this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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I'm just sitting here thinking how everyone acknowledges the necessity of a third choice, and in their next breath decry anyone who even mentions they might not be willing to hold their noses this time and vote for the two establishment parties.
It's so obvious that articles like this want us to continue as we always have, never even mentioning that there is another way. One could surmise it's the media's own subconcious bias, but i think I'm more cases the media really prefers we think of elections this way. The past 20 years of massive media conglomeration allowed by both parties shows they stand to benefit regardless of who wins, as long as it's one of the two. So that's all they ever mention. I'm a time where it's never been more clear we needto move away from the two parties dragging us to the right.
I can hear the replies now, and sure; it's true that if you vote for a different party it won't win them the presidency. It's a pie in the sky ideal no one sane thinks could happen.
But how complicit is the media in this truth? How much of the supposedly free democracy is lost by the media's deliberate omission of other options? We know the power of media to elevate politicians up to public consciousness. We all watched media make Trump the nominee in 2016.
The establishment parties know the power of media and use it constantly to advertise. This article is no different. It is a farce. After keeping Trump in the public eye constantly, the media, crowning their own presidential candidate, then demands we not vote for him, but for their choice. All while keeping mum on the fact either choice won't hurt them much. All silent on the fact there are other candidates on the ballot. In a time of more core dissatisfaction than ever. Regardless of our politics, it's obvious what theirs are and they receive concrete benefits by artificially narrowing our free system down to two bad options for us, and only wins for them.
How many of us know by heart the old adage "voting third party is throwing your vote away"? Where did we learn this? How can we hold that true while also believing our democracy is free and true?
Ranked choice voting is the solution. So long as we use first past the post voting, voting for a third party candidate is a waste.
This can be changed by being active and supporting progressive candidates on the state and local levels.
This is the answer. Don't vote for third party candidates, by that point it's too late.
Vote for candidates in the primaries that are adamant about voting reform/ranked choice voting. Normalize it at state and local levels. Then, it will become a viable option at the national level.
This can happen quickly with the right advocacy and the right candidates, but good candidates are indeed hard to come by.
Ya, I sometimes encourage running for office along with my encouragement to vote. It seems mostly only shitty people run for office, this needs to change.
Kinda goes with being rich. Which is pretty much a requirement to run for small offices in most of the country (pay is shit) and definitely requires to run in major races (advertising and organizing is expensive). So only rich dudes run, and you generally have to be some type of agile to get rich in the first place (there are exceptions, but not many).
I think this is mostly true but not a fact. If you're running for senate in Kentucky then yes. But if you run for local or state lower office and do things a bit differently it's possible.
Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Jones_(Tennessee_politician)
I don't believe he was or is rich and is making a difference.
Also, the reason for running for office isn't necessarily to win. Look at RFK Jr. running for president, there is 0% chance of him winning, he has other goals. He's trying to take votes away from candidates to swing the election.
Another non-winning goal could be to move or expand the "Overton Window", i.e. the politically acceptable range of thought. You just need to come out swinging and spitting facts about some topic.
Speaking of state and local, that is where change is going to happen with ranked choice voting. State and local governments can move much faster than the federal government to institute ranked choice voting. Because states have a high degree of autonomy on holding their own elections, they can prove that ranked choice is a viable option for local, state, and maybe even federal offices.
I love ranked choice too! But that's going to be a long long fight. I'm just talking about the system we have now, and the media's obvious interests in keeping their party candidates foremost in voter's minds
No, ranked choice has serious issues and won't likely fix the issue. I'd prefer to avoid citing specific alternatives because they all come with their own biases and trade-offs. One example of surprising results is the Burlington, VT mayoral election, which is contentious because the winner was neither the plurality or majority winner.
That said, I think it's a case of "don't let perfect be the enemy of better." If RCV is on the ballot, I'll vote for it. But I'd very much prefer one of the other many alternatives because I think it doesn't resolve the spoiler effect satisfactorily and can have very surprising results.
I highly recommend looking into the various alternatives and reading up on condorcet winners before jumping on the RCV bandwagon.
Regardless I think an even better solution is to focus on fixing gerrymandering. I think we should consider proportional representation in the House, which should get more third parties elected and give us a real shot at breaking the two party system there. I think we'll always have one of the two major parties in the White House just based on voter demographics, but changing at least on house of Congress should force the President to actually work across party lines instead of waiting until their party gets a majority. Having Democrats and Republicans need to cater to the greens, libertarians, etc would be awesome.
multi-member districts would help a lot, too.
How would that work?
Imagine picking the top 3 candidates instead of only one.
Combine multiple districts into one, for example.
Immediately makes things more purple, and closer in proportion to the region
Wouldn't you just get more candidates from the same party? It might complicate gerrymandering, but I think it would still happen.
I'd much rather have proportional representation, so you'd vote in whatever primary you want to select candidates, then vote for your preferred party, and then seats are assigned based on percentage of votes won. That should work well for the House at least.
Which acceptable "progressive" candidates are actively advocating for your holy grail of ranked-choice voting, and are you sure that voting for them isn't "a waste?" that will make trump win?
I said it once say again IF WE ALL VOTED THRID PARTY THEN THEY WOULD WIN! Unfortunately we can't get all the poor and working class on the same page to accomplish that. So we need rank choice voting it's the only way. Also remove the electoral college while we are at it.
You could start with congress members. Or your city council. Prove a 3rd party can win small battles first.
Where we exactly we need to start and Bernie Sanders said that exact thing. If we want to fix society we must take it from the bottom up. Take over towns and cities until we are national.
It comes from an understanding of reality in a first past the post voting system. If you want a third option, focus on ranked choice voting and minimizing corporate control of media rather than promoting a losing strategy.
Through a basic understanding of the First Past the Post election mechanism. Voting third party does not help move the establishment parties left, it only hurts the left. The best thing for the left to do is turn up every single election (especially local elections) to vote D down the whole ticket en masse, until the Republican party is defunct. Additionally, voting for progressives in the primary.
The only way out of "voting third party is throwing your vote away" is to move away from FPTP. That means showing up and holding your nose until we elect enough candidates who support Ranked Choice.
This is truth. The old adage about throwing your vote away isn't exaggeration, or even opinion. In a First Past the Post election, is just math. And math doesn't care about anyone's sense of moral righteousness.
Everything is true except this. It's good to have at least two healthy parties competing for voters. So often, single party states allow the dominate party to get lazy because it no longer has to work hard to get votes.
At least ideally, the end result would be an electorate that is further to the left and Republican party that is not as crazy conservative. Overton window shifting and all that.
You misunderstand me. Once the Republican party is defunct, the Democratic party can fill in as the center-right neo-liberal party while a progressive party can emerge to the left. Two healthy parties.
I think your misreading the US electorate as being much further to the left than it actually is. What we have now is a fairly delicate dance between the two major parties, attempting to suck up various constituencies. It's resulted in an almost perfect equilibrium nationally. What you're suggesting leaves an enormous group of ex-Republican voters without a political home. In that scenario, the Democrats would move right to appeal to ex-Republicans for political advantage and the Progressive Party would move to the center to appeal to center-left voters. You would land more or less where we are now in the end.
Eh, the further left portion of the electorate has much lower turnout that the further right, largely due to apathy toward the centrism of Democrats. I think you're right that a Democrat/Progressive landscape would result in both moving right, but I think the Progressive would be firmly to the left of the modern Democrats, and the Democrat would be firmly to the left of the modern Republican.
Actually what we currently have is unbridled capitalism specifically the military industrial complex, with two vaguely different coats of paint. Culture warrior shit is just used as a rhetorical differentiator, "nothing fundamentally changes" under either party. I don't really want to ote for the party the has roe v wade abolished under it's watch, and then just uses it as a fund raising talking point.
If youre gonna start out with things like "basic understanding" you must understand that people aren't going to read the rest, right?
I'm challenging that notion, and putting forth the idea that notion itself fostered by the media, who benefit by limiting our free democracy as much as they can.
Capice? Let's talk without attitude, and with the understanding that neither of us knows more than the other.
What attitude? You asked where we learned the adage that "voting third party is throwing your vote away", I stated that it was evident in the basic math of the First Past the Post mechanism. It's not a notion to be challenged, it's a mathematical inevitability. The FPTP system is what obstructs free democracy. The futility of third parties is only a symptom of FPTP elections. Attacking the notion of third party futility is ignoring the symptom. The only cure is changing from FPTP to a different electoral model.
And you will change to this different model how? By voting?
Yes, that's how representative democracy works. Do you have an alternative method which yields better results?
So then there shouldn't be any issue with me voting for socialists, since they are who represent me and my views best. Sounds good.
I'm the primaries? Of course! In the general? Of course not, did you completely ignore everything that's been said? Splitting the vote on the left only hurts us. The only people who advocate leftists voting third party are people who don't understand FPTP, and people who want the left to lose.
My ballot must be different then yours, I don't see any leftist parties who represent "us" in the general election at the federal level.
I see two front-runners in the general election at the federal level. One is a centrist neoliberal party, the other is a fascist party. My interests lie with the fascist party losing. Since our system is FPTP, that goal is achieved by voting for the lesser evil. Voting third party increases the odds of the fascist party winning, so that is unaligned with my interests.
If you don't think answering "basic math" is rude then i guess we'll have to disagree.
That's a brash claim, not really supported by your video.
Actually nevermind that. It really doesn't matter, since fptp is what we're got, and ranked choice is not.
focusing on this bit is ignoring my basic premise, my assertion of the media's deliberate pushing of the two-party narrative. It's only a "mathematical inevitability" with a lot of help from those who own the media and directly benefit from omitting all but the two candidates they favor
If you think acknowledging basic math is offensive I don't know how to communicate the principle here. Your basic premise is either uninformed, or a deliberate bad faith attempt to divide the left.
Pretending that the principles of FPTP are different doesn't make them so. As I said before, the cure is ranked choice. The mechanism of getting there is consistent turnout in primaries and all elections, especially local. That's the only way to push the Democratic party toward ranked choice, which is the only reasonable way to achieve ranked choice, which is the only way to make third parties viable.
Voting third party in FPTP only splits the vote and hurts the left. Your point about he media narrative, while not false, is not particularly relevant. The main issue is FPTP.
Ok. Have a good one
Thank you, I will try my hardest.
Presently, the biggest obstacle to that goal is the combination of ignorance and propaganda affecting the upcoming election cycle, which has been empowering the right and fragmenting the left. The goodness of the one I am going to have is largely proportional to leftist turnout, and largely inversely proportional to the percentage of leftists confused by that ignorance and propaganda.
You nailed it. There are so many, leftists and otherwise. I don't blame those who are since we're drowning in a veritable flood of bad info by bad actors, but i hope and believe it can get better. but with all the fud out there it's not going to be easy.
I hope you get what you need from your efforts, same as i, and together we all come out of this garbage reality with our lives and loves intact.
But why would any current candidate that benefits from first past the post prefer ranked choice voting and why is it that magically a candidate that supports ranked choice voting will inevitably be preferred choice?
It really sounds like you are using RCV as a Shangri-La, but really just enforcing the status-quo.
This has happened already. Even though the landscape is dominated by the power hungry, there are in fact principled people who run to actually make a positive difference, from time to time. And yes, I would say that generally candidates who support ranked choice also agree with me on other issues.