Moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with leftists and progressives.

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
    24·
    9 months ago

    In the USA, voting Third Party is just helping Republicans, aka. the Fascists.

    If you want to change something, organise and unionise.

    But dont throw away Democracy, just to be the smuggest guy in the concentraition-camp in the end…

        • Jentu
          3·
          9 months ago

          Abe Lincoln could be argued as a 3rd party candidate who won since prior to him it was mainly the whigs and democrats as the two main parties.

          Now if you asked what grassroots-led 3rd party candidate overwhelmed the two major parties in a shocker of an election, that obviously never happened.

          The last Whig president*, Zachary Taylor, was a political outsider that beat out an experienced politician (familiar?). He was running under the Whig banner because the whigs didn’t have a solution for the issue of slavery- Zachary Taylor was a crude extremely rich celebrity soldier and slave owner who never voted. He was ambiguous on his stance on the future of slavery in America. But the anti slavery wing of the whigs hated this. Taylor ruined the Whig party and it never recovered. Lincoln picked up the anti-slavery whig voters, creating the Republican Party.

          The modern day Republicans are only held together with trump and I’m not sure what will happen to their party afterwards. Maybe there’ll be another party “flip” when the Republican Party crumbles, a new more left wing party will rise up as the democrats absorb the former Republican voters, causing the progressive democrats to flee the party. This would be the next success of a “3rd party” candidate. But this won’t happen as long as trump continues to be on the ballot.

          *there was Millard Fillmore as the 13th, but this was because Taylor died in office and Fillmore succeeded him as president.

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.worldOP
          3·
          9 months ago

          You just sailed over the point where moderates fight us and it’s considered fair game. We fight moderates and they have a meltdown. Moderates are relying on leftist and progressives to win general elections while fucking them over at every opportunity.

          Surely you can see the foolishness of that strategy yes?

          • RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works
            4·
            9 months ago

            And yet it’s irrelevant. I have no reason to engage that point, because people immediately being horribly hurt by looming electoral consequences supersedes the importance of long-term systemic change.

            Nobody disagrees that systemic change is needed, but it is not the most important or immediate problem.

    • Clubbing4198@lemmy.world
      4·
      9 months ago

      Voting for someone that does not represent you because you are more scared of the other guy is indistinguishable, as a signal, from someone that fully supports them. By voting against your own interests you are actively undermining the democratic process.

      Democracy has forever been synonymous with class based societies. It has split entire countries into two barely-distinctive political parties (conservative and “progressive”) that are nevertheless permanently at each other’s throats. Even in its most libertarian-friendly forms, it has constantly failed to avert hierarchy, coercion and the authoritarian machinations of majority-groups.

  • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
    19·
    9 months ago

    Unfortunately, many countries have First-Past-The-Post voting systems, so voting for a third party is often, mathematically, basically the same as voting for the competition.

    It’s called “The Spoiler Effect”, if you want to look it up, and it’s why we have many of the two party problems we have today in modern democracy. Ranked Choice/Single Transferrable Vote are much better systems.

      • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        Yeah but FPTP is used for parliament in those countries, which means the party that chooses the president is elected via it.

        Ranked Choice, STV, or Mixed Member Proportional Ranking are much better systems. I wish more countries used it.

        • 𝔄 𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔭𝔦𝔢𝔠𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔢𝔰𝔢@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          FPTP is used for parliament in those countries

          No, it isn’t always. In Germany for example, you have two votes per state and federal election. One vote goes to a candidate in your district (fptp, yes) but the other vote is just for a party. The parties put up lists of candidates and parliament gets filled proportionally to the votes they got nationally or statewide.

          Now all these smaller parties could form a coalition to get the majority or just use their extensive array of minority opposition powers that the law grants them.

      • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
        7·
        9 months ago

        I don’t think it’s a moderate, left, or right problem. More a “the current power structure will never support it” because it works for those in power now to their advantage.

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.worldOP
          2·
          9 months ago

          That just sounds like an attempt to deflect blame away from moderate voters. They undermine, sabotage and attack every effort by progressives and leftists. Then they turn around and expect us to show up in the general election after fucking us over for four years.

          • Uvine_Umbra@discuss.tchncs.de
            3·
            9 months ago

            Do you prefer Trump?

            “That’s not the point!!! The mode-”

            So you’d prefer Trump.

            “Listen, Joe is commiting geno-”

            Trump literally bankrolled anything Netanyahu wanted while in power. Remember the map they made together for a free Palestine in 2016? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan

            “Well he-” so would anything of your progressive agenda do better under Trump?

            “We need a revolu-” yeah, it’s happening. The USA is slowly becoming an xenophobic anarcho-capitalist religious theocracy for the old & rich. Accelerates greatly when Trump holds power.

            “I just won’t vote either!!!”

            Ok. Go ahead. Just don’t complain later when Israel has a $150 billion dollar defense bill coming its way versus 15 billion. You likely will regardless though.

            Also unions are being nailed to the cross for all to see 🤷🏿‍♂️. They are trialing it in Florida rn, his role model state. https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2023-06-30/floridas-new-union-law-sb-256

            Cant wait to see this as Federal policy right? They’ll try.

            Your call though. Im saving up all I can so my friends & I can be safe when shit falls off the cliff.

            “You literally didn’t respond to a single point I made!!!”

            Keep crying troll.

  • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
    11·
    9 months ago

    4th panel is what you’re going to get when a republican wins the white house because “leftists” voted for a spoiler candidate.

    • xor@infosec.pub
      8·
      9 months ago

      this is literally, 100% right wing propaganda

      “vote for the lesser evil” has always sucked… but there’s a pretty big difference between neoliberal and guy who directly says he wants to be dictator, already tried to overthrow the government once, and is promising mass deportation (on a genocidal level) and theocracy

      if he wins, it’s the end of the ability to vote third party…

  • dragonist@kbin.social
    10·
    9 months ago

    “I’m going to vote against the dude that is giving weapons to Israel, who gives weak-effort strongly worded letters to try to stop being assholes in the butchering of Gaza. Nevermind that in doing so it ensures the win of the fascist megalomaniac who will shove weapons faster, and has given full throated support to Israel, along with the party that says that everyone in Gaza should die. That’ll teach them. Fuckin moderates, compromise with me or I’ll help Gaza burn faster.”

    • Jentu
      6·
      9 months ago

      “I’m going to vote for a dude that will ensure the comfort of westerners at the cost of black and brown lives around the world and I feel good about this because the alternative is worse. Of course my life is more important than someone in Gaza! The status quo of this system isn’t stomping on me as much as it can and I’d like to keep it that way as long as I can. Yes, please focus your stomping boot somewhere else and I’ll continue to vote for that boot. There’s no ethical line I won’t cross to save myself from oppression because I’m a coward who refuses to listen to the oppressed”

      Democracy is already dead if we are forced to vote for genocide. It might just take those comfortable with the status quo longer to figure that out.

      • dragonist@kbin.social
        5·
        9 months ago

        Easy.

        “We like how things are and while we like some of what you offer and suggest you want it all or nothing which is too much of a shock so we’ll stick with what we know. But right now we’re literally trying to fight off a fascist Hitler wanna-be, how about we fucking discus this later?”

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.worldOP
          3·
          9 months ago

          suggest you want it all or nothing

          “Don’t block strikes and don’t support genocide.” is “all or nothing”?

          But right now we’re literally trying to fight off a fascist Hitler wanna-be, how about we fucking discus this later?”

          When? You didn’t want to discuss it at any point in the last four years.

          • dragonist@kbin.social
            3·
            9 months ago

            But right now we’re literally trying to fight off a fascist Hitler wanna-be, how about we fucking discus this later?

              • dragonist@kbin.social
                4·
                9 months ago

                Considering Biden was on the picket line with the auto strikers, I disagree. Considering Biden is trying to shovel weapons to a Taiwan and to Ukraine, and yes unfortunately to Israel as well, he at least has criticized and made requests for ceasefires and hostage exchanges.

                Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is there more they could do? 100% yes. Is it better than it was 4 years ago with what Orange? Hands down.

                Republicans would be 1000000x worse. And clearly you want that, over what the other side has done. Be honest with yourself and stop wasting our time.

                • go_go_gadget@lemmy.worldOP
                  4·
                  9 months ago

                  Considering Biden was on the picket line with the auto strikers, I disagree. Considering Biden is trying to shovel weapons to a Taiwan and to Ukraine, and yes unfortunately to Israel as well, he at least has criticized and made requests for ceasefires and hostage exchanges.

                  Oh by “discussion” you thought I meant you say what you think, get your way and the rest of us just shut up and deal with it? That isn’t what I meant. I hope I’ve clarified that for you. This right here is a discussion and it’s only happening because you need something from me. The moment you don’t need my vote you’ll go right back to the kinds of “discussions” you’re talking about.

      • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
        4·
        9 months ago

        The GOP is running out of cash saving the orange fascist from the results of his own actions. They’ll go bankrupt and then we’ll have a one party system where everyone will have to vote for whatever our party brass puts on the ballot for us.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    8·
    9 months ago

    3rd party candidates will never win. Ross Perot did the best in 92 and did not capture a single state.

    There is no 3rd party candidate currently doing as well as Perot was doing in 96 - when he dropped out of the race - much less as well as he did in 92.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election

    Heck, there isn’t one doing as well as Anderson did in 1980:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_presidential_election

    All a progressive 3rd party candidate can accomplish is a Biden loss.

    If you want 4 more years of Trump, vote 3rd party.

  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
    3·
    9 months ago

    I just realized America’s entire history has been right wing propaganda.

    There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even tacitly take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all

    -Mario Savio