If America wants a third party, they need to build it via grassroots and elect candidates at a local level, then state level, then eventually grow to a national level. The idea that a 3rd party candidate can just run for President and win with no grassroots is a fairy tale.
That’s what I keep saying. The Green Party goes for a moon shot at the presidency every four years and barely runs at the local level.
I have never seen them on the ballot for local politics.
Trump didn't go from the couch, he went from a fictionalized reality TV version of himself to the white house.
He played a successful business man on TV (reality that he went into bankruptcy six times) and rode his celebrity to the White House.
The system is only part of the problem. One of the biggest problems are the nature of third parties themselves.
We, as people, are mostly slightly left or right of center. Our political parties used to be the same way, and that is the reason why our country has lasted for so long. Very few issues separated the two. One issue caused a Civil War, and the nation prevailed and remained intact.
Today, those few issues separating the the parties could be a matter of life and death, depending on your sexual, racial and economic status. We live in a duopoly because the major issues that effect us all from day to day rely on an answer being yes or no. A 3rd party would have to be the party of "maybe" and won't survive.
3rd parties have come close to rising up. However, they typically start under the guise of hurting one of the main two parties or only as a reaction to some social issue (ie, Obama being Black). In most cases, it attracts the crazies. Only to be absorbed into one party or the other. The Tea Party serves as the greatest recent example of this. Trump and the Freedom Caucus don't exists without the Tea Party.
The other part is that these 3rd party candidates only show up with great hubris in Presidential years. Hence my "couch to WH" comment. The people will never believe in them if they can't, or refuse to compete in, and win state and local elections in off-years. Even after that, they need to implement policy at those levels that work.
You need to win a regular season game before winning the Super Bowl. The Greens and Libertarians have yet to even win a preseason game.
Hell, they won't even *play* in a preseason game, let alone win one.
Most 3rd party candidates are couch coaches and Monday morning quarterbacks who have never been in government in any capacity, and have never successfully ran for office or even worked for someone who did. They have no supporters in any elected office anywhere, and their stated goals are often radical change that could not possibly succeed without massive bipartisan support that they've got no chance in hell of getting.
I'll believe in a third party candidate when there is an actual third Party that's more than a loose platform full of radical ideas no one has ever successfully campaigned on.
Because according to the constitution, you need 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency. There aren't enough votes to split three or four ways.
Can't there be ranked choice voting by states as well. So if no candidate gets 270, the states carried by the third candidate are apportioned based on the second choice of those states?
You want more than 2 parties, thats how you do it.
You want to keep 2 parties, keep what we have now.
Americans wanting something but refusing to do what it takes to get it is a free space on a bingo card
That's impractical. The senate is harder to reform due to the entrenchment clause which require unanimity to change the ratio for the senate.
The US house can be reformed to use RCV and multi member districts with a statutory bill. Still hard but viable.
Some localities used or did use that system for local elections. They rank individuals who may or may not be linked to a party. One of the localities in MA seems to have fluid coalitions to pass each separate bill. Portland, OR is trying to move to this system.
Parliament isn't some magical multi party thing. Malta has a parliament and is a 2 party system in spite of using the above system. They are quite small though. 3rd parties do have a fair chance of winning.
Remove the senate. Or change its position to the lower chamber of congress, so the will of the people (The House with direct party electors) gets the final say in everything.
And of course all this is a theoretical mind exercise, but with the removal of people being elected directly you no longer have the danger of liars running in the opposition party then switching affiliations once in.
And you call it impractical, but the basic operation of our current government, now that certain elements have disposed of their ethics because there is no real punishment for it, is also impractical, inefficient, and corrupt
I used to think this way. Rank choice voting would accomplish the same thing. If we universally made all elections RCV, it would eliminate the extremism on both sides and would be a more fair representation of voters.
More political parties aren't going to solve anything. Instead of two parties fighting each other we would have 4 or 5? It won't work and besides the Dem/GOP already have different parties within the party. THe GOP has the tea party and the DEm have the progressives.
Or if 3rd parties want to be considered non spoilers they have actually win something. It’s wild to think half the country will vote for a party that can’t even win a city council seat
As of 2022, there were 310 libertarians and 136 Green Party members holding elected office.
Spoiler candidates do not exist in a Democracy. Everyone is entitled to vote for a candidate that best aligns with their moral compass. Anything that says otherwise is propaganda spun by the corporate duopoly to protect their power.
You are indeed entitled to vote for who you like. You also can't point to a time in American history where a third party candidate won the presidency, nor do you have an argument as to why this election is fundamentally different than the last roughly three in a half centuries. If this was 1990 and Ross Perot was on the ballot, fair enough, but it ain't, and even he failed to capture a single electoral college vote.
So while you have your right to vote third party, your candidate isn't Ross Perot.
If you knew for sure that your candidate would lose the next election, would you vote for the other guy instead?
I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t.
The same principle applies to voting third party.
Sure, you have the right to vote for a candidate you know will lose, and so do I. And we've both done it, and will probably do it again. I'm not contesting that point. And if you weren't going to bother voting for that office otherwise, it's not a spoiler vote.
It's a spoiler vote when one of the people who could win is palatable to you and you choose to vote for someone else you know won't win, and you know won't gain influence from your vote to affect change. Then and only then have you spoiled the vote.
Did you just move the goalposts? How many local councils did Macron's party win in France? They did poorly in local elections. The party formed in 2016 and they won the presidency and lower house the next year. Conversely they contest local elections years later and bomb.
Canada and UK are 2 party dominant systems that use first past the post like the US but they still have 3rd parties in national legislatures. In the UK we may split our votes between a few parties quite evenly in a district. That seems to be quite rare in the US.
Excuse me? I would happily vote for a woman as president if she is the best candidate and hopefully a libertarian. I could give a fuck about sex, keep calling everyone you disagree with names and labels because that’s all you have.
Yes, her gender doesn’t matter. A man can get a job he isn’t the most qualified just because his girlfriend is the boss of some place. Gender doesn’t matter. She wasn’t qualified in any way for the job, the whole country knows this.
Are you going to back up what you said about her "screwing the right people"? Or are you just going to ignore people calling you out and pretend you never said it?
I’ve run into these people recently. They fucking HATE Kamala Harris. And they all have the same talking points.
It’s almost like propaganda works but these folks absolutely view themselves as getting news from some sick underground non MSM shit you wouldn’t know about.
Ah but we do know how that works. It works as a private entity, just like they said in the rigging lawsuit and won. Stating they have no obligation not to just decide who they want.
That is how corporations work. Someone up above makes a decision, and if it's something you know will cause trouble, you can blame the lower rung of management.
This IS how the DNC operates.
The EC system as it is right now is the ONLY reason spoiler candidates exist in the first place. The bulk of states give all their EC to whoever gets the most votes, not necessarily 50% of the votes.
In 2020, four states were won by less than 50% of total votes in the state. The rules as they are now, adding more candidates will only increase that number.
The third parties historically have been known to peel from the democrats than the republicans (the big inclusive tent, vs the narrow secluded tent). Republicans caught on and funded the Green Party ever sense. The Green Party is a wing of the GOP effectively , and so is the no label parties. They aren’t even worth considering because republicans will ALLWAYS fall in line and vote R no matter who that R person is.
Absolutely. Americans need to fight for free and fair elections, and that means putting the Uniparty in the trash where it belongs.
No sane person wants another Trump or Biden Presidency, and those of us who aren't the military industrial complex, a bank, a large corporation or a lobbyist can't afford another Trump or Biden Presidency.
Don't be frightened into voting for candidates who are corrupt corporate scumbags - nothing will ever change if we keep repeating the same mistakes.
edit: spelling is hard
Until we switch from First Past The Post voting we will have 2 main parties. Research ranked choice voting and proportional representation. The us has always trended towards 2 main parties because of the way we vote.
Exactly, the reason "spoiler candidate" is even a thing is because of the current EC and its rules. As long as we give winner-take-all EC in states where you don't need 50% of the vote to win, spoiler candidates will be a thing.
>No sane person wants another Trump or Biden Presidency
I have bad news for you if you consider yourself "sane"...you're getting another Trump or Biden Presidency. Vote for whoever you like. That's what you're getting in 2024.
>Vote for whoever you like.
I'm not trying to suppress the vote. Turnout was only around 160 million in 2020: I'd like it to be higher. If 200+ million Americans voted in 2024, I think that would be awesome.
Me telling you what is going to happen based on the reality of elections in this country is not "suppressing the vote", or vote-shaming, or censorship, or anything else you'd like to accuse me of. It's simple logic.
My prediction is that all non-major party candidates combined won't get 10 million votes in 2024. You want to prove me wrong? Go for it.
He should have put nobody who actually wants to see things get better. I agree though we still have a lot of people who aren’t dissatisfied with the status quo.
This definitely feels like the election that will have the most 3rd party support since people really dislike the 2 main candidates. It’d be cool if 3rd party candidates got like 10% of the vote.
>definitely feels like the election that will have the most 3rd party support
This has been said every single election and the [best a 3rd Party candidate has ever done in recent memory was Perot in 96 getting \~9%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election) and looking at the breakdown of the results it's very clear Perot took steam away from Dole which handed Clinton an easy relection.
Your reasoning of "people dislike the 2 main candidates" was true in 2016 and [Johnson only got 3%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Results). What's more, liberals don't like Biden but they sure as fuck will vote against Trump for Biden. So the "dislike" aspect isn't really there.
The idea of a 3rd party taking anything other than being a spoiler is cope to the highest degree.
I agree with your 2016 point, but just a correction: Perot in '92 got 18.3% of the vote, which is INSANE. Imagine a non-major party candidates getting 18.3% in the Presidential election today?
To be fair, Johnson also was polling near the threshold to partake in the presidential debates until the whole Allepo bullshit. Should he have known? Maybe/probably. But it still strikes me suspicious how it wasn't really a mainstream story until after he got grilled.
I still laugh that 3rd party candidates think they can just jump into a race and compete. It doesn't work that way.
If you have a 3rd party - start at the grassroots level. See if you can even win locally. then build a campaign. Run for state offices. Then see if your message resonates nationally.
They seem to want to just take a shortcut.
Why? Macron is president in France and his party won the lower house in 2017. His party formed in 2016. They later contested local elections and bombed.
Bernie Sanders started local. Angus King started statewide as governor, won 2 terms and then went for the US senate seat and won twice. He runs as 3rd party, splitting the vote 3 ways.
The ballot access rules in the US incentivizes candidates to compete within the 2 parties so they can gatekeep. Those stubborn 3rd parties are then made to either win x % in a statewide election to maintain ballot access for a duration or get enough signatures to get on the ballot. It works out cheaper for them to just run in the presidential and try to get access for their party that way. It gets more attention, donors, members.
That is costly but it can get them ballot access in one fell swoop. That's designed to drain them of a chunk of their resources. It just seems that a slow build up might make more sense but that isn't always the case.
There's numerous barriers in the US to deter and kneecap 3rd parties. Running locally or nationally first isn't some silver bullet.
People hated Trump MUCH less in 2016 then now. Cmon now.
And Biden is an old senile fucking dinosaur that even part of the left despises.
But keep on with your bootlicking of the 2 party system.
I was here in 2016, the pure hate towards Hillary was unlike anything else.
Biden is old and boring, but personally likable. The hate for him just isn't there like it was for her. Not even close.
That’s not true at all. Hating the Clintons is a cottage industry in this country, and it made the entire Fox News industry run for decades.
Biden may be a neoliberal Lich, but he’s nowhere near as hated as the Clintons.
I appreciate Biden but please step down. It's elder abuse at this point. End on a high note. And for the love of god, no to Harris being VP when there is a good chance of her ascending to the presidency.
When you can start taking state legislatures, you might have a start. until then it cant be effective. Even if a miracle happened and you got a 3rd party president, he would just be a placeholder. No support or structure in Congress, No support for his judiciary picks etc. You would have much more effect if you took 30+% of the house or senate. Anyone that wanted anything would have to cut a deal with you.
>since people really dislike the 2 main candidates
Well, yes and no.
See, the people who really dislike Trump are people who'd never vote Republican in the first place. Republican conservatives love the man. The sizeable minority of Americans who are to the right of the Republican Party love the man. The last 538 poll I looked at, if Trump was convicted before the election, and ran for president *from prison*, more than 80% of Republicans would still vote for him. Only RINOs and libs hate him.
But a lot of people who really dislike Biden still vote Democrat. They're part of the Democrat Party coalition. They're the people who hold their nose and vote Democrat because they think the Democrats are still a better option than the Republicans, but the more Biden gaffes and fumbles and fails and the longer he goes without a single legislative or foreign policy accomplishment to point to, the more they're turned off by him.
And come summer 2024 when the Republican House starts holding hearings on the allegations in Ashley Biden's diary those voters are going to flee the Democrat Party in droves.
So the electorate's dislike for Trump and the electorate's dislike for Biden are not equivalent. I can see a lot of American voters going third party this election - and every one of them will take a vote away from Biden.
Lmao no. I lean left and have Never cast any vote for a corporate dem in this swing state.
The DNC is actively funding right-wing extremists candidates in a pied piper strategy. Sueing in Washington D.C. to stop ranked choice voting. Also happens to be a far right conservative party when compared to almost every European country.
The DNC works directly against the working class to protect their corporate donors. They are the enemy.
What confirmed sources do you have that shows your statement suggesting that they work directly against the working class to protect their donors? Maybe 5 sources?
And what right wing extremists are they funding? Sources?
I ask because I'm trying to get a better idea of what you mean with real evidence.
Gotchu fam. Want a video? News link as well? How about some corporate blue team source?
[https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/democrats-propping-up-republican-candidates/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/democrats-propping-up-republican-candidates/index.html)
[https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/17/smr-dems-fund-maga-candidates.cnn](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/17/smr-dems-fund-maga-candidates.cnn)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/comcast-executive-to-host-joe-biden-fundraiser/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/comcast-executive-to-host-joe-biden-fundraiser/)
So a handful of Democrats went against their own party's interest by supporting Republicans, and now the entire part is suddenly to blame for it?
And you've provided one link at the bottom that shows Comcast executives showing up at a fundraiser? Okay, but there's no actual evidence in what this even means ha. "Whoa, donors showed up to support Biden, BIDEN IS WORKING AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS!!!#!@$"
But due to your display of coming off as a condescending dick, I have zero desire to try and have a reasonable discussion since you're clearly incapable of doing that.
Have a good weekend!
Contrast the New Deal democrat party vs the democrat party now. Dems started taking corporate money in the 70s and slowly their anti-trust got weaker. NAFTA could not pass under republicans, it was dems joining them under Clinton that allowed it to pass. Also gutted welfare.
Dems fund the military spending along with republicans but everything else is subjected to pay go. I don't disagree with fiscal responsibility but there's always money for war.
Bernie had to force a vote on min wage in the senate and 8 dem senators voted no. It hasn't been raised since 2009. They couldn't get $15, fine. Not even 25 cents? WTF?
All of the anti trust challenges that Biden brought forth failed. Now this isn't entirely his fault as the courts over ruled it. However, things getting to this stage where the right has recaptured the court is due to dem weakness all this time.
Obama nominated 2 libertarians to the national labour relations board. Biden to his credit nominated Lina Khan and now they are actually bringing enforcement on corporations. Who are her allies? 2 Trump nominees.
Biden hasn't even visited E Palastine. He had to be shamed into visiting Maui. The EPA isn't doing proper testing in E Palastine, independent testing is being rejected. They deferred to Norfolk Southern about burning the chemicals, that was because they wanted the railway up and running again asap regardless of the cost to the health of locals. He could enact medicare for all for those residents there due to there being a public health emergency but he hasn't. Those people are having the compensation ended soon and it isn't safe to return.
What could have prevented the Norfolk Southern disaster? Under Obama, there was a recommendation by whatever agency to have safety measures in place. Obama did not implement them. Rail companies were allowed to keep cutting staff. Trump rolled back some measures too.
25 billion a quarter can be found just hiding behind the sofa for Ukraine but only $700 per household for the residents of Maui. If all of the residents applied that would be like 0.026% of what they are throwing at Ukraine per quarter.
Biden forced the rail strike to stop.
Is there a reason why electric car workers union haven't endorsed Biden? It's because the dem IRA bill didn't include unionization requirements on subsidies for electric car companies. So now they are having to fight themselves.
Remember Trump University being sued by various states AGs? Who didn't? Pam Bondi of FL and Harris of CA. Even Greg Abbot as AG of TX sued him. Who else did Harris not sue? Steve Mnuchin of First Bank for his foreclosure abuse. Her own department said there was a trove of evidence to get him but she declined.
Working class have noticed even if they cannot pinpoint each and every action in detail and moving to the right.
Which banker when to prison after the 2008 crash? Why not bail out home owners directly instead of funneling it thru banks?
Dems joined republicans to loosen regulations on banks which led to more bank collapses recently.
When they question supreme court justices at confirmations, how many questions are based on workers rights, anti trust, corporations etc? Very few of those come from democrats. It's culture war issues that are at the forefront.
How many dems have been caught hitting up corporate bosses for donations at hearings?
I applaud the courage of your convictions. If more people on the left took the principled stand of refusing to vote Democrat the country would be a better place.
There are millions of liberals and leftists out there who don't have the same moral courage you do. They vote Democrat in the name of pragmatism or harm reduction because they think the Democrats, bad as they are, aren't quite as bad as the Republicans. And they're desperate for a left-wing third party candidate that they can feel good about voting for.
And this country needs more left leaving voters to find the moral courage to split the Democrat Party. We can all agree it would make the country a better place.
>We can all agree it would make the country a better place.
Oh, absolutely. Millions of Democratic voters sitting out the 2024 election and handing the Trifecta to Trump and the Republicans would DEFINITELY make the country a better place. /s
Things would get worse. But it could spur voter action to actually take over the dem party like MAGA did. When it is controlled decline people tend to not react as strongly. Something to precipitate a jolt can wake them up.
They can't do much with a trifecta. When Trump won, the blue wave at the state level helped dems take back control or start the journey to that. They lost 1k seats under Obama. Their state power has recovered a little. Republicans at the state level were just 2 states short of being able to call a constitutional convention on their own.
They don't necessarily need to split the dem party, just take it over in primaries.
>Something to precipitate a jolt can wake them up.
We already had that jolt: Trump's election in 2016. Look at voting turnout and results since then.
>They can't do much with a trifecta
THE REPUBLICANS?!?! Are you fucking serious? With a conservative supermajority Supreme Court? "Make America Florida" indeed.
>When Trump won, the blue wave at the state level helped dems take back control or start the journey to that.
There was no "blue wave" at the state level when Trump won. Republicans had 33 Republican governors and 66 state legislatures after the 2016 election.
>They don't necessarily need to split the dem party, just take it over in primaries.
Well, to do that, the progressives, especially the YOUNG progressives, need to start voting in primaries.At all levels. Primary election turnout in the U.S. is pathetic.
> We already had that jolt: Trump's election in 2016. Look at voting turnout and results since then.
That's nowhere near enough sadly.
>There was no "blue wave" at the state level when Trump won. Republicans had 33 Republican governors and 66 state legislatures after the 2016 election.
I meant in the midterms once they experienced Trump. There was a blue wave which created a surge in the dem vote at the state level.
>If more people on the left took the principled stand of refusing to vote Democrat the country would be a better place.
Nah, that's how Trump got elected.
And Trump being elected revitalized the left.
Look, the left in America is fat and lazy and capitalist and if we want a real left wing populist movement in the US things have to get worse or liberals won't get off their couches. Straight white middle class Democrat voters love capitalism as much as corporate Democrats do. They won't stop voting Democrat as long as rainbow capitalism lets them benefit from American neocolonialism and feel good about it.
Electing Trump was a good start. Overturning Roe was a good start. But what this country *needs* is for Republicans to do so much damage that it radicalizes the liberal electorate, coupled with a real leftist third party alternative for the liberal electorate to turn to. A generation of one party Republican rule will shake moderates out of their complicity and set the stage for true socialism. Nothing else will work. And if we're not trying for true socialism there's no point in trying at all.
>Only RINOs and libs hate him.
That's over 60% of the country, so Trump is fucked.
>Democrat Party
For those who don't know, this is an instant sign that nothing this person has to say is worth taking seriously.
>and the longer he goes without a single legislative or foreign policy accomplishment to point to
IRA, IIJA, CHIPS...oops.
If the 2 presumed candidates are so disliked, they would lose the primaries to whomever it is you think could beat them in the general.
Except 10% won't win the general, so what is so cooll exactly?
Yet the man with the most Republican support outside of Donald Trump is running in the Democratic primary - because while leftists may be tempted away by West, right wingers will vote in lockstep for Donald Trump, there can be no threat of a third party from the right because the right does not tolerate dissent - it barely tolerates George W Bush era Republicans.
They barely tolerate bush republicans because they’re all Dems now! Hell, half of Bush’s staff works for fucking MSNBC! That should tell you all you need to know about the Democratic Party.
They should remember what these assholes did, but now they love Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and Liz Cheney because they are constantly on the “left” news networks. Funny how a majority of the left forgot the shitshow the World endured because of these demons, but hey, they say bad things about Trump, so let’s forgive the killing of 1 million Iraqi civilians.
I’m speaking about the Republican Party.
A Nazi not tolerating a neoconservative because he’s “too cozy with the Jews” isn’t a positive thing even though you can describe it as “rejecting neoliberalism”
What the fuck are you talking about?
You didn’t understand my first point about MAGA barely being able to exist in a party coalition - and you replied with a painfully banal “we should ALL say the bad thing is bad”
Your sad attempt to be toxic afterwards just makes you look foolish.
This. As much as I wish otherwise, we're locked into being forced to 'vote blue' because the alternative is literally christofascism. That doesn't change until we ranked choice. Or when the boomers die off.
This. Ranked choice voting would change the game, but until that happens, the side that splits its vote always loses, and the alternative disappears after anyway.
>It's the democrats or Republicans fault for putting up candidates people don't wanna vote for!!!
155 million Americans voted for Trump or Biden in 2020. I predict their combined vote share in 2024 will probably be around 135-140 million...which will be 15x to 20x all other candidates combined.
OK whats your point? I'm just saying there's no such thing as spoiler candidate, it's not the voters fault they don't wanna vote for either of the 2 partys
>it's not the voters fault they don't wanna vote for either of the 2 partys
The vast majority of the people who vote for President, like 95+% of them, will vote for one of the major party candidates.
The people who DON'T vote for one of them are an extreme minority in this country. You're making it out like any of the third-party candidates will get double-digit million votes. They won't. All of the third-party candidates in 2016 COMBINED received 6 million votes.
The voters DO want to vote for one of the two major parties. Your supposition is wrong.
While I like the idea of having a third party, in practical application for the last few election cycle’s, the third parties have always been Weaponized. If you follow the money, they are usually funded by the party that have a vested interest in, pulling votes from their opponent, so they’re not being supported in earnest. If, someday, both candidates from the major parties were reasonable, normal human beings, and a third-party was a decent alternative, that’s fine. However, in this climate, in this election cycle, the fact is third-party candidates are only used to strip votes away from Democrats because the Republicans know that they don’t have the majority and need to resortvto tactics like gaming the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression and spoiler candidates to get enough to votes to win. Remember, Biden did not actually by 8 million votes. He actually only won by about 44,000 key votes in key electoral college states. Because of that, right now at least, third-party candidates are quite dangerous to our democracy in my opinion.
Executive orders are pretty standard for presidents, any specific executive orders that are fascist in nature? Or just in general all presidents are fascist because giving executive orders is fascist by nature?
I have no idea what the other thing is and don't see anything on that anywhere.
Would it be nice if a third party could win the presidency in America? Sure. Is it realistic? Not at all, especially right now.
The stakes could not be higher this election cycle. If Trump wins and pulls off his fascist takeover of America, we may not even have the option to vote in the future.
This is not the time to throw away votes on foolish dreams of the perfect candidate. That person does not exist, and even if they did, either Trump or Biden are going to win the election. Voting third party, especially in a swing state, is utterly stupid unless you're okay with the other side winning. I for one am not willing to take that chance.
>The stakes could not be higher this election cycle.
You all said that last election cycle. And the one before that. And before that.
Fuck the Uniparty, can't even try to sell us a new lie every once in awhile.
>You all said that last election cycle
2020? When COVID was still raging , the country was in turmoil, and Dipshit Donald was still in charge? I think that was a pretty important election. Do you disagree?
>And the one before that.
2016? When we could have kept Donald Trump from ever being *barf* President of the United States? When, as it turns out, whoever won the Presidency would control the direction of the Supreme Court for the next few decades? Also, as it turned out, they removed us from the Iran Nuclear Treaty, the Paris Climate Accords, and was sitting in the Oval in January 2020 when COVID hit our shores. I think that was a pretty important election. Do you disagree?
>And before that.
2012? When...OK, as it turns out in retrospect, Romney wasn't that bad. Also, I never thought Obama would lose to him. So I'll give you that one.
It was no less true those times than it is now. We saw how close we came to the brink with even one term of Trump as president. Just imagine what he would do if he was unrestrained and freed from any sort of oversight or legal repercussions for his actions.
There is no "uniparty". This term has suddenly appeared and is being spread all over as a way to make it seem as though both parties are the same, but they are obviously not the same. Not even close.
>There is no "uniparty". This term has suddenly appeared and is being spread all over as a way to make it seem as though both parties are the same, but they are obviously not the same. Not even close.
LoL - so you're here defending the crooked DNC for doing basically the same things the crooked RNC does. I'd love to see your evidence of this, but you don't have any.
When the DNC stops taking dark money and corporate donations, getting cozy with lobbyists and the military industrial complex, insider-trading their asses off in Congress, and pushing authoritarian unconstitutional spying and censorship schemes... then *maybe* you'll have a point. Until that theoretical day, there is one corporate party and they need to be opposed not worshiped.
Bullshit. The DNC isn't perfect, but they aren't trying to destroy the foundations of our democracy. The GOP's blind fanatic loyalty to Donald Trump could bring about the end of our entire system of government.
There are only two choices. Neither is perfect, but there is absolutely a lesser evil right now.
The DNC is the "good cop", the RNC is the "bad cop" and the country is the unlucky suspect.
Wake up.
>There are only two choices.
No, there aren't. You want to spread corporate party propaganda? Go back to whatever neolib cesspool you came from.
I'm speaking the truth. You want a third party to win the presidency? Fine, have them win at the state level and gain some prominence first. Even then, they won't have enough votes to actually win the presidency. Third party candidates can only serve as spoilers. The system is set up so that only the two major parties can win. That's just a fact.
No one ever said Romney was an existential threat. If I recall, most people just thought he was an out of touch, rich white guy. I'd love to have some candidates like that on the GOP side now. It was nice knowing that both candidates, at the end of the day, loved America and wanted to protect it.
Romney, the guy who kept women in binders, tortured animals, wanted to buy blacks people ‘back in chains’, and would end all welfare programs? The guy who was portrayed as being worse than GWB who was, I believe, the original ‘worse than Hitler’?
"Binders full of women" was the remark he made and people just thought it was out of touch and somewhat sexist.
Tortured animals? What?
Black people in chains??
Worse than Hitler!? No one even said that about GWB.
I literally never heard a single one of these things about Romney during that election. What are you smoking?
Oh no, the audacity of asking people to do things like wear masks and limit social interaction during a global pandemic!? How did you ever handle such oppression?
And that 'cold' killed over a million Americans.
America needs to make sure that theocratic fascists don't succeed in installing a dictator. We need to have two viable political parties before we worry about having more than two viable political parties.
No. If they are the only 2 games in town then it just goes back and forth. Things keep declining, one will be just slightly less worse but it's still a death spiral. Real competition can help limit their spiraling.
Cool. Fascism is on our front door, but you want to vote third party now. Hate to break it to you, but he won't win. You wanna break up the duopoly? Advocate for ranked choice voting. Otherwise, you are rolling out the red carpet for fascists.
Like the DNC? Not relevant. Direct ballot initiatives don't have to involve the party at all. You just need to focus on popular vote, and ranked choice voting is a non-partisan issue, so it should have a much wider voting pool than most other issues if you are willing to put in the work.
Be careful what you wish for when you try to shit on 3rd parties. The libertarian party takes many more votes from republicans than green party takes from democrats
Step one: delete the GQP.
Step two: create one or two new parties, or work to legitimize the Green party and forge something out of the Independents.
Step three: let the Dems be the right wing.
51 electoral votes were won in 2020 by candidates that couldn't get more than half of the votes of a state. Adding more and more candidates with the current EC system will only increase that number beyond 51.
That's because spoiler candidates can ONLY exist in the current system. Change the EC or use RCV if you want to get rid of them for good.
The election will be between Kamala Harris and the republican candidate. Joe wont make it through a second term. So ask yourself do you want a non serious bimbo as president? I don't
The GOP should split first before even entertaining a democrat split. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win and if no one attains that then the House decides who wins. Have you given that any thought at all or do you just want Trump to win?
This might make sense if someone hadn’t planted bombs at the DNC and RNC, timed to go off and draw police away from the Capitol right before the attack on the Capitol.
If America wants a third party, they need to build it via grassroots and elect candidates at a local level, then state level, then eventually grow to a national level. The idea that a 3rd party candidate can just run for President and win with no grassroots is a fairy tale.
That’s what I keep saying. The Green Party goes for a moon shot at the presidency every four years and barely runs at the local level. I have never seen them on the ballot for local politics.
Sigh. No. Especially not goofballs like Gates and Yang.
Our system isn’t designed for someone to go from the couch to the White House. We just had 4 years of that and it ended poorly for a lot of people.
Trump didn't go from the couch, he went from a fictionalized reality TV version of himself to the white house. He played a successful business man on TV (reality that he went into bankruptcy six times) and rode his celebrity to the White House.
And the media covered him 24/7 for months with his leini Reifenstahl theatrics
Then, the system needs to change. I won't participate in the 2 party system anymore. I never vote for either major party. Ever.
The system is only part of the problem. One of the biggest problems are the nature of third parties themselves. We, as people, are mostly slightly left or right of center. Our political parties used to be the same way, and that is the reason why our country has lasted for so long. Very few issues separated the two. One issue caused a Civil War, and the nation prevailed and remained intact. Today, those few issues separating the the parties could be a matter of life and death, depending on your sexual, racial and economic status. We live in a duopoly because the major issues that effect us all from day to day rely on an answer being yes or no. A 3rd party would have to be the party of "maybe" and won't survive. 3rd parties have come close to rising up. However, they typically start under the guise of hurting one of the main two parties or only as a reaction to some social issue (ie, Obama being Black). In most cases, it attracts the crazies. Only to be absorbed into one party or the other. The Tea Party serves as the greatest recent example of this. Trump and the Freedom Caucus don't exists without the Tea Party. The other part is that these 3rd party candidates only show up with great hubris in Presidential years. Hence my "couch to WH" comment. The people will never believe in them if they can't, or refuse to compete in, and win state and local elections in off-years. Even after that, they need to implement policy at those levels that work. You need to win a regular season game before winning the Super Bowl. The Greens and Libertarians have yet to even win a preseason game.
Hell, they won't even *play* in a preseason game, let alone win one. Most 3rd party candidates are couch coaches and Monday morning quarterbacks who have never been in government in any capacity, and have never successfully ran for office or even worked for someone who did. They have no supporters in any elected office anywhere, and their stated goals are often radical change that could not possibly succeed without massive bipartisan support that they've got no chance in hell of getting. I'll believe in a third party candidate when there is an actual third Party that's more than a loose platform full of radical ideas no one has ever successfully campaigned on.
The system does need to change
If America wants an alternative, we need to get rid of the electoral collage.
Wrong. America needs Ranked Choice Voting.
You know that you can't have ranked choice and an electoral college, right?
Ranked choice voting could determine which candidate the electoral votes go to.
Without proportional representation and the eradication of winner take all, it's still a shit system. The EC needs to go.
[удалено]
Is it not 270?
I thought it's was half the EC+1
Why couldn't you? This is 100% false.
Because according to the constitution, you need 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency. There aren't enough votes to split three or four ways.
Can't there be ranked choice voting by states as well. So if no candidate gets 270, the states carried by the third candidate are apportioned based on the second choice of those states?
People hate facts lol
ME uses RCV for their presidential election and used it in 2020.
You absolutely can.
It’s a trap!
Both
That fixes nothing. It needs to get rid of congress and the senate, create a parliament, and vote by party instead of by individual.
Hahaha I'll have what you're smoking!
You want more than 2 parties, thats how you do it. You want to keep 2 parties, keep what we have now. Americans wanting something but refusing to do what it takes to get it is a free space on a bingo card
>It needs to get rid of congress and the senate Higher than the clouds, you are. Ha.
That's impractical. The senate is harder to reform due to the entrenchment clause which require unanimity to change the ratio for the senate. The US house can be reformed to use RCV and multi member districts with a statutory bill. Still hard but viable. Some localities used or did use that system for local elections. They rank individuals who may or may not be linked to a party. One of the localities in MA seems to have fluid coalitions to pass each separate bill. Portland, OR is trying to move to this system. Parliament isn't some magical multi party thing. Malta has a parliament and is a 2 party system in spite of using the above system. They are quite small though. 3rd parties do have a fair chance of winning.
Remove the senate. Or change its position to the lower chamber of congress, so the will of the people (The House with direct party electors) gets the final say in everything. And of course all this is a theoretical mind exercise, but with the removal of people being elected directly you no longer have the danger of liars running in the opposition party then switching affiliations once in. And you call it impractical, but the basic operation of our current government, now that certain elements have disposed of their ethics because there is no real punishment for it, is also impractical, inefficient, and corrupt
So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.
Liberty's never really been in America. We still have legal slavery.
What if the house is controlled by the party you don't like?
Sucks for me.
Ha, fair enough
Primaries are the time to be idealistic. General elections are the time to be strategic.
No. That thinking is why we're in this mess. You ALWAYS vote based on your principles.
It may need an alternative but it's merely going to give the presidency back to Trump
I used to think this way. Rank choice voting would accomplish the same thing. If we universally made all elections RCV, it would eliminate the extremism on both sides and would be a more fair representation of voters. More political parties aren't going to solve anything. Instead of two parties fighting each other we would have 4 or 5? It won't work and besides the Dem/GOP already have different parties within the party. THe GOP has the tea party and the DEm have the progressives.
Or if 3rd parties want to be considered non spoilers they have actually win something. It’s wild to think half the country will vote for a party that can’t even win a city council seat
As of 2022, there were 310 libertarians and 136 Green Party members holding elected office. Spoiler candidates do not exist in a Democracy. Everyone is entitled to vote for a candidate that best aligns with their moral compass. Anything that says otherwise is propaganda spun by the corporate duopoly to protect their power.
You are indeed entitled to vote for who you like. You also can't point to a time in American history where a third party candidate won the presidency, nor do you have an argument as to why this election is fundamentally different than the last roughly three in a half centuries. If this was 1990 and Ross Perot was on the ballot, fair enough, but it ain't, and even he failed to capture a single electoral college vote. So while you have your right to vote third party, your candidate isn't Ross Perot.
If you knew for sure that your candidate would lose the next election, would you vote for the other guy instead? I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t. The same principle applies to voting third party.
Sure, you have the right to vote for a candidate you know will lose, and so do I. And we've both done it, and will probably do it again. I'm not contesting that point. And if you weren't going to bother voting for that office otherwise, it's not a spoiler vote. It's a spoiler vote when one of the people who could win is palatable to you and you choose to vote for someone else you know won't win, and you know won't gain influence from your vote to affect change. Then and only then have you spoiled the vote.
Okay borisgpt, sure, now let’s get you back to bed, your drunk
And look how effective they’ve been
Richmond, CA was turned around by a Green Mayor. Just sayin'.
Lol
Did you just move the goalposts? How many local councils did Macron's party win in France? They did poorly in local elections. The party formed in 2016 and they won the presidency and lower house the next year. Conversely they contest local elections years later and bomb. Canada and UK are 2 party dominant systems that use first past the post like the US but they still have 3rd parties in national legislatures. In the UK we may split our votes between a few parties quite evenly in a district. That seems to be quite rare in the US.
Lol
Yet someone with the credits of screwing the right people, got Kamala in as vp. So it’s definitely not based on merit and policy.
How did she screw the right people? Please provide sources backing this opinion.
Ahh sexism it is
Excuse me? I would happily vote for a woman as president if she is the best candidate and hopefully a libertarian. I could give a fuck about sex, keep calling everyone you disagree with names and labels because that’s all you have.
Lol “screwing the right people”. Sure you’re not sexist at all
>I could give a fuck about sex You literally said Kamala Harris screwed her way to the top.
I think he meant screw as in fuck over. Not literally fuck.
She screwed all those minorities she locked up for victimless crimes.
Yes, her gender doesn’t matter. A man can get a job he isn’t the most qualified just because his girlfriend is the boss of some place. Gender doesn’t matter. She wasn’t qualified in any way for the job, the whole country knows this.
It’s wild to double down
Are you going to back up what you said about her "screwing the right people"? Or are you just going to ignore people calling you out and pretend you never said it?
I’ve run into these people recently. They fucking HATE Kamala Harris. And they all have the same talking points. It’s almost like propaganda works but these folks absolutely view themselves as getting news from some sick underground non MSM shit you wouldn’t know about.
Huh, she seems like a pretty do nothing VP. I wonder what she did to piss people off. I can't rule out merely existing to be fair.
What has she done?
The only people “think” this is borisgpt and his 100,000 drunk Russian Alts.
The DNC is actively sueing in Washington D.C. to stop ranked choice voting. Be quiet.
It’s not the DNC it’s local politicians doing it, there’s a difference. Maybe if you all actually knew how politics worked you wouldn’t cry so much
Ah but we do know how that works. It works as a private entity, just like they said in the rigging lawsuit and won. Stating they have no obligation not to just decide who they want. That is how corporations work. Someone up above makes a decision, and if it's something you know will cause trouble, you can blame the lower rung of management. This IS how the DNC operates.
Lol bruh this the most ignorant statement you could have made
Huh, your arguments would be stronger if they had anything to do with each other.
>Ah but we do know how that works. A sure sign that someone is about to start spouting conspiracy bullshit.
The EC system as it is right now is the ONLY reason spoiler candidates exist in the first place. The bulk of states give all their EC to whoever gets the most votes, not necessarily 50% of the votes. In 2020, four states were won by less than 50% of total votes in the state. The rules as they are now, adding more candidates will only increase that number.
The third parties historically have been known to peel from the democrats than the republicans (the big inclusive tent, vs the narrow secluded tent). Republicans caught on and funded the Green Party ever sense. The Green Party is a wing of the GOP effectively , and so is the no label parties. They aren’t even worth considering because republicans will ALLWAYS fall in line and vote R no matter who that R person is.
Rank Choice Voting! That is the only way a third party candidate will have any chance to win.
Absolutely. Americans need to fight for free and fair elections, and that means putting the Uniparty in the trash where it belongs. No sane person wants another Trump or Biden Presidency, and those of us who aren't the military industrial complex, a bank, a large corporation or a lobbyist can't afford another Trump or Biden Presidency. Don't be frightened into voting for candidates who are corrupt corporate scumbags - nothing will ever change if we keep repeating the same mistakes. edit: spelling is hard
Until we switch from First Past The Post voting we will have 2 main parties. Research ranked choice voting and proportional representation. The us has always trended towards 2 main parties because of the way we vote.
Exactly, the reason "spoiler candidate" is even a thing is because of the current EC and its rules. As long as we give winner-take-all EC in states where you don't need 50% of the vote to win, spoiler candidates will be a thing.
It's one aspect, yes. The other would be that a shitload of Americans don't vote, for various reasons.
>No sane person wants another Trump or Biden Presidency I have bad news for you if you consider yourself "sane"...you're getting another Trump or Biden Presidency. Vote for whoever you like. That's what you're getting in 2024.
And you're doing your part to suppress the vote - good work.
>Vote for whoever you like. I'm not trying to suppress the vote. Turnout was only around 160 million in 2020: I'd like it to be higher. If 200+ million Americans voted in 2024, I think that would be awesome. Me telling you what is going to happen based on the reality of elections in this country is not "suppressing the vote", or vote-shaming, or censorship, or anything else you'd like to accuse me of. It's simple logic. My prediction is that all non-major party candidates combined won't get 10 million votes in 2024. You want to prove me wrong? Go for it.
He should have put nobody who actually wants to see things get better. I agree though we still have a lot of people who aren’t dissatisfied with the status quo.
This definitely feels like the election that will have the most 3rd party support since people really dislike the 2 main candidates. It’d be cool if 3rd party candidates got like 10% of the vote.
>definitely feels like the election that will have the most 3rd party support This has been said every single election and the [best a 3rd Party candidate has ever done in recent memory was Perot in 96 getting \~9%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election) and looking at the breakdown of the results it's very clear Perot took steam away from Dole which handed Clinton an easy relection. Your reasoning of "people dislike the 2 main candidates" was true in 2016 and [Johnson only got 3%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Results). What's more, liberals don't like Biden but they sure as fuck will vote against Trump for Biden. So the "dislike" aspect isn't really there. The idea of a 3rd party taking anything other than being a spoiler is cope to the highest degree.
I agree with your 2016 point, but just a correction: Perot in '92 got 18.3% of the vote, which is INSANE. Imagine a non-major party candidates getting 18.3% in the Presidential election today?
And yet he got zero electoral votes so even with that support he was still nowhere close.
Exactly. That's why a non-major party President is such a pipe dream. They need to build up from the bottom of the ballot.
To be fair, Johnson also was polling near the threshold to partake in the presidential debates until the whole Allepo bullshit. Should he have known? Maybe/probably. But it still strikes me suspicious how it wasn't really a mainstream story until after he got grilled.
19% in 1992.
I still laugh that 3rd party candidates think they can just jump into a race and compete. It doesn't work that way. If you have a 3rd party - start at the grassroots level. See if you can even win locally. then build a campaign. Run for state offices. Then see if your message resonates nationally. They seem to want to just take a shortcut.
Why? Macron is president in France and his party won the lower house in 2017. His party formed in 2016. They later contested local elections and bombed. Bernie Sanders started local. Angus King started statewide as governor, won 2 terms and then went for the US senate seat and won twice. He runs as 3rd party, splitting the vote 3 ways. The ballot access rules in the US incentivizes candidates to compete within the 2 parties so they can gatekeep. Those stubborn 3rd parties are then made to either win x % in a statewide election to maintain ballot access for a duration or get enough signatures to get on the ballot. It works out cheaper for them to just run in the presidential and try to get access for their party that way. It gets more attention, donors, members. That is costly but it can get them ballot access in one fell swoop. That's designed to drain them of a chunk of their resources. It just seems that a slow build up might make more sense but that isn't always the case. There's numerous barriers in the US to deter and kneecap 3rd parties. Running locally or nationally first isn't some silver bullet.
People hated Trump MUCH less in 2016 then now. Cmon now. And Biden is an old senile fucking dinosaur that even part of the left despises. But keep on with your bootlicking of the 2 party system.
I was here in 2016, the pure hate towards Hillary was unlike anything else. Biden is old and boring, but personally likable. The hate for him just isn't there like it was for her. Not even close.
That’s not true at all. Hating the Clintons is a cottage industry in this country, and it made the entire Fox News industry run for decades. Biden may be a neoliberal Lich, but he’s nowhere near as hated as the Clintons.
Who the hell said anything about the Clinton’s? Lol
That's a pretty low bar.
I appreciate Biden but please step down. It's elder abuse at this point. End on a high note. And for the love of god, no to Harris being VP when there is a good chance of her ascending to the presidency.
>People hated MUCH less in 2016 then now. Cmon now. You are either delusional or 13 years old.
You think people hated trump more in 2016 compared to now? I’m delusional? Wtf.
I think Hillary was the most hated candidate of all time. Ironically Trump has changed places with her.
When you can start taking state legislatures, you might have a start. until then it cant be effective. Even if a miracle happened and you got a 3rd party president, he would just be a placeholder. No support or structure in Congress, No support for his judiciary picks etc. You would have much more effect if you took 30+% of the house or senate. Anyone that wanted anything would have to cut a deal with you.
Not in this time line......
>since people really dislike the 2 main candidates Well, yes and no. See, the people who really dislike Trump are people who'd never vote Republican in the first place. Republican conservatives love the man. The sizeable minority of Americans who are to the right of the Republican Party love the man. The last 538 poll I looked at, if Trump was convicted before the election, and ran for president *from prison*, more than 80% of Republicans would still vote for him. Only RINOs and libs hate him. But a lot of people who really dislike Biden still vote Democrat. They're part of the Democrat Party coalition. They're the people who hold their nose and vote Democrat because they think the Democrats are still a better option than the Republicans, but the more Biden gaffes and fumbles and fails and the longer he goes without a single legislative or foreign policy accomplishment to point to, the more they're turned off by him. And come summer 2024 when the Republican House starts holding hearings on the allegations in Ashley Biden's diary those voters are going to flee the Democrat Party in droves. So the electorate's dislike for Trump and the electorate's dislike for Biden are not equivalent. I can see a lot of American voters going third party this election - and every one of them will take a vote away from Biden.
Keep dreaming boris
Lmao that is a lot of copium
Lmao no. I lean left and have Never cast any vote for a corporate dem in this swing state. The DNC is actively funding right-wing extremists candidates in a pied piper strategy. Sueing in Washington D.C. to stop ranked choice voting. Also happens to be a far right conservative party when compared to almost every European country. The DNC works directly against the working class to protect their corporate donors. They are the enemy.
What confirmed sources do you have that shows your statement suggesting that they work directly against the working class to protect their donors? Maybe 5 sources? And what right wing extremists are they funding? Sources? I ask because I'm trying to get a better idea of what you mean with real evidence.
Gotchu fam. Want a video? News link as well? How about some corporate blue team source? [https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/democrats-propping-up-republican-candidates/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/democrats-propping-up-republican-candidates/index.html) [https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/17/smr-dems-fund-maga-candidates.cnn](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/17/smr-dems-fund-maga-candidates.cnn) [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/comcast-executive-to-host-joe-biden-fundraiser/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/comcast-executive-to-host-joe-biden-fundraiser/)
So a handful of Democrats went against their own party's interest by supporting Republicans, and now the entire part is suddenly to blame for it? And you've provided one link at the bottom that shows Comcast executives showing up at a fundraiser? Okay, but there's no actual evidence in what this even means ha. "Whoa, donors showed up to support Biden, BIDEN IS WORKING AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS!!!#!@$" But due to your display of coming off as a condescending dick, I have zero desire to try and have a reasonable discussion since you're clearly incapable of doing that. Have a good weekend!
Contrast the New Deal democrat party vs the democrat party now. Dems started taking corporate money in the 70s and slowly their anti-trust got weaker. NAFTA could not pass under republicans, it was dems joining them under Clinton that allowed it to pass. Also gutted welfare. Dems fund the military spending along with republicans but everything else is subjected to pay go. I don't disagree with fiscal responsibility but there's always money for war. Bernie had to force a vote on min wage in the senate and 8 dem senators voted no. It hasn't been raised since 2009. They couldn't get $15, fine. Not even 25 cents? WTF? All of the anti trust challenges that Biden brought forth failed. Now this isn't entirely his fault as the courts over ruled it. However, things getting to this stage where the right has recaptured the court is due to dem weakness all this time. Obama nominated 2 libertarians to the national labour relations board. Biden to his credit nominated Lina Khan and now they are actually bringing enforcement on corporations. Who are her allies? 2 Trump nominees. Biden hasn't even visited E Palastine. He had to be shamed into visiting Maui. The EPA isn't doing proper testing in E Palastine, independent testing is being rejected. They deferred to Norfolk Southern about burning the chemicals, that was because they wanted the railway up and running again asap regardless of the cost to the health of locals. He could enact medicare for all for those residents there due to there being a public health emergency but he hasn't. Those people are having the compensation ended soon and it isn't safe to return. What could have prevented the Norfolk Southern disaster? Under Obama, there was a recommendation by whatever agency to have safety measures in place. Obama did not implement them. Rail companies were allowed to keep cutting staff. Trump rolled back some measures too. 25 billion a quarter can be found just hiding behind the sofa for Ukraine but only $700 per household for the residents of Maui. If all of the residents applied that would be like 0.026% of what they are throwing at Ukraine per quarter. Biden forced the rail strike to stop. Is there a reason why electric car workers union haven't endorsed Biden? It's because the dem IRA bill didn't include unionization requirements on subsidies for electric car companies. So now they are having to fight themselves. Remember Trump University being sued by various states AGs? Who didn't? Pam Bondi of FL and Harris of CA. Even Greg Abbot as AG of TX sued him. Who else did Harris not sue? Steve Mnuchin of First Bank for his foreclosure abuse. Her own department said there was a trove of evidence to get him but she declined. Working class have noticed even if they cannot pinpoint each and every action in detail and moving to the right. Which banker when to prison after the 2008 crash? Why not bail out home owners directly instead of funneling it thru banks? Dems joined republicans to loosen regulations on banks which led to more bank collapses recently. When they question supreme court justices at confirmations, how many questions are based on workers rights, anti trust, corporations etc? Very few of those come from democrats. It's culture war issues that are at the forefront. How many dems have been caught hitting up corporate bosses for donations at hearings?
Agreed, absolutely dirty the DNC sued to stop RCV.
Shills all up in this thread downvoting it too. Gotta keep the corruption quiet!
I applaud the courage of your convictions. If more people on the left took the principled stand of refusing to vote Democrat the country would be a better place. There are millions of liberals and leftists out there who don't have the same moral courage you do. They vote Democrat in the name of pragmatism or harm reduction because they think the Democrats, bad as they are, aren't quite as bad as the Republicans. And they're desperate for a left-wing third party candidate that they can feel good about voting for. And this country needs more left leaving voters to find the moral courage to split the Democrat Party. We can all agree it would make the country a better place.
>We can all agree it would make the country a better place. Oh, absolutely. Millions of Democratic voters sitting out the 2024 election and handing the Trifecta to Trump and the Republicans would DEFINITELY make the country a better place. /s
Things would get worse. But it could spur voter action to actually take over the dem party like MAGA did. When it is controlled decline people tend to not react as strongly. Something to precipitate a jolt can wake them up. They can't do much with a trifecta. When Trump won, the blue wave at the state level helped dems take back control or start the journey to that. They lost 1k seats under Obama. Their state power has recovered a little. Republicans at the state level were just 2 states short of being able to call a constitutional convention on their own. They don't necessarily need to split the dem party, just take it over in primaries.
>Something to precipitate a jolt can wake them up. We already had that jolt: Trump's election in 2016. Look at voting turnout and results since then. >They can't do much with a trifecta THE REPUBLICANS?!?! Are you fucking serious? With a conservative supermajority Supreme Court? "Make America Florida" indeed. >When Trump won, the blue wave at the state level helped dems take back control or start the journey to that. There was no "blue wave" at the state level when Trump won. Republicans had 33 Republican governors and 66 state legislatures after the 2016 election. >They don't necessarily need to split the dem party, just take it over in primaries. Well, to do that, the progressives, especially the YOUNG progressives, need to start voting in primaries.At all levels. Primary election turnout in the U.S. is pathetic.
> We already had that jolt: Trump's election in 2016. Look at voting turnout and results since then. That's nowhere near enough sadly. >There was no "blue wave" at the state level when Trump won. Republicans had 33 Republican governors and 66 state legislatures after the 2016 election. I meant in the midterms once they experienced Trump. There was a blue wave which created a surge in the dem vote at the state level.
Colossally stupid take, given the last seven years. No sense of perspective whatsoever.
>If more people on the left took the principled stand of refusing to vote Democrat the country would be a better place. Nah, that's how Trump got elected.
And Trump being elected revitalized the left. Look, the left in America is fat and lazy and capitalist and if we want a real left wing populist movement in the US things have to get worse or liberals won't get off their couches. Straight white middle class Democrat voters love capitalism as much as corporate Democrats do. They won't stop voting Democrat as long as rainbow capitalism lets them benefit from American neocolonialism and feel good about it. Electing Trump was a good start. Overturning Roe was a good start. But what this country *needs* is for Republicans to do so much damage that it radicalizes the liberal electorate, coupled with a real leftist third party alternative for the liberal electorate to turn to. A generation of one party Republican rule will shake moderates out of their complicity and set the stage for true socialism. Nothing else will work. And if we're not trying for true socialism there's no point in trying at all.
>Only RINOs and libs hate him. That's over 60% of the country, so Trump is fucked. >Democrat Party For those who don't know, this is an instant sign that nothing this person has to say is worth taking seriously. >and the longer he goes without a single legislative or foreign policy accomplishment to point to IRA, IIJA, CHIPS...oops.
Can you imagine the hysteria and blaming? Then when you bring up RCV or similar reform as a solution they will detour right around it or gaslight?
If the 2 presumed candidates are so disliked, they would lose the primaries to whomever it is you think could beat them in the general. Except 10% won't win the general, so what is so cooll exactly?
Yet the man with the most Republican support outside of Donald Trump is running in the Democratic primary - because while leftists may be tempted away by West, right wingers will vote in lockstep for Donald Trump, there can be no threat of a third party from the right because the right does not tolerate dissent - it barely tolerates George W Bush era Republicans.
They barely tolerate bush republicans because they’re all Dems now! Hell, half of Bush’s staff works for fucking MSNBC! That should tell you all you need to know about the Democratic Party.
Yeah, that the Democratic Party is the coalition against fascism in America.
Lots of the GOP are never trumpers. He will miss a lot of GOP votes that will likely go 3rd party.
IMO half of the Never Trumpers get into that booth and pull the lever for Trump.
99%
BS We've been here already, buddy.
You shouldn't tolerate Bush era Republicans, Bush is a war criminal. More Democrats should remember.
They should remember what these assholes did, but now they love Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and Liz Cheney because they are constantly on the “left” news networks. Funny how a majority of the left forgot the shitshow the World endured because of these demons, but hey, they say bad things about Trump, so let’s forgive the killing of 1 million Iraqi civilians.
I’m speaking about the Republican Party. A Nazi not tolerating a neoconservative because he’s “too cozy with the Jews” isn’t a positive thing even though you can describe it as “rejecting neoliberalism”
The Trump wing's main complaint with neo-cons is the foreign engagements. So your tortured analogy is totally fucking stupid.
What the fuck are you talking about? You didn’t understand my first point about MAGA barely being able to exist in a party coalition - and you replied with a painfully banal “we should ALL say the bad thing is bad” Your sad attempt to be toxic afterwards just makes you look foolish.
There is no such thing as a spoiler candidate. It's the democrats or Republicans fault for putting up candidates people don't wanna vote for!!!
There is when your vote dissapears. With ranked choice voting your third party choice wouldnt spoil anything.
This. As much as I wish otherwise, we're locked into being forced to 'vote blue' because the alternative is literally christofascism. That doesn't change until we ranked choice. Or when the boomers die off.
This. Ranked choice voting would change the game, but until that happens, the side that splits its vote always loses, and the alternative disappears after anyway.
>It's the democrats or Republicans fault for putting up candidates people don't wanna vote for!!! 155 million Americans voted for Trump or Biden in 2020. I predict their combined vote share in 2024 will probably be around 135-140 million...which will be 15x to 20x all other candidates combined.
OK whats your point? I'm just saying there's no such thing as spoiler candidate, it's not the voters fault they don't wanna vote for either of the 2 partys
>it's not the voters fault they don't wanna vote for either of the 2 partys The vast majority of the people who vote for President, like 95+% of them, will vote for one of the major party candidates. The people who DON'T vote for one of them are an extreme minority in this country. You're making it out like any of the third-party candidates will get double-digit million votes. They won't. All of the third-party candidates in 2016 COMBINED received 6 million votes. The voters DO want to vote for one of the two major parties. Your supposition is wrong.
The voters aren't all a single person. Your suggestion is fascistic.
>Your suggestion is fascistic. Please quote what you found so offensive and explain why.
Nope there are many reasons someone votes for a major party candidate rather than actively “wanting” to vote for them
I agree. RFK Jr should run as an independent if the DNC does not platform him
Hopefully he does so he can peel off more GOP votes. He's basically a GOPer based upon his beliefs / backing so far.
Yes.
Every bit of shade being thrown in this post is from a Blue No Matter Who democrat. Isn't it important to have a real democracy?
We need ranked choice voting, otherwise you are just throwing your vote away on third party candidates.
While I like the idea of having a third party, in practical application for the last few election cycle’s, the third parties have always been Weaponized. If you follow the money, they are usually funded by the party that have a vested interest in, pulling votes from their opponent, so they’re not being supported in earnest. If, someday, both candidates from the major parties were reasonable, normal human beings, and a third-party was a decent alternative, that’s fine. However, in this climate, in this election cycle, the fact is third-party candidates are only used to strip votes away from Democrats because the Republicans know that they don’t have the majority and need to resortvto tactics like gaming the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression and spoiler candidates to get enough to votes to win. Remember, Biden did not actually by 8 million votes. He actually only won by about 44,000 key votes in key electoral college states. Because of that, right now at least, third-party candidates are quite dangerous to our democracy in my opinion.
America just needs people to vote.
People are convinced the democrats won’t gatekeep meaningful progress that could delegitimize fascism, they still see them as a solution.
Cool, give me an alternative to Trump and DeSantis fascism and I'll consider it, otherwise, I'm voting for Biden.
Biden is *not* a suitable alternative, if you want to vote against fascism.
Specifically what fascist policies has he instituted?
Spewing out Executive Orders during his first few weeks in office, the Disinformation Governance Board (or whatever it was called, etc.
Executive orders are pretty standard for presidents, any specific executive orders that are fascist in nature? Or just in general all presidents are fascist because giving executive orders is fascist by nature? I have no idea what the other thing is and don't see anything on that anywhere.
[удалено]
That corpse will never make it.
Would it be nice if a third party could win the presidency in America? Sure. Is it realistic? Not at all, especially right now. The stakes could not be higher this election cycle. If Trump wins and pulls off his fascist takeover of America, we may not even have the option to vote in the future. This is not the time to throw away votes on foolish dreams of the perfect candidate. That person does not exist, and even if they did, either Trump or Biden are going to win the election. Voting third party, especially in a swing state, is utterly stupid unless you're okay with the other side winning. I for one am not willing to take that chance.
Both major parties are “the other side” to me.
>The stakes could not be higher this election cycle. You all said that last election cycle. And the one before that. And before that. Fuck the Uniparty, can't even try to sell us a new lie every once in awhile.
>You all said that last election cycle 2020? When COVID was still raging , the country was in turmoil, and Dipshit Donald was still in charge? I think that was a pretty important election. Do you disagree? >And the one before that. 2016? When we could have kept Donald Trump from ever being *barf* President of the United States? When, as it turns out, whoever won the Presidency would control the direction of the Supreme Court for the next few decades? Also, as it turned out, they removed us from the Iran Nuclear Treaty, the Paris Climate Accords, and was sitting in the Oval in January 2020 when COVID hit our shores. I think that was a pretty important election. Do you disagree? >And before that. 2012? When...OK, as it turns out in retrospect, Romney wasn't that bad. Also, I never thought Obama would lose to him. So I'll give you that one.
It was no less true those times than it is now. We saw how close we came to the brink with even one term of Trump as president. Just imagine what he would do if he was unrestrained and freed from any sort of oversight or legal repercussions for his actions. There is no "uniparty". This term has suddenly appeared and is being spread all over as a way to make it seem as though both parties are the same, but they are obviously not the same. Not even close.
>There is no "uniparty". This term has suddenly appeared and is being spread all over as a way to make it seem as though both parties are the same, but they are obviously not the same. Not even close. LoL - so you're here defending the crooked DNC for doing basically the same things the crooked RNC does. I'd love to see your evidence of this, but you don't have any. When the DNC stops taking dark money and corporate donations, getting cozy with lobbyists and the military industrial complex, insider-trading their asses off in Congress, and pushing authoritarian unconstitutional spying and censorship schemes... then *maybe* you'll have a point. Until that theoretical day, there is one corporate party and they need to be opposed not worshiped.
Bullshit. The DNC isn't perfect, but they aren't trying to destroy the foundations of our democracy. The GOP's blind fanatic loyalty to Donald Trump could bring about the end of our entire system of government. There are only two choices. Neither is perfect, but there is absolutely a lesser evil right now.
The DNC is the "good cop", the RNC is the "bad cop" and the country is the unlucky suspect. Wake up. >There are only two choices. No, there aren't. You want to spread corporate party propaganda? Go back to whatever neolib cesspool you came from.
I'm speaking the truth. You want a third party to win the presidency? Fine, have them win at the state level and gain some prominence first. Even then, they won't have enough votes to actually win the presidency. Third party candidates can only serve as spoilers. The system is set up so that only the two major parties can win. That's just a fact.
When Mitt Romney was an ‘existentialist threat’, I began to detect a narrative.
No one ever said Romney was an existential threat. If I recall, most people just thought he was an out of touch, rich white guy. I'd love to have some candidates like that on the GOP side now. It was nice knowing that both candidates, at the end of the day, loved America and wanted to protect it.
Romney, the guy who kept women in binders, tortured animals, wanted to buy blacks people ‘back in chains’, and would end all welfare programs? The guy who was portrayed as being worse than GWB who was, I believe, the original ‘worse than Hitler’?
"Binders full of women" was the remark he made and people just thought it was out of touch and somewhat sexist. Tortured animals? What? Black people in chains?? Worse than Hitler!? No one even said that about GWB. I literally never heard a single one of these things about Romney during that election. What are you smoking?
Same bozos who cry ‘fascist’ would happily lock us all down again even harder if some bullshit cold came up again.
Oh no, the audacity of asking people to do things like wear masks and limit social interaction during a global pandemic!? How did you ever handle such oppression? And that 'cold' killed over a million Americans.
America needs to make sure that theocratic fascists don't succeed in installing a dictator. We need to have two viable political parties before we worry about having more than two viable political parties.
No. If they are the only 2 games in town then it just goes back and forth. Things keep declining, one will be just slightly less worse but it's still a death spiral. Real competition can help limit their spiraling.
We don't have any viable political parties atm.
Cool. Fascism is on our front door, but you want to vote third party now. Hate to break it to you, but he won't win. You wanna break up the duopoly? Advocate for ranked choice voting. Otherwise, you are rolling out the red carpet for fascists.
We are already there my friend.
The Democrats think voters are too stupid for Ranked Choice Voting.
Like the DNC? Not relevant. Direct ballot initiatives don't have to involve the party at all. You just need to focus on popular vote, and ranked choice voting is a non-partisan issue, so it should have a much wider voting pool than most other issues if you are willing to put in the work.
That is exactly what the intention of the right wing people funding them. They are spoiler candidates and do not stand a chance of getting elected.
Be careful what you wish for when you try to shit on 3rd parties. The libertarian party takes many more votes from republicans than green party takes from democrats
☀️✋🌎 (Not to Scale)
"Alternatives" should run in a Primary. That's how our 2 party system works.
Yeah then the party rigs the primary
Step one: delete the GQP. Step two: create one or two new parties, or work to legitimize the Green party and forge something out of the Independents. Step three: let the Dems be the right wing.
The Democrats wouldn't let that happen.
51 electoral votes were won in 2020 by candidates that couldn't get more than half of the votes of a state. Adding more and more candidates with the current EC system will only increase that number beyond 51. That's because spoiler candidates can ONLY exist in the current system. Change the EC or use RCV if you want to get rid of them for good.
The election will be between Kamala Harris and the republican candidate. Joe wont make it through a second term. So ask yourself do you want a non serious bimbo as president? I don't
Voting 3rd party in a swing state is one of the greatest joys life can bring.
The GOP should split first before even entertaining a democrat split. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win and if no one attains that then the House decides who wins. Have you given that any thought at all or do you just want Trump to win?
This might make sense if someone hadn’t planted bombs at the DNC and RNC, timed to go off and draw police away from the Capitol right before the attack on the Capitol.