• 0laura@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all from what I’ve heard. the system is kinda fucked up like that. it’s a bit better over here in germany, there isn’t really a “third party”, just lots of parties of varying sizes. but yea ideally you would vote for a better party and that would actually lead to change. tho I doubt that voting for a third party does more good than voting for the lesser of the two big evils.

      • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        voting third party in the USA is kinda like not voting at all

        Not exactly. Even within the mind prison of liberal electoralism, voting for a third party in a FPTP system is different from not voting at all.

        If the “lesser evil” becomes afraid that they are going to lose because of people voting for non-evil third parties, they will have an incentive to be less evil in order to convince those voters to come back.

        On the other hand, if the “lesser evil” feels safe that people are going to vote for them as long as they’re less evil than the other evil candidate there’s really nothing holding them back from being 99.9% as evil as the greater evil. In fact, becoming almost as evil as the other guy becomes the rational strategy for appealing to centrist voters who could opt for the greater evil if the lesser evil is not seen as being evil enough.

        This has the further effect of moving the Overton window to the right as you know have two very evil candidates taking up public space and attention, thereby normalising the greater evil access pushing public opinion towards more evil.

        Politicians might all be evil off-putting losers but they’re not idiots. They’re rational actors seeking to maximise personal gains. By declaring that you will vote for somebody no matter what they do you’re effectively telling them not to pay attention to you and to spend their efforts courting the right instead.

        On the other hand by being willing to withhold your vote, thereby causing the “lesser evil” to lose, you’re putting a price tag on your support, giving them an incentive to be less evil.

        Of course this effect is greatest the less safe the seat in question is. If either evil candidate has a safe seat and is expected to win with a huge majority, voting for either evil, voting third party or not voting at all becomes pointless as public input is no longera meaningful part of the political process.

              • SmokinStalin [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                I mean not really. Its more controlled by the dnc/rnc corporations. They set the only two options people get to choose between. And both of those options do the bidding of the same donors.

                Like a teacher letting students vote on new paint color for the room. “Would you like to paint the room pastel purple or lavender?”

                The students could vote for green(and maybe most of them prefer that if) they wanted but most don’t even veiw that as an option because of the structure.

      • hypercracker@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        is literally german

        Ah okay. Your people just really love genocide so you can’t comprehend why someone wouldn’t want to vote for genocide.

      • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 months ago

        Since voting for the non-Trump one is completely meaningless, voting third party actually has a greater real effect. It doesn’t get the third party elected this time, but the larger the percentage of third party is per election cycle, the more it might seem possible to get one elected, and that might in turn lead to real perceptible changes. It might lead to, eventually, 16 years down the line, to a critical mass where enough people will think it’s viable and get someone else elected. Or it might scare the existing power-monopoly into doing some democratic actions.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        from what I’ve heard

        See you don’t even live here. You have no fuckin idea what you are talking about, and as others have already told you in detail it doesn’t matter anyway. Direct action is what we have.