"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
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.
Voters will but they can’t do so under the delusion that a) they are making any sort of change or b) that they aren’t hurting the actually viable candidate closest to them.
The winner of the election in every state will be the Democrat or the Republican, full stop. You can choose to help or harm the one closest to your opinion.
This is the type of delusion that eventually leads to fascism any way
“Hey don’t try to change anything because obviously only one of two people can win”
“Hey you have to change things from the inside of the party, you can’t just have a third party even though every half decent western government has multiple parties”
“If you don’t want to vote for a genocidal enabler of capitalism and class separation paid for by the same people who pay for trump/hitler, then you’re voting for trump/Hitler”
“You have to bring the super nuts authoritarian fascists into the group, and exclude the actual left wing people who are screaming for basic decency and rights for everyone”
“Oh no how on earth did the crazy right wingers take over the entire country who could have seen this coming? It’s totally not the fault of a governmental party that can’t sort their shit out and take on policies that a majority of it’s constituents want, but instead keeps sliding as far to the right as possible every time they have to move”
The delusion is thinking you can change things with a single election. If you don’t like the two party system (and I don’t) then you must get more involved in politics than voting for the president. You would need to elect principled progressives at every level of government, fight against fascism at every opportunity, and diligently protect the progress we have made.
Voting for a third party candidate is like showing up to a birthday party as they’re lighting the candles and complaining that nobody asked you about the decorations. It doesn’t matter if your objections are valid, you’ve missed the window to do anything about it.