Alternative voting systems haven’t proven to be even the slightest obstacle to capitalist rule. Japan and Australia have alternative voting systems, and they’re still on the same far right path, still evict indigenous peoples, and still act as US military bases.
It’s not supposed to counter capitalism or any one political ideology. It’s supposed to create more proportional representation. If everyone in a city is a conservative, then ranked voting will still skew conservative.
While your proposition is still better than the neoliberal merry-go-round, unions can only serve as a base for vanguard worker’s party. Unions by themselves never once seized the means of production and ultimately most of them turned into tools of class collaboration.
Actually, it’s very possible. Capital, despite being a tool of oppression, is also a tool that pays for roads, schools, hospitals, and everything else that the government funds. Capitalism is definitely not the best system, but it’s the one that’s currently available, and despite the common narrative here on lemmy, there are people that work at the Federal level that aren’t being actively lobbied that do indeed pass good legislation. The way to improve the system is by implementing ranked voting, which increases the equity of representation in DC. Voters in Wyoming shouldn’t have the same say in politics as voters in New York or other more densely populated congressional districts.
Capitalism is not a tool that pays for social services. Its a system that allows private individuals to own the means of production (and along with those, the political systems, laws, and media of their domiciled countries) with the goal of extracting a profit from the sale of commodities produced by wage workers they employ.
Capitalists only apportion some of the surplus value stolen from workers to public services, when forced to by political agitation from below.
These proposals for ranked choice voting are a dead-end, because they already exist in many capitalist countries, and it doesn’t fix anything. They just stack any number of candidates they like, and have their media push the most friendly ones.
If you allow capitalists to own production, then the political system will always be subservient to them, and be nothing but puppets to serve their interests. Anyways here’s some more resources:
In Poland we currently have 17 political parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm. Yes, that’s potentially 59 different political stances… but every single one is still neoliberal.
Supposed to but doesn’t really. I’m Australian and our governments at both state and federal levels have been slowly eroding the ability for smaller parties and independents to even join the race by restricting funding and labelling it a win for electoral fairness.
The voting system doesn’t matter when fascists get control, they won’t let it go not matter what.
While yes, Australia’s voting system still is not great (single member electorates), and inequality is still bad, and we’re capitalist like the US, it’s sure as hell no where near as bad here, and I would argue, partially due to our better elections (it’s not even close).
We have pretty good worker protections, healthcare that’s not ridiculously expensive (though, we’re working on it…), and overall much better social programs.
I would be surprised if our voting system had nothing to do with that.
FPTP is trash, it’s basically only gets bette for any other system (hyperbole, but not by much).
The electoral college doesn’t need to exist period. It’s just bureaucratic nonsense. People vote, those votes are counted, then whomever got the most votes in that district is the winner. It doesn’t need to go to another un-elected party who doesn’t have to vote for the party of the person who actually won the district.
Can’t get ranked choice voting with either establishment party, and I don’t consider the only major leftist candidate to be a spoiler for 2 right parties.
Hilarious. Let me think about who I’d vote for if I was US-American. The Fascist or the at least slightly socially progressive neoliberals? It’s anyone’s guess really. NO. Of course the Dems, fucking obviously.
So if I was US-American and also hit in the head enough to consider voting for third party in a country with a first-past-the-post voting system, I’d not vote for the Dems as a result.
This is called the spoiler effect. This makes her a spoiler candidate, no matter her intention.
Voting for a third party is not “taking a vote away” from anyone.
You’re arguing with someone who would in all likelihood JUST NOT VOTE if not for an alternative option. If you want assurances that fascism doesn’t get voted in, how about you direct that passion towards getting people to vote for someone, anyone, instead of staying at home?
That is the only certain way of getting not-the-GOP-candidate elected time and time again. Republicans always come out to vote in about the same numbers every election. Just get more people voting, and not only do the Dem numbers go up, but the viability of a third party goes up astronomically as well.
You can hate it all you want. It isn’t rhetoric. It’s basically math. Every registered vote that votes 3rd party is a wasted vote. There isn’t enough support in the US for any 3rd party thanks to the First Past The Post electoral system.
You’re arguing with someone who would in all likelihood JUST NOT VOTE if not for an alternative option
Just because the big silly in this conversation is a big silly, doesn’t mean all the sillies are. There’s lots of sillies who are silly enough to vote third party but not silly enough to abstain.
The Fascist or the at least slightly socially progressive neoliberals
Neither are acceptable, both are genocidal regimes that are working towards WW3, Climate Collapse, and genocide. The only peaceful solution is voting third party, otherwise revolution is necessary. Taking the miniscule chance of a peaceful solution is morally correct, especially if we believe revolution to be necessary.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that the guy who destroyed women’s reproductive rights gets voted in again.
I say you should help punish the Republicans for MAGA and once they try a moderate candidate again you can vote third party. But don’t ignore the consequences of your actions.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that the guy who destroyed women’s reproductive rights gets voted in again.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that genocide continues, climate change continues to be ignored, and World War 3 kills us all.
I say you should help punish the Republicans for MAGA and once they try a moderate candidate again you can vote third party. But don’t ignore the consequences of your actions.
What do you think fascism is? Why do you think MAGA is just a random event and not a systemic problem? Fascism is Capitalism in decline, there will be no “moderate” candidates because Capitalism is still in decline. The conditions for fascism persist, so fascism persists, and the Dems get closer to fascism.
Why do you believe there will never be public support for a Socialist candidate in the US? Where do you believe people draw their ideas from? Is the US a static, unchanging system? We know this to be false, wealth disparity is rising, the climate is changing, it’s anything but static!
The mainstream parties will never risk losing power intentionally, ergo there will be no change to the voting system.
So I don’t have a hat in this race because I can not vote. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how a government is formed in the United States. The odds of stopping a Democrat or Republican from not winning the 2024 presidential election are futile. If I could vote, but I can’t, if I voted third party I would be putting my effort into what I know is a futile effort. That seems morally the same as ignoring it because I know the results would be identical. The only moral option I would then have is to choose the least bad option. The most moral option would be off the table for me.
Actually the president used to be less important than they seemed. The United States Supreme Court decision that president’s are practically kings changes a lot. The other side of this is that the president doesn’t really matter. The president really only executes the will of Congress. It seems to me that if you really wanted to do the moral thing, it would be changing the roots of the problem. Not a single branch. It’s the hearts and minds of grass roots organizationa you want to change long before anyone walks up to a polling booth.
First off, I understand how the electoral system works. The odds are incredibly slim that a third party will win. I disagree that a Democrat victory is acceptable, because the Democrats will only push for more genocide, failed climate action, and world war 3. It isn’t a matter of being “better or worse,” both result in the doom of humanity. Either we push to end that electorally, or via revolution.
Organizing is also good, Claudia De La Crúz represents PSL, a party that does that more than try to win the presidency. They serve to highlight the sham of the election and gain recognition.
I wish I could tell you more because my area did that, we’ve done what we both agree is what needs to happen. We elected a third party candidate as our representative. Not as our president, that’s insane lol. Also I don’t know how what we did would apply to the United States other than just saying grass roots organizing. Saying even that much reveals more about me than I’m comfortable with online.
Drag is happy that you get to feel like you’re being peaceful, but sad that you’ve convinced yourself the way to do so is through apathy and inaction. Drag wonders if you’d feel the same way if you understood that choosing not to do a good thing is still choosing to do a bad thing.
Drag should not assume I am saying electoralism is the end all, be all of political action. I am advocating for organizing outside the electoral system as the primary role of leftists, and refusing to give the electoral system legitimacy. Voting Dem is not a “good thing,” because the Dems are unacceptable and will lead to genocide, world war 3, and failed climate action.
If voting for Democrats is seen as activism, then activism is oriented around voting for Democrats. Voting third party signals disapproval for the system in general and tells the public what views those in disapproval have.
If Drag wants to do direct action, and believes it to be the path to systemic change, then voting for Democrats is counter-intuitive.
least slightly socially progressive neoliberals? It’s anyone’s guess really. NO. Of course the Dems, fucking obviously.
What are they actually socially progressive on though? They’re still supporting ICE and police state expansion, still doing tough on immigration bullshit, still presiding over migrant concentration camps, still funding and arming Israeli genocide, still rattling the saber at China, still blockading Cuba, not doing anything to protect trans people from genocide, doing exterminationist shit to homeless people in blue cities in blue states,
I could go on but you get the point.
Putting a HRC sticker on doesn’t mean you’re a little bit socially progressive, it means you have a PR team.
The fact that you are not american, and apparently do not understand our political system, means that you probably shouldn’t be talking about our elections. There’s only around 10 states at any given time that actually decide the outcome of a presidential election, by design, and the rest of the states are pretty well locked in, most especially the majority population centers like new york, california, texas, many southern states, cascadia. It’s only realistically medium density states, flooded with suburbs, that are really up for grabs in the EC, which doesn’t necessarily directly correlate with who becomes president. Every state, bubbling from local city districts, to state level districts, are also gerrymandered to shit, which further decreases the power of your vote directly.
So, if you live in one of those majority population cities or states, your vote basically might as well just be going straight into the paper shredder. You might as well vote for a third party, which, given 5% of the popular vote, could qualify them for federal funding, you might as well vote for a third party to signal to the big two parties in which direction they should lean, you might as well vote for a third party so said third party can understand what their actual activist base is.
Doubly so when we have further evidence that the marketing of either party doesn’t matter so much when they agree on every other issue regarding their actual political orientation. On economics, they’re both neoliberals. On immigration, they’re both hitting the same line because the only institutional response to the exploitation of latin america and the climate crisis has been to shore up the border militarily. On foreign policy, they are both completely aligned. On social issues, they might seem a little bit different, but I think you’ll find that nobody in the democratic party really takes what is mostly used as an aesthetic ideological divergence seriously, or else they would actually be pulling any number of the levers available to substantially change things. Gay marriage might be legal at the federal level, sure, but see what kamala’s record is as the DA of san francisco, and it’s pretty fucking horrifying, and is obviously something that we know impacts marginalized communities to a greater degree.
Also don’t hit me with the “oh she was secretly good as the DA”. She was incredibly mid as the DA compared to every other “progressive” DA that san francisco has had, which is an incredibly low bar to still somehow not clear. One side will hit you with “kamala had 2,000 people locked up for marijuana charges”, which is true because when you are arrested you go to jail for sometimes months or even years until trial, most especially when prisons are crowded with marijuana charges or graffiti charges, and then the opposition claps back with “well she only sent 45 people to state prison, which is less than the last guy for state prisons”, despite the fact we have no information for county jails because they refuse to give us those statistics. That’s on top of her deciding to prosecute parents for truancy, which I’m sure can be spun as actually being a good thing rather than a ghoulish curb-stomping of the working class which just needs to buck up and bootstrap themselves under the gentle threat of getting sent to jail, which I’m sure will help kids. I have a lot more then just that, too, and I can hit you with the citations if you actually want to read them. That’s just her, also, a lot of this shit will float around about basically every other “progressive” democratic politician except for maybe bernie, AOC and other members of the squad, and maybe some midwestern politicians that happen to get a simple democratic majority.
It’s a carrot that will never be implemented in any meaningful capacity, it’s kabuki theatre. Even if it got implemented nationally, the moment it risked changing the status quo it would either be defanged or gone entirely.
Leftists REALLY don’t want Democrats either. If you are in a room where the water is rising to 10 feet above you, and the Republicans build a 2 foot platform from the bottom and the Dems build a 3 foot platform, you still die either way.
You gotta love the old “why vote for better oppression” argument, used despite their admission that one is in fact, considerably better. In this instance, we can literally quantify it as being 33% better.
Bad faith framing of the issue. Donald Trump literally wants to turn America into Gilead and Harris wants to enrich herself while also marginally improving living conditions for working class Americans. If you want to have the revolution today, all the power to you, but until then, voting for the lesser of two evils is the only ethical choice.
It isn’t “bad-faith,” I am entirely serious when I say that the lesser evil is to delegitimize the electoral system and push for leftists to abandon the Democrats, who have proven their unshakeable interests. Revolution may be 99.9% more likely than reform, but that .1% chance is worth taking. Even if that .1% chance fails, it aids in deligitimizing the electoral system and prevents Democrats from being able to get away with literal genocide.
So, your plan for fixing everything is for the left to stop voting so that the right can win and make voting illegal.
No, my plan for fixing everything is to stop thinking voting fixes anything. Organize outside the electoral system and build dual power.
This election in particular has democracy itself on the ballot.
Ah, the endless lie. The US will always remain a bourgeois democracy, ie a democracy largely in name only.
It may be a flawed democracy, but the only other option is a fascist dictatorship.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, can’t get rid of fascism by voting it out. You will repeat this lie until the US pushes us into World War 3 or we die of Climate Change, unless Leftists succeed in saving the world.
There are no other options because of First Past the Post voting. Literally. The math does not lie.
Organize outside the system how? Armed resistance? Good luck with that. I for one, won’t visit your grave.
Trying to build a third party within the system? Fuck off back you your right-wing shithole. No one is going to fall for your also-ran spoiler candidate. Durverger’s Law and Arrow’s Theorem say that you cannot build a viable third party under First Past the Post voting. It’s literally impossible.
As to the “endless lie” You are willfully blind if you believe that this election year is anything like the years past. Trump and Vance are openly embracing fascism.
But hey, “Both sides” right? I mean, Biden has promised to fire most of the federal government to replace them with loyalists, and then use that federal government to attack anyone to the left of Nancy Pelosi, but no… that’s actually Trump again.
Trump, who is running for the first American dictatorship, and has promised to “fix” voting so you never have to do it again.
But go ahead and tell yourself that both sides are the same.
Organize outside the system how? Armed resistance? Good luck with that. I for one, won’t visit your grave.
Building up Dual Power for now. Armed resistance will be necessary, but likely not at a large scale.
Trying to build a third party within the system? Fuck off back you your right-wing shithole. No one is going to fall for your also-ran spoiler candidate. Durverger’s Law and Arrow’s Theorem say that you cannot build a viable third party under First Past the Post voting. It’s literally impossible.
What on Earth is this rant about? I’m right wing for not voting for a far-right Empire?
As to the “endless lie” You are willfully blind if you believe that this election year is anything like the years past. Trump and Vance are openly embracing fascism.
Fascism is Capitalism in decline. It’s not going away until Capitalism goes away, liberalism still leads to fascism.
But hey, “Both sides” right? I mean, Biden has promised to fire most of the federal government to replace them with loyalists, and then use that federal government to attack anyone to the left of Nancy Pelosi, but no… that’s actually Trump again.
And you’ll accept that and side with Trump against leftists, evidently.
Trump, who is running for the first American dictatorship, and has promised to “fix” voting so you never have to do it again.
And evidently you’ll let him.
But go ahead and tell yourself that both sides are the same.
They serve similar interests, we do not have a democracy.
Those aren’t equations. You have a very stupid argument. Math can’t tell you who you should vote for. That’s like saying math can tell me what I should have for breakfast or what my favorite color is.
How is she a spoiler? She’s the only major leftist candidate, who is she pulling from?
In America you either one of the 2 main or a spoiler. Y’all really need ranked voting.
Alternative voting systems haven’t proven to be even the slightest obstacle to capitalist rule. Japan and Australia have alternative voting systems, and they’re still on the same far right path, still evict indigenous peoples, and still act as US military bases.
It’s not supposed to counter capitalism or any one political ideology. It’s supposed to create more proportional representation. If everyone in a city is a conservative, then ranked voting will still skew conservative.
Its impossible to have a government that represents the people, if capital stands above the political system.
You fix that by seizing the means of production, generally with unions.
You protect union rights by both voting for candidates that will protect unions, and also fighting to unionize your own workplace.
While your proposition is still better than the neoliberal merry-go-round, unions can only serve as a base for vanguard worker’s party. Unions by themselves never once seized the means of production and ultimately most of them turned into tools of class collaboration.
Nah, fuck off with that ML bullshit.
What’s wrong with Marxism? Why do you advocate for Syndicalism, does it just sound good to you, or is there a materialist reason for it?
Actually, it’s very possible. Capital, despite being a tool of oppression, is also a tool that pays for roads, schools, hospitals, and everything else that the government funds. Capitalism is definitely not the best system, but it’s the one that’s currently available, and despite the common narrative here on lemmy, there are people that work at the Federal level that aren’t being actively lobbied that do indeed pass good legislation. The way to improve the system is by implementing ranked voting, which increases the equity of representation in DC. Voters in Wyoming shouldn’t have the same say in politics as voters in New York or other more densely populated congressional districts.
Then do it. Try to test your ideas against reality. You’ll find that RCV
Will only be allowed in small amounts as a show of feasibility, without affecting major change
Will be gutted if it ever does get implemented and stands chance of changing anything.
The path forward is revolution, not a giant prayer for RCV to be implemented magically.
Capitalism is not a tool that pays for social services. Its a system that allows private individuals to own the means of production (and along with those, the political systems, laws, and media of their domiciled countries) with the goal of extracting a profit from the sale of commodities produced by wage workers they employ.
Capitalists only apportion some of the surplus value stolen from workers to public services, when forced to by political agitation from below.
These proposals for ranked choice voting are a dead-end, because they already exist in many capitalist countries, and it doesn’t fix anything. They just stack any number of candidates they like, and have their media push the most friendly ones.
If you allow capitalists to own production, then the political system will always be subservient to them, and be nothing but puppets to serve their interests. Anyways here’s some more resources:
In Poland we currently have 17 political parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm. Yes, that’s potentially 59 different political stances… but every single one is still neoliberal.
Supposed to but doesn’t really. I’m Australian and our governments at both state and federal levels have been slowly eroding the ability for smaller parties and independents to even join the race by restricting funding and labelling it a win for electoral fairness.
The voting system doesn’t matter when fascists get control, they won’t let it go not matter what.
Why yes, let perfect be the enemy of good.
While yes, Australia’s voting system still is not great (single member electorates), and inequality is still bad, and we’re capitalist like the US, it’s sure as hell no where near as bad here, and I would argue, partially due to our better elections (it’s not even close).
We have pretty good worker protections, healthcare that’s not ridiculously expensive (though, we’re working on it…), and overall much better social programs.
I would be surprised if our voting system had nothing to do with that.
FPTP is trash, it’s basically only gets bette for any other system (hyperbole, but not by much).
That’s because Australia is using the seat system, which is like a supercharged electoral college. Australia needs proportional representation.
But then you would be more likely to have counties voting for other parties. The electoral college would actually make more sense with ranked voting.
The electoral college doesn’t need to exist period. It’s just bureaucratic nonsense. People vote, those votes are counted, then whomever got the most votes in that district is the winner. It doesn’t need to go to another un-elected party who doesn’t have to vote for the party of the person who actually won the district.
Can’t get ranked choice voting with either establishment party, and I don’t consider the only major leftist candidate to be a spoiler for 2 right parties.
Hilarious. Let me think about who I’d vote for if I was US-American. The Fascist or the at least slightly socially progressive neoliberals? It’s anyone’s guess really. NO. Of course the Dems, fucking obviously.
So if I was US-American and also hit in the head enough to consider voting for third party in a country with a first-past-the-post voting system, I’d not vote for the Dems as a result.
This is called the spoiler effect. This makes her a spoiler candidate, no matter her intention.
I fucking hate this rhetoric.
Voting for a third party is not “taking a vote away” from anyone.
You’re arguing with someone who would in all likelihood JUST NOT VOTE if not for an alternative option. If you want assurances that fascism doesn’t get voted in, how about you direct that passion towards getting people to vote for someone, anyone, instead of staying at home? That is the only certain way of getting not-the-GOP-candidate elected time and time again. Republicans always come out to vote in about the same numbers every election. Just get more people voting, and not only do the Dem numbers go up, but the viability of a third party goes up astronomically as well.
Just VOTE. For anyone!
Hate it all you want, it’s objective reality.
You can hate it all you want. It isn’t rhetoric. It’s basically math. Every registered vote that votes 3rd party is a wasted vote. There isn’t enough support in the US for any 3rd party thanks to the First Past The Post electoral system.
Since it’s so basic, then surely we can stop giving candidates the benefit of the doubt when they refuse to support its reform.
Just because the big silly in this conversation is a big silly, doesn’t mean all the sillies are. There’s lots of sillies who are silly enough to vote third party but not silly enough to abstain.
Neither are acceptable, both are genocidal regimes that are working towards WW3, Climate Collapse, and genocide. The only peaceful solution is voting third party, otherwise revolution is necessary. Taking the miniscule chance of a peaceful solution is morally correct, especially if we believe revolution to be necessary.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that the guy who destroyed women’s reproductive rights gets voted in again.
I say you should help punish the Republicans for MAGA and once they try a moderate candidate again you can vote third party. But don’t ignore the consequences of your actions.
Meanwhile you “peacefully” increase the probability that genocide continues, climate change continues to be ignored, and World War 3 kills us all.
What do you think fascism is? Why do you think MAGA is just a random event and not a systemic problem? Fascism is Capitalism in decline, there will be no “moderate” candidates because Capitalism is still in decline. The conditions for fascism persist, so fascism persists, and the Dems get closer to fascism.
I’m not doing anything like that, the will never be public support for a socialist candidate in the US without first changing the voting system.
I wish it wasn’t like that but I’m convinced it is.
Why do you believe there will never be public support for a Socialist candidate in the US? Where do you believe people draw their ideas from? Is the US a static, unchanging system? We know this to be false, wealth disparity is rising, the climate is changing, it’s anything but static!
The mainstream parties will never risk losing power intentionally, ergo there will be no change to the voting system.
So I don’t have a hat in this race because I can not vote. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how a government is formed in the United States. The odds of stopping a Democrat or Republican from not winning the 2024 presidential election are futile. If I could vote, but I can’t, if I voted third party I would be putting my effort into what I know is a futile effort. That seems morally the same as ignoring it because I know the results would be identical. The only moral option I would then have is to choose the least bad option. The most moral option would be off the table for me.
Actually the president used to be less important than they seemed. The United States Supreme Court decision that president’s are practically kings changes a lot.
The other side of this is that the president doesn’t really matter. The president really only executes the will of Congress.It seems to me that if you really wanted to do the moral thing, it would be changing the roots of the problem. Not a single branch. It’s the hearts and minds of grass roots organizationa you want to change long before anyone walks up to a polling booth.Just saying, as someone who can’t vote.
First off, I understand how the electoral system works. The odds are incredibly slim that a third party will win. I disagree that a Democrat victory is acceptable, because the Democrats will only push for more genocide, failed climate action, and world war 3. It isn’t a matter of being “better or worse,” both result in the doom of humanity. Either we push to end that electorally, or via revolution.
Organizing is also good, Claudia De La Crúz represents PSL, a party that does that more than try to win the presidency. They serve to highlight the sham of the election and gain recognition.
I wish I could tell you more because my area did that, we’ve done what we both agree is what needs to happen. We elected a third party candidate as our representative. Not as our president, that’s insane lol. Also I don’t know how what we did would apply to the United States other than just saying grass roots organizing. Saying even that much reveals more about me than I’m comfortable with online.
Drag is happy that you get to feel like you’re being peaceful, but sad that you’ve convinced yourself the way to do so is through apathy and inaction. Drag wonders if you’d feel the same way if you understood that choosing not to do a good thing is still choosing to do a bad thing.
Drag should not assume I am saying electoralism is the end all, be all of political action. I am advocating for organizing outside the electoral system as the primary role of leftists, and refusing to give the electoral system legitimacy. Voting Dem is not a “good thing,” because the Dems are unacceptable and will lead to genocide, world war 3, and failed climate action.
Drag is confused. How does voting legimitise the electoral system? Drag mostly does direct action, but drag also votes.
If voting for Democrats is seen as activism, then activism is oriented around voting for Democrats. Voting third party signals disapproval for the system in general and tells the public what views those in disapproval have.
If Drag wants to do direct action, and believes it to be the path to systemic change, then voting for Democrats is counter-intuitive.
Explodicle wonders if talking like this is going to catch on.
You’re not talking the same as drag. Drag is using drag’s first person pronoun, you’re just saying your name.
Is explo talking the same now?
What are they actually socially progressive on though? They’re still supporting ICE and police state expansion, still doing tough on immigration bullshit, still presiding over migrant concentration camps, still funding and arming Israeli genocide, still rattling the saber at China, still blockading Cuba, not doing anything to protect trans people from genocide, doing exterminationist shit to homeless people in blue cities in blue states,
I could go on but you get the point.
Putting a HRC sticker on doesn’t mean you’re a little bit socially progressive, it means you have a PR team.
The fact that you are not american, and apparently do not understand our political system, means that you probably shouldn’t be talking about our elections. There’s only around 10 states at any given time that actually decide the outcome of a presidential election, by design, and the rest of the states are pretty well locked in, most especially the majority population centers like new york, california, texas, many southern states, cascadia. It’s only realistically medium density states, flooded with suburbs, that are really up for grabs in the EC, which doesn’t necessarily directly correlate with who becomes president. Every state, bubbling from local city districts, to state level districts, are also gerrymandered to shit, which further decreases the power of your vote directly.
So, if you live in one of those majority population cities or states, your vote basically might as well just be going straight into the paper shredder. You might as well vote for a third party, which, given 5% of the popular vote, could qualify them for federal funding, you might as well vote for a third party to signal to the big two parties in which direction they should lean, you might as well vote for a third party so said third party can understand what their actual activist base is.
Doubly so when we have further evidence that the marketing of either party doesn’t matter so much when they agree on every other issue regarding their actual political orientation. On economics, they’re both neoliberals. On immigration, they’re both hitting the same line because the only institutional response to the exploitation of latin america and the climate crisis has been to shore up the border militarily. On foreign policy, they are both completely aligned. On social issues, they might seem a little bit different, but I think you’ll find that nobody in the democratic party really takes what is mostly used as an aesthetic ideological divergence seriously, or else they would actually be pulling any number of the levers available to substantially change things. Gay marriage might be legal at the federal level, sure, but see what kamala’s record is as the DA of san francisco, and it’s pretty fucking horrifying, and is obviously something that we know impacts marginalized communities to a greater degree.
Also don’t hit me with the “oh she was secretly good as the DA”. She was incredibly mid as the DA compared to every other “progressive” DA that san francisco has had, which is an incredibly low bar to still somehow not clear. One side will hit you with “kamala had 2,000 people locked up for marijuana charges”, which is true because when you are arrested you go to jail for sometimes months or even years until trial, most especially when prisons are crowded with marijuana charges or graffiti charges, and then the opposition claps back with “well she only sent 45 people to state prison, which is less than the last guy for state prisons”, despite the fact we have no information for county jails because they refuse to give us those statistics. That’s on top of her deciding to prosecute parents for truancy, which I’m sure can be spun as actually being a good thing rather than a ghoulish curb-stomping of the working class which just needs to buck up and bootstrap themselves under the gentle threat of getting sent to jail, which I’m sure will help kids. I have a lot more then just that, too, and I can hit you with the citations if you actually want to read them. That’s just her, also, a lot of this shit will float around about basically every other “progressive” democratic politician except for maybe bernie, AOC and other members of the squad, and maybe some midwestern politicians that happen to get a simple democratic majority.
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Democrats have instituted ranked choice voting in some states.
Republicans have also made moves on ranked choice voting. They banned it in Florida.
It’s a carrot that will never be implemented in any meaningful capacity, it’s kabuki theatre. Even if it got implemented nationally, the moment it risked changing the status quo it would either be defanged or gone entirely.
There is no implemented nationally. States run their own voting systems. You do this state by state or you don’t.
Exactly, hence why it doesn’t stand a chance of impacting anything.
Then there’s no point in voting for the Socialist party, either.
There is, though minor.
It delegitimizes the Electoral system.
It signals strength in Communist Parties, serving as an advertisement.
In the microscopic chance it succeeds, revolution may not be fully necessary.
You haven’t heard of Jill Stein?
Stein is more of a centrist, just anti-genocide.
The Democrats. In a 2 party system, voting for a 3rd party makes it more likely that the guy you REALLY don’t want to be elected, gets elected.
Leftists REALLY don’t want Democrats either. If you are in a room where the water is rising to 10 feet above you, and the Republicans build a 2 foot platform from the bottom and the Dems build a 3 foot platform, you still die either way.
You gotta love the old “why vote for better oppression” argument, used despite their admission that one is in fact, considerably better. In this instance, we can literally quantify it as being 33% better.
Bad faith framing of the issue. Donald Trump literally wants to turn America into Gilead and Harris wants to enrich herself while also marginally improving living conditions for working class Americans. If you want to have the revolution today, all the power to you, but until then, voting for the lesser of two evils is the only ethical choice.
It isn’t “bad-faith,” I am entirely serious when I say that the lesser evil is to delegitimize the electoral system and push for leftists to abandon the Democrats, who have proven their unshakeable interests. Revolution may be 99.9% more likely than reform, but that .1% chance is worth taking. Even if that .1% chance fails, it aids in deligitimizing the electoral system and prevents Democrats from being able to get away with literal genocide.
So, your plan for fixing everything is for the left to stop voting so that the right can win and make voting illegal.
Because that’s how it works.
This election in particular has democracy itself on the ballot.
It may be a flawed democracy, but the only other option is a fascist dictatorship.
There are no other options because of First Past the Post voting. Literally. The math does not lie.
If we just pay our taxes to King George he’ll eventually listen to us!
No, my plan for fixing everything is to stop thinking voting fixes anything. Organize outside the electoral system and build dual power.
Ah, the endless lie. The US will always remain a bourgeois democracy, ie a democracy largely in name only.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, can’t get rid of fascism by voting it out. You will repeat this lie until the US pushes us into World War 3 or we die of Climate Change, unless Leftists succeed in saving the world.
Math doesn’t lie, but you do.
Organize outside the system how? Armed resistance? Good luck with that. I for one, won’t visit your grave.
Trying to build a third party within the system? Fuck off back you your right-wing shithole. No one is going to fall for your also-ran spoiler candidate. Durverger’s Law and Arrow’s Theorem say that you cannot build a viable third party under First Past the Post voting. It’s literally impossible.
As to the “endless lie” You are willfully blind if you believe that this election year is anything like the years past. Trump and Vance are openly embracing fascism.
But hey, “Both sides” right? I mean, Biden has promised to fire most of the federal government to replace them with loyalists, and then use that federal government to attack anyone to the left of Nancy Pelosi, but no… that’s actually Trump again.
Trump, who is running for the first American dictatorship, and has promised to “fix” voting so you never have to do it again.
But go ahead and tell yourself that both sides are the same.
Building up Dual Power for now. Armed resistance will be necessary, but likely not at a large scale.
What on Earth is this rant about? I’m right wing for not voting for a far-right Empire?
Fascism is Capitalism in decline. It’s not going away until Capitalism goes away, liberalism still leads to fascism.
And you’ll accept that and side with Trump against leftists, evidently.
And evidently you’ll let him.
They serve similar interests, we do not have a democracy.
Show your work. Which equations prove this?
Arrow’s Theorem and Duverger’s Law.
Those aren’t equations. You have a very stupid argument. Math can’t tell you who you should vote for. That’s like saying math can tell me what I should have for breakfast or what my favorite color is.