- cross-posted to:
- 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- cross-posted to:
- 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
I am so so divided on if I should vote for biden or not. I wanna vote third party to at least do something or should I just stay home and protest and advocate where I can? Thoughts?
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If voting did nothing, there wouldn’t be so much voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Personally, I would say absolutely do not stay home. If you want to abstain from the presidential vote or primaries it might not make a difference, depending on your state, but in the more local ballots you can make a difference for sure. Even better, consider getting involved in local politics, even just in the school board. Showing up to meetings and speaking can change minds. Shifting your town’s culture and making local connecions makes a bigger difference than a vote for Biden in most states.
Voting is not enough, but as someone else here said, vote for who you’d rather negotiate with. Additionally, when people like Trump get elected it sends a message to their sympathizers that they’re in the right, and it helps the overton window shift to the right. Look at the increase in hate crime after Trump won. Who is in power can cause cultural shifts that also make activism harder or easier, or even literally safer.
vote for who you’d rather negotiate with
I’m not saying don’t vote, but is it reasonable to expect that we can negotiate for much of anything?
If you are going to organize for political action, then you might as well include collectively voting for certain candidates.
You can’t negotiate without leverage. If our votes are guaranteed, we have nothing to offer and they have no reason to listen.
The bulk of the US operates with two-stage elections, a primary election where you decide who the party nominee is, and a general election where it’s a contest between parties. The place to not guarantee your vote is in the primary; it’s a smaller election, and each vote there matters much more than in the general election. By turning out in the primary, and choosing a candidate there whom you agree with, you get enormous leverage over policy.
Yeah, and when we tried that with Bernie they destroyed the Iowa caucus with the Shadow App. Then they handed it to a nobody like Pete.
When Bernie kept winning the other early states, all the other candidates dropped out to form Voltron with Biden as the head and Warren to stay in as a spoiler to stop Bernie. Obama personally called up the also-rans and got them to drop out! Then, as a reward, Biden handed out positions to his competition for being loyal to the party and stopping the socialist.
The Primary has too little electoral oversight and too much Party meddling. We have no leverage there.
I voted for Bernie after he lost because it meant his supporters were still there to help influence policy.
And it isn’t like voting keeps you from other firmst of political organization and action. It is just low hanging fruit you can do along with other actions.
I’m going to vote down ticket for legislators and city council and such, I’m just not voting for Biden without a ceasefire.
If my vote is guaranteed then I have no leverage. They can just ignore me forever because I’m already locked in.
“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
. . .
Now, with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960—and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
Great book to read…one of my favorite parts was giving the homeless guy his press pass on the train and letting him go to town on the free food and booze - in Florida of all places.
If you ever get the chance read some of Hunter’s correspondence books too.
man I love HST but you gotta keep him in context. He didn’t live in a reality recognizable to the average human being. I would not take advice from him on anything except for the acquisition of illicit substances and perhaps motor-cross journalism.
Unfortunately in this election (like last one and probably the next few elections at least), we don’t have the luxury of voting for who we most idealistically agree with, or making a protest statement. Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise here (and in many other places). It has completely taken control of one of the two major parties, the Republican party.
The way our electoral system works, if we don’t vote for the only viable opposition, which is the Democrats, we are in danger of allowing an authoritarian regime to take over and toss democracy and our civil rights aside. Once democracy is lost it will take generations to get back, if ever. Trump in spite of everything, is the likely republican nominee (if not, someone just like him). See what would happen if he gets into office again here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-2024-platform-so-far-1.6961527
That’s scary as hell. Despite people being unhappy with Biden or his age, he has accomplished a lot in spite of the odds, with republicans doing all in their power to stop him. See https://navigatorresearch.org/lowering-drug-prices-and-investing-in-infrastructure-are-most-popular-and-known-biden-accomplishments/
But the main point is that electing Biden (or whatever Democrat it may be if he doesn’t run for some reason) will prevent the authoritarian regime from taking power.
the main point is that electing Biden (or whatever Democrat it may be if he doesn’t run for some reason) will prevent the authoritarian regime from taking power.
No, it will delay a worse authoritarian regime from taking power. Voting kicks the can down the road, and should not be viewed as a strategy for the basis of political change.
Political power under any system of government comes from actual power, being it social influence, martial capability, economic domination, or labor power. Using energy to promote the theatre of power over building real power is a long-term losing strategy. Corporate news spends so much time covering political debates between politicians and ignores labor struggles, street protests, and activist movements for a reason.
I support activism expanding the right to vote (to incarcerated people for example), and I support people voting for progressive politicians - it is a form of harm reduction, and I am not an accelerationist. But if we don’t use the time and energy we have to build the alternative, everyone loses by buying into the premise of electoral politics.
It’s a game rigged from the start to favor white land-owning men, and has only marginally been softened. For example, your vote for the United States’ executive officer counts less than the demographically republican voters in red states due to shenanigans like the electoral college. A brick in the right place has a lot more political impact than a ballot in the hands of an antifascist.
Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise here (and in many other places). It has completely taken control of one of the two major parties, the Republican party.
But the main point is that electing Biden (or whatever Democrat it may be if he doesn’t run for some reason) will prevent the authoritarian regime from taking power.
You can have one or the other, not both )hint: fascism isn’t going to let anyone vote it away, just like you pointed out before drifting back to the wrong answer, it is using both parties to take hold, and voting for one over the other is just playing along, not resisting)
(E: it’s late and I realise now I misread that first bit I quoted, thinking you had said it had taken control of the two major parties, and that you at least were headed in the right direction, my bad, that was never the case…)
Vote for biden. Anything is better than Trump this year
A year is a really long time. Many things could happen between now and the 2024 election, including the natural deaths of either of the front running candidates.
I don’t wish death on anyone, but damn would it be nice if Biden moved aside. There are so many options people would be excited for. Why do we have to settle with the boring old dude who’s only wish is to maintain the status-quo?
how is this related to solarpunk?
Just because you vote for someone doesn’t mean you can’t protest against their actions or take other political action.
You’re choosing the people that you can influence later via political protest and other actions.
It’s an unpopular position, but I think you should vote for the party you believe will do the best job.
The problem with the “a vote for X is really a vote for Y” mentality is that Z then has no motivation to support your interests. More plainly, voting Democrat in the US may well keep Trump out, but Biden will have no reason to support a progressive agenda: he has your vote by default and he knows it.
The Democrats and other “centrist” parties lean on this tactic heavily because it means they never have to worry about doing anything difficult, like getting money out of politics, nationalising health care, or standing up to fossil fuel companies. It’s effectively how the Right captures the Left: just run a more extreme candidate on the Right.
The truth is that 3rd parties are incredibly powerful. Just look at UKIP here in the UK, or the NDP and Bloc Québéquois in Canada. They never win (nationally) but the major parties have to adopt their policies to keep voters from bleeding to these smaller parties. It’s why Canada is more progressive than the US, why every national project there has special exceptions for Québéc, and why the UK left the EU: none of these parties needed to “win” elections to accomplish their goals. Fear of losing votes to them was enough.
The Democrats could be more progressive. They could have run an actual socialist in the last election and won, but they opted for someone who wouldn’t really change anything. The only way they’ll ever run a change maker is if they think you and others like you might choose someone else.
You have to vote for left leaning politicians at lower levels of government and in primaries. If you want to shift someone to the left in today’s system, I think the best move is through a primary challenge.
I like this idea, but it needs to be very broad, primarying key players that represent the old guard. If the people at the top don’t want a socialist to succeed, they’ll sabotage their campaigns.
An American example would be the way the Democrats undermined Sanders’ recent presidential run, or the way “the squad” is treated by the wider party.
A more damning example would be what the Labour party in the UK did to their own leader, Jeremy Corbyn: leaking lies to the press, disrupting funding for their own races, etc. The right wing of the UK’s “left” party basically sabotaged their own party’s campaign 'cause they couldn’t bear to let a socialist win. Now they have a new leader who (surprise surprise) supports nearly every Conservative policy.
Electoralism won’t change anything, correct. It will, however, protect the status quo. You must combine a protection against fascism with proactive, grassroots movement to organize and unify your community. Start a Cooperative garden, a union at your local workplace, start trading with your neighbors. Hold a revolution from the bottom-up, rather than expecting the top-down approach to ever put someone more bottom-up oriented at the top.
In the US it’s not really feasible to vote 3rd party without throwing your vote away. Something like the parliamentary systems would work better, or perhaps a ranked choice. You are going to have either the R or D candidate as president. Best to choose the one you can stomach the most.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
It should be changed, but would require a rewrite of a lot of the constitution.
If you wanna be realistic about it Voting in any state other than a swing state is basically ‘throwing your vote away’ : Vote Blue in a Blue State you’re just throwing it in a pile, Vote Blue in a Red State it’s just as much a symbolic protest vote as anything else. Only in a swing state will your Vote make a tangeable difference which is why those are the only states either party even campaigns in for the most part.
I was gonna make this a reply, but I guess it fits as a general comment.
There will always be some excuse to maintain the status quo.
In the USA people say it’s because of “first past the post”(*). But in Portugal there is no such thing. We have a parliamentary system (technically semi-presidential, but for practical purposes parliamentary) but somehow people still find an excuse to always maintain the status quo. Since we’ve been a democracy (49 years), only two parties have ever been in power. Before the last elections, we had 9 parties in parliament. After several decades of incompetence, and everyone complaining about how corrupt the system and politicians are, the same party won the last elections with a majority vote, and now we have 8 parties in parliament. Basically, we’re not too far from a two-party system.
This happens because there’s always some excuse to compromise; in my country, the excuse/logic to rally behind the centrists and put them in power is something like “look how much the extreme right is growing, we have to keep them at bay! Plus, the other parties are probably as bad and corrupt anyway!”, with the expression “useful vote” thrown around a lot. Never mind the fact the far right are growing due to the incompetence of the people currently in power, and that, being a parliamentary system, a vote for any non-right wing party already works to keep the right at bay. And the cherry on top is how everyone gas lits themselves with “the other parties that never had any power are probably as bad and corrupt as the parties that have been in power for decades and which we know for a fact are bad and corrupt”.
This isn’t very eloquently written, but hopefully the point comes across: some people always expect you to “compromise” with them by doing exactly what they want, while they don’t compromise at all; and some people create a self full fulling prophecy by convincing themselves from the start that there are no other options. I can’t speak 100% for the USA because I don’t understand the system as well, but at least in my country the reality is that if everyone actually voted for the people they most align with, we could still keep the right at bay and not put all the power in the hands of the “moderates”.
(*)but, unless I am massively mistaken, if a third party gets enough votes they will still get seats in parliament which should still give them power, or at least still take power away from another.
Portugal has a weird system, which is not quite first past the post and not quite proportional. Basicly it is having election districts with multiple members, which then get elected using de Hondt, which is a proportional system. Some districts only have three seats and that basicly means only the biggest parties can actually win them, as you need a third of the vote for each seat.
Hence two massive parties from all the smaller districts and a few minor ones from the larger ones. As Portual does not have a proportional election system.
Anyway imho the right call is to vote for the party, which is going to deliver the best results for you and that can mean voting taktically. However learn how your elections system works. That really matters.
Right, but the point still stands that voting tactically just reinforces the status quo.
Two examples from the last election:
Lisbon, which gets to decide 48 of the seats (the most):
PS (currently leading party) won 21 of the 48 seats in Lisbon. If half their voters actually spread their votes amongst the left, the second-largest party (PSD) would still have only got 13, the IL party 4, and the far right party 4. The power of the right would not have changed, but PS would only have 10 while the left would be a lot more powerful, and we would not have been subjected to a majority victory from PS.
Portalegre, which gets to decide 2 of the seats (the least):
PS won both, with 47% of the votes. PSD won 0 with 23%. In this scenario, if half of the PS votes went to the left, then PS would still have 1, and PSD would also have got 1 - hardly a change on the surface, but the result is that people could look at it and see the other left parties also have some decent representation, maybe it’s not crazy to vote for them and they are a viable alternative. Instead, because the votes went all to PS, everyone is now engaged in a self-fulfilling prophecy: “I should vote for PS! Why? Because they’re the closest party to the left with a change of winning. Why? Because everyone always votes for PS.”.
And that’s how you end up with the same two parties in power for 49 years, while everyone is always complaining about how much they suck the whole time and that nothing changes: “We have to vote for X, because not X doesn’t have a change of winning, because we’re always voting for X; also, not X would probably be just as corrupt and incompetent as X because I’m just guessing they are”. I’ve been hearing that logic since I was a child - the words and rhetoric are ingrained in my brain, and every time I hear the word “elections” the voices pop up in my head.
Portugal is soooooo much more progressive than the USA, and I’m willing to bet that having something a lot closer to actual democracy than they do is part of the reason.
I think you’re misunderstanding the effect of not having FPTP. It’s not that you get rid of FPTP and suddenly the mainstream party loses power - not at all, but rather what happens is that they see first hand how close they are to losing power by the number of people casting their primary votes elsewhere. That means they are forced to cater their policies at least a little bit toward all those people, and it ends up having a real meaningful impact on their platform. Whereas in the US, the FPTP system rewards Democrats not for following the wills of the most people, but rather for just being very slightly less right wing than the Republicans, because that way they’ll scoop up the votes of everyone to the left of them, regardless how far left.
The grass is always greener on the other side. Americans who think companies don’t pay enough, housing price is too high, fuel is too expensive, etc., would be shocked to see how bad it is in Portugal. You can have a degree in CS and go work as a Software Engineer, and you still won’t have enough money to rent a home in the city. After a few years, if you manage to get some raises (good luck), you’ll maybe have enough for a small flat.
Health care is much cheaper than the US, but that doesn’t mean much when there are no doctors or nurses, and maternity wards start closing down.
We have people who are unqualified to teach having to teach school classes because there is no one else available; also some teachers have to live in their cars because they can’t afford a home in the area they teach.
I could keep naming things. And progressive in what way? Drugs are decriminalized, but that’s not the same as legal, and it’s still illegal to sell weed unlike in the US. Both the US and Portugal have had same sex marriage and adoption for years now. And I also don’t think trans rights are much better in Portugal than in the US; so I’m not entirely sure in what way it’s more progressive, to be honest.
And this is not to mention all the government scandals we’ve had in the last 15 years; probably the same or more as the US, you just don’t hear about it because it’s not the US.
But to get back to the point:
That means they are forced to cater their policies at least a little bit toward all those people, and it ends up having a real meaningful impact on their platform.
No they’re not, trust me. Source: the reason for our last elections. Or how we’ve (the people, through taxes) had to sink a ridiculous amount of money into a national airliner that made no money, and recently when it seemed to be turning a profit after decades, they began to talk about privatizing it, which is something the right had been demanding for a long time now.
If you always vote for someone, they have no incentive to do anything for you; they know they get your vote anyway. If you don’t vote for them, then they have an incentive to try and appeal to you in order to get your vote.
Not what you want to hear but voting third party or staying home is the opposite of doing something. It might feel like a moral victory but the practical result will be a vote for the right-wing. Third party candidates are not viable until we get rid of First-Past-the-Post, and unfortunately I have no idea what a realistic way to go about changing that is.
Exactly.
Not voting supports the goals of people who want less voting.
And voting third party in a FPTP system for a party that hasn’t worked through the lower levels of political power is effectively not voting.
Exactly. A third party that only puts up a candidate for President every four years is not a serious party but a joke. It takes years of work, starting with local and state offices, building support and good candidates, to be a serious alternative party with a wide base of support and chance to actually win national offices.
It sends a message to the 2nd party that they’re not doing enough for my vote. If they want my vote, they’ll have to change their policies to be more like the party I voted for.
If the losing party loses by 10,000 votes, and 10,000 people voted third party, guess what, the strategists are going to try to find a way to capture those votes.
Without those 10,000 votes for 3rd party, the 2nd party either does nothing or tries to get votes from the other side, moving their policies further toward the 1st party.
I would say in the current political climate, 3rd party voting is more important than ever. The idea that it’s a vote for the other side is an absolute farce, an attempt at preventing change, and couldn’t be further from the truth.
So, if this is true, what have the Democrats done to get your vote since 2016? Because Jill Stein took almost a mil and a half, and Clinton lost by less than that by far. So if this hypothesis is correct, they would have done something since to earn your vote. Also, the libertarian candidate took nearly 4.5 mil. Have the Republicans moved three times further towards the libertarian party as the Dems did towards the greens? Because I don’t think that the evidence supports this hypothesis. If you still believe it, what evidence, if any, would convince you otherwise?
I submit that you can accomplish far more shifting by:
Getting your candidates into local elections
Engaging in coordinated contact campaigns to the elected party members of the party you had hoped to shift
Engaging in coordinated contact campaigns to the large money donors to the party you wish to shiftIt’s not simple, it’s not sexy, it’s not fast or rapidly gratifying. That’s just how the world is. Any low hanging fruit along those lines has been plucked and sucked dry long since, and you’ll have to put in the work if you want to change things.
Why would the Democrats ever get rid of an electoral system that ensures that they only have to be “not Republican” to win?
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Until your system does anything useful with third party votes or couch-sitting, you go out and vote every time for whatever does the least damage to democracy. But don’t disengage from the political world after the election. Between elections, you work to change the system. Find groups that tries to do this and volunteer. If you really care about it, you will need to dedicate your time to the cause, even though it might seem hopeless and may very well be.
I understand your situation sucks and you are tempted to say “Fuck the status quo” and desperately do something different in hopes that something will somehow change. But you know who do go out and vote, every fucking time? The racist assholes who would love to see Trump and his fascists cronies in power. And if that happens, it is game over. You will never get any chance to change anything, except from after a big traumatic event such as a big war (“civil” or otherwise).
The structure of how elections in almost all of the US are conducted, with a plurality determining the winner, means that there’s a huge advantage to choosing to vote for somebody who has a big coalition and whose views are less far from your own than the other big coalition.
Let’s look at three examples:
Example 1:
- R: 1000 votes
- D: 1001 votes
- I/non-vote: 0
Democrat wins
Example 2:
- R: 1000 votes
- D: 1000 votes
- I/non-vote: 1
Election is a tie, with the winner decided by flipping a coin or other game of chance
Example 3:
- R: 1000 votes
- D: 999 votes
- I/non-vote: 2
Republican wins
So long as plurality-take-all is how US elections are run, it makes sense for anybody left-of-center to vote for Biden in the general election.
Getting better policies means not just doing that though, but taking active steps to volunteer for and donate to candidates during primaries, as well as seeking out close house and close senate races in the general election to support Democrats, thereby shifting the balance of power slightly to the left.
More like…
- R: 800 votes
- D: 1200 votes
Republicans win because of gerrymandering and the electoral college.
- R: 300 votes
- D: 1700 votes
Republicans win because they packed the supreme court and the police support a coup.
Like… Vote Biden for the chance to delay the inevitable, but there will be a fascist coup because they don’t have another choice to maintain power. There’s just too much money behind fascism and police almost universally support it. Figuring out how to vote is less important than figuring out how to undermine fascism after it takes over.
The problem is that in about half the country, you don’t know with certainty whether you will be in a competitive location. I certainly didn’t expect to see Georgia be close last time around.
Yes we should let the worst people in power because the other option isn’t perfect, the axis had a lot of issues during ww2 so we should have just let the Nazis win.
