Image Transcription:
A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
End Transcription.
The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
Hoo boy. Against my better judgment, I’ll wade into this pool.
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If voting for either party gets you the same result, fascists wouldn’t be so focused on elections and trying so hard to take the vote away.
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Withholding your vote doesn’t do anything. When has losing an election pushed either party left?
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Voting doesn’t prevent you from engaging in other forms of direct action.
Both parties suck. People will needlessly suffer and die no matter who wins. But there are also people who will suffer and die under one party but not the other, and the same can’t be said the other way around. Our democracy is fundamentally flawed, but voting is a tool at our disposal, and we’re in no position to turn anything down.
Before Obama, I could still remain quiet when people said “voting for anyone is implicit approval,” or whatever - and for the most part, they’re right - voting is a pretty low level of change.
I voted for Obama because even if he is a bit of a tool, he’s black, and now a huge group of minority kids saw someone who looks like them in the white house. I voted for him not because of the “HOPE” on his signs but literally to give black kids hope. (And yeah, for the most part, it’s false hope, just like it is for white kids, welcome to the club.) He was a positive symbol and, if it’s a symbol who is also a centrist Democrat, that’s better then a centrist Democrat that isn’t a positive symbol. And a shit ton better than Mitt Romney or whoever the other guy was.
And then Trump happened, and any respect for the “don’t vote” viewpoint drained out. If you still think both parties are the same at this point, you might want to start asking yourself what else is going on with you - because “not great” is not identical to “fucking terrible”…
Biden isn’t doing what I want him to do - health care, income inequality, corruption in Congress, etc - but the infrastructure bill isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing, we need it. We need a lot more, but 1 > 0.
Also, to be blunt… we’ve seen this before. We know from recent history what happens when the DNC nominates the safe, centrist, establishment candidate, who fails to appeal to voters and loses to a Republican. That was 2016. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. And who did the DNC rally behind right before Super Tuesday? That’s right… Joe Biden.
The amount of people in this thread who don’t understand how our voting system works is too damn high
You’re absolutely correct in your points
Especially the “against my better judgement” part, this comment section went to hell really quick
Withholding your vote doesn’t do anything.
Well, not anything good. But it’s mathematically equivalent to half a vote for the major party candidate you like least.
Personally I’d much rather have the candidate I like the least have a harder time winning
Ideally they’d even lose
Edit: Damn autocorrect changed my comment a lot with one simple wrong correction.
Permission to copy and paste this elsewhere for the future?
If you think it would help, sure thing!
It’s concise and matches how I feel about things, so hopefully it will help if/when I come across people talking about how not voting is actually the best choice
Thanks! I actually took time to make my comment shorter, so I’m glad I successfully got straight to the points. :)
I continue to hold my nose and vote blue because in virtually every case the Democratic candidate is far better than the Republican candidate (from my left leaning perspective).
What frustrates me is that I have no power to push the party further left. In my fantasy, crowds of people can shout from the streets “Democratic party, do X or I will withhold my vote!” and the Democrats will lose an election, realize their folly, and move to the left. In reality, they’ll just write those crowds off as unrealistic and unreliable and likely move center to try and court more “independent” votes. With two parties dominating and the current electoral system, that’s just how it goes.
I don’t have the energy to be the difference, politically. I try to do the right thing and I help people I can in small ways - at work, in my small social circles, and by donating to organizations I trust will help. Hell, I’m afraid to be part of the shouting crowd because doing anything openly could jeopardize my work situation or even my employment. To add to that, I am antisocial, anxious, and too stressed in daily life to really engage in effective, direct action.
I’m just tired and disheartened. I feel like when I hold my nose and vote blue, sometimes I’m endorsing what I often perceive as a shift to the right.
Powerful, self-interested, wealthy people on the right though… they can just throw so much money at a problem. It takes so, so many more of us to fight against it. Deep down I know reducing my involvement just gives those assholes more power. It’s what some of them are fighting to do - dishearten the masses so that they’ll just give up.
I don’t really have a point I guess. I’m just tired. I know that the right is becoming so openly fascist because they know they don’t have the popular support… but they have the resources to drag this out. Maybe even change rules to make it so that breaking the law, even violence, becomes the only way to fight back. I just hope it ends soon. I’m tired of thinking about what it means when they continue to get close to half the votes all across the country.
Change in the party has to come from within. Even though Sanders didn’t get the nomination, he pushed the entire party a good bit to the left.
More important than that is to get involved at all levels. It’s not as flashy as the Presidency, but your vote for your local school board or town council carries a lot more weight than it does nationally.
If you’re feeling very spicy, run for one of those positions
What frustrates me is that I have no power to push the party further left.
The way to do that is exactly the same way that the tea party and MAGA influenced their parties:
Show up at primaries. Vote for further left primary candidates. Primary centrists.
Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar won after the previous Democrat decided not to seek re-election. AOC successfully primaried a more centrist Democrat.
The Senate and House are really, really important. The president isn’t a dictator, and the median senator honestly has a ton of power. Just look at how e.g. John McCain tanked Trump’s Obamacare repeal, and how Manchin has controlled what went into Build Back Better.
President Bernie Sanders combined with a Republican House, a Republican Senate and our current Republican Supreme Court would get approximately nothing useful done.
The tea party was basically astroturfed into existence by the Koch Brothers and other rich assholes. On the left we basically have rich neoliberal assholes who are desperate to do good while still making sure their capitalist class asses stay as rich and relevant as possible. The “good” they do is also, conveniently, great at keeping them politically powerful while simultaneously lessening their tax burden.
I vote. I research and try to push the most progressive candidates. I still live in a reliably blue district in a relatively blue state. The establishment candidates have always won.
I’m not encouraging people to give up the fight. I’m just venting because I’m just so fucking tired.
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“Democrats have always fucked me over but I keep voting for them because the alternative is actively more harmful”.
No, I don’t find it touching nor powerful. This is a celebration of the failure of the 2 party system.
When you roll out the feasible alternative let me know. Until then, I’ll be voting for the candidate whose rallies don’t break out in chants of “kill f*ggots, kill all transgenders”
We need to get RCV passed at the state level in at least 33 states, then we can get rid of FPTP at the federal level, and actually force some change
oh if it’s that simple then lets just do that. surely we can bang it out in a weekend.
Thinking like this is the reason the 2 party system is still in place today
It is possible to fight for RCV while working within the system we have in the meantime.
Exactly. Strictly voting only means you’re complacent in the system, more needs to be done if we ever wanna see any real progress.
Of course, but you should also vote for the lesser of two evils come election time.
thinking realistically about the likelihood of getting ~= 80 million people to vote for any one third party, or thinking realistically about the likelihood of getting those two parties to agree to vote their own power away?
See, that’s the issue, you’re thinking within the bounds of voting. There’s other stuff you can do, like community outreach, or talking to local politicians, or protesting. Real change in America was never won with a vote, it was fought for on the streets.
Who says I’m not doing that too?
You don’t need 80 million people to vote third party.
What you need is enough votes to show as a big enough blip on the election results to make both the Democrats and Republicans sweat out of fear they may be losing their iron grip.
Change will soon follow
Nobody said it was simple, but yes. Let’s do that.
Doing the easy thing is what’s got us to where we are.
can you pull it off in under a year? because in a year we’re gonna have a presidential election and one of the leading candidates is someone whose already been determined by a court to have engaged in insurrection and has said that he’ll have the military suppress protests starting day one and will replace 50,000 government functionaries with people whose only qualification is that they’re loyal to him personally. his friends tell me every day that god has commanded them to kill me 😀
I would surmise it would take between 15 and 40 years to get it passed.
Nice idea, but it isn’t going to happen before the 2024 elections. First things first.
force some change
RCV favors moderates and promotes political stability. That’s kinda the opposite of a revolution.
That’s better than the fascism that FPTP favors. It’s not revolutionary, but at least we might start heading in the right direction
RCV does the opposite, actually. It exhibits center squeeze, where centrists are often eliminated early even if more people prefer them over the eventual winner.
What might help to effect this change? If I’m not mistaken, a number of states are almost under single-party rule, particularly those that might benefit most from this kind of change.
Is it something that may be built up from a municipal to county to state level to then establish on a national level?
Back in the day the "Moral Majority’ took over the GOP by taking over the local offices. If the usual attendance at a meeting was twenty folks, the MMs would make sure to show up with 50. It took them a while, but they were persistent.
That word “feasible” is doing a lot of work. No doubt the politician I want to vote for won’t be “feasible” for some reason, and the one you want me to vote for is.
which politician do you want to vote for, and what’s their path to victory that doesn’t involve making massive systemic changes to both the electoral system and the electorate in under a year?
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The news media collectively decided to not cover Bernie, while Bernie continued to win primaries every other candidate folded to Biden which torpedoed Bernies chances.
When it started to look like Bernie was going to win, the Dems went into a tailspin. It was a real mask-off moment.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
the Dems went into a tailspin.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Why do Bernie Bros cite that as if it isn’t a bold faced admission that Bernie isn’t popular among people who actually turn out?
“Yeah well Bernie only lost because everyone else started voting for one guy instead of twenty!”
Also, you shit heads could have beaten that by turning the fuck out!
I voted for Bernie. Twice.
Sure ya did priv
In the general election the “feasible” candidate is always the Democratic nominee, so you should never have any argument about it at that stage. Meanwhile in the primary people try to use that sort of “feasibility” / electability argument against farther left Dems, but it is total nonsense and can be completely ignored at that stage.
When you figure out a means of political activity that doesn’t involve refining the capitalist regime as it stands, let me know. Until then, I won’t be voting for candidates who help slaughter innocent people around the world.
So you won’t use your vote to help less people die?
Ah, so you are never voting again.
That is part of the calculus people are making when they express the idea they won’t vote for candidate A for reasons X and candidate B for reasons Y.
It is how voters can express their political will during the primary and electoral process. If a candidate can modify their position on X or Y because of voter concerns, that would be a meaningful part of the democratic process influenced by the voters. They’re trying to forge that alternative.
The real unfeasible alternative is actually just doing nothing and letting the donors buy their selected policies and voting for the lesser evil between them. That is just supporting the status quo.
That’s not what he said and you know it, shut up.
Ok
World’s oldest current democracy. It also has all the oldest flaws. USA and UK are stuck with a system that will always end up with two parties filled with wildly different politicians. Biden and AOC are both democrats. Trump and Romney are both republicans. What does each party stand for? Who the fuck knows? Republicans haven’t stood for anything for the last 10 years or so. Democrats have countered all that with “being normal and not rocking the boat”. Democrats are acting like your mom after her boyfriend beat her. “We can work something out later when we’ve all calmed down”.
What is really happening today is that the US has one party with politicians who actually do the job. The other party is an insane asylum where the craziest bitch gets the most attention. This means that every time one party has a popular vote the other party gets even more insane. And the first party, not wanting to alienate voters try meet half way. This is like your mom begging you to talk to your stepdad after he beat your sister. That’s how America got so far into neoliberalism, fascism and one election away from dictatorship. Multi party system works because it forces compromise and even if the government changes it won’t swing as hard as it did after Obama.
Very tangential, but why do Americans like to claim they’re the workds oldest democracy? That’s just so incredibly untrue to the point of being funny.
Oldest existing democracy, not the first one to ever exist. Here is an article that discusses the basis and legitimacy of this claim: https://www.valuewalk.com/top-10-countries-with-oldest-democracies/
I mean that article kind of proves my point. It’s the world’s oldest ******* democracy.
Only when you include a bunch of qualifiers of what counts. Like constitutional democracies that have some voting rights for black people and women and not including dependant nations or colonies. And even then it gives a few examples of why its still not the oldest.
I have absolutely no idea. Whenever people say it’s the oldest or the birth of democracy, I just chuckle and tell them to read a history book.
I mean aside from San Marino, what others are there that are older and still around?
The obvious one being the United Kingdom with either Bill of rights in 1689 or the first UK Parliament in 1707, depending on how you define it. Either way over half a century before the American revolution.
That’s a constitutional monarchy, not a democracy
So then the US is a Republic not a democracy and doesn’t count either.
I’m an American. It’s definitely not something I was ever taught in school. I’ve only begun to hear it recently, in fact. I mean we learned about the Ancient Greeks when I was in school…
Also, I knew about Iceland a long time ago.
Because depending on what exactly one means when they say it, it’s arguably true that it is in fact the oldest extant liberal democracy, that’s why. There are a lot of potential objections, many of which are perfectly valid, but I’m not here to defend the proposition, I am simply telling you why people say it.
Democrats are acting like your mom after her boyfriend beat her. “We can work something out later when we’ve all calmed down”.
This is like your mom begging you to talk to your stepdad after he beat your sister
I hope this isn’t character development.
It’s just relatable analogies. I knew a girl in the 90’s who had a normal childhood and we all stopped interacting with her because we didn’t want to jinx it.
No, I don’t find it touching nor powerful. This is a celebration of the failure of the 2 party system.
Liberal-splaining strategic voting is how my socialist brain interprets this. This isn’t as condescending as others but yeah it’s not powerful or touching it’s a sad coping mechanism, even sadder because he’s been so negatively affected personally by it.
Winner takes it all it the biggest bullshit ever. Anything but popular vote is worth jack shit.
I mean straight popular vote is also winner take all just not skewed by weird slavery shit counting rules
Wrong. It’s “democrats advanced in fits and starts, sometimes stumbling and falling, but heading in the direction of the finish line. I keep voting for them because the other guys are trying to set off a dirty bomb on the race track.”
Ok. And your point is? Not voting isn’t going to do shit. You are not going to change the system by not participating. That’s a losing strategy.
This would all be resolved if America just changed first past the post voting.
We’ll only change it with enough push from citizens
Push for a new system (like ranked choice or STAR) in your state for state elections and we can likely make it popular enough to get it to the national stage
Speaking as an Australian:
I also feel like you need mandatory voting (with enforcement), like what we have. That reframes elections from “riling up your power base so they go out and vote” to “hey average voter, here’s why you should vote for me and how things will improve if you do so”.
Americans don’t even get the day off to vote, and they have to stand in line for 12 to 16 hours to be able to vote.
I think they would revolt if they were required by law to vote.
Mitch McConnell literally called a proposal to give federal workers election day off so they could vote a “Democrat power grab”
In the end my view on it is you’re asking yourself what battlefield you want to fight on when you vote for president. Sure both of the likely options are going to be uphill battles but one seems much easier to battle in than the other.
Preaching to the choir, I know, but you’d think it’d be pretty fucking telling to American voters when there’s always one party, the same party, fighting against any efforts to make voting and elections easier, more accessible, more transparent, more representative, and more able to accurately reflect the true will of the people.
Not saying that either side is perfect on that scorecard, but one party, over and over and over again has tirelessly worked to prevent any sort of measure that might allow the American people to have their wishes and interests reflected in their elections.
This is exactly why I find it so frustrating when people holler “they’re the same”
It shows exactly how uninformed they are or how misleading they are being
It’s really easy to see how each member voted in Congress and it’s really easy to see who supports what
Not to mention the statements made by the politicians
STAR is great. Ranked choice is, at best, it’s a little better than FPP. At worst, it’s the same as FPP. I hate how many people are pushing for FPP, when STAR is just the best choice, by far. At worst, it’s leagues better than FPP and ranked choice.
I only recently learned about STAR and it really seems great, I’m hoping that I can convince more people in my home state it’s a good idea
So far my friends and family are on board, and they’ve talked with more people they know
So only about 200ish down and a few million to go
That has to happen at the state level, as they control how the elections are conducted.
Something I try to drum up in these sorts of threads is that your state and local elections can be far more important to pushing progressive policy than federal elections. Most of the work for high speed rail, for example, has to be taken up by state government. The federal government might offer some funding, but they only hold that out there for states to choose to take or not. Same with bicycle lanes, housing, or diverting police funding into more comprehensive solutions. That’s all state and local government.
Voting for Democrats at the federal level is merely to keep some of that funding sitting out there, and to not actively block progress otherwise. That’s it. That’s what voting them into the White House and Congress is for. The rest needs to be done in your local community.
That has to happen at the state level, as they control how the elections are conducted.
Ish.
If each state holds an internal ranked choice election and assigns their electors based on that, almost certainly the result would be that no one has 270 electoral college votes and the house of representatives gets to appoint whoever they want.
You’d have to have a national ranked choice vote. That’s because ranked choice is inconsistent; you could have an election where A wins every state, but nationally D wins. More likely, though, you’d have vote splitting across states.
Or if the debates weren’t managed by a private entity owned by the other two parties.
Canada has first past the post voting, and 3 active parties. My province has first pas the post and has 4 major parties (with a 5th one that is close but can’t get a representative in). I’ll agree that ranked voting at least would be a lot better.
And it’s a disaster in Canada. The only reason the Conservatives ever take power up there is because of the giant vote split between NDP and the Liberals. Look how the conservatives are heavy favorites to win their next election despite every poll showing them with less than the combined votes of the Liberals and NDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election
I mean you assume that a significant number of NDP voters would vote for the libs if they weren’t there (or maybe vice-versa). I’m really not sure of that.
Yes I definitely assume that. Maybe not every single person since who knows what goes on in people’s heads, but generally we should expect the voters for the two left of center parties to prefer the other left of center one to the right wing one. Particularly since presumably if there was a single party representing those voters it would probably be somewhere in between them ideology-wise.
Sorry for the late reply, the lack of a red envelope makes me not notice replies.
People on election day have to decide if they go voting at all. This is a big deal, it’s what most of the campaign in the ridding is focusing on changing (you want to make sure all of your voters go vote, that is top priority in an election).
Having a party that is a bad fit for you is demotivating and likely to reduce turnout. That is what I mean by “likely to vote”. It’s not the right wing option that people will go for. It’s the comfort of staying home and not bothering to vote for a “lib” if you’re a progressive, or for a “commie” if you’re a lib. For some people, the NDP is already too far right…
So yeah, some of the support of the NDP would transfer over to the liberal party, but definitely not all. And that’s not to mention all of the crazy people who can go from NDP to tories at the drop of a hat (voters have shallower roots than the base, or have irrational hatred of specific politicians or parties) or who would just vote Bloq Québécois or something else.
Vote for the most useful option, then go make a difference in local politics or wherever you can actually influence anything. Limiting your interactions with politics to whining isn’t going to change anything for the better and is definitely not going to get rid of Republicans nor Democrats.
This is the way. Even if you think voting for the “lesser” option is demeaning, it does no harm if you continue to use direct action as well
Not to mention how alot of that “direct action” is performative at best (Cash me on insta with all my best makeup and then never even working a food kitchen once because actual solidarity isn’t sexy) while voting actually shifts the national convo over a concerted sustained effort
Yeah tbf most people probably just skip voting because they feel helpless anyway and then don’t even go to a single protest.
The true incarnation of MLKs figure of the white moderate, telling you to their face that they’re an ally to the cause and then failing to muster the will to even do the smallest amount of work towards being an ally.
[…] go make a difference in local politics or wherever you can actually influence anything.
I agree, however I think most anyone that may only be grumbling may find themselves doing so as they’re stuck on the question of, how do I get involved? Where do I get started with any of it?
The answers will vary by locality and how they’re organized, but some direction (that is, examples) is better than none.
If you’re able to go to your town or city hall hearings, there’s that. There are even some interesting/sad/entertaining videos of some from recent times that have been recorded and uploaded online for public viewing
My father beat me when I was a kid, he ran for child services president and I voted for him. I heard that the other guy beat his kids more, so I really had a moral duty to vote for my dad. You guys, it’s really important to vote for the guy who beats his kids less.
My local mayor wants to increase funding for the public transit, but he didn’t say ACAB, so I’m not gonna vote for him even if the other other guy is gonna slash the public transit funding by half 😤😤
In a democracy, if there is no alternative we have to vote for the lesser of the evil. It’s better to keep things worse, than to make it more worse, if there is no alternative. If an alternative is there, then absolutely. We should all be encouraging an alternative system in a democracy. But if nothing’s is available, then this.
That’s the logical answer in the short term, but it also makes you a “safe” voter that the Democrats don’t have to care about in the long term.
Don’t promise them your support in advance. Be a “swing” voter and make it clear to the party that if they want your vote they’ll have to earn it.
On the safe voter part I agree. Never promise anything. Ask question on what developments have the parties brought to a place.
BTW I am not American, but democracy is democracy doesn’t matter the place. Earth is Earth.
Then let me be the first to apologize for whatever evils the American State has done to you and your compatriots in my name.
That said, elections are fundamentally not a process for selecting leaders. That’s merely the method by which they accomplish their purpose, to legitimize the State’s claim to power.
There’s no option in the “democratic process” that represents those of us who see a State as illegitimate. It’s most obvious when you consider the elections in North Korea or Russia, but “democracy” as implemented cannot be “democracy” as we are taught to understand the term. Without a “none of the above” box that no government ever provides (because it would defeat their purpose for holding elections), our only choice is whether or not to participate in our own disenfranchisement.
No need to apologise. There is no hatred between the general public of any country. It’s the warmongers who spoil the relations.
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Unfortunately here in the US with our current voting system, voting for the lesser of 2 evils is the best strategy once it’s election day.
Primaries are for voting with your heart, election day is for strategic voting.
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The system doesn’t actually require any collaboration to eventually become a two-party race. It’s pretty much statistically assured if voters behave rationally, but with limited information.
You’re starting out with the wrong assumption in your question. The question should be “why is it that there are only two choices?” And the answer is: because the voting system laid out in the constitution makes it an inevitability.
It’s not a coincidence that the countries in Europe with many parties have a different type of system. Statistical models demonstrate that their many parties and our two parties are a natural consequence of how our voting system works.
It’s bad enough being stuck in the situation we are, but wrongly attributing the cause to a vast conspiracy, involving both parties working together, just leads to the wrong conclusions about what to do about it.
In reality, voting third party instead of the party you most align with just helps the party you least align with. The GOP backs third party candidates that might attract liberal voters for a reason.
And? Do you want people to vote for Trump then?
Or maybe, just maybe, there is a third way? When it comes to politics, americans are as defeatist as russians are.
What is defeatist about it? It is about constantly participating in the system to make sure your views are still considered.
It means participating in primaries to make sure some of your candidates get picked even if others are going to lose. For instance, I’m going to vote in the primary because it will have a major impact on choosing a Senator of my state even if Biden is going to be the Presidential nominee.
It means choosing candidates in the general election that you can at least try to influence with protests and other actions after the election. I’d rather have a percentage of what I want politically done than nothing.
The alternative seems to be not to participate, which feels more defeatist.
Live and served here. I’m aware of the song and dance. Just saying George isn’t providing some sort of revelation. It’s the same bullshit every 4 years
Edit: not sure why my original comment was removed, even after scrolling through this community’s rules. But it’s cool, the other 196 is better anyway.
You could also organize outside the electoral system. In fact it’s the only way to keep politicians accountable
If you got the money for that I’ll be down to be your campaign manager
Who says you can’t organize if you vote?
Organize and get people to loudly push for some things you want in our country AND vote
Doing both is important
Edit: I accidentally a word
Welcome to politics. Strategic voting is the name of the game, especially with FPTP voting systems.
“suck it up and vote for the lesser of two evils”
But that’s the smartest thing to do in a two party system
Youngins will complain about old people running the country while also skipping the polls to eat hot chip and lie.
Women☕️
You’re the people he’s talking about and you’re oblivious.
And you’re blocked.
Lol
Saying democrats or voting got black people rights is a slap in the face of those who literally fought for them.
I’m sure black people would have gotten better rights if no one voted for the lesser of 2 evils.
People fought for the rights, and politicians who supported those rights won elections because people voted for them.
It played a role. Because the Democrats and President Johnson were in charge during the Civil Rights movement, we got the Civil Rights Act. Because the Republicans and President Trump were in charge during the BLM movement, we got jackshit (on a federal level). This stuff matters.
The parties didn’t have unanimous ideological consensus within them back then, that’s really only been a thing during the last 30 years.
Great illustration of this from Biden during a campaign event in 2019:
At a New York City fundraiser Tuesday night, Biden told donors he has reached across the aisle throughout his career. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said, according to a pool report. "He never called me ‘boy’; he always called me ‘son.’ "
“Well, guess what? At least there was some civility,” … “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
Those “across the aisle” politicians he pointed to there were James O. Eastland and Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, both racist segregationist Democrats.
I fully agree that politics have changed, I’m just arguing that having a sympathetic President and Congress in office makes it significantly easier to get legislation passed by protest.
Generally I agree with the idea that “great people don’t make history, but sometimes history produces a great person.” There’s a few points in US history where individual people’s decisions did impact a lot though, thinking of Andrew Johnson during reconstruction. The economic system now and what America is to the world isn’t really up for debate anymore, some have referred to this as the post-political era where more and more issues are culturally focused since both parties are consented on the economic system where meaningful change actually happens. Obama really embodied this because he was so powerful a figure yet change didn’t really happen, he’s like the best case scenario in this current arrangement, and look what happened after him… all of this is part of the slide to the right because it’s via the economic arrangement consented to by both parties that this happens.
With Civil Rights era I think the battle was really won in the courts and through labor organizing. Economic pressure was put on the system in this way and the system had to deal with it. Then you had those individual moments of bravery, like after segregation laws were struck down, “Freedom Riders” tested the laws by riding desegregated busses to the south, getting mobbed and jailed but unable to be formally charged.
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Wild how he doesn’t even mention the possibility of voting for a third party.
Why would he? The US voting system makes third party candidates an impossibility. It’s not a viable option.
To elaborate a little further: Our First Past the Post system makes third party candidates a spoiler candidate for the party they most closely resemble
Say you’ve got 3 people running for a position. Person A and Person B are fairly similar but differ in some key points, Person C is the exact opposite of Person A.
The election happens and this is the result: Person A gets 30%, Person B gets 30%, and Person C gets 40%. Person C wins, even though 60% of people didn’t want Person C.
This is why third party candidates are usually considered “spoiler candidates”
Where fourth party?
Down the street, at the house with the big tree. Look for the large number of cars and the thumping music.
Can’t miss it.
I think that logic is employing the “best of two evils” ideology again. People should vote on the person that better represents them and person C is the one that represents most people. Voting against people they dislike is not the basis of democracy!
That’s because FPTP is a terrible voting system. Tactical voting is the only realistic solution a voter has to the FPTP problem.
Person C had 60% of people vote against them, they didn’t represent most people.
Unfortunately in our first past the post system it doesn’t matter how many people vote for other candidates, if you get the most you win.
Here’s a fun little history fact for you: back in 1860 there were 4 parties on the ballot for the presidential election. The winner got 39% of the votes. Link
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Well, sorta but also not really.
Neither party seems to have any interest in reforming the voting system to something more representative. So in that way I guess you could say they are colluding, but more reasonably they simply share a common incentive.
But it really is the system itself that makes third party candidates basically impossible. It incentivises people to vote strategically, not for the party they want but rather against the party they don’t want. That system is eventually sure to collapse into a two-party system.
I understand that. What baffles me is how willing he is to accept the FPTP system they have in the US, especially with his history. Given the beginning of his tweet, you’d think he’d conclude with an appeal to reform the system, to make it viable to vote for third parties. Instead, he acts as if the system was a constant of the universe, not a man made one that can quite easily be changed. He lays down the perfect argument for a reform of the system, without actually speaking out in favor of it. Thats whats wild to me.
And who should be the one to actually do the reforming? Everyone always asks for reform in the system but no one actually wants any specific entity to do it.
The people doing the reforming would need to be the people with the power to change the system in those ways. I’m not familiar enough with the system in the US to know whether that is the president, the supreme court, congress, or some other entity, but someone has the power to do that I’m quite certain.
To get them to do this, the people would need to pressure them into it, be it with their vote, petitions, demonstrations, social media posts or whatnot. There are many ways to achieve change, but it won’t happen as long as people just keep voting for the lesser evil, because “eh, what can you do”
That’s because unless they get rid of the first-past-the-post system, it’s 100% wasted.
Unfortunately, FPTP also keeps the existing dominant parties complacent in only having one enemy, so they don’t actually have to try very hard. So changing it is unlikely to gather a lot of steam, either. “Lesser evil” sucks, but is ironically a lesser evil than just throwing away the vote entirely.
I disagree with this mindset.
In a purely hypothetical scenario say 10% of people vote for the third party candidate, and this candidate has policies which neither of the two main parties have, say more green policies. When the results come in and one of the main parties lose by 5%, they’re going to start thinking about adopting a few more green policies to capture some of that third party vote for the next election.
Voting third party can absolutely change the policies of the main parties, it happened in the UK with UKIP - a party which had less than 10% of the vote and no chance of a majority, but it spooked the big parties enough that they promised a referendum on EU membership.
Sadly this doesn’t work if one of the parties is threatening to do all they can to break down the democracy before you get your chance to see the results at the next vote.
Disagree as much as you want, that certainly still seems to be how shit works. If I’m wrong - awesome! Show me how.
Bernie Sanders was the best-positioned potential third party candidate in probably the last 50-100 years. Why, then, didn’t Bernie run as a third party candidate? Because it’s not a viable strategy in the FPTP way we run elections here. He knew that it would be the worst option.
There isn’t a viable “other way”.
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To make it true? That would be the federalists and the democratic republicans. To keep it true? Well that would be the winner-takes-all system the US has. Blaming a single entity for systematic issues will never work the way you want it to.
If the democratic party died tomorrow, a new party would take its place and it would be just as terrible as you believe the DNC is now.
He does. A “protest vote” is the same thing as throwing away your vote for a third party in the general election for president.
He doesn’t mention protest votes though, only not voting out of protest, which is something entirely different imo. Not voting can be interpreted as satisfaction with the status quo, while a protest vote is the opposite, a clear statement of rejection of all available choices. Not voting is quiet approval, a protest vote an active display of discontent.
Also, I disagree that a vote for a third party is a protest vote. I usually vote for a fringe party, but I’m not doing so to protest the system or ruling parties, but simply because I think they are the best candidates.
Finally I don’t agree with the idea that I am throwing away my vote by voting for an unpopular candidate. If anything, I am doing the opposite, I am making my will known. The people who decide that this vote has no worth are the ones throwing away my vote and they are the ones undermining democracy.
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Reading comprehension isn’t your forte is it?
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Go look up at the fucking betterment of the lgbtqia community over the last 20 years and then come back and tell me that voting any other way than for Democrats, even when many of them individually are shitty like Sulu is talking about, isn’t the right thing to do in an imperfect world. Goddamn.
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Oh no is baby finally being treated better? Not good enough yet? Aww poor baby.
Fucking idiot.
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Then who is? George isn’t.
Go.
Away.
This upcoming election I’m voting for independent or 3rd party. Fuck blue or red.
Republicans keep their hold on power by systematically disenfranchising voters who disagree with their policies. In a perfect world, voting for a third-party candidate that has no chance to win might have some positive impact; in our world, it means you’re doing the Republicans’ work for them.
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Grow the fuck up, stop the virtue signalling
You will never attract voters by being condescending, direct your anger at the party instead cause that’s where the problem is.
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We aren’t stupid, we understand strategic voting and how less bad is preferable, we just don’t take this self-righteous position about it that you think enables you to speak down to political allies. You know that can’t work and will push people away, so it makes it seem like you aren’t genuinely concerned if you are so willing to engage in this counter-intuitive approach that can only serve your personal pride.
Dems don’t want a candidate that could easily win against Trump, Hillary even helped him win the primary, and Dem PACs give money to run ads for fascist Republican candidates, they’re also supplying a fascist government’s genocide as we speak. Shaming left voters who are political allies rather than the party who doesn’t cater to them is a confession.
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You don’t know who I am for one and if the DNC wants to win against Trump they would run a candidate who could easily beat him. The money that funds the Democrats comes from the same coffers that fund the GOP, it’s corporate donors who give campaign funds to those who further their interests, which is balanced by catering or branding the party to voters. Both parties are consented on the neoliberal economic arrangement, the immigration policy of Trump is now status quo under Biden, the tarrifs everyone complained about are in full swing still, the weapons that enable fascists around the world are flowing quicker than ever. The illusion of Democrats being a way out of this is, and thinking people can’t strategically vote for them in disapproval because they’re fascism-lite, is denying the ability for change to happen and people to organize. “Don’t say what you feel and fall in line” is helping the downward spiral.
If you’re allowing the fascists to gain power and kill democracy, you’re not my political ally. Left voters don’t hand power to fascists - that’s shameful behaviour.
Democrats enable fascism by funding Republican fascist primary candidates and selling arms that are explicitly used in a fascist genocide to bomb civilians.
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I direct my anger at the party plenty - just not on the one day of the election cycle that will threaten democracy.
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This is how democracies die. Fascists come to power when their opposition fractures. I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just telling you how it is. Choose wisely.
Dems should band together and all vote for someone in a third party to show current party leadership you are no longer putting up with their choices and don’t need them. Vote wisely.
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You have to spoil your ballot of you want to not vote in protest.
Every ballot that is cast is counted, even spoiled ones. But if you don’t cast a ballot at all, it cannot be counted and no one will ever know of your “protest”.
The only valid way to protest by not voting is to spoil your ballot.
I think using a vote strategically is fine, but I also think not voting out of protest is fine.
It’s amazing how you contradict yourself in your first sentence.
Apart from the main point he made, and I agree with it, I would love to hear more about his meeting Dr. King. That must be a very interesting story.
Dr. King was a Star Trek fan. He convinced Nichelle Nichols to stay on the show when she was toying with leaving to further her career. It’s quite possible that Dr King was the fan meeting Mr Takai.
True, I forgot about his meeting with Nichelle Nichols. How cool is it that he was a Trekkie?
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https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/05/george-takei-sexual-assault-accuser-retracts-claim
It’s been 5 years. He’s not a rapist.
What exactly is your alternative?
Have 4, 8, 12 years of Repubican rule in the hopes of getting a better Democrat? 4 years if Trump was awful enough, and did quite a lot of long-lasting damage.
If you’re offering me the certainty of a lot more long-lasting, hard to undo damage against the uncertain hope of a bit of progress, you’ll forgive me if I accept the certainty of the status quo combined with pushing for voting method reform at the state and local level.
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This is what happens when you give your vote away for free. Make the fuckers fight for it. Organize a group on social media that promises to vote for anyone who can meet your demands and canvas for this group. Get enough people and you can form your own slate even.
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I suppose it is different if you only have two main options
You are how democracies die.
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Sure I’ll take it.
Have a great day!
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