Then maybe Kamala should stop glazing Israel’s d. so much and actually do something to win back michigan muslims. They’ll either vote third party or won’t vote at all. The trumpists will vote Trump anyway. This post is purely delusional if you think you’ll win some voting groups back just by dragging third party candidates through the mud. Especially voting groups so deeply involved in some issues that your beloved candidate clearly doesn’t care about at all.
A broken system gives you broken candidates.
I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of these voters. Maybe I’m just consuming the wrong media, but it feels like third-party voters get 50x the blame nonvoters get for ruining elections with probably something like a thousandth of the population. I basically never see this discussion call out both third-party voters and nonvoters equally.
I keep seeing third-party voters maligned for thinking a candidate has hope to win a national election, I see so many arguments to address why third-party candidates can’t win. In spite of that, I have never come across any community anywhere where people collectively believe these candidates actually have a chance. People who consume crazy media can believe crazy things, that’s why MAGA is a thing, but there’s a whole Fox News etc media machine feeding those people. Is there a forum somewhere with more than ten people where there’s a consensus that a third-party candidate might actually win? None of the third party voters I have known or met irl believed this, and I would be shocked if they’re all weird exceptions.
Like, please, where are these people congregating to spread the ludicrous idea that a third-party candidate can win a national election? Looking on the recent green party posts on their subreddits, the only thing I see even close is a thread with a headline about “candidates are electable if people vote for them”, where the furthest they go in the comments is a few people talking about how big a deal it would be for the party if they got 5% nationally, and a couple other people replying to say the greens won’t even get 1% this year but the election is still very important because of some nonsense about incremental gains.
It feels like we’ve imagined a brainwashing machine that does not exist in reality, rather than admit to the existence of protest votes. Condemning protest votes means condemning protest nonvotes equally, and we’ll never have sufficient information about protest nonvoters to reasonably make a claim about how they would have voted. That would severely muddy any attempts to assign blame for election results.
If you’re trying to convince these voters to act differently, the way to do that would be to address the arguments they’re actually making, like the incremental gains nonsense. If you’re addressing arguments they haven’t been making at all, then it’s worth asking whether you’re trying to convince someone other than them.
People get weird close to the election.
People voting green party did so for a reason. Not everyone fits into perfectly shaped boxes for the 2 party system. Many vote 3rd party for leverage for policy change. The narrative of picking the lesser evil doesn’t always apply to the narrative of the individual voter.
Did people who voted for Stein get what they wanted by electing Trump?
No, they got what they wanted by bringing third party candidates to the discussion table so more people would vote third party in future elections.
One day we might even be able to elect a candidate who isn’t the “lesser evil”
One day we might even be able to elect a candidate who isn’t the “lesser evil”
Literally impossible in the US unless one of two things happen. Either:
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Both the current major parties fracture, and the resulting two parties that will occur thereafter align themselves on axes that are dissimilar to the ones that the current two parties are aligned on, or
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Laws are passed to remove FPTP and winner take all so that not voting for a Republican or Democrat has an actual influence on the vote.
The current system in the US is statistically proven to result in two majority parties controlling the government. The only effect that voting third-party does now is to spoil the votes for the majority-party candidate most closely aligned with that third-party.
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One day we might get stv approval voting instant runoff or one of the methods that allow 3rd parties to win push for that at the state level instead of fantasies that can never work
We are literally vote in a Hitler figure who is going to build concentration camps and wreck the country or stick with sanity. The lesser of two evils is necessary until the second major party stops running Hitler.
If Trump is Hitler, what is Kamala? At least third parties entertain ending wars
Third parties that can never win can in turn not make policy decisions.
A lot of things about foreign policy are based on realpolitik, not ideology. As long as you’re not in power, you can ignore realpolitik, and therefore can promise anything you want. Once in power, things are different.
Ranked choice voting eliminates the concept of spoiler candidates/parties.
The duopoly of power won’t add ranked choice voting
People said this about weed. We literally had two states add it in like the last 10 years. Once a few more states pass RCV via initiative we’ll start seeing legislatures take it up on their own.
You are correct. Also, OP is correct.
I might risk voting 3rd party if this election wasn’t a choice between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil.
The stakes are just too damn high to risk letting Trump get back into the White House again.
Honesty is refreshing. I’m voting for Harris because I don’t want to see Trump’s orange face every week. Yes, I know what she is. Yes, I know what that makes me. I’ve made my peace with it. No, I don’t blame others who feel differently.
I’ve always critiqued the democrats but I’m so tired of trump. I will vote for a thousand boring democrats if it means removing these entitled, lying MAGA idiots from anything resembling power. They all belong in lunatic asylums, not in government.
it’s not worth it until first past the post is removed.
Until then it’s mathematically impossible for a third party candidate to win. Focus your energy instead on removing first past the post, then you have a chance
The only time I went third party it wasn’t to win. It was because I saw it as two main candudates so shirty that there was a good chance for third party to snag more voters than usual, possibly enough to gain slightly better recognition in the future.
The monkey’s paw curled.
We got Trump. The recognition came as irrational blame for Trump.
I won’t make the same mistake of voting for someone I think would do the best job. Now it’s merely an effort to keep the worst viable candidate out.
This is the way.
The elections will always be between “boring corporatist and 100% concentrated evil”. Every election feels like it’s the most important one. You just gotta suck it up and vote third party regardless.
Except this time there is a literal fascist running. The third party argument doesn’t work when we’ve got a candidate quoting Hitler and promising that this will be the last election you’ll have to vote in.
There you go again. Blame third parties for your own failure. Keep doing it, tell yourself it’s true.
Dont let online bullies influence your vote. Each citizen gets one vote, cast it for whom you wish to support. Learn about the issues, the policies being proposed, and cast your vote for whomever you support.
REEEEEEEEE how dare you vote any other way than what I PERSONALLY WANT? Have you thought about asking me first??
*as long as you support one of the major 2 parties
Jill Stein is a fascist bitch.
How is she a fascist? I’ve seen the two big party candidates run on more fascist policies than her, so I’d be genuinely surprised to see how she could be worse.
G.R.E.E.N.
GET
REPUBLICANS
ELECTED
EVERY
NOVEMBER
Agreed. Hopefully Democrats put more effort into earning their votes.
These numbers are
notcorrect according to NY TimesEdit: I can’t math
I double checked the subtraction with the NYT numbers you linked to, and the numbers look correct to me. Which numbers are wrong?
I can’t math and I think I looked at the wrong state for Michigan
I think maybe he means numbers themselves are wrong? I mean look at 7. That number is just all kinds of fucked up. Don’t get me started on 23.
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Yes it’s the fault of people who voted for a third party. Not the people who didn’t vote. Not Trump. Not Clinton. It’s the people who voted for a third party candidate.
The duopoly got us here. Third party or bust.
You know, your right. At first I was thinking that blaming Trump voters is like blaming stupid people for being stupid. But then I thought at least the trump voters have a shot at getting Trump elected. The 3rd party voters don’t have a shot at getting their candidates elected. So 3rd party voters are even dumber than Trump voters. So you really are just too dumb to blame.
Those whose preferred ordering of candidates was third party clinton Trump contributed to the outcome they did not want with zero chance now, in the last 100 years or in the next 100 years ever electing a third party.
That makes an assumption that all or a big majority third party voters would prefer Harris over Trump.
Just for clarifying the logic here.
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Nobody who would have otherwise voted for Trump is going to be convinced to vote for Stein. Every vote she gets IS one that was much more aligned with Harris.
This isn’t a question of ALL third parties, but there aren’t any right-aligned third parties making any kind of a meaningful run.
What??
In Michigan Gary Johnson got 172,136 votes, in Pennsylvania he got 146,715, and in Wisconsin he got 106,674. If all Greens voted Clinton and all Libertarians voted Trump then New Mexico would’ve only been won by Clinton with around 1,000 votes, Colorado would’ve also been nearly Trump. Nevada, New Hampshire, and Minnesota would’ve been won by Trump. Maine might’ve gone majority Trump.
Third parties hurt Trump more than they help him, because Libertarians would not have voted Clinton.
The Green Party is far more left-wing than the Libertarian Party is right-wing.
How does that contradict what I said. Also the LP is still further right than the GOP
They actually aren’t further right anymore
I don’t agree, but “right-wing” doesn’t really have a non-arbitrary definition so it doesn’t really matter
If all third-party candidates had to vote for one of the two main candidates, I think nearly all of the Green Party votes would go to the Democrat, while the Libertarian votes would be much more of a split.
while the Libertarian votes would be much more of a split.
Maybe an 80/20 split at best, but the GOP has always been the more libertarian aligned party, going back to Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and now Thomas Massie
And how many of them are running now? This isn’t about them, this is about the one third party candidate that actually makes headlines.
The Green party gets more attention in left-leaning circles because there are people sympathetic to it and there are people who want to blame them for the Democrats losing. It’s not because they’re actually more popular than the Libertarian party, which regularly gets like 3 times as many votes.
2020: 1,865,917 (LP); 405,034 (GP) 2016: 4,489,359; 1,457,216 2012: 1,275,923; 469,627 2008: 523,713; 161,797 2004: 397,265; 119,859
So it’s completely wrong to say that “there aren’t any right-wing third parties making any kind of a meaningful run.” It’s just that your perception of how popular the Libertarian party is compared to the Greens is distorted.
At the same time, the way that the EC favors the GOP causes the spoiler effect of the Green Party to be amplified compared to Libertarians.
How? By the same math as OP, the Libertarian Party splitting the vote cost Trump Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin in 2020. That’s 37 EC votes which would’ve been enough to make the election an exact tie.
Why do headlines matter if she gets way less votes than Libertarians?
I remember 2020 where Trump did not win. All problems are fixed now.
