Except voting for democrats is not acting when the end result is largely the same. There needs to be some way to send the message that we want better. The system is designed to bury that message except for rich donors.
The way to send the message is to vote third party. Every Republican I talk to tells me it’s a vote for the Democrats and every Democrat I talk to tells me it’s a vote for the Republicans. In reality it’s a message: We want something else. I really feel like Trump’s message in 2016 of draining the swamp had a lot of appeal to people. I live in super red territory and many of the hard core trumpers I have visited with have expressed that our current system is broken and corrupt - they felt like Trump was going to be at least something different. It’s a powerful message, unfortunately it’s Trump and therefore unconscionable to vote for him.
We need to legitimize and destigmatize multiple options beyond the two terrible parties.
Ross Perot got over 18% of the vote in 1992 which is way higher than any third party could ever hope for these days, but no message was received by the two dominating parties. The attitude is that a third party is a wasted vote and it’s reinforced whenever “the other guy” gets in. Democrats, in usual fashion blaming everyone but themselves, were screaming bloody murder at the green party getting like 2% of the vote in 2016, claiming that cost them the election. No changes were made.
Except voting for democrats is not acting when the end result is largely the same. There needs to be some way to send the message that we want better. The system is designed to bury that message except for rich donors.
The way to send the message is to vote third party. Every Republican I talk to tells me it’s a vote for the Democrats and every Democrat I talk to tells me it’s a vote for the Republicans. In reality it’s a message: We want something else. I really feel like Trump’s message in 2016 of draining the swamp had a lot of appeal to people. I live in super red territory and many of the hard core trumpers I have visited with have expressed that our current system is broken and corrupt - they felt like Trump was going to be at least something different. It’s a powerful message, unfortunately it’s Trump and therefore unconscionable to vote for him.
We need to legitimize and destigmatize multiple options beyond the two terrible parties.
Ross Perot got over 18% of the vote in 1992 which is way higher than any third party could ever hope for these days, but no message was received by the two dominating parties. The attitude is that a third party is a wasted vote and it’s reinforced whenever “the other guy” gets in. Democrats, in usual fashion blaming everyone but themselves, were screaming bloody murder at the green party getting like 2% of the vote in 2016, claiming that cost them the election. No changes were made.