I am no expert here, and I won't claim that. But I believe part of the problem with not having more than two options is that people always say it's throwing your vote away when you vote for a third party. If enough people eventually knew it WASN'T throwing your vote away, and third parties had their fair share of media coverage, it wouldn't just be two parties.
And what if instead of just 1 party wins you have the power shared between the partys and how muthc voting power they have is based on how many votes they got?
Ideally you want to implement something like instant runoff voting or ranked choice voting so that you can vote for an underdog without worrying about wasting your vote. I think 1-2 states are already doing it, but until then, itās really hard to convince people to gamble their vote on the hope that maybe this year 30-50% of the country will do the same, especially when things like important human rights are on the line.Ā
If you want viable third party candidates (or even multiple first-and-second party candidates of varying types, like a young progressive to challenge an old middle-of-the-road democrat), I feel like itās better solution to push/vote/donate for IRV initiatives in your state.
Ironically, Trump would have never been elected in an IRV system, because at the time of his primary election, he was pretty unpopular - itās just that the 7-8 more mainstream republicans split the anti-Trump vote 8 ways.
Jungle primaries would be a nice step forward, but I like IRV because it avoids the extremist-rewarding aspects of regular runoffs (which Jungle Primaries also avoid) but unlike primaries, it eliminates the vote-splitting problem so nobody has to play this meta-vote game where they have to decide if theyāre wasting votes on someone who canāt win - you just rank people in the order you like them and if everybody happens to like the dark horse, the dark horse can actually win.Ā
Yeah, I just like jungle primaries because anyone can go primary and the top 2 go on. And it's run by the state and not the party. You could also do IRV with it, too, which would solve the meta voting issue. Of course then at the actual election it's the top 2 so there's no need for IRV.
Ah yeah, I was definitely advocating for something like that, an IRV general election with multiple parties, run by the state. That way, candidates who are popular across party lines or third party candidates are appropriately rewarded.
I think that once youāve done a multi-party IRV āprimary,ā though, thereās no need for a runoff, because voters have already expressed who they would vote for in any given race between any two candidates via their ranked votes.Ā
The right amount of people out in the street, shutting down the country can. I suggest Americans use these next 4 months as a great opportunity for a little experiment.
Yes, there are, but that doesn't fit into this oversimplified pseudo-intellectual narrative. Neither does the fact that third party candidates like RFK are more braindead than either Trump or Biden.
The independent this time around is actually pulling a little weight, I doubt it would do more than split a vote but the what if of it at least makes me take a second look.
Edit: Never said he was a good option just that there is another option so itās really a choice between 3 bad options instead of 2 bad options.
You do. I voted Jo Jorgensen last time and will be voting RFK Jr this time. Some call it a āwasted voteā, I call it being able to sleep like a baby at night knowing I didnāt vote for one of these geriatric fucks.
That's how people felt with Hillary because of the smear campaign that ended in nothing. These candidates are the ones that the immature moronic voters deserve.
Itās not a mindset thing, itās a voting system thing, first past the post elections will always result in a 2 party split because game theory says people will not want to waste their vote and the reality of first past the post is that there is never more than two viable options
Ranked voting systems such as Single Transferable Vote create an environment where additional parties can flourish by removing the penalty for voting for an unpopular candidate as your first choice, the tricky part is changing the system when everyone in power right now understands that they benefit from the status quo and the Democrats and Republicans will work together to ensure we donāt reform our elections
The 17th amendment directly caused/allowed the current two party system. Say what you will about the potential devils we might be dealing with instead, but it nationalized the parties and removed the ability for any local movements or parties to gain traction.
You say that like itās a choice. They both suck but theyāre what weāve got right now, and weāve gotta pick the one that doesnāt try to fuck his daughter.
Nice try at a gotcha but thatās a terrible idea if you value your freedom, based on trumps promises in project 2025. The situation is what it is, and weāve got to try to make the best of it.
Project 2025 is from a seperate group called the Heritage foundation, Trump has not endorsed it or made promises to implement it. He even said recently he hasn't really read it. And it's not the conservative platform.
You seem to have fallen for fear mongering by media/social media.
The man tried to stage a coup, and every branch of our government will be red if he wins the election. He has said multiple times youāll ānever have to vote againā if you vote for him. He spoke at a convention where the guy who introduced him said democracy dies in 2024, to a ton of applause. Even if youāre correct, the man should not be president. The media doesnāt need to fear monger, Trump already scares us enough.
You are a walking talking example of how media misleads people, and people only read headlines.
He literally said at the end of his rally on January 6th to "peacefully and patrioticly" go to the capital. Then called on them to stop once it got out of hand. This whole "coup" thing is just a Democrat talking point.
You probably believed the "good people on both sides" lie too.
I don't even like the guy and you got me here defending the fucker š¤¦āāļø
I donāt give a fuck what language he used, he shouldnāt have done it. He also had many opportunities to try to stop it and didnāt until the situation became dire. Until people were dead. And you literally didnāt address another one of my points, because YOU donāt do your research. YOU donāt know what youāre talking about. But go ahead, vote for your felon god. heās probably gonna win because so many people are as dumb as you.
??? What are you talking about, there was a full primary this year (and not at all like the GOPās primary in 2020 which just straight up cancelled a bunch of state primaries). I know there werenāt any debates, but thatās pretty standard when thereās an incumbent president, and the couple of people who challenged him polled so badly that it wasnāt unreasonable that that precedent continued.
Again, having no primary to replace Biden is what will lose the election. The statement still applies. Regardless of how you or the media wants to twist it.
A primary has two meanings, the second being and individual who becomes our primary candidate. Shows that you receive your political knowledge from reddit and tik-tok. Lmao
Do you realize that itās too late for that? I fuckin hate em both, but what are you gonna do? the election is just months away, Biden shouldāve stepped down amicably and let another person run. But he didnāt. So we have to make do. When Trump wins, Iām gonna partially blame Biden. But Iām also gonna blame people like you, who donāt understand how the system works and helped him take over the country.
We should have primaried months ago. He didn't just wake up all fucked. He's been like this for years. They lied to us and purposefully hid this sickness from us. The system doesn't work when we are lied to. It sounds like you just drink the CNN/Tik-Tok kool-aid instead of coming up with your own logical conclusions. How ironic.
This response doesnt mean anything. He SHOULDVE stepped down. I wish he did. But he DIDNT. So Iām gonna vote for him because heās the last line of defense against Trump. Most people feel the same. If you canāt make sense of that, youāre an idiot and I donāt care to argue with you any further.
Thatās fine, I trust his peers more than I trust Trump. If he dies, I trust Kamala more than I trust Trump. Thanks for all the insults though, now go fuck yourself. š
Tell that to absolutely everyone on this thread and others saying "vote Blue no matter who", "I'd vote for X over Trump" and so on. It's literally the same thing you did with Hillary, you just don't wanna win.
Also, if you vote for the person, for Biden, and not for the party, you deserve what you're gonna get.
Youāre so brainwashed itās not even funny, Hilary was a fine candidate. Biden is not that bad. If he dies in office, which he almost certainly will, his VP is totally competent. He refused to step down, so itās likely heās gonna be on the ballot. That makes him the best choice right now to beat Trump. Youāre not from here so maybe you donāt get it, but we donāt see the guy who has continually promised to take our rights away and the guy who forgets his sentences sometimes in an equal light.
Plenty of time before the election, no need to dickride Biden quite yet. There's still time to pressure him out as he does not appear qualified as even senior dem members seem to agree
I literally just said I hate him, but yeah Iām ādickridingā. I hope youāre right, I hope he drops out, but I doubt it. If he drops out (or passes) Iāll vote for the strongest candidate. But until then, I sadly think heās our best shot.
actually thanks at you two, i think i just learned a bit about USA lore :)
May i ask, and i dont mean to ask in a malicious "Rude" or troll way but out of realy curiosity (pls dont be mad, im Swiss, im really used to having about 20 Partys and there are thousands to vote into councils-> (they vote the highest branch of gouverment after))
Why wouldnt you just vote for someone else out of protest? the main problem you seem to have is the fact that there are only two options and lets be honest, since Obama the choices seem to kinda suck lately.
Iām not American but i feel like the problem is that by this point trying to vote for someone else would be doomed to fail because there wouldnāt be enough votes for them either way. If you wanted to go against the two big parties in the US you probably need to start years in advance to get the attention needed.
Isn't that assuming that the third party / independent can't achieve more votes than either Republican or Democrat? Take your example of 20 people. If 4 of the 9 Republican votes flipped to independent, and 4 of the 11 Democrat votes flipped to independent, then the independent would win.
Is the country really so far from half of the Republican voters still wanting to vote Trump? And if Democrats want to stick with Biden, why would they not choose someone else who shows more accountability, respect for the country and good faith?
I'm from the UK and in the latest elections a new party named Reform UK managed to decimate the ruling Conservatives vote. The Labour party went from a pretty terrible number of MPs to winning a big majority...without actually increasing their vote share much at all. They won big because the Conservatives lost so many voters and because the Labour votes became distributed across all constituencies more evenly.
TLDR; Third parties will never win a national election due to a myriad of reasons. Replacing a presidential candidate for a party involves much more than just saying "they're the candidate".
You could get a bunch of people to vote third party out of protest. Not more than either majority party, but a bunch. Now try organizing a majority win for a specific third party candidate out of 160 million voters without the backing of one of the major parties. Not gonna happen. All you'll do is split the vote from whatever party is closest in political beliefs to them, and the remaining large party wins.
Even if they won enough electoral votes for someone to not reach the threshold of 270 to win, the election then goes to the House where each block of House Reps(E: Per state. As in, the Reps of each state get together and decide who the state is voting for, effectively) collectively vote on the President. So basically, if there are more Republican or Democrat-controlled states, that's who would be voted in. Since there are no third party controlled states, they don't have a prayer at a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
It's not comparable to the UK. Flat out.
Part of the reason Biden is hard to replace is the sheer logistics. There are deadlines for when absentee ballots are sent out in various states which must have the party nominees, and there are earlier deadlines for printing out said ballots. Also, afaik campaign funds raised for Biden can't simply be swapped to the next candidate, and people's wallets have already been partly tapped.
There's a whole laundry list of problems I would have to lay out in response to your comment, but the biggest takeaway should be that I am 1,000,000% certain that a third party candidate will not win the presidency of the United States any time soon. It would require a fundamental reframing of our election process to be remotely feasible and I legitimately don't see that happening within the next century let alone my lifetime.
You could get a bunch of people to vote third party out of protest. Not more than either majority party, but a bunch.
Why not? If Trump and Biden (or their respective parties) are really that bad then why could the reasonable majority not vote for a sensible alternative?
I know it isn't likely, for lots of reasons. As you say, settling on a suitable person who everyone agrees on. Promoting that option to others and convincing them. Getting over those people who vote based on party loyalty. And so on. But...it is possible. And in a situation like this, shouldn't it be viable? Where is the protest in the USA? The desire to move beyond two bad options that take people for granted? I don't like them but the Reform party in the UK came from nowhere and had a huge impact on the outcome of the election. The French elections saw the possibility of a far right win and so the other parties all worked together, only putting one candidate forward against them, so they didn't split the vote. The situation is much worse in the USA and yet there is not even a suggestion of anything other than Republican or Democrat. Red or Blue. That's all the choice you get...and yet it isn't. It's perfectly possible to collectively take action. Isn't it?
Yes, but your reference to Reform proves my point: they got an outlandish number of votes and a pittance in Parliament. Thatās exactly how it works for third parties in the US.
If the situation is that bad (and it really seems like it is) then why hasn't a push been made for a competent, sensible third option? If democracy was truly working then a better third option should take the most votes, right?
The problem is that (for lack of energy to be specific) you have to win states, not votes. The 3rd party has to win the most votes within more states than every other party combined. Congress would elect either a D or R if not (which is why grassroots matters and 3rd-party Presidential candidates once every 4 years is dumb).
Thereās no push because (1) most Americans donāt actually want to put a 3rd option into power, (2) that 3rd option would have to be the exact same across the entire United States, and (3) these trolls only come out every four years to complain about Biden and that we donāt have a 3rd option, but do not campaign or even vote in every other local, state, or national election inbetween.
Thereās no push because (1) most Americans donāt actually want to put a 3rd option into power
Which is insane. You cannot run a democracy by saying you only ever have two choices. It's bad enough in the UK where Labour or Conservatives are only ever likely to win...but there are at least other parties, they can and do win seats in parliament, there's potential for coalitions and there is always a chance one of the parties could win power (eg Reform are a new party that took a substantial number of votes and a few MPs, it's conceivable that in the future they could gain power).
(2) that 3rd option would have to be the exact same across the entire United States
"Do you want the senile guy, the senile dictator or this competent person?"
Someone like a Bloomberg, who has represented both parties, been an independent and has the cash to put himself forward. Except...he's also old!
How is your electoral system any different? If I had understood correctly UK was much more rough for 3rd party candidates, but their 2 party system is collapsing as we speak.
All Im saying is that you really really REALLY should start breaking up the D and R.
There were more choices. We have primaries, and the American people chose to have these two as the final candidates. People bitch about it but itās the truth.
I would trade those lives for a single (hypothetical!) rape, yes. What the actual fuck is wrong with you to even ask that.
And it's beside the point. There is four months to rally behind a candidate who neither 'would' rape their daughter or fund, arm, and diplomatically protect a full on live-streamed genocide.
And which alternative Democrat should be pushed to the top? In case you haven't noticed, there have been essentially zero candidates that plan to end support for Israel. Whether or not Biden is wrong is irrelevant if there are no viable candidates who would actually do what you want them to do. Join the fuckin real world, and quit living in a fuckin fantasy world.
The alternative is WORSE. Do you not understand that? You claim you care about Palestinians, then you single handedly try to make their plight even worse by increasing the odds Trump is reelected?
Sounds like you would rather them all be killed so you can say "I told you so". So essentially, you could give 2 fucks about Palestinians.
"Not voting for the guy who has vetoed 3 ceasefires, sent billions in munitions, and lied about beheaded babies to justify mass slaughter? Why do you hate Palestinians?"
That's not a sane take bud.
If you vote for Biden or any pro-genocide candidate you are complicit in genocide. There are options.
Throwing your vote away is only going to make the genocide worse. But I guess youāll be able to pat yourself on the back and boast to people āwell I voted green, so itās not my fault.ā
The situation with the candidates is unfortunate, but if you split the vote here and Trump ends up in-office... it will be little comfort since he will be giving the same amount of support to Israel... in addition to crap like setting himself up as a dictator.
Trump has been friends with Biden and the Clintons for decades. There's pictures of them all smiles from the fuckin 90s.
Clinton asked networks to elevate his campaign in 2016, in what was called the "Pied Piper" strategy. That's a fact. Clinton also campaigned really poorly, and twisted the DNC's arm to pick her over Bernie despite Sanders polling far better vs Trump.
Biden has said that it's fine if Trump gets elected as long as he "did his best".
But you don't blame the corporate owned genocidal Democrats - you blame the people who vote against them.
Liberals voters really are a special kind of propagandized.
You say that like Trump will be better. Heās probably gonna send American soldiers to help with it. On top of that, Biden couldnāt cut our funding of Israel if he wanted to. āChecks and balancesā, and all the other branches are red. But, go ahead and vote to lose your freedom because you wanna look good on Twitter.
Heās probably gonna send American soldiers to help with it
American soldiers have been helping Israel massacre people. For months. A couple people have set themselves on fire about it, even before the whole quarter billion "aid" port doing perfidy.
Biden couldnāt cut our funding of Israel if he wanted to
Dude he ran around Congress to deliver massive ordnance. Twice. He lied about beheaded babies. Twice.
Pay attention if "you wanna look good" on Reddit while trying to defend a genocidal demented shitbird.
I couldnāt find a single source that says US soldiers are helping kill peope in Israel, beyond speculation and conspiracy. However, Iām still not giving Trump a vote even if youāre right. Iām not defending him, read the comment where I said clearly, multiple times that I hate him. However, heās better than Trump. Trump will bring war here. He will kill our people as well as Palestineās. He will let Ukraine fall and also likely bring war to Europe, with his buddies in Russia. Theyāre both shitty, but stopping the conservatives from winning is what needs to be done. if Joe drops out, which I hope he does, I will eagerly vote for the new candidate. But I wonāt waste it in protest and give a vote to Trump.
Here's an extremely long, extremely uncontroversial list of all the ways US soldiers are helping Israel kill people. I don't know how the fuck you didn't find it. Rights groups have been warning about US complicity in war crimes since fucking October.
Really man idk wtf is wrong with you.. But "better than Trump" is not the bar. Genocide is a red line. Dementia + nuclear codes is a red line. This isn't fucking complex.
If Dems would rather lose to Trump than run a candidate who isn't detested by his own fucking base (74% of Dem voters wish he wasn't the candidate!!!), then we have four months to rally behind Stein. The people telling you she can't win are lying to you (while being complicit in genocide, a reliable signal for bad people).
More Americans are unaffiliated than like both parties put together. Put that energy you're using to cover for a genocidal cryptkeeper child sniffing Roomba into a candidate that isn't straight up fucking evil.
That link doesnāt work and even if it did, i can already tell it doesnāt prove what youāre saying. I know our government supports Israel. You said weāre doing the killing. He who sells the weapon is not equal to he who uses it. Iām well aware we provide funding to Israel and I donāt support it. I wish weād stop, I hope we do sooner rather than later. That said, I donāt want the people here to fall to the same fate as Palestine. Is that so wrong? Trump is undoubtedly more evil than Biden, and if Biden ends up as our only option, weāve gotta take him. Key word is if. Sucks but I live in reality, and it aināt a utopia here. Must be nice to live in a perfect place where right and wrong are so clear and never clash.
Or, walk with me here - the same billionaire donors that pump money into both parties don't care who the president is, so long as they get to pick the nominees.
The emperor wears no fucking clothes people.
The french lady is singing.
It's time to wake up
We donāt put anyone up for office, we get to choose whoever they give us. We wanted Bernie 8 years ago but the DNC would not have that so they had a bunch of the other candidates drop out and give their support (delegates) to Biden.
"But thereās a larger context that is more important than what happened at the DNC and is getting lost in the back and forth over joint fundraising agreements and staffing power. The Democratic Party ā which is a different and more complex entity than the Democratic National Committee, and which includes elected officials and funders and activists and interest groups who are not expected to be neutral in primaries ā really did favor Hillary Clinton from early in the campaign, and really did shape the race in consequential ways.
The irony is that Sanders was a primeĀ beneficiaryĀ of this bias, not a victim of it.The losers were potential candidates like Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Warren, or Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper ā and, thus, Democratic primary voters, who ended up with few choices in 2016. To the extent Democratic primary voters feel like they were denied a broad range of candidates in 2016, and that party officials tried to clear the field to coronate Clinton, well, theyāre right.
Democratic elites, defined broadly, shaped the primary before voters ever got a chance to weigh in, and the way they tried to shape it was by uniting behind Clinton early in the hopes of avoiding a bruising, raucous race. The question ā which is important going forward, not just for relitigating 2016 ā is whether that was the right decision. I donāt think it was."
Nobody actually fit to lead our country to greater things wants to touch the presidency with a even a ten foot poll. Itās a shitty job, half of the country will automatically hate you and youāll be damned if you do or donāt.
Making a big deal about Biden's condition so someone else can run is exactly the point. And yet here in this very thread we have thousands of people missing the point and deciding it must be everyone else who is stupid.
The best āwe can put upā? Thatās the funny part about America, the freedom only goes surface level. The politics is just a big show to keep us focused on something other than all the money getting taken by a select few
This is true. The part your not considering is our government and big business has spread its cancer through nearly every avenue possible. Id try to explain what i mean but there's too much.
If you actually understand the politics behind it isn't that surprising.
Trump has a cult of personality. That's why he's in. About 1/3rd of the population supports Trump unconditionally. To them, he is our best.
Biden is the incumbent. There was a primary and no one decided to run against him except Dean Phillips.
You can't force people to primary someone.
If you're wondering why no one primaried Biden, it's political. Any big names like Newsom, etc., would rather wait until 2028 when things are more favorable to them than potentially primary Biden and lose.
Youāre either lying or an absolute moron. Please link me one reputable source that talks about Biden raping children. Just one. His name wasnāt on the Epstein logs.
We have proof in a sworn testimony and what will eventually become proof in trumps recorded flights on Epsteins plane and a potential video found in uncovered emails. You donāt fucking have that on Biden. If you did Iād agree whole heartedly that he should be in fucking prison. But you donāt. Youāve just made up this weird fucking theory with no physical proof. No testimonies. No being friends with prolific pedophiles. You have to make up a story about how the other side is also doing it so you can still root for the guy that actually did do it. Fucking gross.
Umm, Biden was sniffing and touching inappropriate on camera? But he's got dementia it's OK. Either way, you get a pedo in the highest office in your country, and you wonder why your country is the state it's in. These men can be blackmailed into doing whatever the other guy wants. I really suggest you start your vetting process for these offices strict and stringent. Yes, the rest of the world is watching the American people vote for this scam and wondering what the hell is going on
Iāve got bad news for you. Iām not an American diplomat. I have no power in the executive or judicial offices.
Biden was not inappropriately touching. Link something or stop making up lies. And please show me a video where heās sniffing literally anyone. Please. You dummies always talk about it but canāt actually show a video where he is definitively sniffing. Meanwhile there is a court case where a girl testifies in graphic detail how Donald Trump raped her when she was 13. His name is also plastered all over the Epstein flight logs. Heās publicly talked about not wanting those flight logs to ruin peoples lives. But because Biden āsniffedā a girls hair, heās the exact same. Idiots like you that live in America are why this country is in such a shit position. We canāt get anyone elected that can provide any real change because morons like you live in an echo chamber and vote any decent politician out of office.
I really really need you to prove the logs aren't false. Remember the Russia file the dems made up? Or that she's a paid actress? Remember the girl from Kuwait that testify to Congress in the first war on Iraq. I truly don't believe anything coming from the States. It's all made up and muddled almost to the point of total bs with a 5% chance of truth. WE ALL NEED CERTAINTY. No lie there in making choices of this magnitude.
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u/PuzzleheadedMess3455 Jul 12 '24
350 million people in your country and these two old wheeze bags are the best you can put up for the highest office? .... that's a very sad truth