- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
"How has Stein fared as a leader? By AOC’s perfectly reasonable standard, she’s done abysmally. As of July 2024, a mere 143 officeholders in the United States are affiliated with the Green Party. None of them are in statewide or federal offices. In fact, no Green Party candidate has ever won federal office. And Stein’s reign has been a period of indisputable decline, during which time the party’s membership—which peaked in 2004 at 319,000 registered members—has fallen to 234,000 today.
This meager coalition can’t possibly kick-start a legitimate political movement, capable of organizing voters and advancing ideas outside of perennial electoral events. It’s just large enough, however, to spoil the work of those who put in this kind of work."
It’s a two party system. Everybody knows if you run as a third party you’re merely increasing the chances that the ones furthest from you politically will be elected.
It’s impossible for a third party candidate to be running for president in the US in good faith unless they’re complete fucking idiots with no idea how the political system works.
Jill Stein knows how the system works. So obviously she’s not acting in good faith.
Simple as that.
Seems like you beat the coin flip today, and people agree with you. Watch out, next time the Libertarians and Communists will tell you that just getting on the ballot is enough to make a dent in the two party system…
The communist party of the United States has consistently refused to run candidates for major offices very specifically to avoid spoiling the vote.
The Communist Party, yes. The air-quote Communists on Lemmy are just as happy to tell you to vote third party as anyone else.
Oh yeah the kind who will do anything so long as it won’t help
I am a leftist and I celebrate everyone’s right to vote how they please. If people would like to hear my reasons for voting for Kamala, or my concerns about third party spoiling, I can tell them. But a person’s right to vote is more important to me than how they vote. That’s what democracy and being for the people is about. Use your rights, I support that. We all deserve to use our rights.
I’m not sure you could be more milquetoast if you tried. Sure, it’s important that everyone has the right to vote. It is equally as important that everyone understand that unless they vote one of two ways, their vote is essentially going to waste at best, and going against their best interests at worse. A vote for a third party candidate is a vote cast against your closest aligned Democrat or Republican candidate. A vote not cast for them is cast against them. That’s just the way the system works. It sucks. I hate it. I want to change it, but wishful thinking isn’t fixing the problem, and until its fixed, voting third party is a net loss for the voter. That’s the shitty reality of it. People that tell you to vote third party are either idiots, or malicious, and no one should be listening to either of those groups when it comes to voting for the future of the country. Work on changing the system first, then cast the vote you want to cast.
It’s not “equally important.” No, the right to vote is more important. Period.
Sure, your perspective and how you and many others view this election, is that it’s important to vote for either Kamala or Trump. But that’s your perspective. Totally fine to discuss but it doesn’t supercede the literal civil right to vote. Or to run for office.
Today and yesterday, I’ve seen people advocate for removing the right to vote and run for office here on Lemmy. I’ve seen people use the word “disenfranchised” wrong. Our civil rights are actively in jeopardy - see: abortion access. People being confused on how important voting rights are and what that means is BAD. I have seen a LOT of fascist rhetoric lately. It is NOT leftwing or radical or progressive to be fascist and deny people their vote just because you dislike it. It is NOT leftwing or radical or progressive to deny people the right to run for office because it makes another party’s job harder. That is actually literally fascism. What the fuck.
And again, I’m voting for Kamala. I generally agree with your reasoning. I do not agree with the messaging or the idea that people should be forced into thinking and voting like me.
By that logic, the right to own a gun supersedes the need to be educated on how they work. “Here’s a loaded 9mm, Timmy. I’m sure you can figure the rest out.”
And I’m not saying that anyone should be forced to vote any one way. Vote however you want, but being educated on how it works is just as important as the act itself. If every voter were educated on the system and understood how it worked, then we wouldn’t have third party candidates. Actually, strike that, we would have them. We wouldn’t have this first past the post bullshit we do now, and third party candidates would have a chance at being elected if they represent the will of the majority.
Untl we have that, though, people should understand that voting doesn’t work how they want it to, it works how it works. If you want to feed your family by fishing with cheetos, go for it, but don’t tell everyone else that if we all fish with cheetos suddenly fish will take the bait. The nature of the beast is that we vote in a two party system, and we will until we change it at a fundamental level. The fact that we have people saying that third party voting is a viable option tells me that there is a lot of misinformation and a strong lack of education in our voting populace.
A gun is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the right to vote. It is fundamentally unique and vitally important.
People who are voting third party are at least voting. The majority of Americans don’t or can’t vote - that is a bigger concern than HOW someone votes, and is much more manageable with education and neutral conversations. Stacy Abrams did particularly well in Georgia a few years ago because she just got people to vote at all. Any political interest should be encouraged because we all have to start somewhere. As people vote and learn more, they will develop their own opinions about third party spoilers. They will have conversations about it with people like you and they might end up changing their mind. That’s the beauty of being an individual and choice - we can pick to do different things.
As far as misinformation- that’s a huge topic and would require we regulate advertising and media. Collectively though, people do really well and tend to get most answers right. We do better as a group. So the more votes we can get (including allowing felons to vote), the better and more just society will be.
Yea… though President Debs would have been excellent.
It’s a thread about the Green Party, those trolls don’t bother coming here. The third party enthusiasts only show up for the Harris threads.
…speaking of good faith.
Guys as soon as we’ve got 5% popular vote we get on the ballots automatically. That prevents unavoidable blockers like how our own campaign fucked up the paperwork! It will be all over for these fuckers, we will win it for certain after that.
Your party should have done better, it’s as simple as that.
There’s room for 3rd party candidates who have principals that voters can compare candidates to and not let the 2 party system shift in whatever direction it wants as soon as the 2 parties start racing to the bottom. But if you accept Putin’s money and influence it is your party who is racing to the bottom and you have no principles so that’s when you become a useless drain.