Voting third party in a first past the post voting system ensures you get the candidate you want the least.
Third party is not a solution to a two party system but it does disproportionately affect democratic votes who want change and don't blindly vote. That's why it's often with Republican interests that these 3rd parties are funded in the first place.
The opposite is true. It's not republicans splitting off to vote green lol When Trump won and when bush won, third parties took away significant votes (1-3%) away from democratic candidates.
In Michigan Gary Johnson got 172,136 votes, in Pennsylvania he got 146,715, and in Wisconsin he got 106,674. If all Greens voted Clinton and all Libertarians voted Trump then New Mexico would’ve only been won by Clinton with around 1,000 votes, Colorado would’ve also been nearly Trump. Nevada, New Hampshire, and Minnesota would’ve been won by Trump. Maine might’ve gone majority Trump.
In 2020 if Libertarians went Republican and Greens went Democrat, Trump would've won Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and nearly Pennsylvania.
That would've tied the election, leading to a Trump presidency.
Understandable. I'm not arguing about the technicalities of third parties in the first past voting system. You are 100% correct.
I just don't like the entitlement. I also don't like the green party cause I only hear about and of them once every 4 years for the elections. I'm simply stating how annoying and frustrating it is to see Democrats court more centrists and trad republicans than to their core base who they take for granted in a "who else you gonna vote for removed" kinda attitude.
Long term, its a solution to neither candidate supporting your values. It shows that you wont blindly support whoever is barely less bad. If your vote counts at all (which it pretty much doesbt) then you cant tell people not to vote for whoever is closest to their values. You should be telling the candidate to listen to their voters.
Long term plans that will fail if you let the system break before those plans have a chance come to light. You're trying to fine tune a system that's in danger of falling apart. We need to make sure the system doesn't fall apart before we can worry about tweaking it.
Candidates should listen to the voters, but we need to be realistic on how and when we can make moves. We need to look at the situation and see how we can best move the needle in the right direction. If you let evil men come into power as a result of your rigid morals than you are actually helping create what you hate most. You want the needle to move all the way to good, you won't take just %10 better, and as a result things may get much worse.
The road to hell is paved with the best intentions had never been more true.
No, they are showing how Trump, a person who never should be president, became the president. It shows that 3rd party voters can impact the outcome but choose not to. It doesn't have to be that way, you can make an impact.
"Im going to be barely better than the alternative and people will literally worship me for it. Also even though i support killing children, trump would kill more probably. Vote blue!"
Disclaimer because lemmy users are becoming more like redditors everyday:
yes trump sucks. Yes vote kamala if youre in a swing state. No, dont attack every person who points out the massive flaws in your democratic system or the "democrat" party. Because they fucking suck also. Just slightly less.