I dont like that voting third party in the US is essentially a non-vote for a party in the "system," but it is. I voted green party in the past, and ended up regretting it. And relavent to Stein, not a good person, or even party, to vote for now. Folks need to be active, and vote down ballot, and in "off cycle" years. Change takes time, the best way to be heard is through the down ballot when helpful.
It really does suck. The current voting system not only discourages anything other than a two party system, it basically guarantees it. And then it becomes one of those things where why the hell would one of those two parties, who's perpetually in charge, ever vote to change a system that would allow for another party (or parties) to come into power? It's just gonna be a slog to ever get it fully changed to something like ranked choice. But I'd absolutely love to be proven wrong.
many states have initiative systems. Alaska, for instance, implented a solid Ranked Choice Voting system for statewide elections. As we see from weed legalization: eventually ballot measures get soaked up by major parties.
The current electoral system has myriad problems, and you’re absolutely right that focussing on local seats is a better path. I’m glad we’ve been seeing more comments like yours that do understand the stakes.
For people who rightly feel their interests aren’t adequately represented, rather than voting for spoilers or not voting at all, the best way to actually help fix these problems is to become an activist for electoral reform – starting now for 2028 and beyond. It usually feels like an afterthought brought up a month or two before the election, which is far too late.
Organisations like FairVote Action have been working to get alternative voting methods implemented in various states, and they’ve had some success.
If we want to escape this unfair and undemocratic voting system that’s shackled us to mediocrity and allowed fascism to gain a foothold, we have to keep thinking, educating, and acting now for the future. It’s doable if we work towards it.
Yep, I was also a young idiot that voted 3rd party in a swing state in 2016. Regretted it ever since. I admit that I put the way I viewed myself and what my values were were more important to me than anything. What I did was selfish and I'm fully on the Harris bandwagon.
It's just privilege all the way down. If you're ok with trump, or not worried about him, you're just riding the ivory tower
I wish we'd yell at the non-voters at least as equally as the 3rd party voters.
I wish we'd yell at democrats for failing to appeal to voters, which is really one of the most basic responsibilities of a politician.
It's impossible to appeal to everyone. 6 in 10 Americans believe Israel has a right to continue it's fight with Hamas. 6 in 10 Americans are also sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. The Dems are attempting to thread that needle. And while I don't agree with the unconditional support of Israel. The US is heavily invested in partnership with Israel and foreign policy has always shifted painfully slow. Despite all the death in the world, the US is involved in the least death it has been involved in since the WWII. We've been constantly at war since WWII. And shifting from the US being constantly at war to only arming our allies is at least some improvement.
One things certain, if Trump wins authoritarians will be emboldened worldwide and the amount of death will increase much much more, including here.
Yes the Dems need to win but you're giving them too much credit. We don't need to make them sound competent with "they're threading the needle", because they aren't. Doing that will give people a false sense of security that there are adults in the room. At best, the voters are the adults, not the Dems.
Have you met voters? Pretending like voters are any better would be pretty hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
Doesn't that explain what our parties have to offer though?
How they gonna nominate someone that has only ever said they will never run for president. Dumbest take I have ever seen on lemmy. Michelle would never be president, she doesn't want it.
They don't care, they've got corporate cash to spend.
What's "appeal"?
If the other side being absolutely fucking insane isn't itself a reason to vote dem then you're just a contrarian ass
Amen!
Exactly. It's the apithetic and doomer non-voters that are the real issue in US elections. Voter turn out is usually abhorrently low.
People can have all the fights they want about third party votes for president and other high offices, but third parties have great potential to make local/regional change. Sometimes it feels like people forget there is more than just a president in this country.
I'm not seeing any non-voters in these types of threads.
But yeah, non voters are a bigger problem.
Right?!
Me too. It'd take some of the heat off of me for once! haha
Who is this article for?
It doesn't address the real problem here: That first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
Because fptp is garbage, third parties are little more than a method to undermine a candidates opposition (in the US in 2024 the green party is ironically propped up in part by the republican party)
By leaving out fptp it just sounds like anti democracy drivel.
I wish we had ranked choice voting, it just makes so much more sense
Yeah, and there are two major parties that don't really want ranked choice voting. lol
There is really only one major party against ranked choice voting. Every year, Democratic caucuses vote to add ranked choice voting to their platform. Democrats have managed to get Ranked Choice Voting in several cities.
Republicans do not. Republicans repeal RCV. Every RCV repeal in the US was done by Republicans.
Both parties are not the same, and if you really want a third party candidate, you're better off getting rid of every Republican you can.
Most all Harris voters agree things need to be changed.
We also agree that NOW is not the time for that. Just, let's make sure the orange man stays out of power first before arguing what to change.
That's nice dear, you've said this exact same thing since Reagan.
When is the right time?
I'm down for December of this year
first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
That aside, the major parties don't want to reform the system they have because it's worked very well for them. Our parties are incredibly old by world standards. The Democrats have been around since the 18th century, and the Republicans have been around since the 1850s.
Some level of election reform will be on the ballot in 9 states this fall. Make sure you vote, if you can!
Also worth noting that these efforts are generally led mainly by democrats, with support from some moderate republicans. In contrast, 10 republican-led state legistatures have passed outright bans on RCV. One of these parties is not like the other!
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
That's a weird false dichotomy. Why are you painting those as the two options?
The problem is if you believe this entirely then there's no mechanism to affect parties. Which is easy to disprove.
The overarching reality is that the parties are affected by things: culturally there's been a long period (150 years) of slowly unrestricting people with lots of resistance. Then there's also a economic right wing drift for decades, largely along capital accumulation lines.
I buy the idea that the parties are hard to affect but the idea they are impossible to affect seems ahistorical.
Lol there's definitely a way to affect them.
Two actually.
One is $$$$
The other one you aren't allowed to propose.
?There's several ways to affect politics
Corruption - largely the higher corruption is the more advocates to lower taxes for their donors. This is driven by capital accumulation.
Bottom up struggles - largely if a number of states do a thing the federal politicians will pick it up. Voting rights, marijuana legalization etc fall into this. Realistically this is probably the way to pick up votes.
Media driven - Trump is primarily influenced this way with scares, fear, bullshit. The last 40 years are driven heavily by media scares funded by right wing billionaires. Factual information sometimes breaks through here: I would argue the obamacare ban on pre-existing conditions was the outcome of a media cycle. Usually these are bad rather than good.
Personal affectations of politicians. Cheney's daughter caused him to be sensible on gay rights, McCain's stance on torture was a result of his time as a POW. George Bush's daddy issues about Iraq lead to millions of people dying. If enough people shoot at trump I do see him passing gun legislation (not encouraging it, just speculation)
Indeed politics is a tea kettle in the Lagrange zone between the earth and the moon.
But I was suggesting methods for affecting political parties.
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
Exactly! I wish I could upvote you more than once, friend!
Your 'protest vote' for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
And it always has been.
Sometimes the Green Party protest vote is a vote for George H.W. Bush.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn't a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn't have won, because the margins were just that thin.
That's assuming green party voters would vote for the dems, which probably isn't the case. They'd be more likely to just not vote.
That could mean that 60% of the US leans green.
Or they're just apathetic and attaching a social meaning to their apathy feels good.
I'm not sure I agree with that estimation, but even then I'd say that the majority of Green Party voters who would decide to vote anyways would probably vote Dem over GOP, and that still matters.
Because only one of those parties is trying to deny me basic human rights, I can't say I'm sympathetic to anyone who would choose not to vote out of spite just because they don't personally have as much at stake.
You must not have been alive in the 90s or 00s if you think Dems wouldnt and dont want to deny your basic human rights
I remember when the Dems repealed roe v Wade.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
I was definitely there when the dems tried to ban music based on it's offensive nature.
Oh wait that was Reagan and the GOP. My mistake.
I was there when the Dems banned foreign travelers based on nationality.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
Neither Dems nor the GOP did the first one, Dems did fail to ever codify the right to privacy or bodily autonomy though, despite every legal scholar for 50 years saying roe was a Shakey decision.
The second one never happened, unless you're confused by just the general existence of the FCC with your half remembered fantasy, and yes, I do remember when Dems fully supported banning travellers based on nationality, Biden cowrote that bill.
No one's voting 3rd party because they think they'll win, they're just throwing away a vote for Harris. Their statement is that they have no issue with another 4 years of Trump because their demands aren't being met anyway (cough genocide).
You can argue all day about the rationality and lack of utilitarianism, but it won't change anything.
If MLK were alive, he'd probably vote Democrat because he believes there is a solution in comprise over time, and keeping Republicans out is beneficial to that. (He generally favored the more progressive party).
If Malcolm X were alive, he'd probably be protesting just like the uncommitted group, but choose not to vote if his major demand wasn't met, because his reasoning would be that any promised or hypothetical solutions would not come to fruition. (The Ballot or the Bullet)
Both have valid reasoning, and it can obviously depend on the situation, but it bugs me that 50 years later people still don't understand why people choose to vote a certain way.
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection" - MLK
Change won't come overnight (at least without revolution). Like evolution, it requires constant pressure on the system. Changes that are too radical kill the organism.
A long as people think we can jump from Geoge H.W. Bush to Bernie Sanders in one election it's going to continue to fail.
Votw Harris this time. Vote for the person slightly more liberal than her next time, etc. It's a process.
That's one of my issues though, Harris is less liberal than Obama. It went in the opposite direction.
I advocated that Biden step down and allow a primary. Instead they ran with the VP because the DNC is not interested in actually bringing a more liberal or leftist candidate.
Meanwhile Trump has made Bush look good in comparison, so even if he stops running, an equal or worse candidate will simply take his place, and then we'll be faced with a similar problem.
It would take 20 years to make a grassroots movement work, but if we never start it's never gonna happen.
I'm 60. I would argue that 20 years is not a long time. Keep pushing.
Presumably because the US electorate isn't actually leftist or progressive in general and losing swing states wouldn't be balanced by extra votes in safe blue states.
But with the Democratic party, the conversation is ALWAYS "Vote us this time..." or "This election is too important!" They've been saying that for 50 years. Nah, friend. Now is the time for me to vote third party. Tired of waiting.
How is throwing your vote into a hole going to help exactly?
I'm voting for someone I believe in and who matches my values. If the duopoly has a problem with that, then they can work harder to welcome me rather than mock me for not voting for them.
So it "helps" because I'm voting for who I want to. As the system should be.
As it should be but not how it is.
But it can be that way if people stop being so scared to stray from the Duopoly.
We could also achieve universal peace if everyone just threw down their weapons, and no one would go hungry if everyone would stop being greedy. Unfortunately, people aren't rational, and there's cultural/social constructs that keep these things from happening.
If we want to change them for the better, we unfortunately have to operate within the constraints we're faced with. We can change those constraints with hard work, but can't just act as if those constraints don't exist. It's the same way folks pretend that being "color blind" re: racial issues will solve things. Would be great, but sadly plenty of folks are incapable of not being racist, and historical harms mean that we can't just pretend that perception is the only problem.
You can't get to a progressive candidate this way. A more progressive candidate is going to pull votes more from the left than the right. If you project the results at the point where the progressive candidate starts to matter they just tank the Democrat.If they take 80% of Democratic voters they just lose every state.
This user is 100% full of shit. They know what they are doing full well.
Yeah we will just pretend the supreme Court back to being not packed with ultra conservative assholes. You know, something a socialist would give a flying fuck about
So your solution is to try harder within the current system, like many others have done for the last 50 years, but this time it will be different! If the problem is with the system, work on changing the system while achieving the best you can until the system has changed. Who you vote for in this election won't have any impact on the system. This will require a different approach. Vote for who you like, but don't fool yourself that this will make anyone with power change their stance or plan. Your actions are part of the system working as intended.
They're hoping to get you to either not vote or vote for Stein. Not one honest bone in this motherfucker's body.
Yeah, I don't know if he a hopeless idealist/useful idiot or a shill, paid or otherwise, but I think it's important to point out the futility of the stance now and then.
We just got finished fighting a year long battle with the tankies on Lemmy that making the genocide in Gaza their singular issue and abstaining from voting for Kamala is like handing Trump the presidency. It should be a duh doie moment, but sadly it isn't.
Maybe Democrats need to work harder and be more welcoming.
The US isn't causing the genocide in Gaza and it will if anything be exacerbated if we bring in Trump to support Bebe
The US isn’t causing the genocide in Gaza
Peak liberal delusion.
In brief the Israelis stole the Palestinians land both historically and literally continuing to this day. The Palestinians have both historically and to this day retaliated with horrific acts of violence often against women and children. Both sides are immoral shitbags who are fighting for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Arguably at this point Biden/Harris could pull out all the stops and pull all support for Israel in hopes of influencing their decision making. This would probably cause the Democrats to lose the election bringing in the guy who wants to build condos on the rubble and the bones of all the dead Palestinians.
I don't get it...why would you even vote for Stein at this point? She's not going to win, she's not going to break the threshold for federal election funding, and I don't see a substantial distinction between her policy and Harris.
Brain worm at least had a 1 in 1000 of breaking the funding threshold. Jill has what, less than a chance of finding the winning lotto ticket in the middle of the desert?
The only result of that vote is boosting Donald's chances.
Why...why would you even vote for her at this point? What's the end game?
Well I'm definitely not voting Harris or Trump. So I could see how some people would decide on Stein.
Ah yes, I remember how protest voting went in 2016
That wasn't the reason why democrats lost in 2016.
I remember the dems nominating a canidate who was hardly liked within the party and had no appeal without, and who was deeply concered in learching the party to the right... how about instead of assuming the dems are correct and the voters are wrong lets look at why the voters are disatisfied
Ah yes, I remember the dems nominating someone terrible who strongly deserves to be protested.
Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party:
80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
I don't really see the appeal of Jill Stein but going after the few thousand people voting her is a ridiculous plan. It's not like they are going to vote for third party or Republican senators. If they are going to vote third party, they are doing it for key issues; no point in shooting yourself in the foot so that they become nonvoters and you Congress seats.
Those down ballot victories wont mean much in an environment where we have carved out the heart of our democracy and replaced it with dictatorship. Also the problem with the policy positions that would allow Democrats to win n green voters are also such that adopting them would cost >n moderates which is why people haven't adopted those positions mercenary though they are.
The green voters should adopt a pragmatic strategy whilst pushing for stuff like ranked choice voting or some such at the state level which would allow them to actually win federal office something they haven't done in 40 years!
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
That's not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
Again, 4x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left. If it was they would’ve actively tried and court progressives past Obama. The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised. It’s pretty obvious why many refuse to vote for a woman who used DNC funds to fight against the progressive candidate in primaries, or an old man who helped write one of the biggest anti-crime bills (which ends up a large anti-minority bill) and said nothing will fundamentally change,, or now a prosecutor who is “tough on immigration” refuses to denounce those actively committing genocide.
Medicare for all, or not supporting a genocide, or plenty of other options available to help attract progressives if they wanted it.
BUT again, rather than not vote at all those can at least vote 3rd party and still help down ballot. A lot better to win house and senate than lose everything.
Edit: updated to correct ratio of 4x based on 2020 data
Again, 6x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left.
On its own that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn't tell you how much overlap there is, and therefore how much spoiling there is. And regardless of which side, the spoiler effect is a symptom of a terrible voting system. The entrance of an irrelevant candidate should not sway the results of an election at all.
Additionally, everything is looking like it will be a very close race, in which case every bit of the spoiler effect matters, even if more of it is on the right, which you haven't established.
The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised
I don't like it either. But my point stands, there is an alternative choice.
The problem here is the spoiler effect, the system in which we elect representatives. It is in large part what allows the doupoly to remain uncompetitive.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant but also that 4x(revised now that I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock. Awe. Ignore the weird centrist or actual independent or etc ones as those are hard to place.
Again, the issue is not that we have any third party vote. We should. It should be encouraged. It’s a fucking democracy. Dems trying to say trump will end democracy while simultaneously trying to remove 3rd parties is wild.
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes. If anyone should be worried about “spoiler” candidates it’s the right as their third party has grown a lot more than the lefts. Hell 2020 the left lowered by half of 2008 (Even the crazy year 2016 it was only 0.71% of possible voters, 2020 was only 0.2% of possible voters. 2008 was 0.43% of possible voters.)
Trump has literally said he would end democracy. Third parties literally by design are either irrelevant or destroy the party they are most like because of the electoral college. Trying to prevent a situation in which a third party acts as a willing pawn to spoil an election is pro democratic in terms of leading to an outcome that is desirable to a larger portion of the electorate.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant
No I didn't. I said the introduction of an irrelevant candidate (meaning one that did not win) should have no effect on the outcome of an election.
I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes.
As I already explained, that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn't say anything about how much overlap and therefore vote spoiling is taking place. I'll demonstrate:
Voters 0 through 40 like the green party
Voters 30 through 230 like the democratic party
Voters 220 through 410 prefer the republican party
Voters 400 through 510 prefer the libertarian party.
That means green has 40 potential votes, democrat has 200 potential votes, republican has 190 potential votes, and libertarian has 100 potential votes.
There is double the number of 3rd party voters on the right than the left. But it doesn't matter, because the dems overlap with 10 voters of the green party. And the repubs overlap with 10 voters of the libertarian party. They'll more or less cancel each other out despite there being way more right wing 3rd party votes.
Unless you have data to show how much overlap there is, this statistic is meaningless.
It should be encouraged.
Not in a FPTP system, because that leads to the spoiler effect.
It’s a fucking democracy.
The United States is a failed democracy by any reasonable measure.
I love that you love this theory that you cannot possibly get any data on magically but also cannot realize that the 0.7% of the total vote in 2016 the leftist third parties got is almost 10x less than the loss from voter turnout between 2016 and 2020. the 40% of people who simply did not vote at all are a BIIIIIIT more to blame than the 0.7% of people who voted third party, no matter how many of them would overlap with the DNC or not.
Spoiler candidates exist, sure, but that is shit like IIRC when republicans in miami funded a dude who didn't live in florida in a miami race because he has the same legal name as the democrat who was running.
That is a lot different than third parties who aren't even getting 1% of the vote. the DNC shot themselves in the face in 2016 and cannot get over it, so they would rather continue to scapegoat bernie bros and green party instead of just admitting their plan of pissing off as many progressives as humanly possible and trying to court republicans instead has not worked extremely well.
and finally, if you're cool with FPTP then great for you, keep voting DNC. No need to remove money from politics, support the poor, stop genocide, or anything important that would lose us money when we have something more evil than us to vote against! Yay! Some aren't stoked on how complicit in that idea the DNC is. I'm not going to tell someone with a straight face that democrats will fix everything we just have to vote for them another 600 times so they can.... keep going further from progress each year. Example being immigration they're pushing which is fully 2 steps backward to take one step forward.
I love that you love this theory that you cannot possibly get any data on magically but also cannot realize that the 0.7% of the total vote in 2016 the leftist third parties got is almost 10x less than the loss from voter turnout between 2016 and 2020
It's not a theory or hypothesis. It is how a venn diagram works, it's geometry. And both geometry and that loss of turnout can be the case, they are not mutually exclusive. And I also never said that those who didn't turn out to the polls weren't to blame. You're putting words in my mouth at this point.
the 40% of people who simply did not vote at all are a BIIIIIIT more to blame than the 0.7% of people who voted third party,
Both are to blame. Anybody who didn't vote or voted for a candidate who had no chance is 100% to blame. Distinguishing blame by group isn't of value.
Spoiler candidates exist
I'm glad we agree. That's the whole point.
they would rather continue to scapegoat bernie bros and green party instead of just admitting their plan of pissing off as many progressives as humanly possible and trying to court republicans instead has not worked extremely well.
You're preaching to the choir. I hate their shitty ass strategy too.
and finally, if you’re cool with FPTP then great for you, keep voting DNC.
I am explicitly not cool with it.
No need to remove money from politics, support the poor, stop genocide, or anything important that would lose us money when we have something more evil than us to vote against! Yay! Some aren’t stoked on how complicit in that idea the DNC is. I’m not going to tell someone with a straight face that democrats will fix everything we just have to vote for them another 600 times so they can… keep going further from progress each year. Example being immigration they’re pushing which is fully 2 steps backward to take one step forward.
Welcome to FPTP two party systems.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis
No, it's well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
Total people: 1047
Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
Sahl - 111 votes
The problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that's the problem. That's what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
That's because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don't do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option.
If that's really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it's bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
You have just proven my point, it's not a thing that happens in reality if it were you'd point to actual data, not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
To your second point, they not trying to win voters, Dems have never attempted to court anyone left of Reagan voters, ever. The point is demoralization. Non voters are better than energized voters that will never vote for you; the latter group protests, riots, threatens your monopoly on power.
it’s not a thing that happens in reality if it were you’d point to actual data
I already explained why this is a terrible goalpost. But even under this terrible goalpost you're still not correct.
not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
That's already accounted for. The gray dots are non voters. Including non voters doesn't actually change the math, because the math is the overlap of circles. It is already only accounting for the subset of people who are voters.
Yep! I'm one of them who thinks like that.
If you guys think the spoiler effect isn't real then I've got a bridge to sell you. I voted Green in 2000. Never again.
I voted Green in 2020 because I hated Biden, and after 4 years of a Biden presidency I have concluded that I was a fucking moron and that my vote for Hawkins didn't amount to shit.
I remember what the Trump admin was like, and we're just now concluding the Biden admin, and when I look at the options on the table right now, I have:
Trump: A fascist who wants me dead.
Harris: A milquetoast liberal that will do a fine job at governing.
Stein: A valueless Green Party spoiler who is rooting for Trump (who wants me dead).
Not voting: A coward's way out.
Harris is the obvious choice for anyone who actually wants America to improve.
Climate town just did a really interesting video about how the election in 2000 was literally stolen by the Republicans via brothers Bush and Bush and their corrupt secretary of State in Florida. And honestly wouldn't matter if you had voted red, Green blue purple or rainbow.
Yes, it was stolen, however they were only able to do that because the margins were close. Had the green voters instead voted for the candidate closest to them that had a chance (Gore), then it would have mattered.
Green votes were well within the margin that would have triggered the automatic recount. It just would have been an automatic recount for Bush, not gore. Meaning if they blocked the hand recount like they did, it would have gone to gore.
The margins in the swing states legitimately come down to a couple thousand votes sometimes.
Don't be stupid. Vote Kamala. If you hate for some reason fine, but it's either that or...oh dear God.
The dems will never learn a lesson if they lose, they never have
The people who don't vote will far out number those who vote for Jill Stein. Why do we let them off the hook when they would have a larger impact on the election.
Don't get me wrong, Jill Stein sucks, but don't blame her voters. Blame those who don't vote to blame those who blindly vote for trump because of "the taxes"
I am tired of blaming someone who gets 2% for when bad things happen. Blame the 30% who did nothing.
I realize a portion of those who don't vote are due to voter suppression, bring the fire you bring for stein voters to those suppressing votes, it will be a more effective strategy. Stein and her voters are an easy scapegoat.
I am tired of blaming someone who gets 2% for when bad things happen. Blame the 30% who did nothing.
That's privilege talking. 100% turnout should not be a requirement, when we do not have, at the very least, a national holiday for voting. Voting is not as easy for everyone as it might be for you.
Hmm maybe. I agree it should be a national holiday and I agree that the current situation provides far more barriers for some groups than others.
Do I think those things are solely or even primarily responsible for that map? No, I do not.
Nope, totally blaming Stein voters. They're idiots, truly stupid, to believe that a protest vote does anything except hurt the major party they're most aligned with. Stein is a useful idiot, funded by fascists to leech votes from Democrats. She got Trump elected in 2016.
Third parties aren't a thing under our system. If we were a parliamentary system, sure, but not under our current system, so take your desires for boosting a third party and boost yourself into a lake.
I blame both
maybe if they would try to court literaly anything to the left of where reagon was they would not need to worry about people voting there. this is the Dems bed they need to lie in it and not yell at the voters for not longer supporting them
I honestly don't how anyone can look at the Biden/Harris presidency or the Harris/Walz campaign and conclude that it is equally right-wing as Reagan... At best it's just whiny anti-capitalist hyperbole, and at worst you're dumb as a rock and actually believe that.
Biden/Harris/Walz are actually to the right of Bush/Raygun. Watch this debate question between Bush and Reagan, it’s only 2 minutes, and tell me I’m wrong.
Wow, that just makes me sad. I know they both did monstrous things to our society, but their tone in that debate is so far removed from our current xenophobic constant. Really just highlights how far the overton window has shifted, but doesn't make me change my mind about the current options being Nightmarish v. Palatable v. Impossible.
Do you think the country is further to the right now than it was under Reagan?
The issue is with what they are actually able to accomplish, not what they say they'll do. And that goes for every Democrat since Carter.
A lot of leftists think anybody of a more moderate disposition than Mao must naturally be a republican
It's insane
Kamala is a moderate progressive. I fail to see the problem with incremental reform.
Bibi marches from genocide to a full-scale war in the Middle East. The donkey glumly follows its master. But they fein suprise when we don't meakly trudge behind.
If you live in a state that has even a slight chance to go red, yes, you should vote for Kamala. But if you live in a comfortably Blue or Red state, you should vote for the party that best reflects your ideology. I always vote for the farthest left candidate because I think that if my representatives see a strong third-party showing for a left-wing ideology, it will make them think twice before they pivot to the center.
If you live in a state that has even a slight chance to go red
You can only know that with accurate polling, and accurate polling doesn't exist. As long as we have a two party system, the electoral college, and no ranked-choice voting, voting for the "lesser evil" is the only sane choice. It sucks, but the choice really is binary. A third party vote is a discarded vote, but if you insist on discarding that vote, at least take the time to vote pragmatically down the rest of the ticket...
I think that if my representatives see a strong third-party showing for a left-wing ideology, it will make them think twice before they pivot to the center.
lol, and I cannot stress this enough, lmao.
You can only know that with accurate polling, and accurate polling doesn't exist.
C'mon dude. You really think California is gonna go red this year? Grow up.
lol, and I cannot stress this enough, lmao.
I mean, I'm represented by Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Ayanna Pressley, so...it's not not working. It's certainly better than voting for Democrats unconditionally while I whine about the electoral college and first-past-the-post polling.
Not voting for the Democrat gives the Democrats all the reason they need to ignore absolutely everything you say.
Voting for Democrats and donating to them gives you persuasive power within the party to help steer it.
LOL, what? Are you high? No, they're not going to listen to you if they have your vote already; why would they work for it if they already have it? And if they only tried to appeal to people who already voted for them, then they wouldn't spend all this time and energy trying to appeal to moderate conservatives, would they? Why aren't they ignoring them, and instead only ignoring the left?
And you think they're going to listen to me if I give them money? How much money do you think I'm giving them? Do you think I have a super pac? What do you think the conversations are in DCCC headquarters are like? "Hey guys, I know that the financial-services sector gave us $462 million in 2020, but @pjwestin just donated $50, and he'd like us to reinstate Glass-Steagall, maybe we should listen to him?" Like, Christ, maybe in deluded for thinking enough third-party votes will scare them, but at least I'm not naive enough to think I can negotiate with someone by giving them everything they want upfront.
You sound like you've never called or written to your representative or their office, or dealt with a local campaign office. Because what I describe is true, and what you describe is you declaring to the world, "I'm choosing to make myself irrelevant to everyone."
I call my Senators and my rep all the time. I tell them I'm a voter in my district and I care about X. They've never once asked me if I voted for them or how much money I gave them.
I wonder who represents you. I don't get blown off my my reps. And I don't donate a ton of money, but I do volunteer.
Ed Makey, Elizabeth Warren, and Ayanna Pressley. What representatives do you have at your beck and call with your amazing volunteering skills?
For the editor and anyone else who does not understand math: people voting for Trump means Trump gets a vote.
A vote for Jill Stein means Trump does not get a vote.
Would you rather have someone vote third party or vote Trump?
The whole thing feels like an argument intended to push people away rather than rally support.
I've noticed a LOT of Lemmy's seem to want to push people away rather than welcome or rally support when it comes to uncommitted voters or third-party voters.. Very surprising to me.
It's almost like we expect bad faith interactions from people trying to interact with bad faith.
Weird, right?!
I don't know, because I'm not posting or interacting in bad faith. Just because some doesn't share your views, doesn't mean they are interacting in bad faith.
Werid, right?!
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala's chances the same way a Republican voting for RFK hurts Trump's chances
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
This is illogical, as it assumes someone voting for stein would vote for Harris, which isn't the case.
Jill stein is running against Trump
Jill Stein is literally only running to steal Kamala votes to improve the chances of Trump winning
that's not what her platform says
Breaking news; politicians lie to you
Cornell West 2024!
Corporate says spot the difference here.
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
Exactly! I'll share your downvotes...but you're right.
I don't know why people are so worried, surely all the moderate Republicans you courted by mirroring GOP policy on immigration, the border, the military, aid to Israel, fossil fuels, social services, and the death penalty will be enough to win? I was assured by very confident Dems that they didn't need my dumb lefty vote to win this election 🤷
Maybe we should be asking Democrats why they aren't trying harder to satisfy leftist voters instead?
Because leftist "voters" don't vote.
Then Jill Stein shouldn't have any impact right? Since according to you leftists aren't voting anyway.
That's BS. Extreme leftists are very unreliable voters: no party that actually has a chance at winning anything or running the country can live up to their wishlist agenda. They have a "98% agreement with me means you're still my enemy" mentality, so the only candidates that appeal to them are the ones that know they won't win: those are the only folks that can promise rainbows and unicorns all day long, and pass the unrealistic and fatally flawed morality tests that extreme Progressives demand.
Lemmy really really hates when you frame the question like that. But good on ya, brother. You're exactly right!
Let me put it this way: the kind of idiot voting for Stein is not a big enough demographic that they're worth pissing off everyone else
If they would OTHERWISE vote dem maybe. But you clearly don't give a shit and never considered that a possibility anyway. The dems will never find a candidate to satisfy everyone, never mind an otherwise irrelevant fringe of socialist college students
Bernie
You mean the guy who lost twice in the primaries?
If you're too weak to beat Hilldog you'll never win against the GOP
Judging from your tone, I think you’re right. Liberals would never have voted for Bernie.
Not trying to come off like a prick, but it is true most leftists I speak to really don't understand how unpopular they are with most of the voting public. We live in a largely conservative country, and that includes a lot of liberals. Most people have a viscerally negative reaction to 90% of what comes out of the far left, never mind when it comes to voting
Most Americans don’t know they’re actually progressive:
A TV poll is a nothing burger
The reality is whenever this gets brought up in public the conservatives win. This is why liberals almost always avoid giving yes or no answers in public (no really, watch the debate later. Tim Walz will give not a single meaningful policy specific. Why? Because Americans hate that shit and he knows it)
Yep. And dems screwed him over. I loved Bernie!
Exactly!! Great question!
In California, it doesn't matter because the results are already known. In other states the calculus is a bit different.
Online rhetoric sways voters in swing states. Your vote may not change the outcome, but your words might.
That's absolutely true, especially for a paper like the LA Times. I am dubious that there is any appreciable effect when it comes to random blogs and so forth.
Those internal polling numbers from Michigan must be absolutely atrocious.
anyways, votePSL.org
Why don't democrats invest in actually bringing people to their movement instead of wasting their time on shitting on 3rd parties? Let people vote who they want to vote for, and who they feel voices their opinions the best. That's what democracy is at the end of the day.
Why don't third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead of wasting their time shitting on democrats? I'm not saying there's not plenty of good reasonsto shit on democrats but if any third party wants to be taken seriously they should start acting like it.
Why don’t third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead
Because that's never been how the slaver system works.
shitting on democratsboth parties
The people who run the system.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there's obviously a market for it. People that would've otherwise stayed home instead of voting for the democrats now have a voice. That's what democracy looks like, at least in most European countries that is. It's fairly normal to see smaller parties pop up that better represent a subsection of the electorate than to see huge monolithic parties that try to encompass everything.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there’s obviously a market for it.
There isn't though. No third party has ever won the presidency.
In Congress, there has never been even 1% of them being third party. Same with the senate.
Where exactly is the market, and why is it not at all reflected in any part of the elected government?
Is it perhaps because it doesn't exist?
Because I'm sure that LA, in california, is under threat of swinging right if people protest vote too much. I'm sure of it, it just makes sense.
They say this every single election and then give us genocide joe.
Cornell West 2024.
It's funny how America voted for Obama and now has Bush' foreign policy anyways.
Foreign policy is ironically where most dems and Republicans find the most common ground.
Well, at least it was until he-who-shall-not-be-named decided Putins cum tasted so incredibly he would never get off his knees again
There it is again, that funny feeling
I admire your spirit, brother! Good for you for standing up for yourself! I'm voting Rachele Fruit, but I support anyone who isn't supporting the Democrats and Republicans.
They never have this energy for the millions of actual Trump voters.
I dont like that voting third party in the US is essentially a non-vote for a party in the "system," but it is. I voted green party in the past, and ended up regretting it. And relavent to Stein, not a good person, or even party, to vote for now. Folks need to be active, and vote down ballot, and in "off cycle" years. Change takes time, the best way to be heard is through the down ballot when helpful.
It really does suck. The current voting system not only discourages anything other than a two party system, it basically guarantees it. And then it becomes one of those things where why the hell would one of those two parties, who's perpetually in charge, ever vote to change a system that would allow for another party (or parties) to come into power? It's just gonna be a slog to ever get it fully changed to something like ranked choice. But I'd absolutely love to be proven wrong.
many states have initiative systems. Alaska, for instance, implented a solid Ranked Choice Voting system for statewide elections. As we see from weed legalization: eventually ballot measures get soaked up by major parties.
The current electoral system has myriad problems, and you’re absolutely right that focussing on local seats is a better path. I’m glad we’ve been seeing more comments like yours that do understand the stakes.
For people who rightly feel their interests aren’t adequately represented, rather than voting for spoilers or not voting at all, the best way to actually help fix these problems is to become an activist for electoral reform – starting now for 2028 and beyond. It usually feels like an afterthought brought up a month or two before the election, which is far too late.
Organisations like FairVote Action have been working to get alternative voting methods implemented in various states, and they’ve had some success.
If we want to escape this unfair and undemocratic voting system that’s shackled us to mediocrity and allowed fascism to gain a foothold, we have to keep thinking, educating, and acting now for the future. It’s doable if we work towards it.
Yep, I was also a young idiot that voted 3rd party in a swing state in 2016. Regretted it ever since. I admit that I put the way I viewed myself and what my values were were more important to me than anything. What I did was selfish and I'm fully on the Harris bandwagon.
It's just privilege all the way down. If you're ok with trump, or not worried about him, you're just riding the ivory tower
I wish we'd yell at the non-voters at least as equally as the 3rd party voters.
I wish we'd yell at democrats for failing to appeal to voters, which is really one of the most basic responsibilities of a politician.
It's impossible to appeal to everyone. 6 in 10 Americans believe Israel has a right to continue it's fight with Hamas. 6 in 10 Americans are also sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. The Dems are attempting to thread that needle. And while I don't agree with the unconditional support of Israel. The US is heavily invested in partnership with Israel and foreign policy has always shifted painfully slow. Despite all the death in the world, the US is involved in the least death it has been involved in since the WWII. We've been constantly at war since WWII. And shifting from the US being constantly at war to only arming our allies is at least some improvement.
One things certain, if Trump wins authoritarians will be emboldened worldwide and the amount of death will increase much much more, including here.
Yes the Dems need to win but you're giving them too much credit. We don't need to make them sound competent with "they're threading the needle", because they aren't. Doing that will give people a false sense of security that there are adults in the room. At best, the voters are the adults, not the Dems.
Have you met voters? Pretending like voters are any better would be pretty hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
Doesn't that explain what our parties have to offer though?
If the dems actually wanted to destroy trump, they should've nominated michelle.
The dems actually want genocide instead.
How they gonna nominate someone that has only ever said they will never run for president. Dumbest take I have ever seen on lemmy. Michelle would never be president, she doesn't want it.
They don't care, they've got corporate cash to spend.
What's "appeal"?
If the other side being absolutely fucking insane isn't itself a reason to vote dem then you're just a contrarian ass
Amen!
Exactly. It's the apithetic and doomer non-voters that are the real issue in US elections. Voter turn out is usually abhorrently low.
People can have all the fights they want about third party votes for president and other high offices, but third parties have great potential to make local/regional change. Sometimes it feels like people forget there is more than just a president in this country.
I'm not seeing any non-voters in these types of threads.
But yeah, non voters are a bigger problem.
Right?!
Me too. It'd take some of the heat off of me for once! haha
Who is this article for?
It doesn't address the real problem here: That first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
Because fptp is garbage, third parties are little more than a method to undermine a candidates opposition (in the US in 2024 the green party is ironically propped up in part by the republican party)
By leaving out fptp it just sounds like anti democracy drivel.
I wish we had ranked choice voting, it just makes so much more sense
Yeah, and there are two major parties that don't really want ranked choice voting. lol
There is really only one major party against ranked choice voting. Every year, Democratic caucuses vote to add ranked choice voting to their platform. Democrats have managed to get Ranked Choice Voting in several cities.
Republicans do not. Republicans repeal RCV. Every RCV repeal in the US was done by Republicans.
Both parties are not the same, and if you really want a third party candidate, you're better off getting rid of every Republican you can.
Most all Harris voters agree things need to be changed.
We also agree that NOW is not the time for that. Just, let's make sure the orange man stays out of power first before arguing what to change.
That's nice dear, you've said this exact same thing since Reagan.
When is the right time?
I'm down for December of this year
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
That aside, the major parties don't want to reform the system they have because it's worked very well for them. Our parties are incredibly old by world standards. The Democrats have been around since the 18th century, and the Republicans have been around since the 1850s.
Some level of election reform will be on the ballot in 9 states this fall. Make sure you vote, if you can!
Also worth noting that these efforts are generally led mainly by democrats, with support from some moderate republicans. In contrast, 10 republican-led state legistatures have passed outright bans on RCV. One of these parties is not like the other!
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/05/nx-s1-4969563/ranked-choice-voting-bans
The democrats supported RCV in my state.
That's a weird false dichotomy. Why are you painting those as the two options?
The problem is if you believe this entirely then there's no mechanism to affect parties. Which is easy to disprove.
The overarching reality is that the parties are affected by things: culturally there's been a long period (150 years) of slowly unrestricting people with lots of resistance. Then there's also a economic right wing drift for decades, largely along capital accumulation lines.
I buy the idea that the parties are hard to affect but the idea they are impossible to affect seems ahistorical.
Lol there's definitely a way to affect them.
Two actually.
One is $$$$
The other one you aren't allowed to propose.
?There's several ways to affect politics
Corruption - largely the higher corruption is the more advocates to lower taxes for their donors. This is driven by capital accumulation.
Bottom up struggles - largely if a number of states do a thing the federal politicians will pick it up. Voting rights, marijuana legalization etc fall into this. Realistically this is probably the way to pick up votes.
Media driven - Trump is primarily influenced this way with scares, fear, bullshit. The last 40 years are driven heavily by media scares funded by right wing billionaires. Factual information sometimes breaks through here: I would argue the obamacare ban on pre-existing conditions was the outcome of a media cycle. Usually these are bad rather than good.
Personal affectations of politicians. Cheney's daughter caused him to be sensible on gay rights, McCain's stance on torture was a result of his time as a POW. George Bush's daddy issues about Iraq lead to millions of people dying. If enough people shoot at trump I do see him passing gun legislation (not encouraging it, just speculation)
Indeed politics is a tea kettle in the Lagrange zone between the earth and the moon.
But I was suggesting methods for affecting political parties.
Exactly! I wish I could upvote you more than once, friend!
And it always has been.
Sometimes the Green Party protest vote is a vote for George H.W. Bush.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn't a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn't have won, because the margins were just that thin.
That's assuming green party voters would vote for the dems, which probably isn't the case. They'd be more likely to just not vote.
That could mean that 60% of the US leans green.
Or they're just apathetic and attaching a social meaning to their apathy feels good.
I'm not sure I agree with that estimation, but even then I'd say that the majority of Green Party voters who would decide to vote anyways would probably vote Dem over GOP, and that still matters.
Because only one of those parties is trying to deny me basic human rights, I can't say I'm sympathetic to anyone who would choose not to vote out of spite just because they don't personally have as much at stake.
You must not have been alive in the 90s or 00s if you think Dems wouldnt and dont want to deny your basic human rights
I remember when the Dems repealed roe v Wade.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
I was definitely there when the dems tried to ban music based on it's offensive nature.
Oh wait that was Reagan and the GOP. My mistake.
I was there when the Dems banned foreign travelers based on nationality.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
Neither Dems nor the GOP did the first one, Dems did fail to ever codify the right to privacy or bodily autonomy though, despite every legal scholar for 50 years saying roe was a Shakey decision.
The second one never happened, unless you're confused by just the general existence of the FCC with your half remembered fantasy, and yes, I do remember when Dems fully supported banning travellers based on nationality, Biden cowrote that bill.
she ran during obama as well so it was also, technically, a vote for mccain
I mean doyee?
No one's voting 3rd party because they think they'll win, they're just throwing away a vote for Harris. Their statement is that they have no issue with another 4 years of Trump because their demands aren't being met anyway (cough genocide).
You can argue all day about the rationality and lack of utilitarianism, but it won't change anything.
If MLK were alive, he'd probably vote Democrat because he believes there is a solution in comprise over time, and keeping Republicans out is beneficial to that. (He generally favored the more progressive party).
If Malcolm X were alive, he'd probably be protesting just like the uncommitted group, but choose not to vote if his major demand wasn't met, because his reasoning would be that any promised or hypothetical solutions would not come to fruition. (The Ballot or the Bullet)
Both have valid reasoning, and it can obviously depend on the situation, but it bugs me that 50 years later people still don't understand why people choose to vote a certain way.
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection" - MLK
Change won't come overnight (at least without revolution). Like evolution, it requires constant pressure on the system. Changes that are too radical kill the organism.
A long as people think we can jump from Geoge H.W. Bush to Bernie Sanders in one election it's going to continue to fail.
Votw Harris this time. Vote for the person slightly more liberal than her next time, etc. It's a process.
That's one of my issues though, Harris is less liberal than Obama. It went in the opposite direction.
I advocated that Biden step down and allow a primary. Instead they ran with the VP because the DNC is not interested in actually bringing a more liberal or leftist candidate.
Meanwhile Trump has made Bush look good in comparison, so even if he stops running, an equal or worse candidate will simply take his place, and then we'll be faced with a similar problem.
It would take 20 years to make a grassroots movement work, but if we never start it's never gonna happen.
I'm 60. I would argue that 20 years is not a long time. Keep pushing.
Presumably because the US electorate isn't actually leftist or progressive in general and losing swing states wouldn't be balanced by extra votes in safe blue states.
But with the Democratic party, the conversation is ALWAYS "Vote us this time..." or "This election is too important!" They've been saying that for 50 years. Nah, friend. Now is the time for me to vote third party. Tired of waiting.
How is throwing your vote into a hole going to help exactly?
I'm voting for someone I believe in and who matches my values. If the duopoly has a problem with that, then they can work harder to welcome me rather than mock me for not voting for them.
So it "helps" because I'm voting for who I want to. As the system should be.
As it should be but not how it is.
But it can be that way if people stop being so scared to stray from the Duopoly.
We could also achieve universal peace if everyone just threw down their weapons, and no one would go hungry if everyone would stop being greedy. Unfortunately, people aren't rational, and there's cultural/social constructs that keep these things from happening.
If we want to change them for the better, we unfortunately have to operate within the constraints we're faced with. We can change those constraints with hard work, but can't just act as if those constraints don't exist. It's the same way folks pretend that being "color blind" re: racial issues will solve things. Would be great, but sadly plenty of folks are incapable of not being racist, and historical harms mean that we can't just pretend that perception is the only problem.
You can't get to a progressive candidate this way. A more progressive candidate is going to pull votes more from the left than the right. If you project the results at the point where the progressive candidate starts to matter they just tank the Democrat.If they take 80% of Democratic voters they just lose every state.
This user is 100% full of shit. They know what they are doing full well.
Yeah we will just pretend the supreme Court back to being not packed with ultra conservative assholes. You know, something a socialist would give a flying fuck about
So your solution is to try harder within the current system, like many others have done for the last 50 years, but this time it will be different! If the problem is with the system, work on changing the system while achieving the best you can until the system has changed. Who you vote for in this election won't have any impact on the system. This will require a different approach. Vote for who you like, but don't fool yourself that this will make anyone with power change their stance or plan. Your actions are part of the system working as intended.
They're hoping to get you to either not vote or vote for Stein. Not one honest bone in this motherfucker's body.
Yeah, I don't know if he a hopeless idealist/useful idiot or a shill, paid or otherwise, but I think it's important to point out the futility of the stance now and then.
We just got finished fighting a year long battle with the tankies on Lemmy that making the genocide in Gaza their singular issue and abstaining from voting for Kamala is like handing Trump the presidency. It should be a duh doie moment, but sadly it isn't.
Maybe Democrats need to work harder and be more welcoming.
The US isn't causing the genocide in Gaza and it will if anything be exacerbated if we bring in Trump to support Bebe
Peak liberal delusion.
In brief the Israelis stole the Palestinians land both historically and literally continuing to this day. The Palestinians have both historically and to this day retaliated with horrific acts of violence often against women and children. Both sides are immoral shitbags who are fighting for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Arguably at this point Biden/Harris could pull out all the stops and pull all support for Israel in hopes of influencing their decision making. This would probably cause the Democrats to lose the election bringing in the guy who wants to build condos on the rubble and the bones of all the dead Palestinians.
I disagree.
Fucking well said. And you have my upvote for mentioning my man, Malcom X. Great post!
Yeah…. She’s a disaster and always has been. Been saying this for years.
If you think casting any ballot is a form of protest you need to learn what real protest looks like.
Hint: It doesn’t involve participating in the system you’re protesting.
Not voting indirectly also is a vote for Trump.
Not voting isn't a protest either. Disrupting the voting? That would be a protest. But the Greens and Stein don't have the balls for that.
no, it's not
Yes, it is
I don't get it...why would you even vote for Stein at this point? She's not going to win, she's not going to break the threshold for federal election funding, and I don't see a substantial distinction between her policy and Harris.
Brain worm at least had a 1 in 1000 of breaking the funding threshold. Jill has what, less than a chance of finding the winning lotto ticket in the middle of the desert?
The only result of that vote is boosting Donald's chances.
Why...why would you even vote for her at this point? What's the end game?
Well I'm definitely not voting Harris or Trump. So I could see how some people would decide on Stein.
Ah yes, I remember how protest voting went in 2016
That wasn't the reason why democrats lost in 2016.
I remember the dems nominating a canidate who was hardly liked within the party and had no appeal without, and who was deeply concered in learching the party to the right... how about instead of assuming the dems are correct and the voters are wrong lets look at why the voters are disatisfied
Ah yes, I remember the dems nominating someone terrible who strongly deserves to be protested.
Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party: 80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
I don't really see the appeal of Jill Stein but going after the few thousand people voting her is a ridiculous plan. It's not like they are going to vote for third party or Republican senators. If they are going to vote third party, they are doing it for key issues; no point in shooting yourself in the foot so that they become nonvoters and you Congress seats.
Those down ballot victories wont mean much in an environment where we have carved out the heart of our democracy and replaced it with dictatorship. Also the problem with the policy positions that would allow Democrats to win n green voters are also such that adopting them would cost >n moderates which is why people haven't adopted those positions mercenary though they are.
The green voters should adopt a pragmatic strategy whilst pushing for stuff like ranked choice voting or some such at the state level which would allow them to actually win federal office something they haven't done in 40 years!
That's not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
Again, 4x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left. If it was they would’ve actively tried and court progressives past Obama. The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised. It’s pretty obvious why many refuse to vote for a woman who used DNC funds to fight against the progressive candidate in primaries, or an old man who helped write one of the biggest anti-crime bills (which ends up a large anti-minority bill) and said nothing will fundamentally change,, or now a prosecutor who is “tough on immigration” refuses to denounce those actively committing genocide.
Medicare for all, or not supporting a genocide, or plenty of other options available to help attract progressives if they wanted it.
BUT again, rather than not vote at all those can at least vote 3rd party and still help down ballot. A lot better to win house and senate than lose everything.
Edit: updated to correct ratio of 4x based on 2020 data
On its own that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn't tell you how much overlap there is, and therefore how much spoiling there is. And regardless of which side, the spoiler effect is a symptom of a terrible voting system. The entrance of an irrelevant candidate should not sway the results of an election at all.
Additionally, everything is looking like it will be a very close race, in which case every bit of the spoiler effect matters, even if more of it is on the right, which you haven't established.
I don't like it either. But my point stands, there is an alternative choice.
The problem here is the spoiler effect, the system in which we elect representatives. It is in large part what allows the doupoly to remain uncompetitive.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant but also that 4x(revised now that I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock. Awe. Ignore the weird centrist or actual independent or etc ones as those are hard to place.
Again, the issue is not that we have any third party vote. We should. It should be encouraged. It’s a fucking democracy. Dems trying to say trump will end democracy while simultaneously trying to remove 3rd parties is wild.
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes. If anyone should be worried about “spoiler” candidates it’s the right as their third party has grown a lot more than the lefts. Hell 2020 the left lowered by half of 2008 (Even the crazy year 2016 it was only 0.71% of possible voters, 2020 was only 0.2% of possible voters. 2008 was 0.43% of possible voters.)
Trump has literally said he would end democracy. Third parties literally by design are either irrelevant or destroy the party they are most like because of the electoral college. Trying to prevent a situation in which a third party acts as a willing pawn to spoil an election is pro democratic in terms of leading to an outcome that is desirable to a larger portion of the electorate.
No I didn't. I said the introduction of an irrelevant candidate (meaning one that did not win) should have no effect on the outcome of an election.
As I already explained, that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn't say anything about how much overlap and therefore vote spoiling is taking place. I'll demonstrate:
That means green has 40 potential votes, democrat has 200 potential votes, republican has 190 potential votes, and libertarian has 100 potential votes.
There is double the number of 3rd party voters on the right than the left. But it doesn't matter, because the dems overlap with 10 voters of the green party. And the repubs overlap with 10 voters of the libertarian party. They'll more or less cancel each other out despite there being way more right wing 3rd party votes.
Unless you have data to show how much overlap there is, this statistic is meaningless.
Not in a FPTP system, because that leads to the spoiler effect.
The United States is a failed democracy by any reasonable measure.
I love that you love this theory that you cannot possibly get any data on magically but also cannot realize that the 0.7% of the total vote in 2016 the leftist third parties got is almost 10x less than the loss from voter turnout between 2016 and 2020. the 40% of people who simply did not vote at all are a BIIIIIIT more to blame than the 0.7% of people who voted third party, no matter how many of them would overlap with the DNC or not.
Spoiler candidates exist, sure, but that is shit like IIRC when republicans in miami funded a dude who didn't live in florida in a miami race because he has the same legal name as the democrat who was running.
That is a lot different than third parties who aren't even getting 1% of the vote. the DNC shot themselves in the face in 2016 and cannot get over it, so they would rather continue to scapegoat bernie bros and green party instead of just admitting their plan of pissing off as many progressives as humanly possible and trying to court republicans instead has not worked extremely well.
and finally, if you're cool with FPTP then great for you, keep voting DNC. No need to remove money from politics, support the poor, stop genocide, or anything important that would lose us money when we have something more evil than us to vote against! Yay! Some aren't stoked on how complicit in that idea the DNC is. I'm not going to tell someone with a straight face that democrats will fix everything we just have to vote for them another 600 times so they can.... keep going further from progress each year. Example being immigration they're pushing which is fully 2 steps backward to take one step forward.
It's not a theory or hypothesis. It is how a venn diagram works, it's geometry. And both geometry and that loss of turnout can be the case, they are not mutually exclusive. And I also never said that those who didn't turn out to the polls weren't to blame. You're putting words in my mouth at this point.
Both are to blame. Anybody who didn't vote or voted for a candidate who had no chance is 100% to blame. Distinguishing blame by group isn't of value.
I'm glad we agree. That's the whole point.
You're preaching to the choir. I hate their shitty ass strategy too.
I am explicitly not cool with it.
Welcome to FPTP two party systems.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
No, it's well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
The problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that's the problem. That's what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
That's because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don't do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
If that's really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it's bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
You have just proven my point, it's not a thing that happens in reality if it were you'd point to actual data, not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
To your second point, they not trying to win voters, Dems have never attempted to court anyone left of Reagan voters, ever. The point is demoralization. Non voters are better than energized voters that will never vote for you; the latter group protests, riots, threatens your monopoly on power.
I already explained why this is a terrible goalpost. But even under this terrible goalpost you're still not correct.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
See the section under "Notable unintentional spoilers"
Additionally the 2000 election:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_2000_presidential_campaign
That's already accounted for. The gray dots are non voters. Including non voters doesn't actually change the math, because the math is the overlap of circles. It is already only accounting for the subset of people who are voters.
Yep! I'm one of them who thinks like that.
If you guys think the spoiler effect isn't real then I've got a bridge to sell you. I voted Green in 2000. Never again.
I voted Green in 2020 because I hated Biden, and after 4 years of a Biden presidency I have concluded that I was a fucking moron and that my vote for Hawkins didn't amount to shit.
I remember what the Trump admin was like, and we're just now concluding the Biden admin, and when I look at the options on the table right now, I have:
Harris is the obvious choice for anyone who actually wants America to improve.
Climate town just did a really interesting video about how the election in 2000 was literally stolen by the Republicans via brothers Bush and Bush and their corrupt secretary of State in Florida. And honestly wouldn't matter if you had voted red, Green blue purple or rainbow.
Yes, it was stolen, however they were only able to do that because the margins were close. Had the green voters instead voted for the candidate closest to them that had a chance (Gore), then it would have mattered.
Green votes were well within the margin that would have triggered the automatic recount. It just would have been an automatic recount for Bush, not gore. Meaning if they blocked the hand recount like they did, it would have gone to gore.
The margins in the swing states legitimately come down to a couple thousand votes sometimes.
Don't be stupid. Vote Kamala. If you hate for some reason fine, but it's either that or...oh dear God.
The dems will never learn a lesson if they lose, they never have
The people who don't vote will far out number those who vote for Jill Stein. Why do we let them off the hook when they would have a larger impact on the election.
Don't get me wrong, Jill Stein sucks, but don't blame her voters. Blame those who don't vote to blame those who blindly vote for trump because of "the taxes"
I am tired of blaming someone who gets 2% for when bad things happen. Blame the 30% who did nothing.
I realize a portion of those who don't vote are due to voter suppression, bring the fire you bring for stein voters to those suppressing votes, it will be a more effective strategy. Stein and her voters are an easy scapegoat.
That's privilege talking. 100% turnout should not be a requirement, when we do not have, at the very least, a national holiday for voting. Voting is not as easy for everyone as it might be for you.
Hmm maybe. I agree it should be a national holiday and I agree that the current situation provides far more barriers for some groups than others.
Do I think those things are solely or even primarily responsible for that map? No, I do not.
Nope, totally blaming Stein voters. They're idiots, truly stupid, to believe that a protest vote does anything except hurt the major party they're most aligned with. Stein is a useful idiot, funded by fascists to leech votes from Democrats. She got Trump elected in 2016.
Third parties aren't a thing under our system. If we were a parliamentary system, sure, but not under our current system, so take your desires for boosting a third party and boost yourself into a lake.
I blame both
maybe if they would try to court literaly anything to the left of where reagon was they would not need to worry about people voting there. this is the Dems bed they need to lie in it and not yell at the voters for not longer supporting them
I honestly don't how anyone can look at the Biden/Harris presidency or the Harris/Walz campaign and conclude that it is equally right-wing as Reagan... At best it's just whiny anti-capitalist hyperbole, and at worst you're dumb as a rock and actually believe that.
Biden/Harris/Walz are actually to the right of Bush/Raygun. Watch this debate question between Bush and Reagan, it’s only 2 minutes, and tell me I’m wrong.
Wow, that just makes me sad. I know they both did monstrous things to our society, but their tone in that debate is so far removed from our current xenophobic constant. Really just highlights how far the overton window has shifted, but doesn't make me change my mind about the current options being Nightmarish v. Palatable v. Impossible.
Do you think the country is further to the right now than it was under Reagan?
The issue is with what they are actually able to accomplish, not what they say they'll do. And that goes for every Democrat since Carter.
A lot of leftists think anybody of a more moderate disposition than Mao must naturally be a republican
It's insane
Kamala is a moderate progressive. I fail to see the problem with incremental reform.
Bibi marches from genocide to a full-scale war in the Middle East. The donkey glumly follows its master. But they fein suprise when we don't meakly trudge behind.
If you live in a state that has even a slight chance to go red, yes, you should vote for Kamala. But if you live in a comfortably Blue or Red state, you should vote for the party that best reflects your ideology. I always vote for the farthest left candidate because I think that if my representatives see a strong third-party showing for a left-wing ideology, it will make them think twice before they pivot to the center.
You can only know that with accurate polling, and accurate polling doesn't exist. As long as we have a two party system, the electoral college, and no ranked-choice voting, voting for the "lesser evil" is the only sane choice. It sucks, but the choice really is binary. A third party vote is a discarded vote, but if you insist on discarding that vote, at least take the time to vote pragmatically down the rest of the ticket...
lol, and I cannot stress this enough, lmao.
C'mon dude. You really think California is gonna go red this year? Grow up.
I mean, I'm represented by Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Ayanna Pressley, so...it's not not working. It's certainly better than voting for Democrats unconditionally while I whine about the electoral college and first-past-the-post polling.
Not voting for the Democrat gives the Democrats all the reason they need to ignore absolutely everything you say.
Voting for Democrats and donating to them gives you persuasive power within the party to help steer it.
LOL, what? Are you high? No, they're not going to listen to you if they have your vote already; why would they work for it if they already have it? And if they only tried to appeal to people who already voted for them, then they wouldn't spend all this time and energy trying to appeal to moderate conservatives, would they? Why aren't they ignoring them, and instead only ignoring the left?
And you think they're going to listen to me if I give them money? How much money do you think I'm giving them? Do you think I have a super pac? What do you think the conversations are in DCCC headquarters are like? "Hey guys, I know that the financial-services sector gave us $462 million in 2020, but @pjwestin just donated $50, and he'd like us to reinstate Glass-Steagall, maybe we should listen to him?" Like, Christ, maybe in deluded for thinking enough third-party votes will scare them, but at least I'm not naive enough to think I can negotiate with someone by giving them everything they want upfront.
You sound like you've never called or written to your representative or their office, or dealt with a local campaign office. Because what I describe is true, and what you describe is you declaring to the world, "I'm choosing to make myself irrelevant to everyone."
I call my Senators and my rep all the time. I tell them I'm a voter in my district and I care about X. They've never once asked me if I voted for them or how much money I gave them.
I wonder who represents you. I don't get blown off my my reps. And I don't donate a ton of money, but I do volunteer.
Ed Makey, Elizabeth Warren, and Ayanna Pressley. What representatives do you have at your beck and call with your amazing volunteering skills?
For the editor and anyone else who does not understand math: people voting for Trump means Trump gets a vote.
A vote for Jill Stein means Trump does not get a vote.
Would you rather have someone vote third party or vote Trump?
The whole thing feels like an argument intended to push people away rather than rally support.
I've noticed a LOT of Lemmy's seem to want to push people away rather than welcome or rally support when it comes to uncommitted voters or third-party voters.. Very surprising to me.
It's almost like we expect bad faith interactions from people trying to interact with bad faith.
Weird, right?!
I don't know, because I'm not posting or interacting in bad faith. Just because some doesn't share your views, doesn't mean they are interacting in bad faith.
Werid, right?!
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala's chances the same way a Republican voting for RFK hurts Trump's chances
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
This is illogical, as it assumes someone voting for stein would vote for Harris, which isn't the case.
Jill stein is running against Trump
Jill Stein is literally only running to steal Kamala votes to improve the chances of Trump winning
that's not what her platform says
Breaking news; politicians lie to you
Cornell West 2024!
Corporate says spot the difference here.
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
Exactly! I'll share your downvotes...but you're right.
I don't know why people are so worried, surely all the moderate Republicans you courted by mirroring GOP policy on immigration, the border, the military, aid to Israel, fossil fuels, social services, and the death penalty will be enough to win? I was assured by very confident Dems that they didn't need my dumb lefty vote to win this election 🤷
Maybe we should be asking Democrats why they aren't trying harder to satisfy leftist voters instead?
Because leftist "voters" don't vote.
Then Jill Stein shouldn't have any impact right? Since according to you leftists aren't voting anyway.
That's BS. Extreme leftists are very unreliable voters: no party that actually has a chance at winning anything or running the country can live up to their wishlist agenda. They have a "98% agreement with me means you're still my enemy" mentality, so the only candidates that appeal to them are the ones that know they won't win: those are the only folks that can promise rainbows and unicorns all day long, and pass the unrealistic and fatally flawed morality tests that extreme Progressives demand.
Lemmy really really hates when you frame the question like that. But good on ya, brother. You're exactly right!
Let me put it this way: the kind of idiot voting for Stein is not a big enough demographic that they're worth pissing off everyone else
If they would OTHERWISE vote dem maybe. But you clearly don't give a shit and never considered that a possibility anyway. The dems will never find a candidate to satisfy everyone, never mind an otherwise irrelevant fringe of socialist college students
Bernie
You mean the guy who lost twice in the primaries?
If you're too weak to beat Hilldog you'll never win against the GOP
Judging from your tone, I think you’re right. Liberals would never have voted for Bernie.
Not trying to come off like a prick, but it is true most leftists I speak to really don't understand how unpopular they are with most of the voting public. We live in a largely conservative country, and that includes a lot of liberals. Most people have a viscerally negative reaction to 90% of what comes out of the far left, never mind when it comes to voting
Most Americans don’t know they’re actually progressive:
A TV poll is a nothing burger
The reality is whenever this gets brought up in public the conservatives win. This is why liberals almost always avoid giving yes or no answers in public (no really, watch the debate later. Tim Walz will give not a single meaningful policy specific. Why? Because Americans hate that shit and he knows it)
Yep. And dems screwed him over. I loved Bernie!
Exactly!! Great question!
In California, it doesn't matter because the results are already known. In other states the calculus is a bit different.
Online rhetoric sways voters in swing states. Your vote may not change the outcome, but your words might.
That's absolutely true, especially for a paper like the LA Times. I am dubious that there is any appreciable effect when it comes to random blogs and so forth.
Right? Imagine believing there are enough conscientious progressives / leftists to flip CA red because of third party voting. Sure, Jan.
Those internal polling numbers from Michigan must be absolutely atrocious.
anyways, votePSL.org
Why don't democrats invest in actually bringing people to their movement instead of wasting their time on shitting on 3rd parties? Let people vote who they want to vote for, and who they feel voices their opinions the best. That's what democracy is at the end of the day.
Why don't third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead of wasting their time shitting on democrats? I'm not saying there's not plenty of good reasonsto shit on democrats but if any third party wants to be taken seriously they should start acting like it.
Because that's never been how the slaver system works.
The people who run the system.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there's obviously a market for it. People that would've otherwise stayed home instead of voting for the democrats now have a voice. That's what democracy looks like, at least in most European countries that is. It's fairly normal to see smaller parties pop up that better represent a subsection of the electorate than to see huge monolithic parties that try to encompass everything.
There isn't though. No third party has ever won the presidency.
In Congress, there has never been even 1% of them being third party. Same with the senate.
Where exactly is the market, and why is it not at all reflected in any part of the elected government?
Is it perhaps because it doesn't exist?
Because I'm sure that LA, in california, is under threat of swinging right if people protest vote too much. I'm sure of it, it just makes sense.
They say this every single election and then give us genocide joe.
Cornell West 2024.
It's funny how America voted for Obama and now has Bush' foreign policy anyways.
Foreign policy is ironically where most dems and Republicans find the most common ground.
Well, at least it was until he-who-shall-not-be-named decided Putins cum tasted so incredibly he would never get off his knees again
There it is again, that funny feeling
I admire your spirit, brother! Good for you for standing up for yourself! I'm voting Rachele Fruit, but I support anyone who isn't supporting the Democrats and Republicans.
They never have this energy for the millions of actual Trump voters.