this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Why indeed? The fact is that not enough people vote for third parties for it to matter by an order of magnitude.
Conservatives don't vote third party. When we do, we split our own vote in the face of a party that has their base on lock.
Because that logic is abundantly obvious, people don't vote third party enough to make a difference. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. And it's so effective at actually splitting the vote that both parties have attempted running spoiler candidates in the past to do just that.
Why doesnt everyone just vote third party? Because enough people who could are afraid that it will mean degrading democracy by handing over the reigns if it doesn't work, thereby creating the very problem that they are afraid of.
One day y'all will get the point that this entire ideology is in and of itself fascist.
"We aren't fascist we just stripped you of all other choices and move the goalposts anytime someone gets close to inclusion then blame you for wanting another option while shrieking that only WE can save the country but also we won't save it either cause we haven't had a platform other than 'slightly less right' for over a decade or two now."
One day you will get the point that the reality is that we as voters don't make the rules.
Yeah, you're right. We're boxed into this shitty ass system. Grandstanding about how shitty it is doesn't magically create a solution.
We vote for the least worst option and try to make progress towards a better situation in the future. It's either that or we fall to actual fascists who would rather take the vote away.
"Actual fascists"
We already have "actual fascists." Reread your comment, even by YALLS OWN EXPLANATION, our vote was taken away long before we were born. Nothing but performative bullshit so you can claim to be the "good guy" as we're further and further clamped down on.
What you actually mean by "take the vote away" is "take your status quo" away. Biden and dems have been pushing legislation to take away all the hassle of nuking leftist organizations and to make ANY criticism of Israel something that let's them strip a school of funding and accreditation if they allow it - but y'all don't mind any of that "actual fascism" because it doesn't affect your personal day to day life.
You can fly your pride flags all you want but you're throwing Palestinians under the bus to protect your warmongering corporatist status quo, y'all are starting to throw trans people under the bus to protect it, and when the time comes you'll do the same to gays and POC all while screaming about the "lesser of two evils."
^ Someone who sees the problem and offers no solution, just like everyone else with their position
There are no good guys. Only bad guys and much worse guys. Guess you want to virtue signal your way into the much worse guy so you can feel better? That's great, but maybe when we're lynching lgbtq folk as well as Palestinians you might consider looking in a mirror and wondering if your inaction made things worse.
Or, more likely, you'll complain about how doing something doesn't matter while the actual fascists you can't tell the difference between set their sights on another marginalized group.
Do something or join the people who are.
There are solutions, you just don't like them and in proper faschie fashion you ignore them and claim that anyone left of biden is advocating for not voting (as you're doing RIGHT NOW. "Wondering if your inaction makes things worse." "You'll complain about how doing something doesn't matter")
That's literally fascist tactics but you also love the other fascist tactic of asserting that ONLY YOU can save the country so you have no choice but to spread disinformation swearing up and down that leftists do nothing but tell people not to vote (which I've literally NEVER seen, by the way, not that fascists care about reality.)
My food is done so I'm blocking you now. I don't owe my time to fascists or people who argue in bad faith, and your both (of course, they go hand in hand)
Ah yes, the old "my solutions are the only ones that work" Good luck with that.
By the way, deciding that everyone but you is a fascist is a great way to not have allies.
Bro. Look around. There are people saying they won't vote democrat here in this comment section, much less the whole of leftist lemmy.
Block me, I don't care. There's no point in arguing with someone virtue signaling as hard as you are anyway.
Hope you don't mind being blocked back. I don't have time to argue with an idealist basement dweller about some imaginary solutions that make him feel better
Then how the hell did Trump win in 2016 and nearly win in 2020? He is literally antithetical to everything conservatives say they are, yet they still fucking turned out and voted for him instead of someone else.
Only one explicitly right wing 3rd party was even an option in 2020, and Jorgensen ran libertarian, which is an ideology conservatives as a whole tend to reject. As evidenced by the ~1% of the vote she got.
Are you sure about that?
Yeah, about 1% of the voting body. The point that conservatives don't vote for a third party stands with a margin of error within 1%.
Contrast that to the 8 other independent or left leaning third parties on the ballot in 2020.
You're trying to shut down my original point with a counter point that is both moot and also trying really hard to be made on a technicality.
What you said is technically correct, while ignoring the context.
Being technically correct about something that doesn't change the overall picture and hailing it as the end of an argument is petty and dishonest.
Congratulations. You've proven me wrong that an inconsequential, literally marginal number of conservatives vote 3rd party.
That in itself doesn't change my original point.
Here's your award for being technically correct 🎖️
Gee thanks officer. I stated something that was correct to within 99% of my claim and cited a source. Good thing you were there to correct the remaining 1% for the poor readers out there who might have mistaken that error as significant
My advice is to leave the crazy person alone.
Yeah, I should have let it go about 3 comments back. I guess there's no better time than the present
This is the stupidest thing I've read today.
They're almost certainly a bot. Report them.
How do you explain the historical examples of it happening then? Example: Roosevelt and Hoover
Vote splitting is not a myth. It's just math. Let me explain with an example:
1000 people at a conference are deciding where to order catering and hold a vote:
The restaurants on the ballot are:
If the people who want Asian recognize the strength of their combined numbers, then they can tip the scales by all voting for the favorite between Vietnamese and Thai. In this situation, we get 490 votes Mexican, 510 votes Vietnamese, and 0 votes Thai. This time Vietnamese wins and the majority of people, the 510 who prefer Asian, are either happy or satisfied with the result while only 490 are disappointed.
If everyone votes for their favorite, then we get 490 votes Mexican, 480 votes Vietnamese, and 30 votes Thai. In this case, Mexican wins and the majority of people, the 510 who prefer Asian, are left disappointed while only 490 people are happy with the result. The vote has been split and the result is that the entire conference is worse off for it.
By the way, the ratio of 480 Vietnamese to 30 Thai is irrelevant as long as neither value is 0. That ratio can be fixed to any positive value and a situation can be described in which vote splitting occurs with that specific ratio of Vietnamese supporters to Thai supporters. That's why vote splitting isn't too uncommon - any number of people voting Thai has the potential to split the vote. The one caveat is if literally every Vietnamese supporter decides to vote Thai as well; in that scenario, no vote splitting can occur. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in practice because it's easier to convert the Thai supporters who are smaller in number than it is to convert the Vietnamese supporters who have greater numbers.
If you want examples from history, there are plenty. Our electoral college amplifies the effect since it breaks one federal election down into a large number of state elections, any of which can exhibit vote splitting. Other people have linked to them in this discussion and you can find more elsewhere online.