I don't like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.
Not voting isn't going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews and he's publicly told Israel to "finish up their war". He'll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn't a straight cisgender male back here at home.
A vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of them or their policies, it's a statement that you like their policies more than the other guy's, and "sticking it to liberals" and "refusing to support genocide" (that's not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way -- a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.
How incredibly privileged do you have to be to see an entire national election as what will happen in the Middle East and ignore Trump's campaign promises to wipe transgender Americans off the map, and further, to not realize that the same thing will happen in the Middle East regardless of which candidate wins?
I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I'll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there's a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
I'm voting for a third party instead of the slightly less evil fascist. I recommend y'all do as well. Dr. West and Claudia La Cruz are good options.
If you're not in a swing state I recommend you do the same.
vote for trump = vote for trump and his genocide
no vote = also vote for trump and trump fascist genocide
vote third party = still trump sweetie
vote biden = not a vote for biden or his own brand of genocide, apparently
got it.
before you get mad at me enabling fascism, I am not even amerikkkan, and I hope your country burns to the ground, fascist scum
did you read the original post at all?
I did, and all I could surmise was that you mistake liberals for leftists.
I know shit like Lenin is too much, but you could at least read MLK, the whitewashed saint of liberalism, to see what he really thought of your ilk (particularly, the letter from Birmingham jail)
You hope America burns to the ground? What country are you in that you think wouldn't be affected by the collapse of the United States? Power vacuums are dangerous as fuck.
Most of the third world would be better off without US Imperialism.
Yeah of course. But it's messy as hell for a decade or two while the dust settles.
I was just telling the "I hope your colony burns to the ground" person to be careful with that monkey paw.
oh no, my economy
continues to coup the third world and colonize the middle east
Who here is talking about the economy?
oh dont play coy
your "say vague implications, then backtrack when called out because you never used those exact words" shtick is almost as good as jordan peterson's.
no, you didn't talk specifically about economy, but it was implied I should not be cheering for amerikkka's fall because I probably live in a western country and would end up worse than I am - economically. Which is probably true. But also, both amerikkka's as well as my country's wealth is built on extreme exploitation of the third world, and the world at large would be better if we didn't exist.
Maybe you're replying to someone else? My comment was that power vacuums are dangerous as fuck. Not sure how someone thinks "dangerous as fuck" is about the economy?
I think he was being as glib as the person he was responding to, to mirror the "Biden or fascism" dynamic.
nah, I genuinely hope amerikkka falls. I live in a western country and would feel the consequences of that fall, but that's a tiny price to pay for the Great Satan to die
i'm not even american lmao
so you are wasting energy to help democrats with the ninth "most important US election ever" for FREE??????? holyyy shiiiiit
unlike you, i have friends all over the world that i care for, including a good bunch residing in the US right now.
Nope and if you don't understand there are more than two options that's a you problem. 😜
There's only two plausible winners.
A dilemma doesn't go away if you wish really hard for a third option.
The fact you don't understand there are only two options is everyone's problem.
There are literally more options. It's people like you that prevent a third option from becoming mainstream. Do you understand that??
If you got every person on Lemmy to vote for a single third party, you would still only have single-digit percent support. A third party will never get the popular vote, as long as we have first past the post voting.
All right and if you got every single person on lemmy to vote for the dems or the Republicans, it wouldn't change the outcome of the election. Are you saying this argument determines absolutely nothing? Because I agree lol.
Do you know that the popular vote doesn't determine the outcome of US presidential elections? Cuz it sounds like you don't understand that. I'm totally for switching to rank choice voting. Sadly we need elected politicians to do that sooooo not really productive 🤷
If we vote in some third party candidates who are actual leftist, they might enact rank choice voting. So maybe start there.
Almost no one here would vote for Trump, so you're just pulling votes away from Biden which might be enough to influence the results of the election. A few percent could be all that makes the difference.
Given that 2016 was decided by 20k votes spread across three states, id say that yeah, every person on Lemmy might swing the election.
The spoiler effect is real, and ur not going to get a chance for third party candidates to ever matter if the raging turnip were to win.
under normal circumstances, i would be inclined to agree. however, your country's voting system is anything but normal.
i'm afraid that your view of the available options is nothing more than misguided.
you're throwing away what little choice you have. you're pretending to make a statement and pretending to support the party that you vote for, knowing full well that they won't win.
good luck with trump, my friend; i will be watching in disappointment.
A vote for Biden is a signal to the Democratic party that we like what they're doing. There is no incentive for Democrats to change if we keep voting them in out of fear. Right now they are just incentived to be slightly better than the proud White Nationalist dude, which is an extremely low bar.
That's your right. You aren't even required to understand that the consequences of your actions are that you're making it easier for a guy who said he wants to be a Dictator, a guy who said he "wants to finish the problem" with regards to Palestinian genocide, a guy who has probably just been outright purchased by a conglomerate of foreign influence.
You're giving that guy a helping hand.
And that's your right.
only a vote for a candidate helps that candidate
No
its true. if no one votes for a candidate, it doesnt matter how manyvotes any other candidate gets.
That's not what you said. Your original "only" indicates that you think that votes + splitting your opponents votes isn't a strategy.
If splitting votes didn't matter, there wouldn't be so much effort put into gerrymandering. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
Voting is a practical, strategic act, not an ideological one.
>Voting is a practical, strategic act, not an ideological one.
every act is morally good, amoral, or immoral. it's immoral to vote for bad people.
you may think ends justify the means. you may think your strategy is better or more moral. i disagree.
No, I'm sorry, that's dangerously naïve, and a self-serving, solipsistic moral panic. How old are you?
If we used RCV or anything better that winner-take-all, that would be different, or if we had a parliamentary system. But we don't.
One could argue that it's immoral to not vote in a way that prevents the worst choice from winning.
Biden and his foolish decisions are giving that guy a helping hand. Try telling Biden to stop being a fucking moron if he wants to win the election.
100%. Blue MAGA's going to come out in force on this thread. If you're in CA or similar "will go blue no matter what" state, there's no reason for principled leftists to vote for Biden. Same with "will go red no matter what" states.
There is this notion that most states are "solid red or blue"... except we keep getting surprised in elections, and polling has been shit since at least the 2016 election. I don't want people in TX giving otherwise Biden votes to some 3rd party when the state as a whole has been trying to become more blue.
Trump's new slogan is going to be "Take America Back". You can buy the merch on AliExpress right now. His followers don't interpret that to mean "by voting".
Save the 3rd party virtue signals for a time when we're not on the verge of a civil war. The message we should all be sending right now is unified support for the guy who can keep Trump out of the oval office.
Ayyye exactly 👈😎. Glad you're on the same page stranger.