Maybe we should be asking Democrats why they aren’t trying harder to satisfy leftist voters instead?
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.
no, it’s not
Yes, it is
if that were true, you could prove it. there is no world in which non votes are counted for Trump
In the actual world, governed by actual mathematics, you are incorrect. This has been repeatedly pointed out to you, with illustrative examples, by many people. Your stubborn, willful ignorance cannot change the fabric of reality.
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.
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.
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.
Both have valid reasoning
I disagree.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jill for president. <3
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.
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.
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.
They say this every single election and then give us genocide joe.
Cornell West 2024.
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.
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.
I wish we had ranked choice voting, it just makes so much more sense
Voting for Jill Stein is only “taking a vote away” from Harris if you assume that the voter would’ve voted for Harris without Stein in the race.
That’s a big assumption and I don’t think there’s any good reason to make such an assumption.
In reality a not insignificant portion of them would probably vote for Trump to “own the libs” honestly.
A not insignificant portion of them will vote for Donald because they are MAGAs cosplaying about wanting a third party.
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.
Let’s break down this bullshit: A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. The election clerks count ballots marked for Stein and report the vote totals that Stein received. A vote for Jill Stein is literally a vote for Jill Stein.
The statement that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump is, of course, metaphorical. It’s asserting that a vote for Stein is morally equivalent to a vote for Trump by the speaker’s moral reckoning. It’s a rhetorical shortcut. This shortcut rests on the notion that either the voter would have voted for Harris, or that it is a moral imperative to stop Trump above all else.
That’s a moral judgement call. Other people may judge differently. Flatly stating that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump so vehemently and absolutely elides any possibility of discourse and clearly tells the Stein voter that the speaker will not listen to or consider any of their views, or reasons to vote for Stein.
Fine, you believe that, but when has telling people more or less directly that you do not have any intention of considering their political beliefs won them over to your side? How is that a good tactic? If it worked, then why not employ it on Trump supporters? Go ahead, tell them that the party you support will ignore what they think and want, and demand they vote for your candidate.
If it doesn’t work on them, why should it work on Stein voters?
Fucking thank you for saying it.
(and for saying it more eloquently than I have been able to.)
Nailed it… Probably gonna catch a lot of down votes from lib shills… But fuck 'em, this is exactly right. Honestly, I think any of these bullshit articles that will clearly push people further away must be part of the plan to help Trump… Or are the libs really still just this stupid? Have learned absolutely nothing from all their time losing
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?
Harris platform has exactly zero policies in common with the green party
Are you a paid spokesperson for the Green party? I don’t know how you can write something like that with a straight face.
Edit: I went to the green party page to make sure I’m not full of shit…I’m not…it’s a slightly more liberal Democrat policy page.
Same focuses on equality, green energy, and inclusion.
I really don’t get what you think a green party vote will get you that a vote for Harris won’t. Other than another feather in the fedora of stupid mistakes we make when we are young, or you really like Russia. I don’t get it at all.
Because you’re young, clearly. Maybe this is just the first election you’ve paid attention to. Every disaffected voter was like you, once.
Then we realized dem platform has nothing to do, whatsoever, with what the do in office. Even when they have a majority in both houses of Congress and can pass anything their heart desires, they actively refuse to pass legislation relating to the platform they sold us on. You can only be lied to so many times before you realize doing the same thing will not get you a different outcome. Voting dem will never improve your life. Maybe third party will, maybe not, but voting dem won’t, it’s empirically proven.
I’m old enough to remember the green party votes haven’t worked in the last 5 presidential elections. I threw away a vote on them when Obama had a lock on his second term.
Here we are a couple decades later and the green party has done zero to affect major change in the US. They did likely get Hillary fucked, so thanks for that 4 years of hell I guess.
Brain worm was your best chance this cycle and he’s been paid off already.
Really…seriously…what will voting green get you here? You can’t win, you can’t get federal funding, if you break 2% I’ll be amazed…
What’s the point of a green vote when Harris is so closely aligned with your platform?
No child, they didn’t lose clinton the election she refused to campaign for.
And no, a genocidal cop that has only repeated Trump’s 2016 immigration platform has nothing in common with my preferred policies. Greens are he compromise party. The minimally progressive option of things developed countries generally already have.
nothing in common with my preferred policies
Really? And the chick eating dinner with Putin represents you as a person? That’s what you stand for? That’s an interesting statement.
Because I don’t care. Neither party actually listens to the average American either way my bills are getting more expensive and my dollar worth less.