• xenoclast@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I feel bad for Americans and kids in general. More fascist radicalization pipelines pop up every single day. The money and effort spent must rival most countries GDPs. Just the media organizations alone…

    Some days it can feel like standing at the foot of a mountain watching the entire mountain side crashing down.

    Then I realize it’s just people. People we can step up to. And slap in the damn face.

  • zanyllama52@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    The concept that voting for a third-party candidate is somehow “helping” one of the major party candidates is based on the assumption that the third-party candidate’s voters would have otherwise voted for one of the major party candidates.

  • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Here are two candidates, and you vetter like one of them, because that’s all you get, otherwise we couldn’t call ourself a “democracy” anymore.

  • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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    8 months ago

    If anything, lefties shouldn’t be a single issue voter at all. They should be picking someone who might move toward that direction and have the chance to win, not abstaining.

    As the famous word goes: Evil triumph when good men do nothing. You can’t abstain or do protest vote and expect anything to change under Trump, that single issue you hold so important will get worst, or even impossible.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          In this video, I challenge the dismissive label of ‘single-issue voting’. I break down how a focus on an issue like genocide reveals deeper political and moral stakes, rejecting the idea that elections are merely a choice between the ‘lesser of two evils,’ and offering my reasoning—and hope—for refusing to play the game.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      8 months ago

      Well this “single issue” of land stealing, white supremacist subjugation of a people on their native land, ethnic cleansing and genocide, has only gotten worse with every election.

      If we look at AIPAC they arent powerful because they influence who wins. They are powerful because they onfluence who looses.

      That is why being pro genocide remains a staple of both parties policies. The only way to change that, is to punish the side that claims to not be pro genocide generally, so it has to become against genocide specifically.

      And we had one year of trying to do that before the election, where people here and in othernplace vigorously defended being pro genocide, as challenging that before the election would be bad for the election.

      We saw with Biden stepping down that challenging the dementia candidate was actually beneficial for the Democrats election chances, despite the same denial and backlash over pointing out Bidens failing mental capacities.

      Now i am sure that these sentiments of immediately attacking people who wanted the Democrats to become a non genocide party when it was still possible to achieve that for the election, were stirred by AIPAC and other establishment actors, who would rather have Trump win than end genocide or get to meaningful progressive politics like proper healthcare and workers rights.

      • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        So women needlessly dying of miscarriages and trans people getting locked up in camps is fine so long as the democrats are punished.

        Mass deportations with sketchy legal grounds are also fine because the democrats will totally learn their lesson this time.

        Wake the hell up. You’re only punishing innocent americans. The democrats will be FINE if trump wins.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Ho Chi Minh knew all about America’s long history of genocide and slavery.

        When the time came to work with the American OSS to fight the Japanese he helped the Americans.

        Any questions?

          • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            What were the Japanese doing then?

            Are you saying we should allow the genocide in Palestine to continue, and add suffering in America too?

              • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I think it was less, “the US is good” and more “one way or another someone is gonna fuck you over, sometimes the only choice you have is who”

              • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                Fine, give me a better example.

                I’m not married to that analogy.

                I could talk about the women and former slaves who worked for politicians who couldn’t promise them the vote.

                Would that get the point across to you?

      • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Most of what you say is exactly correct. The thing is, you have drawn a little outline of a box around this one situation, and allowed its glow to obscure all else outside the line.

        Make the box bigger. Let the other issues that still count and effect people be inside the box.

        Trans people need you to vote Harris, because they’ll be in extermination camps under Trump. Women in Mississippi whose pregnancies are going to tragically go bad next year need you to save their lives by voting Harris, because Trump will put the final nail in the coffin on abortion. Plenty of people will go homeless under Trump who would have hung on with higher wages and monopoly busting under Harris.

        Being a single issue voter is a luxury that assumes everything else is basically solid, so we can press the one issue extra hard and let the rest of the garden tend itself a bit.

        We are in the exact opposite of that situation in the 2024 presidential election. Dont confuse the shittiness of the whole situation with relatively much much better choice of Harris over Trump.

        • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Why do people feel the need to publicly announce blocks?

          Block me as well. Do not forget the blocking user ceremonial reply to my comment!

      • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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        8 months ago

        Okay, sure, but let’s say Trump win and you successfully punish Democrats, the results are…you also punished abortion right, people of colour, the lgbtq community, american with middle-eastern origin, worsening the immigrant deportation, and lastly, eliminating the chance of palestine-israel ceasefire and basically confirming the annexation of Gaza and West Bank. Isn’t that the thing you most concerned with? That doesn’t sounds like left-wing thinking to me at all.

        I leave out a lot of thing, it’s really up to you to figure out what you will lose. I’m not even from US and another Trump term will undoubtedly affect the world in one way or another.

  • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    I haven’t done the math. Assuming full support, is there a 3rd party candidate on the ballot in enough states to actually win?

    • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The last time a 3rd party candidate had an actual shot (and it was a looooong shot at best) was in 1992 when Ross Perot ran. He split the R vote badly enough that it handed the election to Clinton.

      So long as we’re using first past the post a 3rd party candidate has a vanishingly small chance of doing anything other than helping elect the opposition.

      • athairmor@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And the lesson the Republican Party learned from that was to support the Greens—or any vaguely left party—hard.

      • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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        8 months ago

        Admittedly, watching PR play out across the rest of the world kinda scares me. Israel is paralyzed into a destructive war because the ruling party is in a coalition with a few crazy extremists who will bring down the government (and thus expose Netenyahu to criminal trial) if their increasingly wild demands aren’t met. Germany’s having a clusterfuck of a time etc.

        While there would be different parties, imagine the horribleness of a PR system right now in America. You could easily see a scenario where RFK acts as kingmaker and gets to demand whatever from trump or Harris. Given that trump would sell his children (maybe sub Melania for Ivanka) for the presidency, who knows what insanity would ensue? And there would be no real mechanism between the election and the next one to reign them in.

        I didn’t think there was anything scarier than a trump presidency until thinking that one through. Uggggh.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s a 2 party system. Any 3rd party added takes away from either side, which can often swing elections. The opposing party will even sometimes support 3rd parties just to increase their chances of winning.

      If you want 3 parties, change the system; or else you are just helping the person you want the least get elected.

    • elbucho@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Nope. The Green party’s got their candidate on the most states’ polls, and they only managed to get 38 states. Granted, it’s still mathematically possible, considering the threshold is 270 votes, and the states that have Stein on the ballot comprise 440 votes… but still. Would be incredibly, almost impossibly difficult.

        • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          If it’s “probably impossible” then can you explain why Alaska and Maine have already been successful implementing electoral reform? Why are several states working towards getting rid of First Past The Post voting right now?

          It’s not impossible. This reform is possible at the state level. We don’t need an act of God from congress to make this happen. It’s already happening, and it can happen in your state to!

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      8 months ago

      Stein and Oliver both do, though that’s certainly not going to make a difference in their actual chances

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      No. Because even if they carried 100% of the vote in a state, the delegates can and most likely would just cast their votes for one of the major parties.

      • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Do you mean the electors? Delegates are part of the nomination process, not the general election. The electors for a party are chosen by that party, then the voters cast votes for the electors. It’s unlikely that electors pledged to third parties would be faithless, as they probably deeply identify with the party ideals.

  • null@slrpnk.net
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    8 months ago

    I cringe every time I see this come up.

    Because it isn’t what you actually mean, and the horrible logic of it makes it easy for the Lemmy Lefties to dunk on.

    Of course a 3rd party vote isn’t a vote for Trump any more than it is a vote for Kamala.

    What it actually is is a discarded opportunity to vote against Trump. Which is also dispicable, but actually accurate.

    Everyone knows that’s what you mean by this, but the Lemmy Lefties will play dumb and latch onto that logical fallacy every time.

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s the trolley problem again. This time, you have 3 tracks and 2 switches. The trolley is headed towards 5 people, one switch sends it to 1 person, and the other switch would send it to 0 people, but it’s broken. Voting third party is pulling the broken switch, knowing the 5 people will die but you’ve shifted the responsibility from yourself to whoever was supposed to fix the switch.

      • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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        8 months ago

        I really like your take on this. So how is the switch going to get fixed, when the only time anyone pays attention to the fact that it’s broken, is when lives are on the line?

      • Cleggory@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Why do neoliberals bring up the trolley problem as if it is some settled debate among scholars that there is one clear possible answer?

        • null@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          The trolley problem isn’t “settled debate” for the same reasons that Kamala vs Trump isn’t “settled debate”.

          The point of the trolley problem and why it’s analogous is that it’s coming up fast and you must choose to either pull that lever or not. Whichever choice you make, that’s the moral character you’ve chosen to exhibit.

        • luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
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          8 months ago

          Sometimes, I wonder if a Trump victory would be the only way to getthe various leftist factions to stop arguing and stand together, side by side, united in the fact that fascists don’t care what flavour of ideological opposition they’re executing.

          Who gives a shit about whether the Trolley Problem is settled - it’s about your answer: Which option do you endorse?

        • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I’m not a neoliberal, I’m a socialist. I’m just not an idiot who will give a fascist free rein just because his opponent has the same shitty foreign policy as every politician in the whole fucking country has. There is a difference between the status-quo level of bad and catastrophic.

          • Cleggory@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

            Your fears of fascism are ignorant of the capacity that Democrats exhibit.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

              Yah, I’ll take “Things that didn’t happen” for a thousand, Alex. Let me guess, they did the “you’re going to be the most _____ person in the camps” joke and you took offense to the harsh, practical truth of it, so rather than reconsider whatever performative BS you were trying to use to justify voting against a clear and present danger, you decided to do exactly what the right does, and spin natural consequences and hurt feelings to make yourself a victim.

              • manchest3@lemmings.world
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                8 months ago

                Some of you idiots yesterday told me: “Imagine I’m tying you to a chair, and gives you a choice between ripping one or both of your eyes. Wouldn’t you prefer to keep one eye?”.

                But of course the mod have too much political censorship to do to care about actual disturbing content.

            • null@slrpnk.net
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              8 months ago

              Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

              Lol no they haven’t.

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        I see you are upset the 3rd switch is broken. Me too, thanks.

        Let us begin working on the switch together. I hope you swing by my ask lemmy Post to discuss your post election commitment to replace FPTP voting in your state.

        Who would leave such a critical piece of infrastructure unfixed? Most certainly not you I’m sure.

      • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        I like your analogy. Let me expand.

        This same situation happens every day. For years now, 1 person has died every day. Nobody pulls the broken lever, but if people started pulling it, it would start working. For the first couple days or weeks, 5 people would die each time, but eventually we would be able to get the train on a safe track.

      • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Excellent analogy. If anyone still plays dumb after reading this, they probably are

    • Jamil@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      The Dems are running on Trump’s 2020 platform. Build the wall. Lock up immigrants. Both parties are far-right shitholes, and it’s time people started realizing that.

      The Dems in 2028 will be calling for mass deportations.

      • null@slrpnk.net
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        8 months ago

        ^ This right here. Exactly my point. They are going to keep telling you Kamala and Trump are the same so you spoil your chance to prevent Trump from taking office again.

        They are not subtle, and they do not care about the fallout of a Trump reelection. They are privileged enough that it won’t affect them or their loved ones. It’s despicable.

        • manchest3@lemmings.world
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          8 months ago

          My loved ones are affected by americans actions for the last years idiot. You are a shit person throwing foreigners under the bus because you think americans life is worth more than the rest of us.

      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This went so far past just being wrong that it might just end up creating an entirely new paradigm of stupidity.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      They loved Bernie and praised him to the skies.

      Then he endorsed Biden and Harris.

      Now he’s a ‘sheepdog’ that rounds up people to be slaughtered.

    • Lyricism6055@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      If nobody votes 3rd party then we’ll never have a 3rd party candidate that matters.

      It’s like bicycle infrastructure. Nobody wants to ride bikes on a highway, but you won’t see bike riders until there’s a trail somewhere for them to ride on. You can say it never matters and that there aren’t any cyclists out there, but you’re wrong. I think there’s a lot of Americans looking for another party right now.

  • Funkwonker@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    What bothers me about the people taking the bit of time and effort to go vote for 3rd parties is that there’s really no point to it. Making sure your own vote doesn’t matter is insane to me when voting isn’t mandatory. They could’ve just done nothing and achieved the same outcome.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      8 months ago

      Voting for one Party no matter what their policies are, is what makes your vote not matter. You signal blind loyality and no red lines. So the Party would be stupid to care about you.

      They care about the ones willing to withhold their vote and money. That is how AIPAC helped shape both US parties into being pro genocide. Play both sides and punish the one that may “step out of line”

      You saw how Dems panicked when there was the uncommited movement? Instead of seizing the moment and turn them into a non genocide party, people vigorously defended being pro genocide as the safer option. Just like people denied Bidens dementia until it was possible to deny. And switching from Biden was actually helping the Dems chances.

      At the end the people who opposed pushing the Dems by making credible threats to their voting base, did not only accept genocide this way, they also helped Trump tremendously by preventing the Dems to switch to the majority platform of being against genocide.

      The majoriy of Americans say they are against genocide. Some of them know that genocide has to be a red line. By preventing the Dems from becoming a non genocide party, it was prevented to unify the non far right side of the political spectrum to win in a landslide.

      • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Brother, I’m voting against the party with the absolutely insane and oppressive declared policies. What are you talking about?

      • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This is only true under a better voting system than first past the post. In first past the post, you’ve got a dumbass set of broken game rules where once two parties get big enough, they become the main and only characters, and all third parties can do is debuff one of them so the other one wins.

        It’s such a reliable thing that the two parties often try to fund third parties the other party’s voters will like.

        Obligate games blow ass.

      • Funkwonker@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 months ago

        I’m happy for those people who have enough privilege to sit this election out; but to even try and imply that the two dominant parties are even similar is an insult when only one of them wants to fucking kill me.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          8 months ago

          There is plenty of black and arab people, who are at an immediate threat by Trump too. But if it becomes normal to murder them abroad it is also easier for it to become normal at home.

          • banshee@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Trump and his followers are the ones fostering hate and resentment though. America needs a break from that jackass.

      • Funkwonker@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 months ago

        Even if a notable number of people voted 3rd party, they’re still going to be treated the same as those who didn’t vote at all, because in a practical sense, thats what they are.

        • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Why are you encouraging people not to vote?

          Edit: sorry I thought you were a different poster. I am not trying to spam you multiple times

        • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Any time you vote for a candidate that loses, this is the case. And of your preferred candidate wins in a landslide, every extra vote they didn’t need might as well have been blank.

  • Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    I don’t need any mental gymnastics or long winded explanation. Both of the major party candidates have parts of their platform that are deal breakers for me. So, I will exercise my right to vote for someone that more aligns with my values.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I voted for Obama, Clinton(at an empty polling place BTW), Biden, and will for Harris, all with no snap in my step and a funeral dirge in my heart, just so I can say I used what little power I have for harm reduction.

    I’d rather not have fascist scapegoating along with our antisocial, rigged crony market capitalist economy we don’t get a vote on sucking us dry as we struggle to subsist. We only get a vote on how to address the social issue symptoms of that economy, if at all, and who to blame, and sadly it’s never the private shareholder class that should be.

    Let’s be clear , we’re circling the drain. Inequality will continue to increase as greed induced climate change increases scarcity for the non wealthy masses, D or R, but at least with D, we won’t arbitrarily point the finger at brown people and hit them with sticks. That’s is the extent of our vote, whether to starve us or starve us while beating us.

    We need a new constitution, one that punishes greed, with life imprisonment when applied to politics, and rewards prosocial activity. This country died under Reagan as anything more than a money printer for the tiny class of people that don’t see you or as human, just resources to extract MOAR value from.

    But since that won’t happen, I’ll do the right thing without hope in the face of Armageddon, harm reduction. A vote to leave the water pumps running on this sinking ship, nothing more.

  • chalupapocalypse@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    But Palestine hurr Durr

    You dumb fucks know how many more Palestine’s there’s gonna be if he gets in? You can kiss Ukraine goodbye, and probably hong kong too. This is nothing.

    2016-2020 was the beta test. If this goes into production we’re all fucked.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I echo the sentiment (regarding Trump being a much, much worse outcome), but you can already “Kiss Hong Kong goodbye”. It’s part of China, they have cracked down, and the two systems has been reduced to like 1.5 systems ahead of schedule.

      I am genuinely curious what you think either presidential candidate would do about this, considering they will continue to espouse the One China policy. Where they might differ is in their support of Taiwan, whose status is much more murky.

      Hong Kong though? Pretty sure that ship sailed once the UN decided: no Empire no longer, and the 99 year lease came to an end.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You dumb fucks know how many more Palestine’s there’s gonna be if he gets in? You can kiss Ukraine goodbye, and probably hong kong too. This is nothing.

      Tankies would love that, though.

      • manchest3@lemmings.world
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        8 months ago

        You dumb fuck yanks should have done something about trump 4 years ago. But you needed him as a scapegoat to direct people’s gaze off your war crimes.

    • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      You dumb fucks know how many more Palestine’s there’s gonna be if he gets in?

      It seems like such a basic concept; trump means more dead Palestinians. How can someone simultaneously claim to support Palestinians and advocate for more dead Palestinians?

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        8 months ago

        Nobody is advocating for that. That is the most vile claim. We tried to get the Democrats to become a non genocide party. There was plenty of time before the election. Instead we got attacked with the same sentiment like now.

        The people accepting that genocide is the acceptable baseline and opposing the push for a non genocide option are the omes advocating for it.

        • lengau@midwest.social
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          8 months ago

          Advocating against voting for Democrats, no matter what the particular language, is advocating for actions that will increase the chances of Trump getting elected, of Republicans having majorities and of Israel’s further escalation in Palestine, in addition to all the other bad things Republicans will do.

          The time to move Democrats on the issues is not now. Those times were during the primaries (in which I voted uncommitted on the presidential level and for pro-palestinian candidates on other levels) and after the election through things like lobbying.

          If there are particular third-party candidates who have any reasonable chance of winning rather than being a spoiler (I don’t know of any), it’s reasonable to advocate to their electorate that one vote for them instead of the Democratic candidate. However, if one supports Palestinians and opposes genocide, the best vote in the presidential election and in most national or state elections on November 5 is for the Democratic candidate. That’s not a “vote blue no matter who” opinion or an “all you need to do is vote for the Dems” opinion. It’s harm reduction in the short term so that we can ensure that there actually are medium and long terms for as many people as possible.

  • boomzilla@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    Jill Stein was endorsed by David Duke (KKK).

    I’m sure it has to do with Duke being a really conservationist, nature loving guy who wants to support renewable energy.

    And Stein investing in fossil fuels and tobacco must be because she wants to heroically rob the execs of their money.

    Duverger’s Law:

    “The second challenge to a third party is both statistical and tactical. Duverger presents the example of an election in which 100,000 moderate voters and 80,000 radical are to vote for candidates for a single seat or office. If two moderate parties ran candidates and one radical candidate ran (and every voter voted), the radical candidate would tend to win unless one of the moderate candidates gathered fewer than 20,000 votes.”

    2016 had a historically high 3rd party voter turnout (6%):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_and_independent_candidates_for_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election

    2020 only had 2% 3rd party voter turnout. But no that can’t be the reason a soon wanna-be dictator will take over your country again soon (and proceeds to fuck up the world). Nah…just show it to genocide Kamala. Your voice matters. Vote for Jill Stein. She’s so cute, isn’t she?

    • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There’s tons to say.

      Well, not tons, but a solid-ass rebuttal.

      Those states do matter. They only “don’t matter” because everybody in them has historically done and is predicted to do a certain thing. If enough people learn of that prediction, become unmotivated, and don’t do that thing anymore, then those states become swing states which could swing the other way. It’s not guaranteed to always be the way it’s been.

      “Blue state” and “red state” aren’t unchanging aspects of the geography, they’re the actions of individuals as seen from an aerial view.

      Strongholds fall, and the commanders who act like theirs never could have a way of not writing history.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Strongholds fall, and the commanders who act like theirs never could have a way of not writing history.

        And yet, this logic doesn’t apply to unseating the existing parties, for some reason. If Illinois could eventually turn red, then it follows that it could eventually turn green. In either case, it’s just a matter of “enough people” changing their behavior.

        • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The difference between red and blue is often about 5-10 percentage points. But if you’re up 5, that means your opponent is down 5. Because it still has to add up to 100.

          To turn a state green, that party would have to be up at least 50%.

          You see how that’s a problem, right?

          But while Green is pushing ahead, where do you think those votes are coming from?

          If the Greens pick up 5% of the vote, they need to take those votes from someone, and that’s most likely the Dems. Now they have 45% of the vote, because percentages still have to add up to 100, the Republicans have 50%, and handily win the election.

          For greens to replace, most likely the democrats, would involve the left loosing every election for about a decade or two. Just completely having no voice in government.

          You see what parties don’t switch like that right? No, the party has to collapse, and then a replacement has to step in.

          And in order for a party to collapse, it needs to be a coalition party. Like the Whigs. https://www.history.com/news/whig-party-collapse

          Something that is unlikely to happen to a modern party.

          Thus the only way for the greens to gain power is to change the voting system. Real voting reform needs either Approval or STAR as the voting system. (there are a few more, like Ranked Robin, but the main point is that it needs to be a cardinal voting system.)

          The Green party under Jill Stein mildly supports RCV, a system that deeply flawed and will not actually fix things.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            If the democrats started losing every election because of the greens, then I expect what would happen is that they’d start supporting voting reform, and if that happened, I’d be willing to vote for them so that they can implement it. But currently, while there are a handful who do, they are incentivized not to support it, since FPTP benefits them.

    • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      I live in a swing state, and a frightening number of my friends are refusing to vote or voting 3rd party. When pressed if they truly felt that there would be no difference in their lives or the world between Harris or Trump, they just double down on regurgitated excuses and bury their heads in the sand. I really don’t get it.

  • Zachariah@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m not even convinced it’s even real leftists posting this stuff. It often seems like astroturfing. Not only would fake leftists possibly sway undecided voters, but they also tarnish any positivity the left deserves. Win-win for the right.

    • glizzyguzzler@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      Dealt with someone ostensibly from the UK advocating for not voting and after being pressed repeatedly finally worked their way down to “I’m not voting because I can’t”.

      Actual foreign election interference, and the UK has some notable Russian ties. Wouldn’t be surprised if that rube has ties to Russia or is actually on a ruble payroll

    • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      I’d like to think you’re right.

      But I have heard borderline stuff like this in real life from people whom I know are solid progressives. (Admittedly, these are folks on my soccer team who are almost 2 decades younger than me. I can’t imagine what ending their teens during a pandemic was like so I kind of expect their politics to be wildly different.)

        • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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          8 months ago

          It blows my mind that people are dumb enough for it to work but in an era of razor tight electoral margins, even a few idiots can matter.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        “Borderline” is entirely different. Voting for Harris while being salty about it is a perfectly reasonable thing real progressives should do, and it’s exactly the opposite of what these astroturf third-party propagandists are calling for even if the (alleged) sentiment is adjacent. That “border” is a knife edge and the difference between a genuine progressive and a[n effectively] pro-Trump useful idiot comes down to which side of it they fall off.

        • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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          8 months ago

          That’s absolutely true and very well put. Doing the right thing and being happy about it are two very different beasts.

          Thank you!

        • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Konnichiwa.

          I understand you are very concerned about people voting 3rd party. Considering our broken First Past The Post voting system, I get it.

          Did you know that alternative voting systems could alleviate all your worries about people who wish to vote outside the two party system? People could be free to vote how they wish, safe in the knowledge that their vote would still count against the Republicans.

          How we vote us controlled at the state level, which means we can pass this much needed reform without federal intervention. Actually, some states have already passed legislation doing away with First-past-the-post voting, and even more are in the process of passing it! Exciting times no?

          So, in conclusion, I hope you stop by my ask lemmy Post to discuss your post election commitment to replace FPTP voting in your state.

          If achieved, you wouldn’t have to worry about 3rd parties anymore and your fellow citizens would be involved and contributing to the poltical process.

        • amelia@feddit.org
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          8 months ago

          This shows how absolutely broken the American voting/party system is though.

    • spector@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Hang around them long enough. They will slip. They inevitably use right wing colloquialisms.