, your take on the presidential race is how your political identity is defined. That cultural tendency is so powerful that it can even bleed into foreign countries.
The more people focus on my presidential voting behavior, which has no potential to affect anything, the more it reaffirms that such behavior is important. The reason that people care so much about my vote is not because they care about the outcome, it’s because they want me to display a sign of loyalty, to bend the knee, to conform to their norms. But if everyone’s going to treat it as an expression of identity, then, all else being equal regarding the outcome, it would be better to define myself according to what I actually believe. The fact that people get big mad over someone voting third party even in an extremely solid red or blue state is all the more reason to do it. My vote doesn’t affect your life at all since it’s totally irrelevant to the outcome, so stop obsessing over what amounts to a personal decision.
You don’t need to vote for a main party. However, your vote isn’t mathematically significant
👍
There are multiple people just in this post alone advising people to vote in local and primary elections. What are you talking about?
“Advising people to vote in” is not the same as “caring about” or “paying attention to.”
Is there any mention of specific candidates? Any passionate arguments over the details of specific races? Any discussion of political theory or historical precedent or anything like that in that context? Has anybody called someone a Nazi because of how they’re voting for down ballot?
No. Because what people care about and pay attention to is the presidential race, unless you’re some kind of weird nerd or responsible citizen or something.
How active is your local Lemmy community? Mines is pretty dead but voting for the specifics you call for is still mentioned.
Of course people aren’t going to be discussing the specifics of local races in the general politics community. It’s entirely disingenuous to argue that’s an indicator that nobody cares about local races.
I don’t agree that that’s an “of course.” There should be discussion of specific local races in a general politics community. Like I said, presidential votes only matter in a handful of states. If you add up the populations of swing states, I’m sure it’s higher than any individual state, but there are still some pretty big states where millions of people live that that aren’t included in that. And yeah, everyone is affected by the presidential race, but everyone is affected by congressional races too. If you want to say, let’s say 90% of the content should be on the race that’s relevant to people living in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and maybe North Carolina that’s fine, but if the rest of us have to see their content all the time, then they shouldn’t mind if they have to see like 10% of the content relevant to the people who live in some of the other 44 states.
And to be clear, this isn’t something I’m saying about Lemmy in particular. Go anywhere in America, from the deepest red state to the deepest blue state, and ask about the latest story-of-the-week about the presidential race, and people will know about it and have an opinion on it and care about it. Ask them about local races, and they’ll be far less knowledgeable far less invested, and will probably try to fit it into a framework based on the one race they actually care about, even if they can’t affect it in any way.
There would be so much more potential to cut through battle lines if people would go like, “OK, fine, you don’t like either candidate, you don’t have to vote for them. But do you mind if I ask what state you live in? Maybe there’s someone running for congress or governor who’s more to your tastes. I’d be happy to look into who’s running and discuss them with you.”
But nobody wants that shit. We want the battle lines, we want the group identity, the team sports. We don’t want to do research about boring shit nobody cares about, we want a constant stream of engaging news stories and hot takes that we can all experience together, as a culture.
“no one talks about X”.
Is shown that many people talk about X.
“No, not like that!”Misinterprets what I said to create a strawman
Is explained to that that’s not what was meant
Repeats strawman.
Thank you for explaining what you’re doing. But we were well aware of it.
“I know you are but what am I?”
Highest level of discourse.
You’re the one coming in here and asking why anyone cares who wins an election that’s not even in your country.
You can rightly fuck off. Most of us care very deeply who wins.
Not surprised you and the other people downplaying the election are from .ml
I shill voting 3p at every level as tactic to clown the two party regime.
But nothing stops people from getting into the weeds in local elections though.
But yeah the whole vibe… If you don’t want my guy, you lack empathy OR you just don’t care about hurting people is very 🤡 approach to essentially shame people into compliance.
The shaming campaign from the DNC has been very strong recently.
This entire discussion is only happening BC it was posted in a sub that is not controlled by the group who runs news and politics subs on Lemmy world
You’d need to grow the third party / greens by having them become a viable party in local elections and state elections first. The greens have failed to do that. Which means they have no chance except to spoil the election.
Big money donors will never allow green candidates to get into significant office. Money runs politics and billionaires own entire state houses these days
True. I think about it now as a kind of physics problem. You have political energy measured in dollars on each side. Volunteers to help bring the political message across for free can be converted into dollars too. There are a lot of people concerned or outright scared out of their minds about environmental concerns like climate change. One sight has multiple orders of magnitude more political energy to spend. For example on counter measures, or boosting extreme vegan voices to cause disruption, advertising or media stories or think tanks or lobbyists. And the “technology” to manage this political energy is rapidly advancing too. So no amount of “this is the right / wrong choice” argument is going to change anything. There is only power.
That’s never going to happen
*without voting system reform
No
Insane levels of cope from the party that’s suing states to remove the “unviable” third parties to protect their genocide candidate’s chances at beating someone who is literally incapable of forming basic sentences
Another .ml user spouting bullshit. Look at that.
🍿🍿🍿
What do you mean? Rfk is the one suing to get off. Me thinks another rusky has entered the chat.
take your Reddit tier russiagate bullshit back to that cesspit you absolute buffoon.
What’s your point? https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/09/01/rfk-jr-sues-to-be-removed-from-north-carolina-ballot/ the theory being all these nonsense candidates are being propped up by state actors. And you’re going around posting half truths like a bot
I dunno about this analogy. I think the doctor proved that with enough time, anything can become a door.
“Why would I vote for a primary party candidate who supports ranked choice voting when I can just throw my vote away on a third-party candidate that will never be elected? I’ve got principles!”
Ranked choice voting seems like a great way to create huge political instability. Let’s take the system that has worked decent for 248 years and completely replace it with something less well tested. We already have uncertainty we don’t need to mess with the system more.
worked decent
This is how we know you’re not here in good faith 😬
You don’t want to mess about with that democracy nonsense. We’ve had a monarchy that has worked decent for a millennium, and you want it replace it with some untested, newfangled system?
Status quo lover over here what world are you livin in
Voting for either side is just accepting the status quo.
Third party vote today is just laying ground work for a generational fight. There is no other way to get the attention from the politicians.
They rule on behalf of donors and two party system ensures they ways win, they just take turns.
There is no other way to get the attention from the politicians.
And if those politicians are so keen on ignoring you, why would they listen to this? Oh, you voted for Cornel West because you’re “unsatisfied,” literally who cares? The status quo wins again, goodbye. Say hello to the camps.
Say hello to the camps.
is the new DNC FUD we get for voting third party?
yes please put me into fema camp staffed by obama death panel, my DNC komissar 🤡
You didn’t answer the question.
If the DNC doesn’t listen anyway, why would a 3rd party vote “get attention from them”?
I stated my position on this issue all over this thread.
But for you here again dear:
This tactic will only work if peasants are able to upset the regime sufficiently. a constant 3-5 percent every election, they will have to take notice. double digits they will have to start planning around it.
This is a generational tactic, it will take several cycles to get the message across IF AND ONLY IF we can get 2-10% of voters of to go third choice every single election across all elections.
This is a guerilla, asymmetric tactic. No doubt about it.
But it very low cost from personal perspective but can be easily scaled if public sentiment turns.
Once, we got the regime asking questions we can start getting proper 3p candidates in places. Or people can start now on them… but everybody can start denying the regime legitimacy today.
The wall will wear down eventually. I think.
Either the wall or the house because the people going in the doors happily add termites.
You mean in the USA? I guess the more viable path is to campaign to fix their democracy from within the democratic party. And then make new parties.
Yes that has worked really well so far
To be far the US has seen many different parties come and go.
Spliting from within the party is the usual way.
Whoever splits to the left will just be considered the new “spoiler 3rd party” by the mainstream liberals
Why do you care if the person you voted for wins?
Outside of “not letting the other person win”, you should vote for who you align with, or who represents you best.
If more people stopped caring about voting for “the viable candidate”, we’d probably see a third party in American politics…
This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen anyone say here yet. Congratulations.
Well, you’re the country with two parties… The Greens run my area.
Ok?
Why do you care if the person you voted for wins?
Because it’s an election with consequences, not an online fandom.
All elections have consequences. I know that Americans like to be dramatic (especially on Lemmy, Reddit is far more tame in this regard), but voting for someone that wants to promote policies that you support is how those policies are promoted.
I say this time and time again on here, but America isn’t special. Many countries have two main parties, but while third parties don’t always see power, they maintain Influence everywhere. Hell, you can argue that the Tea Party, Brexit, Irish Unification, MAGA, Immigration reform in Germany, all of this is due to influence outside of the main parties.
Why are you in this thread if you’re not even American? This is obviously about the US elections.
Because Lemmy isn’t a US-only social network?
This post is obviously about US politics.
Ok?
Disregard these gatekeepers.
This is an online discussion forum for public discussions.
I see these comments around here, like wtf people getting policing what and where people are commenting.
Childish behavior.
Yes but the other two doors open straight into hell.
It kinda looks like your arguing that voting doesn’t work.
Ignoring tactical voting doesn’t work
Want to build a viable third party for presidential elections? Start small at the city/county level and eventually you will have candidates at the state/federal level. Today’s city council is tomorrow’s senator/president. Does it really surprise anyone that a relatively unknown and unproven candidate outside of the two major parties doesn’t get any traction in a federal election?
That takes money, lots of it and the 2 main parties have huge corporate donors who will never give money to an environmental party
we aint getting elected viable third party until the two party regime is denied legitimacy which does by not voting for either party. deny them engagement by voting third party, anyone really.
So you don’t agree that starting from the ground up won’t work? Why not? Too much effort or takes too much time?
If you are talking about viable third party candidate, then my position is: current political stage has no room for one hence why i shill more a narrower scope goal of “deny the two-party regime legitimacy”
Something that people can get behind, act upon individually and directly while avoiding getting sucked into political left/right circle jerk.
Bigger picture would obviously involve a proper 3 third party candidates to upset the duopoly. Either by winning outright or forcing the two parties to provide concessions to the voters instead of current “get fucked peasants, I am serving my corpo daddies”
These 3p candidates need for voting public set the stage for them by making third vote a viable path for a politician/movement.
My original thesis enables this while not getting into the political weeds but it does not stop others from building on it. If people got their 3p, then they should shill it! Even if every person votes for their own guy but sufficient amount of people do it, then it would still lead to awkward situation why are there 9% of voters who did not chose “regime”
Just keep smashing yourself into the bricks to “deny the wall legitimacy” or whatever. I’m sure it will work this time.
let me keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result 🤡
let me keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result 🤡
Says the people who keep voting 3rd party in federal elections and are certain that this time the result will be different.
*all elections
