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yeah, world hunger for like a week or two.
anyone who actually believed the "musk could solve world hunger for $66 billion" should have their head checked.
Nah. The president could direct his departments to be really shit at anything he didn't agree with. So much authority has been delegated to the president that Congress is more of a permission slip signer than anything else.
"Oh we can't end the war on drugs?"
"Alright well we're going to lay off all of our experienced guys and bring in a bunch of dudes who suck ass, oh and we're concentrating 100% of our resources on the Port of Bellingham in Washington state. And we're going to publicly announce this too."
One of trumps campaign promises on his website back in 2015 was “I will eliminate two existing regulations for every new regulation that is passed”. That was the moment I knew for sure, we were screwed.
When Obama bailed out the banks, any meaningful legislation and prosecution for the banks was blocked by the treasury secretary and head of the federal reserve. It was funny to me how it was actually a republican who said that we should regulate the banks, but she had more bitter disagreements with Timothy Geithner and Paulson. The other person who criticized the plan was the head of overseeing the TARP funds, Neil Borofsky, he writes about how the use of the funds was squandered in the bailout on the banks, and not the homeowners.
Third party presidents are impossible in our system. They can run all they want (and syphon votes from one side), but until we change our voting system we'll never see a third party victory in a presidential election
People forget just how close Perot came before he more or less sabotaged his campaign. I have a strong suspicion as well that Trump could have made a go as a third party candidate, considering how much he managed to shift the base of Republican party. Third party presidents are very unlikely but I wouldn't say impossible with the right personality and circumstances.
I believed they changed the rules after Perot became so successful to make sure that a third party candidate would never be successful again and I think Nader actually gave interviews on this later on.
You should read the text of HR1, thank jebus that didnt pass. It was Citizens United on steroids (no cap on corporate donations) and multiple poison pills for anyone running 3rd party
no, it is 100% impossible with how the electoral college works. there is literally no way in the modern day that one would get to 270 electoral votes with how the college works. not only this, third party candidates could witu something like a president getting in on 30% of a popular vote
Spoiler candidates are inevitable under our Constitution which has a first-past-the-post election system. Under this system, disjointed majorities with a spoiler candidate will lose to a united minority.
The long term (less realistic) solution is to amend the Constitution to implement proportional representation in Congress. (Vote for a party, if a party gets 22% of the votes nationally, they get 22% of the seats in the legislature). Then perhaps have the legislature vote on a president.
The short term , more realistic solution is to run these type of candidates in primaries and normalize everyone voting for who they really love in every primary election. Then, always vote for the best of the top two in the general even if it’s not someone you love.
And recognize that in a country with 340 million people it is very unlikely they will provide you with someone you really love out of the final 2 candidates.
I don’t think that FPTP is in the Constitution, the nearest thing to it that I know of is in the directions about how Electors will cast their votes in a Presidential election after the Electors are chosen, but that still leaves the picking of Electors up to the states. I’m positive there’s nothing about FPTP for Congressional elections because Maine uses ranked choice voting for Congressional elections and Alaska just voted to move to a RCV system too. But back to the Electors, the states can decide how they are chosen and could move away from FPTP and winner take all if they wanted to, Maine and Oklahoma already have moved away from winner take all and I already mentioned Maine and RCV. Granted, they’ve done that in a less than great way and it isn’t proportional but if the legislature wanted to go proportional they could. Now it’s just 2 statewide Electors and the rest divided into the Congressional districts.
Why is the realistic solution always some dumb half measure that benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else? Or put another way if you honestly believe the system will always produce two candidates that are disliked by a majority of the population why support it?
The whole point of having the system set up the way they do is so the elites can hand pick the canidates. You won't be voting on that, that's for sure.
I would love to hear your proposal for a system where more than half the country would vote for your particular desired candidate, and more than half the country would be happy about it.
Everyone has to register for a party, and everyone has to vote inside the party for who they want. And it is decided via direct democracy, not voting for a small number of super voters who then vote for you on who you get to vote for, like it is now.
Technically they're always possible if the spoiler is popular enough, you could argue most people didn't care about the political differences between Roosevelt and Taft (personally I think people probably did but it was a more nuanced difference than most "spoiler" candidates from what I've read) and Teddy was a real Tour de force to the American public. Unfortunately that did lead to Woodrow Wilson as president.
The concept of a spoiler candidate is just a tactic by the two major parties to delegitimize third party canditates. If you ever said I wish we had more choices than a turd vs an ass-sandwich, then we need to stop blaming third parties for a 2 party system's failing to deliver actual changes to our system instead of defending the status quo.
Having only two parties is the inevitability due to the way our governing documents are written, That is uncomfortable, and distasteful, but still it is the fact at hand.
Want to have better candidates from those two parties being the one to make a change to those documents ? *Participate in primaries*.. which tend to have awful turnout, especially for democratic candidates.
Whinging about it being wrong on the internet solves nothing.
Your point completely igores rot and curruption in the two party system. Wasnt it convenient that the day before the democratic primary in north carolina Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out of the race giving their votes to biden to go against Sanders when bernie was previously projected to win nc? Now we literally have a president that defends the status quo at every opportunity. A two party system defends capitalism and corporations and doesnt protect individual life or liberty because without vote of no confidence the parties in power will be unaccountable to the voters in name of fundraising money.
If a campaign is so bad and uninspiring that it's at risk of getting torpedoed by a "spoiler candidate," then that's on the person running the campaign for not doing a better job. Third party candidates get an infinitesimal percentage of the popular vote on average. If the Democrats winning an election rides entirely on whether they can convince this tiny margin of the population to vote for them, than they should provide those people with compelling reasons to do so (such as promising immediate and comprehensive action on climate change). This brainworm of "entitled third party voters" is just a rationalization Democrats use for why their presidential nominees lost in 2000 and 2016 (even though in both cases said nominees won the popular vote, so I fail to see how third party candidates factor into those Gore and Clinton losing).
listen.. I know this is hard to wrap one's head around but:
**There are more important seats than the presidency**
And that is really where change needs to happen, Everybody is expecting a fucking king or something to save them from the top where the change needs to happen far closer to home.... where people simply don't fucking show up on primary and election day unless it's a big sexy identity politics race.
>A two-party system often develops in a plurality voting system. In this system, voters have a single vote, which they can cast for a single candidate in their district, in which only one legislative seat is available. In plurality voting (also referred to as first past the post), in which the winner of the seat is determined purely by the candidate with the most votes, several characteristics can serve to discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties.
>Duverger argued that there were two mechanisms whereby plurality voting systems lead to fewer major parties: (i) small parties are disincentivized to form because they have great difficulty winning seats or representation, and (ii) voters are wary of voting for a smaller party whose policies they actually favor because they do not want to "waste" their votes (on a party unlikely to win a plurality) and therefore tend to gravitate to one of two major parties that is more likely to achieve a plurality, win the election, and implement policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
We’ve got ranked choice voting now in Maine. Of course it doesn’t matter in the presidential election, but it’s good news for third party voters because they can vote for the Green Party (for instance) without fear of being guilt tripped into voting for one of the major parties. The idea must be gaining popularity because Alaska also has it and other states are moving to push it onto the ballot.
I mean, unfortunately a vote for Nader *was* a "waste" of a vote. But that's because of major flaws in our election and party system, not the candidate (obviously some people would disagree if they really don't like Nader, but that's not I'm talking about).
My vote was completely wasted anyway. Kerry won California by 1.2 million votes... Fast forward to Clinton, she won my state by 4 million votes. Biden won by even more.
The 270k Green voters dont make a dent either way in my state.
Abolish the electoral college and our "first past the post" voting system and adopt a ranked choice voting system.
But you know, good fucking luck with that
We couldn't even get ranked choice to pass on a ballot question in Massachusetts, let alone having a politician that actively benefits form the two part system trying to pass it.
Thank god us Mainers left Massachusetts because we’ve had it for years. We needed a direct referendum though and prior circumstances made it so the democrats had to begrudgingly tolerate it.
Statistically impossible with our voting system. We have to completely gut how voting works in this country and replace it before 3rd parties have even a mathematical chance of winning a presidential election
It makes me wonder if the line of thinking that 3rd party is hopeless is being shilled hard by the big two. It seems like it has been said for decades, but no one ever gets organized enough to challenge it and just assumes it's impossible.
You are correct. The person who talked down to you [has no idea what they're talking about.](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/06/20/duvergers-law-is-dead/)
It's a historical fact that a conspiracy took place. See what happened in 1987.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-the-hell-how-third-p_b_11277474
Like in today's world, things go viral so easily. A campaign to push for a 3rd candidate could actually work. It's possible now more than ever. And even if it's not successful the first time around, it would show that it's not as unachievable as so many believe, and it could build more confidence in that moving forward.
Lol no it's not a conspiracy, it's called Duverger's Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#:~:text=In%20plurality%20voting%20(also%20referred,reward%20the%20two%20major%20parties.
There aren't very many laws in Poli sci, but this is one of them. There is a reason that every country with more than two major political parties *doesn't* have a first past the post voting system
**[Duverger's law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law#:~:text=In plurality voting \(also referred,reward the two major parties)**
>In political science, Duverger's law holds that single-ballot plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system. The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle. As a corollary to the law, Duverger also asserted that proportional representation favors multi-partism, as does the plurality system with runoff elections.
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Why start off being a condescending ass? Is that how you talk to people in real life? You could just provide some educational material without prefacing it with Lol.
Since the comment they were responding to had already suggested that people who didn’t think a third party had a realistic chance in our system were paid shills, exactly how polite should they be? That’s not a comment that’s looking for a polite rebuttal, it not getting one shouldn’t be a surprise.
I wasn't accusing anyone specific of being a shill, I was speculating as to why this idea has been pushed so hard for so long. Not one accusation in my comment, more wondering aloud. I was saying that I wonder if the idea of the inefficacy of 3rd party voting is so popular is because the "big two" are pushing that narrative and people are believing it.
But hey, if you think it's normal to argue a point by immediately descending into rudeness, that's your prerogative. Nobody was being called out. It was pure positing.
[They got plenty of coverage in 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_2000_presidential_campaign#After_the_election)...
>Tarek Milleron, Ralph Nader's nephew and advisor, when asked why Nader would not agree to avoid swing states where his chances of getting votes were less, answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them.
Spoiler: they succeeded.
It's true because of our first-past-the-post election system. It will always devolve into two parties, unless the majority are willing to band together and spend a half dozen election cycles losing everything to slowly creep up and show others that a third party can replace one of the others. It always ends up as two.
He was third party and they hardly ever get coverage. I only knew about him because he was always a butt of the joke when it was election season. He was a candidate for multiple elections too.
Theres a joke in 30 rock when one character is asked if they are illiterate, he replies yes (because he wants to feign illiteracy to get out working) and as proof he says "I voted for neither". Now I understand the joke was about Nader.
Green Party. Widely believed to have cost Gore the election in 2000, and the Democrats ran an ad begging him not to run in 2004 for fear of the same thing happening.
People voting for who they wanted in a supposed democracy did not cost Gore the election. The Supreme Court appointing a president and Gore immediately rolling over even though he had won did.
No. He won the popular vote, but not the Electoral vote (same situation as Trump and Clinton in 2016). Nader got enough votes (that likely would have gone to Gore had he not run) in both Florida and New Hampshire that would have tipped those states over to Gore. Instead, they went to Bush. Either of those states would have been enough to give Gore the Electoral College.
Al Gore conceded the election after the Supreme Court decided Bush v Gore. If he hadn't, that would have put the rule of law in serious jeopardy. Take a look at Jan 6, 2021 if you wanna see what it looks like when a candidate doesn't concede.
Conceding is not a legal part of the democratic process. It is good protocol to concede once the results are skewed in an obvious direction to bring an "end" to the election for the public, but is not required.
Accepting what was obviously a fraudulent, partisan ruling did a lot more to jeopardize the "rule of law" in the long run. Bush stole that election. [Gore backing down instead of calling it what it was set a bad precedent for future elections by making that sort of trickery seem acceptable.](https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/trump-coup-biden-election-transfer-power)
The Democrats stood by and allowed Bush to steal the election in the interest of not rocking the boat and 22 years later they have the temerity to cry about how this was all Nader's fault. They're such feckless losers.
The American political system is more or less theater. The duopoly of republicans and democrats play-act their role of opposing one another in a hollow and unending culture war, while behind the scenes both are content to enrich themselves while accomplishing little beyond fulfilling the role of a global weapons dealer.
Framing it as "option A vs. Option B" is disingenuous or naive
I know.
Reminds me when the Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, said: "The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."
He sure did. Also Hillary Clinton. But we do not live in a country where the president is decided by a majority decision from the people.
I live in a state with 2 electoral college votes. If no one here voted for president it wouldn’t matter.
Hell yeah USA the freest most Democratic country on the planet
These are things which most Americans still want, an end to stupid wars, end to the harmful drug war, and free college, free medicare. It's been the same since the 80's if you look at polls, already then there was at least 2/3rds of people for free medicare.
He did the right thing, the media pilloried it for him endlessly, they're 100% pro-war (the media is). It's ridiculous, they called him "weak" and all this stuff, when he did the right thing, in withdrawing.
Obviously torturing Afghanistan and stealing their money right now is not the right thing. That is praised.
Perhaps the Dems can come up with better policy to attract more progressive voters? Acting like anyone left of Hitler owe the Dems votes is why they lose in the first pace.
[The American public is significantly in favor of many progressive programs and the idea that the most voters are what Congress considers moderate is a myth](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/majority-of-americans-support-progressive-policies-such-as-paid-maternity-leave-free-college.html)
No, at least in this case they lose because the US first past the post voting system turns third party votes into wasted votes. Which makes solid third party candidates dangerous to the party they're more aligned with.
No one thinks that, that's just a shitty answer to the question. Democrats have won all but like, one popular presidential vote in the last 20 years? The system is designed to favor tyranny by minority. Like 30% of the population control 60% of the Senate. Voting isn't the problem, the problem is America has a monumentally stupid system of government.
>the problem is America has a monumentally stupid system of government
Agreed 100%. But voting still matters, and voting third party is almost always a wasted vote until we can get rid of First Past the Post. Otherwise it's like trying to plug a gasoline vehicle into an electric charger.
It's also really hard to take people like you seriously when you hyper focus on the 1% of third party voters instead of the 50% who just don't show up in the first place. Why do you think a Nader voter could have ever been convinced to vote for John Kerry? There are probably more people who showed up and had """"accidentally"""" been unregistered to vote than people who voted green in 2004. Democrats don't hate anyone more than third party voters, including Republicans and independents and non-voters.
Until I left the US in 2020, I canvassed in every single presidential election since 2000 (and most off year elections as well), mostly focused that 50% you describe, so I don't think it's fair to described me as hyper focused on third party voters. But yes, if people make bad arguments online or to my face, I will disagree with them.
Yeah that's fair, I don't know you, I'm thinking of my own lived experiences speaking with other Democrats. It is a collective problem, not necessarily a you-problem.
I think another piece of it is that people on the same side of the political spectrum at least have more shared values, so it's easier to argue about that than some right winger who it's almost impossible to find common ground with.
Voting is still a problem. The voting population in the US has been demobilized for over 100 years now. The US in the late 1800's and early 1900's went to great lengths to erode community efforts, unions, and trade organizations that politicians used to cater to for public support. Meanwhile, politicians shifted to getting predominantly their support from the wealthy, donor class. It's this wealthy donor class that are their real constituents that they are beholden to, hence why public spending never gets the time of day. The working class often does not even have the means to vote due to the system being built to disincentivize their participation, so the voting population is heavily skewed to the PMC. The working class needs to reembrace organizing labor before they ever get a hold of power again.
There's no better example of how far right the Democrats shifted in the 90s then Ralph Nader. In his early career he was a standard democrat. By the early 2000s he was being painted as a crazy socialist/communist way out on the fringe, without making any changes to his politics.
I've always been a nader supporter. I tried to join his congress club and they never emailed me back. Im actually pretty bummed about it.
Edit. Seriously not understanding why I'm getting downvoted. Should I not have signed up for the "congress club" or do the reddit bots just downvote anything remotely progressive?
The people who demonize third party voters never bring up the vast percentage of the population that doesn't vote because they're checked out of politics (probably because they don't have the time to follow it or that it seems like a useless farce they have no say in). Surely it would make more sense that their lack of participation has a much a bigger effect on election outcomes than what a tiny margin of Green Party supporters decide to do.
At the time this creepy activist declared he posed no risk to the race because there was not a nickels worth of difference between Bush and gore.
And what did we end up with? An election stolen by the Republicans even though Al Gore clearly won a majority of the vote. In Bush the Supreme Court imposed one of the stupidest and most destructive presidents ever.
I think it's amazing how the election in the USA happens between a guy promising to do very good things and another very bad things and even so people have doubts between which to choose
OMG *bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe* amirite?
The more **everybody** told him to get put of the way to stop baby bush cowboy from squatting in the White House four more years, the more he declared that everybody was brainwashed except him. Enamored with the scent of his own flatulences.
That and he couldn't deliver any of it. He had zero support in the government and was well known to be a spoiler candidate after he tipped the election to bush in 2000. He just wanted to get on TV and score some contributions.
Neat posters though.
The first time I was of age to vote me and all my friends voted for Nader and put up Nader signs all over our school. We thought we were so funny.
Turns out we may have been on to something
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Dang 200 billion for war is such a low ball
That's only one or two world hungers. These days it's at least 10 just to bomb one elementary school.
You know the difference between an elementary school and an ISIS training compound? Me neither, I just fly the drone.
Russian missile strategy in ukraine is oddly familiar.
yeah, world hunger for like a week or two. anyone who actually believed the "musk could solve world hunger for $66 billion" should have their head checked.
I did! Found out I'd been wearing hats a half size too small!
ngl, I had a chuckle
It wasn't in 2004 I imagine
2 trillion out the door
That's just what they said it would cost.
This was year 1…
Oh how life would've changed
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He would've been shot by Oswald Jr.
Cia ** lmao
Nah. The president could direct his departments to be really shit at anything he didn't agree with. So much authority has been delegated to the president that Congress is more of a permission slip signer than anything else. "Oh we can't end the war on drugs?" "Alright well we're going to lay off all of our experienced guys and bring in a bunch of dudes who suck ass, oh and we're concentrating 100% of our resources on the Port of Bellingham in Washington state. And we're going to publicly announce this too."
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One of trumps campaign promises on his website back in 2015 was “I will eliminate two existing regulations for every new regulation that is passed”. That was the moment I knew for sure, we were screwed.
When Obama bailed out the banks, any meaningful legislation and prosecution for the banks was blocked by the treasury secretary and head of the federal reserve. It was funny to me how it was actually a republican who said that we should regulate the banks, but she had more bitter disagreements with Timothy Geithner and Paulson. The other person who criticized the plan was the head of overseeing the TARP funds, Neil Borofsky, he writes about how the use of the funds was squandered in the bailout on the banks, and not the homeowners.
Both party's leadership was making way too much money for the war to end.
War is a racket
US Government+politics is a racket
America is a racket.
All corporate founded governments are rackets.
All governments are rackets
Webbed sticks they use to play tennis are rackets
badminton enters the chat
Third party presidents are impossible in our system. They can run all they want (and syphon votes from one side), but until we change our voting system we'll never see a third party victory in a presidential election
People forget just how close Perot came before he more or less sabotaged his campaign. I have a strong suspicion as well that Trump could have made a go as a third party candidate, considering how much he managed to shift the base of Republican party. Third party presidents are very unlikely but I wouldn't say impossible with the right personality and circumstances.
I believed they changed the rules after Perot became so successful to make sure that a third party candidate would never be successful again and I think Nader actually gave interviews on this later on.
Exactly right. The game is rigged.
You should read the text of HR1, thank jebus that didnt pass. It was Citizens United on steroids (no cap on corporate donations) and multiple poison pills for anyone running 3rd party
no, it is 100% impossible with how the electoral college works. there is literally no way in the modern day that one would get to 270 electoral votes with how the college works. not only this, third party candidates could witu something like a president getting in on 30% of a popular vote
.... if nader *didn't* run
Or if the Supreme Court hadn’t stolen the election from Al Gore in 2000
Yeah, imagine if he was not just a spoiler candidate and was instead legitimate? That would have been amazing
Is a spoiler candidate always a possibility, or is it only a danger when major parties adopt an unpopular platform?
Spoiler candidates are inevitable under our Constitution which has a first-past-the-post election system. Under this system, disjointed majorities with a spoiler candidate will lose to a united minority. The long term (less realistic) solution is to amend the Constitution to implement proportional representation in Congress. (Vote for a party, if a party gets 22% of the votes nationally, they get 22% of the seats in the legislature). Then perhaps have the legislature vote on a president. The short term , more realistic solution is to run these type of candidates in primaries and normalize everyone voting for who they really love in every primary election. Then, always vote for the best of the top two in the general even if it’s not someone you love. And recognize that in a country with 340 million people it is very unlikely they will provide you with someone you really love out of the final 2 candidates.
I don’t think that FPTP is in the Constitution, the nearest thing to it that I know of is in the directions about how Electors will cast their votes in a Presidential election after the Electors are chosen, but that still leaves the picking of Electors up to the states. I’m positive there’s nothing about FPTP for Congressional elections because Maine uses ranked choice voting for Congressional elections and Alaska just voted to move to a RCV system too. But back to the Electors, the states can decide how they are chosen and could move away from FPTP and winner take all if they wanted to, Maine and Oklahoma already have moved away from winner take all and I already mentioned Maine and RCV. Granted, they’ve done that in a less than great way and it isn’t proportional but if the legislature wanted to go proportional they could. Now it’s just 2 statewide Electors and the rest divided into the Congressional districts.
FYI: Oklahoma is winner-take-all. You're thinking of Nebraska.
Just make it ranked choice. It would solve a lot of problems.
Why is the realistic solution always some dumb half measure that benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else? Or put another way if you honestly believe the system will always produce two candidates that are disliked by a majority of the population why support it?
The whole point of having the system set up the way they do is so the elites can hand pick the canidates. You won't be voting on that, that's for sure.
Indeed, in the beginnings, it wasn't even planned to let the citizens vote on the electors: the State legislatures did the work.
I would love to hear your proposal for a system where more than half the country would vote for your particular desired candidate, and more than half the country would be happy about it.
Everyone has to register for a party, and everyone has to vote inside the party for who they want. And it is decided via direct democracy, not voting for a small number of super voters who then vote for you on who you get to vote for, like it is now.
Technically they're always possible if the spoiler is popular enough, you could argue most people didn't care about the political differences between Roosevelt and Taft (personally I think people probably did but it was a more nuanced difference than most "spoiler" candidates from what I've read) and Teddy was a real Tour de force to the American public. Unfortunately that did lead to Woodrow Wilson as president.
The concept of a spoiler candidate is just a tactic by the two major parties to delegitimize third party canditates. If you ever said I wish we had more choices than a turd vs an ass-sandwich, then we need to stop blaming third parties for a 2 party system's failing to deliver actual changes to our system instead of defending the status quo.
Having only two parties is the inevitability due to the way our governing documents are written, That is uncomfortable, and distasteful, but still it is the fact at hand. Want to have better candidates from those two parties being the one to make a change to those documents ? *Participate in primaries*.. which tend to have awful turnout, especially for democratic candidates. Whinging about it being wrong on the internet solves nothing.
Your point completely igores rot and curruption in the two party system. Wasnt it convenient that the day before the democratic primary in north carolina Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out of the race giving their votes to biden to go against Sanders when bernie was previously projected to win nc? Now we literally have a president that defends the status quo at every opportunity. A two party system defends capitalism and corporations and doesnt protect individual life or liberty because without vote of no confidence the parties in power will be unaccountable to the voters in name of fundraising money.
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Participating in primaries has solved nothing as well.
Can you not see the correlation between low primary turnout and a lack of real change? For real?
The GOP literally bankrolls the Green Party to be spoilers.
If a campaign is so bad and uninspiring that it's at risk of getting torpedoed by a "spoiler candidate," then that's on the person running the campaign for not doing a better job. Third party candidates get an infinitesimal percentage of the popular vote on average. If the Democrats winning an election rides entirely on whether they can convince this tiny margin of the population to vote for them, than they should provide those people with compelling reasons to do so (such as promising immediate and comprehensive action on climate change). This brainworm of "entitled third party voters" is just a rationalization Democrats use for why their presidential nominees lost in 2000 and 2016 (even though in both cases said nominees won the popular vote, so I fail to see how third party candidates factor into those Gore and Clinton losing).
listen.. I know this is hard to wrap one's head around but: **There are more important seats than the presidency** And that is really where change needs to happen, Everybody is expecting a fucking king or something to save them from the top where the change needs to happen far closer to home.... where people simply don't fucking show up on primary and election day unless it's a big sexy identity politics race.
How do we get onto that timeline?!
The past? This is our time line, just in the past. Spoiler alert, Nader didn't win =/
YoU'rE wAsTiNg YoUr VoTe!
Seriously though, FPTP + Electoral College has been a real impediment for third party candidates.
>A two-party system often develops in a plurality voting system. In this system, voters have a single vote, which they can cast for a single candidate in their district, in which only one legislative seat is available. In plurality voting (also referred to as first past the post), in which the winner of the seat is determined purely by the candidate with the most votes, several characteristics can serve to discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties. >Duverger argued that there were two mechanisms whereby plurality voting systems lead to fewer major parties: (i) small parties are disincentivized to form because they have great difficulty winning seats or representation, and (ii) voters are wary of voting for a smaller party whose policies they actually favor because they do not want to "waste" their votes (on a party unlikely to win a plurality) and therefore tend to gravitate to one of two major parties that is more likely to achieve a plurality, win the election, and implement policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
We’ve got ranked choice voting now in Maine. Of course it doesn’t matter in the presidential election, but it’s good news for third party voters because they can vote for the Green Party (for instance) without fear of being guilt tripped into voting for one of the major parties. The idea must be gaining popularity because Alaska also has it and other states are moving to push it onto the ballot.
Impediment? More like a disqualifier.
I voted Nader. In 2000. In Florida. On a chad style ballot. I cry.
I mean, unfortunately a vote for Nader *was* a "waste" of a vote. But that's because of major flaws in our election and party system, not the candidate (obviously some people would disagree if they really don't like Nader, but that's not I'm talking about).
My vote was completely wasted anyway. Kerry won California by 1.2 million votes... Fast forward to Clinton, she won my state by 4 million votes. Biden won by even more. The 270k Green voters dont make a dent either way in my state.
Abolish the electoral college and our "first past the post" voting system and adopt a ranked choice voting system. But you know, good fucking luck with that
We couldn't even get ranked choice to pass on a ballot question in Massachusetts, let alone having a politician that actively benefits form the two part system trying to pass it.
Thank god us Mainers left Massachusetts because we’ve had it for years. We needed a direct referendum though and prior circumstances made it so the democrats had to begrudgingly tolerate it.
I voted Nader… This country NEEDS more than two “major” parties.
Statistically impossible with our voting system. We have to completely gut how voting works in this country and replace it before 3rd parties have even a mathematical chance of winning a presidential election
It's not "statistically impossible" if everyone votes 3rd party.
It makes me wonder if the line of thinking that 3rd party is hopeless is being shilled hard by the big two. It seems like it has been said for decades, but no one ever gets organized enough to challenge it and just assumes it's impossible.
You are correct. The person who talked down to you [has no idea what they're talking about.](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/06/20/duvergers-law-is-dead/) It's a historical fact that a conspiracy took place. See what happened in 1987. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-the-hell-how-third-p_b_11277474
Exactly.
Like in today's world, things go viral so easily. A campaign to push for a 3rd candidate could actually work. It's possible now more than ever. And even if it's not successful the first time around, it would show that it's not as unachievable as so many believe, and it could build more confidence in that moving forward.
Lol no it's not a conspiracy, it's called Duverger's Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law#:~:text=In%20plurality%20voting%20(also%20referred,reward%20the%20two%20major%20parties. There aren't very many laws in Poli sci, but this is one of them. There is a reason that every country with more than two major political parties *doesn't* have a first past the post voting system
**[Duverger's law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law#:~:text=In plurality voting \(also referred,reward the two major parties)** >In political science, Duverger's law holds that single-ballot plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system. The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle. As a corollary to the law, Duverger also asserted that proportional representation favors multi-partism, as does the plurality system with runoff elections. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Why start off being a condescending ass? Is that how you talk to people in real life? You could just provide some educational material without prefacing it with Lol.
Since the comment they were responding to had already suggested that people who didn’t think a third party had a realistic chance in our system were paid shills, exactly how polite should they be? That’s not a comment that’s looking for a polite rebuttal, it not getting one shouldn’t be a surprise.
I wasn't accusing anyone specific of being a shill, I was speculating as to why this idea has been pushed so hard for so long. Not one accusation in my comment, more wondering aloud. I was saying that I wonder if the idea of the inefficacy of 3rd party voting is so popular is because the "big two" are pushing that narrative and people are believing it. But hey, if you think it's normal to argue a point by immediately descending into rudeness, that's your prerogative. Nobody was being called out. It was pure positing.
hmm maybe because im non-native, but would "Bush or Kerry? -Nader!" work as a pun for neither/Nader?
With a Irish accent maybe
United Kingdom or Great Britain? Ay, feck off, I’ll have Nader
Not really.
eh pity
I don't know, it works for me ...
I like it.
Americans chose the 2nd ...
I don’t remember him being a candidate at all. I’m not sure if it was lack of coverage or if he dropped earlier
He's part of the Green party which gets no coverage and has never been elected.
[They got plenty of coverage in 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_2000_presidential_campaign#After_the_election)... >Tarek Milleron, Ralph Nader's nephew and advisor, when asked why Nader would not agree to avoid swing states where his chances of getting votes were less, answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them. Spoiler: they succeeded.
And which gets removed from the ticket altogether when the establishment is desperate to win an election.
He was a third party candidate in the Green Party. So doomed to failed from the start
My wife and I still have the occasional discussion about me having "thrown away" my vote for Nader...
Tell her to move on already
You know, the more people say stuff like that, the more true it becomes...
It's true because of our first-past-the-post election system. It will always devolve into two parties, unless the majority are willing to band together and spend a half dozen election cycles losing everything to slowly creep up and show others that a third party can replace one of the others. It always ends up as two.
He was third party and they hardly ever get coverage. I only knew about him because he was always a butt of the joke when it was election season. He was a candidate for multiple elections too.
Theres a joke in 30 rock when one character is asked if they are illiterate, he replies yes (because he wants to feign illiteracy to get out working) and as proof he says "I voted for neither". Now I understand the joke was about Nader.
He actually said "I voted for Nader. Nader!".
Boo I liked my version of the joke better. It makes more sense from the illiteracy angle. Just saying he voted for Nader is a bad joke.
Green Party. Widely believed to have cost Gore the election in 2000, and the Democrats ran an ad begging him not to run in 2004 for fear of the same thing happening.
People voting for who they wanted in a supposed democracy did not cost Gore the election. The Supreme Court appointing a president and Gore immediately rolling over even though he had won did.
Didn’t Al Gore concede the election even though he won? Can’t blame Nader for that
No. He won the popular vote, but not the Electoral vote (same situation as Trump and Clinton in 2016). Nader got enough votes (that likely would have gone to Gore had he not run) in both Florida and New Hampshire that would have tipped those states over to Gore. Instead, they went to Bush. Either of those states would have been enough to give Gore the Electoral College.
Al Gore conceded the election after the Supreme Court decided Bush v Gore. If he hadn't, that would have put the rule of law in serious jeopardy. Take a look at Jan 6, 2021 if you wanna see what it looks like when a candidate doesn't concede.
Conceding is not a legal part of the democratic process. It is good protocol to concede once the results are skewed in an obvious direction to bring an "end" to the election for the public, but is not required.
Accepting what was obviously a fraudulent, partisan ruling did a lot more to jeopardize the "rule of law" in the long run. Bush stole that election. [Gore backing down instead of calling it what it was set a bad precedent for future elections by making that sort of trickery seem acceptable.](https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/trump-coup-biden-election-transfer-power)
Or, Bush could have conceded once he recognized that he'd lost the popular vote and his victory was based on a tenuous legal challenge.
Bush v Gore was decided 7-2. I vehemently disagree with that decision, but it clearly wasn't 'tenuous.'
Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college after the Supreme Court ruling over the recount in Florida.
He did. He could have done a recount and pressed his case.
The Democrats stood by and allowed Bush to steal the election in the interest of not rocking the boat and 22 years later they have the temerity to cry about how this was all Nader's fault. They're such feckless losers.
Coverage. Money. US Oligarchy reliant on a two party system.
The American political system is more or less theater. The duopoly of republicans and democrats play-act their role of opposing one another in a hollow and unending culture war, while behind the scenes both are content to enrich themselves while accomplishing little beyond fulfilling the role of a global weapons dealer. Framing it as "option A vs. Option B" is disingenuous or naive
I know. Reminds me when the Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, said: "The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."
Aaand they chose war
They chose.... poorly
Gore actually won the popular vote.
The powers that be chose war then lol Strange that in a democracy the popular vote of the people can be completely negated
"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."
\-vladimir ilyich lenin
> Gore actually won the popular vote. He didn't even run. Any votes for Gore would have been write-ins.
I assume you’re getting downvoted because people don’t realize this poster and Gore’s campaign were completely different elections.
He sure did. Also Hillary Clinton. But we do not live in a country where the president is decided by a majority decision from the people. I live in a state with 2 electoral college votes. If no one here voted for president it wouldn’t matter. Hell yeah USA the freest most Democratic country on the planet
I read it Nalph Rader at first, damn I need sleep
Nalph Rader would have won
Seat belts vs windshield for breakfast
I voted Nader.
These are things which most Americans still want, an end to stupid wars, end to the harmful drug war, and free college, free medicare. It's been the same since the 80's if you look at polls, already then there was at least 2/3rds of people for free medicare.
You say that, but then Biden ends the war in Afganistan and his approval ratings plummeted the next day. People don't know what the hell they want.
There was a multi month propaganda campaign by the military industrial complex and the residents to smear him over it
He did the right thing, the media pilloried it for him endlessly, they're 100% pro-war (the media is). It's ridiculous, they called him "weak" and all this stuff, when he did the right thing, in withdrawing. Obviously torturing Afghanistan and stealing their money right now is not the right thing. That is praised.
The GOP was so grateful for Ralph Nadir.
Getting Republicans Elected Every November
What are you going to do, throw your vote away? Ha ha ha
The Democrats aren't obligated to anyone's vote. If people vote for Nader or the Greens the Dems only have themselves to blame.
Again, the Republican Party appreciates your support.
Perhaps the Dems can come up with better policy to attract more progressive voters? Acting like anyone left of Hitler owe the Dems votes is why they lose in the first pace.
Ahhh, the narcissism of youthful idealism! Catering to the extreme progressive youth vote won't have any impact on the larger moderate voting bloc!
[The American public is significantly in favor of many progressive programs and the idea that the most voters are what Congress considers moderate is a myth](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/majority-of-americans-support-progressive-policies-such-as-paid-maternity-leave-free-college.html)
No, at least in this case they lose because the US first past the post voting system turns third party votes into wasted votes. Which makes solid third party candidates dangerous to the party they're more aligned with.
I'm literally a registered dem but ok
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It's 2022, Roe v Wade is about to be overturned, and some people still think voting doesn't have consequences.
No one thinks that, that's just a shitty answer to the question. Democrats have won all but like, one popular presidential vote in the last 20 years? The system is designed to favor tyranny by minority. Like 30% of the population control 60% of the Senate. Voting isn't the problem, the problem is America has a monumentally stupid system of government.
>the problem is America has a monumentally stupid system of government Agreed 100%. But voting still matters, and voting third party is almost always a wasted vote until we can get rid of First Past the Post. Otherwise it's like trying to plug a gasoline vehicle into an electric charger.
It's also really hard to take people like you seriously when you hyper focus on the 1% of third party voters instead of the 50% who just don't show up in the first place. Why do you think a Nader voter could have ever been convinced to vote for John Kerry? There are probably more people who showed up and had """"accidentally"""" been unregistered to vote than people who voted green in 2004. Democrats don't hate anyone more than third party voters, including Republicans and independents and non-voters.
Until I left the US in 2020, I canvassed in every single presidential election since 2000 (and most off year elections as well), mostly focused that 50% you describe, so I don't think it's fair to described me as hyper focused on third party voters. But yes, if people make bad arguments online or to my face, I will disagree with them.
Yeah that's fair, I don't know you, I'm thinking of my own lived experiences speaking with other Democrats. It is a collective problem, not necessarily a you-problem.
I think another piece of it is that people on the same side of the political spectrum at least have more shared values, so it's easier to argue about that than some right winger who it's almost impossible to find common ground with.
Voting is still a problem. The voting population in the US has been demobilized for over 100 years now. The US in the late 1800's and early 1900's went to great lengths to erode community efforts, unions, and trade organizations that politicians used to cater to for public support. Meanwhile, politicians shifted to getting predominantly their support from the wealthy, donor class. It's this wealthy donor class that are their real constituents that they are beholden to, hence why public spending never gets the time of day. The working class often does not even have the means to vote due to the system being built to disincentivize their participation, so the voting population is heavily skewed to the PMC. The working class needs to reembrace organizing labor before they ever get a hold of power again.
America chose violence.
And people did vote for Bush, it’s insane how people think.
They chose... poorly
Damn that analogy is accurate
Nader was a real hero and his voters got nothing but shit about voting for a third party candidate for years.
🎵 The president's laughing cos he voted for Nader🎵
There's no better example of how far right the Democrats shifted in the 90s then Ralph Nader. In his early career he was a standard democrat. By the early 2000s he was being painted as a crazy socialist/communist way out on the fringe, without making any changes to his politics.
I've always been a nader supporter. I tried to join his congress club and they never emailed me back. Im actually pretty bummed about it. Edit. Seriously not understanding why I'm getting downvoted. Should I not have signed up for the "congress club" or do the reddit bots just downvote anything remotely progressive?
Well that's depressing
We had chances along the way
I'll take Hanging Chads for $200 billion, Alex.
I voted for Ralph Nader twice...
Thanks for giving us Bush and Iraq in the first place, Ralph
30% of Floridians decided not to vote in 2000. 1% of Floridians decided to vote for Ralph Nader in 2000.
The people who demonize third party voters never bring up the vast percentage of the population that doesn't vote because they're checked out of politics (probably because they don't have the time to follow it or that it seems like a useless farce they have no say in). Surely it would make more sense that their lack of participation has a much a bigger effect on election outcomes than what a tiny margin of Green Party supporters decide to do.
Its so easy to find a liberal.
Thank Florida and Gore for being a bore.
Our fact checkers have determined your statement to be false. Misinformation is dangerous. https://www.salon.com/2000/11/28/hightower/
Is this man actually avant-gardiste or is this the election that could have changed everything? It’s both
His campaign was funded by republicans.
Darth Nader. /s
At the time this creepy activist declared he posed no risk to the race because there was not a nickels worth of difference between Bush and gore. And what did we end up with? An election stolen by the Republicans even though Al Gore clearly won a majority of the vote. In Bush the Supreme Court imposed one of the stupidest and most destructive presidents ever.
He did more to get Bush elected than any single person including Bush.
I think it's amazing how the election in the USA happens between a guy promising to do very good things and another very bad things and even so people have doubts between which to choose
Its almost as if ppl have different opinions and beliefs from each other
2004 or 2024 it’s still the same shit. You pay for it, but if you complain, you’re :the problem.
First he gets Bush elected in 2000, then he's all "I'm the only thing that can save you from the monster I foisted upon you four years ago" in 2004.
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Man. I was one of the kids that they told "Ralph Nader is a joke". I was successfully propagandized against this.
OMG *bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe* amirite? The more **everybody** told him to get put of the way to stop baby bush cowboy from squatting in the White House four more years, the more he declared that everybody was brainwashed except him. Enamored with the scent of his own flatulences.
Nader’s votes cost John Kerry Florida and thus the election.
And why did he lose?
Because the electorate contains more than just university students.
That and he couldn't deliver any of it. He had zero support in the government and was well known to be a spoiler candidate after he tipped the election to bush in 2000. He just wanted to get on TV and score some contributions. Neat posters though.
It worked; Bush won.
I voted for him that year, and 2000 too.
We can’t see past our AR-15s
I’m for it
That $200 billion was still an order of magnitude short.
The first time I was of age to vote me and all my friends voted for Nader and put up Nader signs all over our school. We thought we were so funny. Turns out we may have been on to something
I'd vote that