"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."
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.
We are talking about rights. I was using gun rights as an example, because like guns, if you don’t know how to vote, you’ll end up hurting yourself or others. Education is key. Everyone has the right to vote, but the ability to cast that vote should come with a caveat. You should know how to vote, and how your vote works. Ignoring the system and willfully playing dumb means that I don’t want your vote to count alongside mine. I’m not saying that people should be educated to vote like me, but that there is a baseline level of education that should be a requirement to vote. And before you get your undies twisted, I’m not saying that we should take away the right to vote from the uneducated. I’m saying we should put more focus into education.
As you told me I was off topic with guns, I’ll say you are off topic here. We aren’t talking about non-voters. We are talking about voting 3rd party.
No, it doesn’t. That’s the lazy answer. That’s the defeatist answer. It requires, say it with me, education. We have such a shit education system in this country that if we had to teach children how to breathe, the infant mortality rate would be at pre-industrial levels. We keep funelling money into special interests, corporate control, and foriegn wars that we have left several generations behind when it comes to education. If we focused on ensuring the education of our children, a lot of our issues would be solved within 50 years. It is the single greatest failing of this once-great country. “Why educate, when we can tell them how to act and outsource critical thinking?”
That is what I’m saying. I’m not trying to take away anyone’s rights. I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do. I’m saying that if we invested in our youth the way we invest in war, we’d be waving to cancer in the rear view mirror of our generational ship bound for Alpha Centauri. Instead I have a bunch of rich cunts with more money than god spending my life measuring their dicks.
A gun is not the same as a vote. Your analogy is not a good one and doesn’t work because voting is a unique right.
This is fascism. This is where we disagree. I am not the thought police for others. I am simply my own advocate and that’s it. Others can agree or not.
I agree that education needs reform and that we have a misinformation issue.
I’m with you there - say THOSE things then. Advocate foe policy that increases education. Do not say stuff like “basic education should be a requirement for voting,” because that’s indeed saying you want to take away rights and tell people what to do.
Anything can be fascism when taken completely out of meaning. Maybe if you completed the quote you’d have a little bit of context for the argument. I’m done with this discussion, it seems you are more than willing to twist my words to give artistic license to what you want me to say than to actually read what I wrote. Take it easy, stranger. Hope you are able to make thoughts and prayers work out for a better world, because that seems to be all you are capable of.
Here’s my other comment about what I think should be done for education. I have spoken with educators around the country about this idea and they tend to really like it, so long as they are paid for the work they do and they don’t have more students to oversee directly.
https://lemmy.world/comment/12277181
I would like to not be hostile with you, although I can appreciate that I upset you. I would really be grateful if you would read about my educational idea above, because it’s something we are both very passionate about and if you like it too, it’s something you may enjoy talking to others about.
Okay, I hope this discussion has left you with at least some thoughts of your own regarding how you speak about voting. In today’s climate where our civil rights are being eroded, it matters what people say and how they say it. No one wants to parrot old disenfranchisement dog whistles from ya know, the times when they denied black people the right to vote because they lacked an education white people found valid. And saying “basic education should be a requirement to vote,” is LITERALLY a dog whistle from then. That’s like saying gay people should wear a pink triangle and then acting confused when I take issue with that specific verbiage and idea. Please consider how propaganda affects all of us and we all may pick up problematic speech from time to time because we live in a dystopia. People who engage in problematic rhetoric also deserve a basic education in things like civil rights and hate speech right? Otherwise it’s dangerous.
Lol, such a random stray out of no where. Also ableism agaiiiiin why
I really miss ~2016 Late Stage Capitalism on Reddit and I was hoping Lemmy would have some of those same people. I miss them.
The same thoughts I came in with, that education is needed now more than ever.
Which makes me wonder how you can be so smarmy with every sentence that you type. Your people skills leave much to be desired.
Ahh, we’re back to twisting my words. I’ll repeat them, so we can ensure that the context lives on: “I’m not saying that we should take away the right to vote from the uneducated. I’m saying we should put more focus into education.”
You know, for posterity, since your brand of journalism leans into the yellow end of the spectrum.
It certainly is. Good thing I didn’t say it. I said that we should make sure that we are educating people along with their rights. Giving people rights and hoping they know what to do with them is how we ended up with Trump in office.
Oh, let me see which logical fallacy this falls into. I’m thinking either Red Herring or Equivocation.
You seem to be the one drawing false equivocation and shielding yourself behind an unrelated argument because you know that you have no ground to stand on. But, please, tell me how I’m anti-LGBTQ+, again. I’m sure the second time you say it, it will come true.
Well, at least you seem to have a grasp on the lesson I am trying to teach you.
Is this red herring, again? I can’t be sure, but I think you either don’t understand what I said, or you don’t understand ableism. Either way, that ain’t me, chief.
No one is stopping you from making a triumphant return to the cesspool you crawled out of. You can ride a donkey in while they fan you with palm fronds.
So, there now. I’ve responded to every insipid argument you’ve made, and nothing you’ve said can be taken out of context. You are not the person you seem to think you are. You manipulate and twist words to serve your own ends, and people like you are the reason we have a lot of the issues we do. I’m gonna go ahead and block you now, so feel free to have the last word, I won’t try to stop you.