10mo ago

I am sick of old men.

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I never claimed there was a third party president and I already proved your claims wrong in my last post.
But if you want a third party president, look into Lincoln’s second term running as the Union party candidate, a coalition formation that came from triangulating around a bunch of smaller third parties.
If the democrats are afraid of a split they can change their platform to get more votes.
- Yes, there has never been a 3rd party president and their won't be for a long time.
  But ya, let's teach the Dems a lesson by handing over the country to the radical right, boy that'll show em. How purposefully self destructive. You're so idealistic that your not playing out the reality of how that will go.
  
  Lincoln literally ran for his second term under a third party, the Union party, which was a coalition formed of his own republicans and others like the nativists.
  I’ve tried really hard to not be idealistic and only talk in material terms about the way things are.
  The only thing I’d like to show the democrats is what they need to do to get my vote. I plan on doing that by voting third party. My vote will also support in a measurable, material, real way a party and candidate that has nearly the same politics as I do. I’m not petulant or using my vote to express anger at the democrats.
  How will it go when the democrats lose?
  
  Ok, let's talk material. Do you honestly think a 3rd party candidate can win this presidency?
  If the Democrats lose look at project 2025 for you answers. They have already enforced book bans and repealed many rights. The plan to continue to do that. And not voting for the best chance to stop that is a vote for it.
  
  Exit polling from 92 showed that if everyone who wanted to vote for Perot but didn’t had actually voted for Perot he would have won both the electoral college and the popular vote.
  I do think a third party can win this election for president.
  But why not assume I said that I don’t think a third party can win and respond to that? It would probably be more interesting for both of us.
  So leaving aside your war on terror ass parting shot there at the end, if the democrats are really worried about project 2025 and they know that the last time trump was declared the loser there were people ready to do January 6, why do you think pushing people to vote against it this time is the best response?
  Why, if it is how you just said it is, would the democrats not be training, organizing and arming a group to actually oppose it?
  It’s like if the American idol call in vote was to keep a puppy from getting smashed on live tv by a slowly advancing steamroller. The democrats are in power. There was just a Supreme Court ruling codifying the powers of the executive, who is a democrat. The democrats don’t need our vote to stop project 2025, they’re in the studio watching the steamroller advance on the puppy!
  They can literally actually do something about it!
  
  Ok, your evidence is a speculative vote that hinges on getting everyone to buy into that idea at once. It's not going to happen, without ranked choice voting a 3rd party president will never be.
  Your whole stance is Dems are bad, 3rd party is better. But you live in a fantasy world where you're throwing your vote away to prove a point rather than actually have an impact on the outcome. Vote dem, then get ranked choice voting, then 3rd party has a chance. With Republicans you won't even keep mail in voting let alone expand it.
  Even if you consider them both bad, you have the choice to choose the least bad guy to avoid losing more voter rights. Instead you're taking your view and using it to push an agenda that Republicans won't care about if they're in power. And by you not voting for the best chance to stop them you're giving them a better shot at it.
  
  First things first: a third party vote isn’t throwing your vote away. Third party votes get tallied just like votes for republicans and democrats and even if the parties and candidates those votes are cast for don’t win, they confer real material gains like ballot presence, mandatory funding, event presence, media coverage and public awareness, like I said.
  Second, I am not voting to prove a point. I am voting to make my voice heard. If one of the two major parties hears my voice and decides to adopt some of the positions of a party that I voted for then that’s great, maybe I’ll give them a chance next time.
  It is not possible to vote against a candidate. You can only vote for a candidate. There is no second, different colored pen they hand you to fill in the bubble next to the candidate you don’t want to win.
  I cant vote against trump, I can only vote for some candidate. My vote will never be interpreted as a vote against trump, it will only ever be interpreted as a vote in support of the candidate I cast it for.
  If my vote doesn’t have an impact on the outcome then how can it help or harm either major party?
  
  Your last line perfectly encapsulates your misunderstanding of the situation. You're an idealist, I get it. But even you have to accept the reality that this year either Biden or Trump will win. That'd the cold hard truth. You can toss your vote in a third pile but it will do nothing to impact the outcome.
  If you truly think Trump or Biden are a choice bad, then the only way you can have the most, really any impact, is by choosing between them. The problem is Trump voters do not think about the 3rd party, only Democrats do. So what is happening is the Biden pile and Trump pile may be the same size, but everyone who takes their vote and decides to go 3rd party instead of dem makes Bidens pile smaller. This means every dem vote not for Biden is, in a very real way, helping Trump win.
  You can say 3rd party has a chance or your voting for what you believe and that's it. That's fine. But realize that you have a chance to impact the election and by voting 3rd party without ranked choice voting you are removing any impact you may have. This could mean letting someone who doesn't respect democracy into office, and the possibility that you may not get another chance to vote.
  
  It sounds like third party voters such as myself are incredibly powerful, able to change the outcome of elections by multiplying the power their ballots have.
  If super powered mega voters like me are so impactful like you say, shouldn’t trump or Biden adopt policy positions that we want so they can get our ssj ballots?
  
  Yes, you are powerful enough to influence the election in the same way Republicans are. Both favor a Republican outcome.
  Yes, Trump n Co should adopt those policies but they won't. They know that what they get from lobbiests and Republicans are more than enough to win. Giving way to policies you want would put their wallet at risk and work against big companies.
  As for Democrats they certainly should, but at this point you're going to what? Show them what you want by voting third party when democracy itself is on the line. Seems like a poor time to cast symbolic votes. At least with Biden you know you'll be able to vote again. They are also the party that is much more in favor of rank choice voting, a process that would actually enable a 3rd party candidate to win.
  
  If democracy itself is on the line (and worth defending) then why are you trying to get people to vote about it as opposed to do political violence about it?
  If democracy is on the line then why is the entire democrat party saying “no no no, it’s bad to try to harm your opponents!”?
  If you realized the democrats couldn’t win, would you vote third party, assuming there was one that aligned more with your own politics?
  As I said before, my vote isn’t symbolic, it’s an immutable record of what platform a party needs to get my support. I’m not voting as a symbol or to send a message but to record my politics and to get my choice of party the material institutional support that comes with more votes.

217 comments