Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “predatory” and “not serious.” AOC is right.
Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isn’t performance art. It’s hard work — which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: “[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious.”
To be clear: AOC was not critiquing third parties as a whole, or the idea that we need more choices in our democracy. In fact, AOC specifically cited the Working Families Party as an example of an effective third party. The organization I lead, MoveOn, supports their 365-day-a-year efforts to build power for a pro-voter, multi-party system. And I understand third parties’ power to activate voters hungry for alternatives: I myself volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000, and that experience helped shape my lifelong commitment to people-first politics.
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A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals, even if there were no 3rd party candidates running, we would not vote for your right wing pieces of shit. There’s a better chance you would vote for a Republican than any of us would vote for either right wing party.
Math. You’re disagreeing with math. Or are completely unaware of how FPTP voting works (I know this isn’t the case).
Math has nothing to do with the fact that we are not Democrats, so we would not vote for a Democrat. That’s like trying to say math is the reason you won’t vote Republican
You don’t have to have be a democrat to vote against fascists.
I’m not a democrat, but I plan to use my vote strategically, since fascists have a propensity toward murdering their ideological opponents. You can call the DNC fascist all you want, many do, but I’m less inclined to believe that they’ll try to murder leftists vs the US right wing.
Your ideological purity will not save you from a fascist’s bullet.
You’re talking as if the Democrat Ratchet effect is not able to fascism. In case there’s any question, yes, it does
Be that as it may, I’ll still use my vote strategically to ensure that the slide toward fascism is as slow as possible, personally. I am not an accelerationist. I feel that I can more effectively perform direct actions, agitate, and educate others in service of leftist ideology during that time. Ideals without sound strategy are little more than masturbatory.
We’ve descended into fascism so slowly people can’t see it when it’s standing right there in front of them. That’s why the DNC is always talking about baby steps, incrementalism, small little minute steps to the right. 30 years of small steps to the right has the Democrats embracing war criminals like Dick Cheney.
Supposing that were true, what should we do about it?
Stop supporting the slow descent into fascism would be a good start.
I’m not making any distinction between non votes and 3rd party votes. From a purely electoral perspective a Stein voter is the same as someone who doesn’t show up. This is why people are rightfully frustrated with them. It’s a pretty simple concept and the only response is usually “not uh!”.
People are upset with 3rd party voters because they won’t fall in line and do what the DNC wants them to do. The DNC feels entitled to every vote not cast for a Republican. If they want our vote they need to earn it, and they never have.
I don’t care about the reasoning you make for your actions. We’re talking about the results of those actions.
You will affect the race in one of two ways regardless of what you do. You will either benefit Party A or Party B, those parties being the two largest parties, aka Democrats and Republicans. Non votes and 3rd party votes benefit the smaller party, which is the GOP. This is an absolute fact within a FPTP system, even if you can’t accept it because of the obvious implications.
If you feel the GOP has done more to earn your support, that’s your call. I just think that’s some next level dumbassery.
Your vote for Harris is stealing a vote from a 3rd party and giving it to Trump.
If you have to go back 160 years, maybe that should tell you something about how realistic it is.
Only if that third party stood any chance of winning. Which they don’t.
When a 3rd party becomes larger than the Democratic or Republican party, you would be correct. That is not the case, so you’re still incorrect.
So in your opinion what makes the GOP more deserving of your support compared to the Democrats?
Neither one of them is deserving of support.
the only vote that can benefit any party is a vote for that party. don’t spread misinformation.
You are incorrect. While a vote for the GOP candidate certainly carries more weight, it doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from non/3rd party votes. That is how FPTP voting works.
they literally cannot benefit from it at all. it’s a vote against them and for another candidate.
Third parties are not bothering to earn your votes either. They put in zero work except for presidential elections.
Thats the only time YOU start paying attention to 3rd parties, by parroting what youve heard from the media, who has a vested interest in keeping the oligarchy in power
Ok, show me all the Green party candidates running for local and state elected positions.
Wanting someone else to do the work for you? It’s your job to pay attention not mine or anyone elses
Math literally has everything to do with it. There are entire branches of mathematics dedicated to figuring out ideal voting systems.
Dude, I already showed it to you.
The overlap of two circles means there will be an area shared in between. That’s the math, you can’t get around that.
Because it’s bullshit
Yet you didn’t provide explanation for why it’s bullshit. Because you know it isn’t. It’s right in front of you.
We are not Democrats, so we will not vote for Democrats. They could show all the fucking graphs in the world, And wouldn’t change the fact that we are not Democrats, so we do not vote for Democrats.
You’re basically saying that there is zero overlap in the venn diagram of third party voters and blue voters, yet you make efforts to convince blue voters to go third party. You know damn well that there is overlap between third party voters and blue voters, otherwise you’d never talk to them.
Even if you personally would never vote blue, third party voters are not a monolith, there are third party voters that are closer to the DNC than you are.
did that happen?
Their whole account is filled with shitting on blue candidates to convince people to abandon them.
why can’t they just be shitting on blue candidates? why are you assigning a motive?
You’re disagreeing with math. Congratulations, you’ve unlocked the dunce award.
“It’s bullshit because it proves I’m full of shit and I don’t actually have an argument against it.”
it’s bullshit because it doesn’t prove anything.
And yet none of you have been able to explain how or why it doesn’t prove anything. Only making assertions that it doesn’t.
it doesn’t prove anything. am i supposed to enumerate all the things it doesn’t prove?
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Removed, civility.
You’re the one making the claim that it doesn’t prove anything. You have done nothing to explain how it doesn’t. Just saying it proves nothing isn’t enough.
if I told you that leaving that comment proves fort Knox is empty, what kind of refutation is appropriate? it doesn’t, it makes no sense to claim it does, and no further refutation is necessary.
This is the modus operandi of conservatives, libertarians, and anyone trying to put forward a disingenuous argument
That’s cute, That your binary thinking assumes a ballot critique of one thing is automatically support of the other.
Explain how it’s bullshit.
Because the people that are not serious are people like AOC, the ones that ran on populist platforms to get elected. And then once they got into office, they completely abandoned everything they ran on.
First and foremost, no she didn’t. She’s still one of the most progressive members of Congress, and she continues to fight for realistic progressive policies including universal healthcare, free college, and housing as a human right.
You’re welcome to disagree though. Move to her district so you can campaign and vote against her if it really matters to you. Her district keeps reelecting her (82.2% of the vote this year) so I guess she presently represents them quite well.
Or, if relocating so that you get a say in AOC’s representative abilities isn’t a part of your game plan, consider campaigning for the kind of representation you want to see for your current congressional district. Take a stand where you actually get a voice.
But your constant opposition to Democrats, two months away from an election where Fascism is knocking at the door, isn’t helpful. If your goal is a progressive future, you need to be paying attention to what’s on the line right now. If your priority is to purity test Liberals instead of campaigning against Fascist Republicans like lives depend on it (they do), then you’ve completely lost the plot.
One side ® is starting Pograms and threatening genocide against millions of immigrants. The other (D) doesn’t promise your ideal leftist utopia. Think hard about which of these concessions you’re willing to accept as you continue constantly attacking Democrats with nobody lined up to replace them but Republicans.
They won’t. They already ignored multiple requests for an explanation or evidence. anticolonialist doesn’t discuss in good faith and this isn’t anything new.
Really now? Please explain exactly how it’s “bullshit.” Just claiming it’s bullshit is not sufficient.
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Lmao. I bet you always got your tests back face down.
Who is this “we” you keep referencing?
Given the hypothetical that Kamala and Donald are the only 2 available to vote for, who would you prefer win?
That is not hypothetical. While you can literally vote for anyone, you can effectively only vote for one or the other. This is not due to a lack of idealists, it’s by design of the system
Ssssshhhh… You’re interrupting my socratic argument to shut this f’ing guy up.