this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 90 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 69 points 8 months ago (48 children)

3rd party voters didn't swing a single swing state. That is a demonstrable fact. It's time to stop punching down.

[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 67 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

People will, in a single breath, tell people to exercise their right to vote in democracy and also that voting for the person/party that best represents them is wrong if it's not a Big Party.

[–] einkorn@feddit.org 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The issue in the US is that it IS against your political interests to vote for anyone but the least bad option.

The first past the post system simply doesn't allow for a diverse political landscape.

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[–] kernelle@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Usually in a democracy the people are represented by parties which they align most with. In my country I can vote for one of seven, which get proportionally represented by a number of seats in parliament. The winning party rarely has more than 50% of the vote, if they do, all the losing parties will become the opposition, and if they don't they have to combine with another party to have at least 50% of the votes. This assures that the winning party or coalition still has to negotiate their position and decisions every single day. If one party would want the power the current administration in the US has they would probably need 80 or 90% of the votes.

Is it complicated? Yes. Does it make sure the people are represented? Also yes.

In the US if a state votes 51% one way, 100% of the electoral votes go to that party, causing a reality where a party could get less than a majority vote and still win. This alone is proof that the people are not fairly represented and isn't a fair democracy. In local elections you'll have a much more nuanced choice but at a federal level it's antiquated to say the least.

I will say that in a fair democracy, you should vote for your representative, in the US you have no such choice. Be it by living in one state counts as more than another, or the fact that a third party has little to no representation post election.

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just as a side note, those models are not invulnerable to manipulation. In my country it's the same, but the central government is ruling from one of the flimsiest coalition governments, with the same lack of power that goes along that dumbasses still claim they are solely responsible for. The opposition claims they 'won' because they got more votes than any other party (which should have also made it easier for them to form their coalition and they weren't able to) and now it is getting so bad and stupid (and troll factory brigaded) that people getting convinced by the rhetoric are trying to pass off the US electoral system as a success story.

It provides more representation, but it does not provide infallibility. I think we have the technology today to do considerably better than what we had several centuries back - in fact, to a large extent we could be voting ourselves on key issues instead of letting it fall back to representatives and false promises if we wanted to. The biggest problem isn't that people in a democracy aren't on equal grounds when grasping different issues and yet they can be radicalized to vote out of rhetoric more than those who would and should be more informed. I think we could have better democracies if we shifted to meritocracies, where you could vote on issues only if you certify you were more informed and the history, reality, and minutiae that govern those issues through exams. But that would also create a system that could be gamed.

Any system can be corrupt, and in democracies it's not just the political candidates but society as a whole when it becomes complacent, ignorant, yet loud and willing to break the system for those that manipulate then into doing it.

[–] kernelle@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Yea, and I would never claim it's perfect, there are no perfect systems. But one of the most powerful nations being that vulnerable to manipulation is something to witness.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 50 points 8 months ago (34 children)

Its so hilarious how this ridiculously toxic culture around blaming third party was developed, worked on for months, and then when it came time, the impact of third parties was so utterly irrelevant as to be laughable.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 months ago

There's gotta be some way to blame the left for Trump winning. Look harder!

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[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 43 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Well election is over, the time to start building up a third party is NOW

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] stephen01king@lemmy.zip 23 points 8 months ago (3 children)

People letting him do it is what's gonna make it come true.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Then stop complaining about third parties forevermore. If you honestly believed that was our last election, then focus on direct action.

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[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago

Oh, yeah, you're right. Let's give up, then.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago

The last panel should be the deer bumming around on the couch instead of voting, with some kind of line like "the trees just don't excite me'.

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 26 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Oh I'm sure the comments on this post will be nice and calm

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[–] dan@upvote.au 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (10 children)

I don't understand why the USA doesn't use preferential voting like Australia does: https://www.chickennation.com/voting/

Instead of just picking one candidate/party, you number them based on your preferences. First all the #1 votes are counted. If no party gets the majority (over 50%) of votes, the party with the least number of votes is removed, and for everyone that voted for them, their #2 votes are used. Repeat until someone wins.

Independents (what you call "third-party" in the USA) can win, and any party that gets over 4% of the #1 votes gets election funding from the government (a fixed amount per vote).

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 17 points 8 months ago

We're too corrupt to allow the competition :)

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[–] eksb@programming.dev 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What if the deer lives in one of the 43 states that do not matter?

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Supposedly if every single liberal-leaning person were to vote Democrat, they (edit: some of them) would have become swing states.

But I think it's more that people just want an easy target to punch, which makes people feel more in control. Like, it's not our glorious leader(TM)'s fault, it's "those" people, over there. And the number of Internet searches for what happened to Joe Biden on the very morning of the election should legit be worrisome to us all imho...

Ngl, I was kinda impressed by storing told about Kamala's campaigning and dedication. (Or was that simply part of the spin machine?) Maybe she could - no, surely she could have done better? But she also gave it as much as "the establishment" would allow, and came up short.

So now we can either roll up our sleeves and try to fix things... oh who is anyone kidding we'll just take whatever handouts we are given, as always.

[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is this why coffee is often served as molten lava? Because all yall blow on your coffee before every sip? I despise all of you. I just want to drink coffee like any other drink

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

This is one of my favorite things about using an Aeropress. I use half the water to brew the concentrate, which will be just off boil, but then the water I use to dilute to final strength can be any temp I want, so it is immediately drinkable. There are many other advantages, especially if you like to experiment, but this one to me is huge.

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago
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