this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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Political Memes

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Democrats who are actually concerned about Republicans should be pushing hard for ranked choice voting.

These memes make Democrats feel good, but only annoys third party voters.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Considering Lemmy's market share, these memes only exist to harass third party voters.

As if Lemmy, which has a small userspace spread out over the world, can influence the election. Yet, here we are with a overly active Democrat and Israeli brigade making sure dissenting opinions cannot exist.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

But, if the goal isn't necessarily to win the election, only to absolve yourself of blame if you lose the election, then blaming 3rd party voters is the stance for you.

Could it be a poor political platform, or just not even campaigning in the state? Maybe it's just not being appealing enough to the 40% of the electorate that doesn't vote. Couldn't be.

I feel like all the hate for 3rd parties is the same as the hate for immigrants. It's all redirection and obfuscation.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Never forget that in 2016 13% of Trump voters voted for Obama in 2008/12. Maybe the Democratic Party can share some blame, instead of just shaming the voters.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Jill Stien only had 2% of the vote in 2016. That is nothing. Most of those people would have stayed home. The reason Hillary lost was because she was a bad canidiate who was unable to resonate with young voters.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She acted like she was entitled to the job. Anytime she spoke, it felt like she was holding her nose to do it. She was riddled by controversy for decades (deserved or not).

She was just such a bad choice and probably one of the few people who could have lost to Trump.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

A broken system gives you broken candidates.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (7 children)

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of these voters. Maybe I'm just consuming the wrong media, but it feels like third-party voters get 50x the blame nonvoters get for ruining elections with probably something like a thousandth of the population. I basically never see this discussion call out both third-party voters and nonvoters equally.

I keep seeing third-party voters maligned for thinking a candidate has hope to win a national election, I see so many arguments to address why third-party candidates can't win. In spite of that, I have never come across any community anywhere where people collectively believe these candidates actually have a chance. People who consume crazy media can believe crazy things, that's why MAGA is a thing, but there's a whole Fox News etc media machine feeding those people. Is there a forum somewhere with more than ten people where there's a consensus that a third-party candidate might actually win? None of the third party voters I have known or met irl believed this, and I would be shocked if they're all weird exceptions.

Like, please, where are these people congregating to spread the ludicrous idea that a third-party candidate can win a national election? Looking on the recent green party posts on their subreddits, the only thing I see even close is a thread with a headline about "candidates are electable if people vote for them", where the furthest they go in the comments is a few people talking about how big a deal it would be for the party if they got 5% nationally, and a couple other people replying to say the greens won't even get 1% this year but the election is still very important because of some nonsense about incremental gains.

It feels like we've imagined a brainwashing machine that does not exist in reality, rather than admit to the existence of protest votes. Condemning protest votes means condemning protest nonvotes equally, and we'll never have sufficient information about protest nonvoters to reasonably make a claim about how they would have voted. That would severely muddy any attempts to assign blame for election results.

If you're trying to convince these voters to act differently, the way to do that would be to address the arguments they're actually making, like the incremental gains nonsense. If you're addressing arguments they haven't been making at all, then it's worth asking whether you're trying to convince someone other than them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Nonvoters suck too.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Maybe if everyone that posted threads like this voted 3rd party, maybe 3rd party would get enough votes for once to push a reelection and get on the radar? Instead of trying to get people to vote for 2 candidates that don't support their needs and/or wants.

You do realize that the winning president has to win at least 50% of the electoral college vote in order to win. If no one president does then the top 3 candidates go to the house of representatives to be chosen. Just the media if this happened would finally put a third party on the radar, even if they only won one state.

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/faq

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Ranked choice voting eliminates the concept of spoiler candidates/parties.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago (17 children)

People get weird close to the election.

People voting green party did so for a reason. Not everyone fits into perfectly shaped boxes for the 2 party system. Many vote 3rd party for leverage for policy change. The narrative of picking the lesser evil doesn't always apply to the narrative of the individual voter.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 days ago (9 children)

I might risk voting 3rd party if this election wasn't a choice between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil.

The stakes are just too damn high to risk letting Trump get back into the White House again.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

it's not worth it until first past the post is removed.

Until then it's mathematically impossible for a third party candidate to win. Focus your energy instead on removing first past the post, then you have a chance

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Honesty is refreshing. I’m voting for Harris because I don’t want to see Trump’s orange face every week. Yes, I know what she is. Yes, I know what that makes me. I’ve made my peace with it. No, I don’t blame others who feel differently.

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[–] [email protected] 253 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (29 children)

Stein wasn't even the only third party candidate stealing votes. I voted for Gary Johnson with the Libertarian party as a "protest vote". Glancing at national results, he had almost three times as many votes as Stein did.

I was 100% the moron this meme is targeted towards. I voted for Harris yesterday.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 days ago (3 children)

But you aren’t a moron if you learned from your mistakes. It means the opposite.

I wish we had ranked choice voting. Then these protest votes would still work and not screw with the system so bad and we could fight the stranglehold of the two party system.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If this were true then American politics really are terrible. Minority should hold seats. America needs to revisit representation.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s actually not entirely true, it only counts stein as the only 3rd party (the libertarian candidate in PA got 3x as many votes as her, I’d bet those 3rd party votes wouldn’t have gone to Clinton) AND doesn’t report factual numbers.

It’s just not true.

That said unfortunately voting for a 3rd party candidate is largely useless in the USA and the forces trying to get their opponents voters to vote 3rd party are probably more overwhelming then the forces actually compelling folks to vote 3rd party.

FPTP needs to die in the USA.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Dont let online bullies influence your vote. Each citizen gets one vote, cast it for whom you wish to support. Learn about the issues, the policies being proposed, and cast your vote for whomever you support.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (18 children)

That makes an assumption that all or a big majority third party voters would prefer Harris over Trump.

Just for clarifying the logic here.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago

Support ranked choice voting

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