Trying to build viable third parties by voting for them in presidential elections is like trying to build a third door in your house by repeatedly walking into the wall where you want the door to be.

AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 934 points –
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But but, building a real third party from the ground up in local elections and/or changing our voting system from first past the post takes a lot of time and real effort. That's a lot of hard work. It's a lot harder than just showing up to one election every 4 years and casting a vote that makes you feel like you're special and smarter than everyone else.

Yeah, I've recently talked with my therapist about this choice between very slow, very hard work and sitting on my butt dreaming. And about the idea that it's better to avoid action than to act, if I'm not sure I'll act right. And how it apparently came to me in my teens, when I've been doing martial arts for some time, girls would smile at me often, and in general I thought I might be too stupid and happy and there should be something smarter. That 'smarter' was, of course, just another teenage idea of being wise and not like everyone else. Fucked up my life for a decade.

By the way, people who'd be removed and theoretical and talk about some imagined third movement created via some magic other than voting - would be called 'idiots' in ancient Athens. Because they are on the side of an idea, not real politics. Then it became a rude word.

Any such decision to try and find a smart shortcut, or that it's better to wait and see how it goes instead of sweating, - are all wrong and are exactly what propaganda works for. Being honest is smarter than being dishonest. And voting for the party most fitting your ideals is smarter than for the lesser evil.

I honestly tried to read and understand this but it really sounds like a bunch of nonsense.

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Tell that to all the people who will be hurt if that protest vote enables someone worse.

Voting for the party that is consciously using the other one as a boogeyman will enable someone worse with no doubt. They are both worse.

And before the actual ballots are being cast, the public opinion sending right signals to Dems would reduce that risk.

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