• SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Thereā€™s a reason why republicans donate to the Green Party candidates. Thatā€™s how we got Bush (and Trump, tbh).

    On the flip side, we got Clinton because of Ross Perot.

    Do you know what didnā€™t happen? The major parties didnā€™t look at their third party rivals and decide they needed to change their policies. Protest votes do not work.

    In 2012 I voted for Jill Stein. Jill fucking Stein may be the literal worst presidential candidate Iā€™ve ever voted for. I mean, worse people have run. KKK grand wizard David Duke ran. Donald Trump ran. But Stein is definitely the worst, most idiotic person I voted for. I did it because Obama was going to win my state, no questions asked. If I were in a purple or even a red state, Iā€™d never have voted for her. I just wanted to send a signal about Obamaā€™s policies being too far to the right. Obviously, that did not work.

    Hell, it doesnā€™t work even when they lose the election with vote splitting. All of the party post-mortem analyses say that they lost because they needed to be more centrist.

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      we got Clinton because of Ross Perot.

      wrong. an analysis found perot actually hurt clintonā€™s margin of victory

    • aelwero@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You officially stated for the record that Obama wasnā€™t the best option for youā€¦ thatā€™s how democracy is supposed to workā€¦ you voted correctly, ostensiblyā€¦

      I understand you didnā€™t think ā€œpie in the skyā€ was the best option, but for the sake of argument, you operated the system of democracy in the correct manner by voting your ā€œbest fitā€ (with some liberties taken on context, with no malicious intent).

      Every loss kind of actually is a failure to pursue centrism/moderation. The alternating between Dems and repubs isnā€™t caused by people changing their ethos or core values every 4 years, itā€™s caused by a rather small portion of the population that is centrist/moderate, and flip flops to try and knee jerk everything towards the center (and a portion who vote against the incumbent party because they donā€™t like the status quo, which is different, but arguably very similar)

      I donā€™t believe that third party votes determine outcomes, and the very specific reason is because of the electoral college. Third parties did pull a large number of third party electoral votes, but even with all of them, Clinton still would have lost. Third parties ā€œstealingā€ elections is simply not the reality (but the trump/Clinton race woke some bitches upā€¦ I was part of that and Iā€™m pretty happy about it).

      The ā€œyour vote did nothingā€ opinion you have about your Jill stein vote is the reality of fptp, everywhere. Even swing states (maybe more so if theyā€™re an ā€œall inā€ state).

      We think of America as being split by a fine line, but I donā€™t buy that shit. I think thereā€™s a whole hell of a lot of people who would prefer a nice fat grey area, and Iā€™m gonna hang out in that gray area no matter how thin it gets in the hopes that sensible people will join me.

      JoJo was a better option than trump or Biden. Perot was. Paul was. The bern was. Colin Powell was (dude was pretty army thoughā€¦). Id go as far as even Jill stein was. Thereā€™s no shame in checking the block on that as far as Iā€™m concerned, and Iā€™m gonna continue to hope that more people will start thinking critically and voting for their best fit instead of what they think they need to settle for. Itā€™s your vote, thatā€™s supposed to be the whole point of democracy, your voice, not a collective compromise of voices.

      Iā€™ll probably be voting RFK, and if you think about it objectively, If Biden wasnā€™t incumbent from having had trump lower the bar enough for Biden to step over it easily, Dems would be running RFK on their ticket next year, because heā€™s the best fit for the office (and for us, the people)out of the current pool (as near as I can tell so far anywayā€¦ could change, Iā€™m gonna Google the hell out of all the runners and I wonā€™t be focused on their campaign webpagesā€¦). Iā€™m not voting for ā€œnot thisā€ or ā€œnot thatā€, Iā€™m voting to say what I think is the best ideaā€¦ I donā€™t give a shit how anyone spins that, and technically, that spin is illegal ;)

      • Bramble Dog@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        Under no circumstance would the dems be running RFK if Biden wasnā€™t in the picture. RFK has never been anybody within the party and Democratic voters donā€™t like him that much, to say nothing of his discredited beliefs that are pulling more conservative voters to his campaign than liberal ones.

        But we should look at why conservative voters are responding so well to him.