Don’t Fall for the Third-Party Trick

Plus we keep using this outdated first-past-the-post voting system in the 21st century.

We desperately need more real third-party participation in politics, but voting for third parties in presidential elections doesn’t make that happen—the US voting system isn’t a business that adapts its products to meet consumer demand.

The liberals fucking won that election and it was the liberal Hindenburg appointing Hitler to the Chancellorship that facilitated his rise to power, not anything the KPD did. This is disgusting historical revisionism that a search engine could dispel in 5 seconds, but you choose to warp history to make it look like Hitler actually won the election and make the liberals who enabled him seem blameless. It is, in effect, apologia for Nazi collaborators. Exactly appropriate for someone shilling for Dems while they gleefully subsidize genocide.

I feel like we need something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact that is aiming to eliminate the electoral college, but for Ranked Choice.

Passing this federally is too hard. We need do to this state by state.

Until I can vote for a third party with RCV, then I might as well be saying that I have zero preference about the GOP and DNC options on the table.

Blaming progressives for not aligning with centrists instead of blaming centrists for siding with Nazis to lock out progressives is a weird take.

Hitler didn't win because he beat Hindenburg after Thälmann split the vote. He lost to Hindenburg, the center-right candidate endorsed by the social democrats, then won anyway because Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor.

The social democrats were the ones who refused to back Thälmann, the only anti-Hitler candidate in the race. And the same way that the communists called them "social fascists," the social democrats used similar rhetoric, frequently saying that the communists were no different from the Nazis, that there was no difference between the far left and the far right.

But also, we don't have to keep rehashing 100 year old grudges from another continent.

I’m not voting for Harris. I’m voting against Trump via Harris.

There's a lot you can say about how broken US electoralism is, but using this as an example is just not accurate.

1. Hitler wasn't elected by people, he lost to Hindenburg in 1932 and was appointed Chancellor later.

2. The Nazis who appointed him Chancellor had the majority, meaning more than every other party combined. Meaning third parties didn't syphon the Hitler vote

3. Hindenburg didn't want to appoint him, but meetings with industrialists made him change his mind

4. Hindenburg then gave Hitler more powers after the Heischtag fire.

If anything, it's an example of what happens when you reach over the aisle and compromise with nazis.

Do not forget that in '32 the SPD backed Hindenburg... who then nominated Hitler as chancellor.

Thälmann was foolish, but even if he didn't run, Hitler would still get into power. If the far right is strong enough, mere electoralism will not stop them. Fighting them must happen on the street level.

We could avoid this with ranked choice voting.

Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932

The mistake Ernst Thälmann made was not throwing his support behind checks notes Paul von Hindenburg, the man who ordered the police massacre of the Spartacus League?

After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested.

Who elevated Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship in 1933?

Republicans are not going to suddenly stop being evil, so what's the solution? Just endlessly comprise and never accomplish anything? Fuck that. I refuse to be held hostage. If Democrats want leftist votes then they have to deliver leftist policies. Otherwise they're just as responsible

You need ranked voting

The only way a third party would be viable in the US is if it grew organically from small, local races that aren't captured by large donors. A dedicated group of volunteers knocking on doors and spreading a message can have a real effect in those races. Get a few candidates in office and start doing some good, and a party can grow around it. Draw up a blueprint for how you did it, and spread it around to other towns and cities, making allies with other local groups as they spring up.

Is that easy to do? Of course not, but that would be a viable path for the formation of a functioning third party.

Just a note, while ranked voting is much better, the people who are influenced by parties that game the system and a gullible ignorant base usually consolidate themselves into one big party that still does everything to undermine the rest of the coalitions as long as it makes them look bad even if it's worse off for society as a whole and that like a tumor can keep growing until it goes past the midpoint for toppling the democracy that elected it. It's part of the solution, but not all of it, societies act like headless chickens when things get bad enough, regardless of who was responsible for them. For example, Brexit.

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed

Karl Marx 1850

„Democracy”

Lemmy users be like "bUt I cAnT VoTe FoR gEnOcIdE"

It can be even more crooked than the article states. You HAVE to have 270 electoral votes to get the presidency.

If third party candidates in any capacity wins some electoral votes, there's a good chance that no one at all will get at least 270 total.

When that happens, it means the House gets to pick anyone they want who was on the ticket, by majority vote.

In this manner, a third party candidate could get 135, trump could get 134, Harris could get 269, and then even though the cast majority of people would have voted for Harris, the House, which is currently republican led would simply just vote Trump into office.

This is also why it's pretty much impossible for a third party candidate to ever become president, unless the third party was already the house majority beforehand. No matter how great a third party candidate could be, there's just no way one could appear and take enough electoral votes to total 270 in an election, even if they were the clear majority winner by public vote. "The house always wins."

I see a ton of this here, especially from a certain instance.

These posts are always missing the point. Voters will vote third party. Your moral claims won't change that, but your candidate's policies could. Also, most of us don't live in swing states. Don't pretend our vote matters when it never did.

He can write executive orders all day long but unless he's repealing a previous order, it requires Congress to fund them.

And you might think he'll just blunder along like last time, and I'd like to point out he did a lot of damage last time, but I believe he is FULLY aware of Project 2025 and I think he would try his best to enact much of it because it involves loyalty to him and enriching him. Either way, I'm not interested in finding out.

If you live outside the ~5 swing states that decide the election you can go ahead and ignore stuff like this saying you can’t vote third party.

Shoutout PSL

Not a single party on the face of the earth is gonna switch to an alternative voting system. Democracy devolving into 2 parties is a problem in nearly every country and unfortunately the ones who can make the change are the ones who benefit from first pass the post voting

No "democratic" party is gonna switch to STAR or a similar voting system unless the citizens start being very loud.

On other hand, radicalizing people to support alternative voting is also very hard, because it is hard to explain and hard to understand for majority of people and its often viewed as if the supporter is trying to benefit from the said change and trying to sabotage democracy, when in reality, they are the ones who want real democracy

Permanently Deleted

I’m planning on voting PSL and you can too.

They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.

Don't fall for the third party trick, keep voting for the red and blue party and go back to work so a bunch of billionares and politician can keep feasting

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

The current system in the US represents White Christians and Jews. Everyone else can get fucked. The fact US citizen aid worker have been killed in Israel with presidential oversight exemplifies the racial and religious exemptions to human rights.

US citizens have been killed by our nominal ally with no repercussions.

do not worry, I was assured by very confident libs that the Dems could win this election without my vote :)

We keep doing "harm reduction" but after what point is is truly harm reduction and when does it because a slow decline into fascism? Right now the "harm reduction" policy means voting for genocide, war, a fascist border policy, less social programs for the poor, more money for the rich, mass censorship, and surveillance. What will you Liberals say when the Kamala runs again but even more right wing, and then what? When does the insanity end? At what point do we vote for Fascists as a form of "harm reduction" while the planet dies? How long do we truly have to keep making the capitalist class rich at our expense before there is no future generations to protect? I reject this line of thinking, true freedom cannot come from reform. We need a new revolution or we will not be alive to tell our story.

Vote for who YOU want to be president, regardless of if they have a chance to win or not. I wasn't going to vote for Biden (or Trump) no matter what. I see people saying if you vote 3rd party you're waisting your vote. You aren't. You are supporting the candidate you like.

Unless you would otherwise vote for Trump. Then definitely vote for a Third Party.

Considering how I'm in Texas where Trump is going to win regardless of who I vote for, I'm considering voting third party as a threat to the Democratic Party to fuck off with their far-right politics and if enough people do that in solid states then maybe it will help scare them into platforming less shitty candidates. In a swing state or barely blue or red state though where voting actually determines who wins then voting blue is probably the better option since the contest is between Harris and Trump and Trump is worse.

One, I don't know any progressive that is planning on voting for RFK.

Two, can we stop this lie? Only a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump.