The Dangerous Illusion of a Presidential Third Party in 2024

jordanlund@lemmy.worldmod to politics @lemmy.world – 215 points –
thirdway.org

Really you don't need to read more than one chart:

If you vote for anyone other than Harris, you're voting for Trump:

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The next president will be either the Dem or Rep nominee.

If you believe otherwise I would like to wager a large sum of money.

Yeah and America will continue to be exceptionally bad amongst developed countries

This is a pivot and Lemmy will eat it up because "USA BAD" but is not a response to the topic in the thread which is that third party votes are meaningless.

Let's see if I can get a direct answer: Do you know that the next president of the US will be the Dem or Rep nominee?

Yes, and my comment is the result of that outcome. Instead of people choosing what they think is best for us, they have a very narrow choice of who will make things worse less than the other choice. Regardless of who wins, we're gonna fall further behind developed countries on metrics of labor, environment, health, etc

Yes

Thank you. That's more than I get from most "just vote third party" commenters. But then you say,

Instead of people choosing what they think is best for us

The FPTP voting system results in 2 major parties where 3rd parties have no chance of winning. It's not people who've decided to do what they can to perpetuate the 2 party system we have - it's the system itself which needs to change. The people mostly vote logically (with the exception of 3rd party voters) given the current rules of the system.

Its weird how often people explain the problems of FPTP to me. Yeah, I'm well aware, im the one opposing it.

How’s that, exactly?

Supporting candidates that are against FPTP instead of exclusively in favor of it. And you know, vocally opposing it.

And when those candidates get 5% max of the vote, what does it get you?

However much support for getting rid of FPTP that we can get. Im well aware im fighting against millions of people that also dont like FPTP but will exclusively vote for candidates that support it. I cant control minds, only speak mine

So you get… support for getting rid of FPTP. But no actual changes because you’re lucky to get 5% of the vote.

I think in reality you get to feel like you’ve washed your hands of it and “did what you could” and then after the election you can say, “hey, I didn’t vote for them” and feel good inside.

In other words, fuck all.

We're all getting fuck all until that percentage is high enough. Like I said before, doing what you're doing weve been falling behind developed countries on all the metrics i care about.