this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
706 points (99.0% liked)

politics

19098 readers
4879 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Ah, so just divide the Democrats up to destroy their power. Typical.

I know I'm not going to convince you, so this is for everyone else reading this thread. Because of our shitty electoral college and FPTP system, calls for third parties on the left translate into more political power for the right. Here's how it works...

Let's say you have two main political parties, the Snuggling Puppies party and the Kicking Puppies party. The Snugglers usually win, because the Kickers are violent weirdos.

Then the Kickers get the bright idea of helping out fringe parties that also love puppies, like one called the Worshipping Puppies party, which takes their love of puppies to the extreme. They secretly fund and promote these other parties, and it's very effective. In the next election, it's so effective that the Kickers win.

Wait, what? How? It's simple. With the people who love puppies dividing their votes between multiple candidates who love puppies, the Kickers get a plurality.

Let's keep it simple and say the Kickers clandestinely supported three parties that are ideologically opposed to them, meaning people who love puppies divided their votes up four ways. Each of the puppy-loving parties gets 19.5% of the vote, for a pro-puppy total of 78%! But the Kickers didn't divide up their vote, so with a 22% plurality, the winner is... The party that everyone else hates!

It's a classic divide and conquer strategy. It only works when astroturfers manage to convince ~~people on the left~~ puppy lovers to divide themselves up, rather than consolidate to fight back against ~~the right~~ people who hate puppies.