U.S. News

2244 readers

27 users here now

News about and pertaining to the United States and its people.

Please read what's functionally the mission statement before posting for the first time. We have a narrower definition of news than you might be accustomed to.

Guidelines for submissions:

Post the original source of information as the link.
If there is a paywall, provide an archive link in the body.
Post using the original headline; edits for clarity (as in providing crucial info a clickbait hed omits) are fine.
Social media is not a news source.

For World News, see the News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

rs5th@beehaw.org

alyaza@beehaw.org

Powderhorn@beehaw.org

What will it take for staunch Democrats to vote third party? (x.com)

submitted 6 days ago by CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work to c/usnews@beehaw.org

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/151111

With the dust is settling from their defeat on Tuesday, it's becoming clearer that there was some incredible malpractice going on in the Democratic party. As shown in the tweet I linked, Biden delayed dropping out even though his team knew it was going to be a complete blowout for Trump. Then, we have Harris's campaign spending over a billion dollars and still losing all of the swing states she needed to win.

For all the Democrats who would never vote Republican and would have never voted third party, are you now considering voting third party in future elections? If not, what would it take?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 32 points 6 days ago (28 children)

If not, what would it take?

A viable third party candidate. Before anyone says it, Jill Stein is not it. Alternately, a voting method that allows voting third party without just enabling a GOP sweep (again).

It'd be great if this resulted in some major revision of the Democratic party from within, but I'm not holding my breath. I will, however, continue voting for the "less bad viable option" if the "more bad option" is on par with Trump.

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 5 points 6 days ago (27 children)

That's fair, but if the Democrats are also running candidates that aren't viable or not running viable campaigns, then you're just compromising your principles for nothing.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 22 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It's about who has a chance of winning. If you're trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you're kidding yourself.

I've said this before and I'll continue saying it: Trying to inject a 3rd party candidate into the presidential race is foolish. A much better tactic would be trying to push for 3rd party candidates in smaller races for local / state government, or congress. Doing that is a lot easier, and can make small incremental changes that add up over time. There simply isn't a realistic way for a third party candidate to compete in the presidential race until the voting system is changed.

[–] dontgooglefinderscult@lemmings.world 7 points 6 days ago

Sanders and Stein would have won.

Harris never had a chance of winning. Running a far right cop for the party that is opposed to far right cops is the dumbest possible fucking move.

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 5 points 6 days ago

If you’re trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you’re kidding yourself.

I'm not trying to argue that. I'm saying that it's becoming apparent that the Democratic party is in such bad shape that they had no chance to beat Trump either. If they fail to make significant changes, to their personnel and their platform, they are going to keep failing in subsequent elections. If they're going to lose anyway, then there's got to be a point where progressive Democrats start voting with some dignity for third party candidates.

load more comments (24 replies)