• Mr Fish@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    13
    ·
    3 months ago

    There are four options for American voters: vote red, vote blue, vote third party, or don’t vote at all.

    Voting red is just bad. I highly doubt that the Gaza situation would get any better if Trump gets in, but I know for a fact that a lot of things will get much worse.

    Voting third party is a wasted effort. Sure, every sane person would prefer different people to run America, but the the shit fptp system means they’ll never get any traction. In another election voting third party could be worth it, since a third party might slowly get more support, but not this one.

    Not voting is just pointless. That’s just choosing to not impact anything.

    That only leaves voting blue. It’s not great, but it’s the only option left.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      13
      ·
      3 months ago

      It’s weird how we can try to explain this to people for months straight and they’re still posting stupid memes about it.

    • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      but the the shit fptp system means they’ll never get any traction

      When do we fix the electoral system?

      In another election voting third party could be worth it

      Which one? Every election since before my time has been the most important election ever…

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      3 months ago

      I highly doubt that the Gaza situation would get any better if Trump gets in, but I know for a fact that a lot of things will get much worse.

      What would Trump do that the Dems are not already doing? Trump would be a genocidal monster, yes, but we have DNC goers literally mocking Pro-Palestinian protestors and covering their ears:

      There are four options for American voters: vote red, vote blue, vote third party, or don’t vote at all.

      Nope, there are an infinite number of options. If a math question is “what number is greater than 10?” And the Dems said 4 and the Reps said 2, that doesn’t mean the Dems are correct. Voting will not save us, so we must move outside the realm of electoralism. Join an org, build up dual power, replace the DNC and GOP by force.

      • greyfox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        3 months ago

        But those aren’t mutually exclusive things. Voting for the Dems doesn’t prevent you from doing those other things in the meantime.

        If you only have two real choices that will affect the outcome and one of them is better than the other, voting for neither of them just makes things harder for those that would have made it slightly better. More compromises have to be made and that means the situation can’t improve.

        I see constant posts about how Trump splitting their base is going to mean the end of the Republican party but that seems very short sighted. It is a simple matter of natural selection, and in a two party system only two parties will ever exist. It also inherently gravitates to very close races between those parties. Any split of the Republican party might cause a term or two of chaos, but it is just a matter of time before something fills the vacuum and balance is restored.

        Each party would prefer to move further towards their end of the spectrum, but they are forced to move their values (or choose more centrist candidates) until they have enough of a majority to win.

        Gerrymandering, the electoral college, what’s left of the judicial branch, apathetic voters, parasitic third parties, and wedge issues have allowed the Republicans to shift further right while maintaining their power. The only possible response to that from the Dems is to also shift right as well. If they didn’t the Republicans would just end up with trifectas or super majorities.

        Trump was also able to shift racist/authoritarian/nationalist policies much further right by shifting his fiscal policies further left than what Republicans normally would do. His whole campaign was based on deficit spending (tax cuts without any real cost cutting, stimulus COVID spending, etc), public works (multi billion dollar worthless walls), and his focus on blue collar workers (not directly supporting unions but he pushed anti China + US manufacturing boosts).

        Every vote for a third party is one less vote that the Republicans need to gain, which is a little more right that they can slide and maintain power, and since natural selection links the two parties it is also a little further right that the Democrats have to slide to maintain their power as well.

        If you want to shift things left voting third-party won’t do it. Third parties have no power to make changes and never will in our current system.

        Voting for the only party that has a chance of winning and is willing to make voting reforms to improve that system is the only hope of shifting the parties to the left where the actual political center of the country lies.

        Voting for anyone else is illogical and won’t prevent this genocide. Protests, and organizations can maybe help in the short term to push the Democrats to change course but it also disenfranchises more voters to not show up, and pushes more to vote for third parties… And so the snowball tumbles down the hill to the right gaining momentum leaving us with frankly no good choice.