Your ‘protest vote’ for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
And it always has been.
Sometimes the Green Party protest vote is a vote for George H.W. Bush.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn’t a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn’t have won, because the margins were just that thin.
Guess the Democrats would be better served by being more welcoming rather than just calling Green Party voters idiots then.
Not idiots, just woefully misguided to the detriment of others.
And you guys wonder why you all lose voters to third parties. lmao
No, no one is wondering why a tiny fraction of the public willfully chooses to throw their vote away. It’s actually impressive that on this one issue only half a percent or so are so woefully uneducated. We don’t need to wonder why, all we are concerned with is that fascism is on the ballot and so we need you to stop spreading this donkey-brainery because we even need morons to vote for Harris. If Trump is elected, as everyone paying attention knows, we are absolutely fucked. No amount of pretending to be a socialist will change that. Btw, come the fuck on. You are not a socialist. We all know what you are. WoKeFrEe is perhaps the only sliver of truth in that story you call a profile.
Because you can’t self reflect?
Don’t confuse your ego with the world outside yourself.
I have no problem with any of that. I’m just not voting for your candidate. Thanks!
she ran during obama as well so it was also, technically, a vote for mccain
I don’t get it…why would you even vote for Stein at this point? She’s not going to win, she’s not going to break the threshold for federal election funding, and I don’t see a substantial distinction between her policy and Harris.
Brain worm at least had a 1 in 1000 of breaking the funding threshold. Jill has what, less than a chance of finding the winning lotto ticket in the middle of the desert?
The only result of that vote is boosting Donald’s chances.
Why…why would you even vote for her at this point? What’s the end game?
Harris platform has exactly zero policies in common with the green party
Are you a paid spokesperson for the Green party? I don’t know how you can write something like that with a straight face.
Edit: I went to the green party page to make sure I’m not full of shit…I’m not…it’s a slightly more liberal Democrat policy page.
Same focuses on equality, green energy, and inclusion.
I really don’t get what you think a green party vote will get you that a vote for Harris won’t. Other than another feather in the fedora of stupid mistakes we make when we are young, or you really like Russia. I don’t get it at all.
Because you’re young, clearly. Maybe this is just the first election you’ve paid attention to. Every disaffected voter was like you, once.
Then we realized dem platform has nothing to do, whatsoever, with what the do in office. Even when they have a majority in both houses of Congress and can pass anything their heart desires, they actively refuse to pass legislation relating to the platform they sold us on. You can only be lied to so many times before you realize doing the same thing will not get you a different outcome. Voting dem will never improve your life. Maybe third party will, maybe not, but voting dem won’t, it’s empirically proven.
I’m old enough to remember the green party votes haven’t worked in the last 5 presidential elections. I threw away a vote on them when Obama had a lock on his second term.
Here we are a couple decades later and the green party has done zero to affect major change in the US. They did likely get Hillary fucked, so thanks for that 4 years of hell I guess.
Brain worm was your best chance this cycle and he’s been paid off already.
Really…seriously…what will voting green get you here? You can’t win, you can’t get federal funding, if you break 2% I’ll be amazed…
What’s the point of a green vote when Harris is so closely aligned with your platform?
No child, they didn’t lose clinton the election she refused to campaign for.
And no, a genocidal cop that has only repeated Trump’s 2016 immigration platform has nothing in common with my preferred policies. Greens are he compromise party. The minimally progressive option of things developed countries generally already have.
nothing in common with my preferred policies
Really? And the chick eating dinner with Putin represents you as a person? That’s what you stand for? That’s an interesting statement.
I don’t care who she has dinner with.
Thank goodness. I don’t know what I’d do if I found out Harris was a Russian shill.
Man you people have brain worms like trump worshippers. Yes granny, I’m sure sleepy Jill is totally taking billions from those filthy Soviet commies that want to eat your dogs and cats.
No need to resort to ad hominem, bud. She’s a proven spoiler, and a shill.
And I’m not sure that you’re aware, but most of your leftists friends have already abandoned her, so you can either keep up or catch up, either way, I don’t care what you do as your little Green Party is now more irrelevant that it ever was. I’m going to guess it won’t exist come next election.
And I’m going to assume the cheap little “dogs and cats” thing is somehow supposed to be an accusation that I’m a mouth-breathing conservative, just because I said that Shill Stein is a fraud?
Is that how you want to be seen? Insulting people because they don’t like your candidate?
Who does that remind you of exactly?
Better luck next time. But you lost this one.
Badly.
An opinion piece from the wsj and a story funded by the dnc?
That’s what you based your confused worship of corporate bootlickers on?
Also I don’t care how you people see me, you people already thought I was trash because I was poor, hysterical because I care about the climate, and a traitor because I think we shouldn’t have an offensive military force or corporate owned government. returning insults isn’t going to change how you see me, you never considered me a person in the first place. Hell you all thought I shouldn’t get married just a decade ago.
Wow… I didn’t know you were a victim of…. Everthing ever. Had I known, I’d have just blocked you like I am going to do now.
I don’t debate with bad-faith rhetoric designed to take away anyone’s argument or else appear as a villain.
You win by default. You’re untouchable.
Enjoy victimhood and be sure to do this with everyone so you can never lose an argument!
The actual face of liberalism shows itself again. I really can’t wait until you people appoint the next Hitler like liberals did last time so we might get some progress and time away from liberal nonsense.
Because I don’t care. Neither party actually listens to the average American either way my bills are getting more expensive and my dollar worth less.
Yep! That’s why I’m voting third party. Dems and Repubs don’t care about us.
You really find someone who has promised to herd immigrants into what will certainly become death camps and crash the US economy whilst ending democracy equally bad as business as usual?
I think Harris is just as bad as Trump.
Wow, so rarely does someone find a way to announce such extreme ignorance so succinctly
You two should just get a room already. I’m still waiting to find out on what basis you claim that I am them. Because I think third parties should exist?
Oh are you using your alt right now?
Well I’m definitely not voting Harris or Trump. So I could see how some people would decide on Stein.
Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party: 80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
the supreme court run by the Federalist Society is seeing a serious deterioration in rights and a vast expansion of corporatism. I’d argue the denial of more federalist society court judges is far more valuable (to both americans at home and the international community at large) than literally anything the fringe parties could contribute
likely a green party president would just be impeached if he/she refused to tow the line on israel or whatever - note that trumps first impeachment was on denying ukraine weapons.
While I appreciate the idea that we have a democracy in the US - corporate rule has become far more likely because of a decades long campaign by the far right billionaires to seize control of it
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
That’s not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis
No, it’s well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates" Total people: 1047 Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER Kruger - 93 votes Maikol - 91 votesThe problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that’s the problem. That’s what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
That’s because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don’t do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option.
If that’s really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it’s bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
You went to a lot of effort here to present that very clearly, and I salute you. I’d like to think others here are just blinded by their own ideals, and that’s why nobody is answering, not because they were just arguing for a side they didn’t believe in and don’t have response to that.
Thank you. I’d hesitate to speculate exactly why it hasn’t been addressed.
But at least part of it is because arguing against what I’ve presented is akin to arguing that 2 + 2 != 4
Yep! I’m one of them who thinks like that.
So practically speaking, there is no anti-genocide vote. There is no health care for everyone vote. There is no reduction in firearm caused deaths of children and teens vote. There is no anti corporate regulatory capture vote. These things just are not possible to achieve in America by voting.
Ahahaha spoken like a true Nazi watching Jews being boarded on a train.
Edit: I dont know what the hell is going on with this person. I am for damn sure not a nazi.
They’re a troll.
Just wanna point out that calling someone a troll is against the civility rules in this sub. Thank you!
You’re a troll too.
Nope.
Stein refused to call Putin a war criminal, so yes. There is no anti genocide vote.
I wish we’d yell at the non-voters at least as equally as the 3rd party voters.
Right?!
Me too. It’d take some of the heat off of me for once! haha
I wish we’d yell at democrats for failing to appeal to voters, which is really one of the most basic responsibilities of a politician.
It’s impossible to appeal to everyone. 6 in 10 Americans believe Israel has a right to continue it’s fight with Hamas. 6 in 10 Americans are also sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. The Dems are attempting to thread that needle. And while I don’t agree with the unconditional support of Israel. The US is heavily invested in partnership with Israel and foreign policy has always shifted painfully slow. Despite all the death in the world, the US is involved in the least death it has been involved in since the WWII. We’ve been constantly at war since WWII. And shifting from the US being constantly at war to only arming our allies is at least some improvement.
One things certain, if Trump wins authoritarians will be emboldened worldwide and the amount of death will increase much much more, including here.
Forget appealing to everyone, democratic party policy fails to appeal even to democratic party supporters: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/5/8/support-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-increases-across-party-lines
Given these polls, one would think that the democratic party wouldn’t be so supportive of israel, the far-right party in charge there, and its campaign of genocide, yet the party keeps going full throttle all-in on support. Democrats like to use the excuse of their hands being tied, but their hands aren’t tied here. In fact, if democrats did nothing it would be an improvement, because they’re actually putting in the extra effort to increase funding to israel and vetoing UN resolutions against them.
Amen!
Ah yes, I remember how protest voting went in 2016
That wasn’t the reason why democrats lost in 2016.
For the editor and anyone else who does not understand math: people voting for Trump means Trump gets a vote.
A vote for Jill Stein means Trump does not get a vote.
Would you rather have someone vote third party or vote Trump?
Exactly! I’ll share your downvotes…but you’re right.
The whole thing feels like an argument intended to push people away rather than rally support.
I’ve noticed a LOT of Lemmy’s seem to want to push people away rather than welcome or rally support when it comes to uncommitted voters or third-party voters… Very surprising to me.
It’s almost like we expect bad faith interactions from people trying to interact with bad faith.
Weird, right?!
I don’t know, because I’m not posting or interacting in bad faith. Just because some doesn’t share your views, doesn’t mean they are interacting in bad faith.
Werid, right?!
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala’s chances the same way a Republican voting for RFK hurts Trump’s chances
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
In 2016 many Bernie Bro’s spite voted for Trump. Stein is leeching votes from Harris but also provides an alternative for what could have turned into spite voters.
Jill stein is running against Trump
Jill Stein is literally only running to steal Kamala votes to improve the chances of Trump winning
that’s not what her platform says
Well… That would depend on how many people vote for a third party, doesn’t it?
I mean, I know Americans love telling other Americans that voting third party is a wasted vote, but that’s a self-fulfilling profacy. If everyone believes nobody is voting third party, then nobody will vote third party, so third parties never win, which will lead Americans to say that nobody votes for third parties.
Your first past the post system and your major news agencies who don’t have the decency to pretend to be impartial is really doing a number on your country.
Edit: Always fun to see how Americans get so offended about being reminded of such a simple fact. All the excuses and the downvotes are great indications of how you’re all doomed to be stuck with what you have.
You are your own worst enemy.
Yep!
It’s mathematically Impossible to have a 3rd party in the US, when are you people with other systems going to understand that?
It’s mathematically Impossible to have a 3rd party in the US
you’re making that up
Then why do they never win any votes in the electoral college? When is the last time a third party ever succeeded nationally in the US when it didn’t involve the dissolution of some other party that preceded it?
That’s not math. those are just questions.
You’re on a roll today. I just may love you a little bit!
You need 270 Electoral College votes to prevent the vote going to the states for the Presidency. There are 538 votes available. The only way to have more than two parties compete and have the election not go to the House is if one party is unified and has large public support against the other parties that do not. This essentially creates a single-party state.
Ergo, our system is designed to have two parties, each with roughly half the population behind them. Anything more mathematically ends in a single party state.
this is not a mathematical proof. it’s a story.
Who is this article for?
It doesn’t address the real problem here: That first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
Because fptp is garbage, third parties are little more than a method to undermine a candidates opposition (in the US in 2024 the green party is ironically propped up in part by the republican party)
By leaving out fptp it just sounds like anti democracy drivel.
I wish we had ranked choice voting, it just makes so much more sense
Yeah, and there are two major parties that don’t really want ranked choice voting. lol
There is really only one major party against ranked choice voting. Every year, Democratic caucuses vote to add ranked choice voting to their platform. Democrats have managed to get Ranked Choice Voting in several cities.
Republicans do not. Republicans repeal RCV. Every RCV repeal in the US was done by Republicans.
Both parties are not the same, and if you really want a third party candidate, you’re better off getting rid of every Republican you can.
This is exactly what I came to say. Dems also seem like the best chance to get the 127 DC states plan into play, after which we could easily see a surge in third parties (without the harm thanks to having nation wide RCV)
first past the post voting is a broken system and that main party candidates should make more effort to fix this glaring hole in the voting system.
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
That aside, the major parties don’t want to reform the system they have because it’s worked very well for them. Our parties are incredibly old by world standards. The Democrats have been around since the 18th century, and the Republicans have been around since the 1850s.
The problem is if you believe this entirely then there’s no mechanism to affect parties. Which is easy to disprove.
The overarching reality is that the parties are affected by things: culturally there’s been a long period (150 years) of slowly unrestricting people with lots of resistance. Then there’s also a economic right wing drift for decades, largely along capital accumulation lines.
I buy the idea that the parties are hard to affect but the idea they are impossible to affect seems ahistorical.
Lol there’s definitely a way to affect them.
Two actually.
One is $$$$
The other one you aren’t allowed to propose.
?There’s several ways to affect politics
-
Corruption - largely the higher corruption is the more advocates to lower taxes for their donors. This is driven by capital accumulation.
-
Bottom up struggles - largely if a number of states do a thing the federal politicians will pick it up. Voting rights, marijuana legalization etc fall into this. Realistically this is probably the way to pick up votes.
-
Media driven - Trump is primarily influenced this way with scares, fear, bullshit. The last 40 years are driven heavily by media scares funded by right wing billionaires. Factual information sometimes breaks through here: I would argue the obamacare ban on pre-existing conditions was the outcome of a media cycle. Usually these are bad rather than good.
-
Personal affectations of politicians. Cheney’s daughter caused him to be sensible on gay rights, McCain’s stance on torture was a result of his time as a POW. George Bush’s daddy issues about Iraq lead to millions of people dying. If enough people shoot at trump I do see him passing gun legislation (not encouraging it, just speculation)
-
The Democratic Party would rather lose to the Republican Party than change the rules to allow for a multi-party system.
Exactly! I wish I could upvote you more than once, friend!
Looks like I’m not the only one on Lemmy who’s not voting for the Duopoly. This is an awesome thread. Thanks for posting, OP!
Why don’t democrats invest in actually bringing people to their movement instead of wasting their time on shitting on 3rd parties? Let people vote who they want to vote for, and who they feel voices their opinions the best. That’s what democracy is at the end of the day.
Why don’t third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead of wasting their time shitting on democrats? I’m not saying there’s not plenty of good reasonsto shit on democrats but if any third party wants to be taken seriously they should start acting like it.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there’s obviously a market for it. People that would’ve otherwise stayed home instead of voting for the democrats now have a voice. That’s what democracy looks like, at least in most European countries that is. It’s fairly normal to see smaller parties pop up that better represent a subsection of the electorate than to see huge monolithic parties that try to encompass everything.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there’s obviously a market for it.
There isn’t though. No third party has ever won the presidency.
In Congress, there has never been even 1% of them being third party. Same with the senate.
Where exactly is the market, and why is it not at all reflected in any part of the elected government?
Is it perhaps because it doesn’t exist?
Oh the paradox of the third party. They’re too weak to make a dent, but also the root of all evil. This sounds like fascism to me.
If they’re so harmless, then why do you care if a very small portion of the electorate votes for them? After all it won’t make a dent, right? :)
If they make such a big dent that the democratic party needs to run smear campaigns against them, then how come they’re so harmless and underrepresented?
To me it looks like you have a dysfunctional system. They are popular enough to be voted by a huge chunk of the electorate, thus hurting the big legacy parties, but your system is built in such a way that they end up being underrepresented at the national level.
If you think casting any ballot is a form of protest you need to learn what real protest looks like.
Hint: It doesn’t involve participating in the system you’re protesting.
Not voting indirectly also is a vote for Trump.
Not voting isn’t a protest either. Disrupting the voting? That would be a protest. But the Greens and Stein don’t have the balls for that.
no, it’s not
Yes, it is
if that were true, you could prove it. there is no world in which non votes are counted for Trump
indirectly
Say there are 9 voters. Four vote for Trump. Five heavily disagree with Trump (more than Trump’s four supporters). Three of them vote for Harris, two refuse to vote. Then these two people helped Trump since he’s winning now.
It works exactly the same on a much larger scale.
The only votes that help a candidate are votes for that candidate. A non-vote doesn’t help any candidate.
In the actual world, governed by actual mathematics, you are incorrect. This has been repeatedly pointed out to you, with illustrative examples, by many people. Your stubborn, willful ignorance cannot change the fabric of reality.
this is just hand waving. it’s not proof.
Still no proof, friend.
Good point!
I dont like that voting third party in the US is essentially a non-vote for a party in the “system,” but it is. I voted green party in the past, and ended up regretting it. And relavent to Stein, not a good person, or even party, to vote for now. Folks need to be active, and vote down ballot, and in “off cycle” years. Change takes time, the best way to be heard is through the down ballot when helpful.
It really does suck. The current voting system not only discourages anything other than a two party system, it basically guarantees it. And then it becomes one of those things where why the hell would one of those two parties, who’s perpetually in charge, ever vote to change a system that would allow for another party (or parties) to come into power? It’s just gonna be a slog to ever get it fully changed to something like ranked choice. But I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong.
many states have initiative systems. Alaska, for instance, implented a solid Ranked Choice Voting system for statewide elections. As we see from weed legalization: eventually ballot measures get soaked up by major parties.
If you guys think the spoiler effect isn’t real then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. I voted Green in 2000. Never again.
Climate town just did a really interesting video about how the election in 2000 was literally stolen by the Republicans via brothers Bush and Bush and their corrupt secretary of State in Florida. And honestly wouldn’t matter if you had voted red, Green blue purple or rainbow.
Yes, it was stolen, however they were only able to do that because the margins were close. Had the green voters instead voted for the candidate closest to them that had a chance (Gore), then it would have mattered.
Let’s break down this bullshit: A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. The election clerks count ballots marked for Stein and report the vote totals that Stein received. A vote for Jill Stein is literally a vote for Jill Stein.
The statement that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump is, of course, metaphorical. It’s asserting that a vote for Stein is morally equivalent to a vote for Trump by the speaker’s moral reckoning. It’s a rhetorical shortcut. This shortcut rests on the notion that either the voter would have voted for Harris, or that it is a moral imperative to stop Trump above all else.
That’s a moral judgement call. Other people may judge differently. Flatly stating that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump so vehemently and absolutely elides any possibility of discourse and clearly tells the Stein voter that the speaker will not listen to or consider any of their views, or reasons to vote for Stein.
Fine, you believe that, but when has telling people more or less directly that you do not have any intention of considering their political beliefs won them over to your side? How is that a good tactic? If it worked, then why not employ it on Trump supporters? Go ahead, tell them that the party you support will ignore what they think and want, and demand they vote for your candidate.
If it doesn’t work on them, why should it work on Stein voters?
No, this is absolute bullshit.
Nailed it… Probably gonna catch a lot of down votes from lib shills… But fuck 'em, this is exactly right. Honestly, I think any of these bullshit articles that will clearly push people further away must be part of the plan to help Trump… Or are the libs really still just this stupid? Have learned absolutely nothing from all their time losing
I am soooo happy to see how many people are disagreeing with the “a vote for third party is a vote for Trump!” bs that usually so approved here. This discussion thread has made my day! lol
Fucking thank you for saying it.
(and for saying it more eloquently than I have been able to.)
Right?! I need to use parts of his post for the endless people yelling at me for voting third party. lol
Or you could optionally pull your head out of your ass and stop the campaign
Well said, not horse shit.
Not surprised to see your bullshit here.
Great post!
