Letters to the Editor: Your 'protest vote' for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
Letters to the Editor: Your 'protest vote' for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
Don't like Kamala Harris' recent comment on guns? The solution is to support gun control, not vote for a Trump-enabling third-party spoiler.
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Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party: 80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
Those down ballot victories wont mean much in an environment where we have carved out the heart of our democracy and replaced it with dictatorship. Also the problem with the policy positions that would allow Democrats to win n green voters are also such that adopting them would cost >n moderates which is why people haven't adopted those positions mercenary though they are.
The green voters should adopt a pragmatic strategy whilst pushing for stuff like ranked choice voting or some such at the state level which would allow them to actually win federal office something they haven't done in 40 years!
I don't really see the appeal of Jill Stein but going after the few thousand people voting her is a ridiculous plan. It's not like they are going to vote for third party or Republican senators. If they are going to vote third party, they are doing it for key issues; no point in shooting yourself in the foot so that they become nonvoters and you Congress seats.
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
That's not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
Again, 4x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left. If it was they would’ve actively tried and court progressives past Obama. The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised. It’s pretty obvious why many refuse to vote for a woman who used DNC funds to fight against the progressive candidate in primaries, or an old man who helped write one of the biggest anti-crime bills (which ends up a large anti-minority bill) and said nothing will fundamentally change,, or now a prosecutor who is “tough on immigration” refuses to denounce those actively committing genocide.
Medicare for all, or not supporting a genocide, or plenty of other options available to help attract progressives if they wanted it.
BUT again, rather than not vote at all those can at least vote 3rd party and still help down ballot. A lot better to win house and senate than lose everything.
Edit: updated to correct ratio of 4x based on 2020 data
Again, 6x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left.
On its own that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn't tell you how much overlap there is, and therefore how much spoiling there is. And regardless of which side, the spoiler effect is a symptom of a terrible voting system. The entrance of an irrelevant candidate should not sway the results of an election at all.
Additionally, everything is looking like it will be a very close race, in which case every bit of the spoiler effect matters, even if more of it is on the right, which you haven't established.
The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised
I don't like it either. But my point stands, there is an alternative choice.
The problem here is the spoiler effect, the system in which we elect representatives. It is in large part what allows the doupoly to remain uncompetitive.
You say 3rd party is irrelevant but also that 4x(revised now that I looked up exact numbers from 2020) more right 3rd party doesn’t prove it’s more than the left…. If there are only 2 relevant parties then… right goes to right, left goes to left. Shock. Awe. Ignore the weird centrist or actual independent or etc ones as those are hard to place.
Again, the issue is not that we have any third party vote. We should. It should be encouraged. It’s a fucking democracy. Dems trying to say trump will end democracy while simultaneously trying to remove 3rd parties is wild.
If we look at 2008 the left actually had 1.16x more than the right on 3rd party votes, and still won by 7% (10x the 3rd party votes on the left) where as 2016 the right had 3x the lefts 3rd party votes (2016 was a big third party year at ~3% right vs ~1% left. Who would guess 2 bad candidates leaves a huge 3rd party.) and then in 2020 the right had 4x the lefts third party votes. If anyone should be worried about “spoiler” candidates it’s the right as their third party has grown a lot more than the lefts. Hell 2020 the left lowered by half of 2008 (Even the crazy year 2016 it was only 0.71% of possible voters, 2020 was only 0.2% of possible voters. 2008 was 0.43% of possible voters.)
Trump has literally said he would end democracy. Third parties literally by design are either irrelevant or destroy the party they are most like because of the electoral college. Trying to prevent a situation in which a third party acts as a willing pawn to spoil an election is pro democratic in terms of leading to an outcome that is desirable to a larger portion of the electorate.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis
No, it's well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER Kruger - 93 votes Maikol - 91 votesThe problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that's the problem. That's what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
That's because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don't do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option.
If that's really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it's bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
You have just proven my point, it's not a thing that happens in reality if it were you'd point to actual data, not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
To your second point, they not trying to win voters, Dems have never attempted to court anyone left of Reagan voters, ever. The point is demoralization. Non voters are better than energized voters that will never vote for you; the latter group protests, riots, threatens your monopoly on power.
it’s not a thing that happens in reality if it were you’d point to actual data
I already explained why this is a bad goalpost. But even under this terrible goalpost you're still not correct.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
See the section under "Notable unintentional spoilers"
Additionally the 2000 election:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader_2000_presidential_campaign
not randomly generated test cases where the hypothesis works assuming everyone has to vote and is going to vote.
That's already accounted for. The gray dots are non voters. Including non voters doesn't actually change the math, because the math is the overlap of circles. It is already only accounting for the subset of people who are voters.