There's a time and place, folks!

Been saying this every time the subject it brought up. The Green Party is nowhere to be found three years of every four, and even in the election year- they seem to offer a lot of shit with no clear path to actually make it happen.
I think we’re finding out that they’ve always been a spoiler party. They were never meant to actually get elected. Just divide and distract.
And the did this VERY effectively. Just look at lemmy if you want a microcosm of how that shit works.
- I think Nader truly wanted to drive change. But since he’s been gone the party hasn’t done much of anything to be taken seriously.
  
  Exactly. And what is super annoying about this, is that to most people, it’s painfully obvious what they’re up to.
  MAGA exists to round up all the full-blown idiots and the Green Party exists to round up all the would-be idiots still on the fence. It’s so incredibly obvious!
  And yet there are so many people that think people like Shill Stein have their best interests in mind.
- If they were wanting to make a real difference, we'd see them on local ballots advocating for alternative voting systems like STAR or ranked-choice voting. Like, that should be their #1 priority.
  
  A comment so nice you made it five times!
  
  My local Green party does that: https://losangeles.cagreens.org/issues
- See this interview Jill Stein did that's viral right now of her refusing to call Putin a war criminal despite easily saying it about netenhayu (5:30 start)
  https://youtu.be/h1JUMeWaBVg?si=TbuHDikEtN0HGVHb
  She's not allowed to or her dark money dries up.
  There a dinner where she's at the table with him.
  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
  
  Yeah. Leftists are in as much denial of their hero’s corruption as MAGA is. There’s no getting through to them at all.
- If they were wanting to make a real difference, we'd see them on local ballots advocating for alternative voting systems like STAR or ranked-choice voting. Like, that should be their #1 priority.
  
  Does STAR have the problem of score voting that not giving every candidate either the maximum or minimum score (effectively approval voting) is effectively throwing half your vote away?
  (also it looks like there's a glitch because your comment appeared four times)

If your third party doesn’t run candidates in local or state elections, it’s not a real political party.

Might be nice if most of those third parties ran for lower offices once in a while too rather just go for the highest rung on the ladder.
You don't see too many Greens running for state legislature... or even city council. Sure, one or two here or there, but no collective effort. The Libertarians barely have their shit together and yet they still constantly field candidates up and down the ballot.
- The Green Party does run candidates in more left-leaning areas... Not that they do a whole lot better in those races, but they do try more than just POTUS
  
  Those candidates would probably do better as independent, for all the party support they don’t get because people like jill stein blow it all on a useless presidential bid.
  And let’s say, hypothetically, a miracle does happen and she wins the election. She has zero support from congress, a congress that more or less hates her. There’s not a lot she’s going to be able to do, considering.
  
  Here and there, as I said. No coordinated effort.
- Cool. Where are their candidates?

Honestly, third parties are a hard thing to discuss considering the two biggest ones in the US are fundamentally unserious. I still keep an eye on the Working Class Party locally.
- Become the change you want to see. Organize. Get some elected to a school board or city council.

Any third party that's really serious should be building candidates from the ground up, running in local elections where they could win the small seats and have an influence on policies which reflect their goals. That would not only gain experience for those individuals, it would build awareness of the party itself. Those candidates could then run for nonpartisan state offices, again building awareness and acceptance as well as their experience. Nobody should just be jumping into the Presidential election from some idiotic unrelated background like real estate or reality show hosting or stealing from cancer children or bankrupting their own casino... Oops, my brain went off the rails there, good thing I'm not responsible for anything important.
- This is ahistoric. Every single successful or near successful third party went straight for the presidency.

- RCV still has spoilers, it's just they happen differently. Mostly commonly in three-way competitive races, but they can technically happen under any number of candidates greater than two with any level of support.
  Cardinal methods don't have mathematical spoilers, though a new candidate can change voter behavior. But, that's possible under any system.
  More reading:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect

B-B-B-But Dems bad!1! (/s)

- It takes him a while to change expressions.
  
  LMFAO

My big wish is multi-winner STAR where possible.
Doesn't just make viable 3rd parties a reality, but makes it incredibly likely for them to get a leg into the race a lot sooner.
Instituting it at the congressional level can also eliminate the traditional stresses of coalition building that affect other multi-partisan democracies, because now when the government experiences a no confidence vote and the leader has to resign, we don't need new elections and new coalition talks, just go back to the original coalition vote results and promote the next guy in charge into the officer position that was vacated, voilà, new governing coalition ready to go.
- I know STAR. Can you explain the multi-winner variety?
  
  Basically for a race with multiple open seats, just keep repeating the "compare the top two rated candidates" step filling each seat with the winner of the comparison until all seats are filled, doesn't just fill seats though, because the win matrix can also be used as a list of succession in case of recalls or deaths or resignations that'd leave a vacancy.
  We'd see a lot of districts seat all dems and reps at the outset, but over time you'd see a much more diverse cast and a much less party hierarchy controllable process.

They're using the third party for what they were intended for, to run interference on the winning side.

But bOtH sIdEs
- ...what?
  
  Booooth siiiiiiides

When your party supports genocide vs. When the other party supports genocide.
- You're illustrating my point. Kamala has some empty words while promising no change in US policy to Israel, which her boss continues to fully support in an actual genocide. You look at this and go "but my party actually means well!"

The time? When it counts least. The place? Abstract thought.
- It most counts in the first 3.5 years....ya know, when there's time to build enough support to do more than take away votes from the major party you're nearest
  
  Many Lemmy power users would say that you can’t criticize and protest an incumbent last year here, because there is an election coming up. It always counts, especially if it’s inconvenient. You might have had to cast a ballot for Biden if people didn’t speak up and demand better.
  This don’t speak and fall in line rhetoric is why there is a continued rightward side. Obviously getting rid of first pass, electoral college, etc are the way to achieve real reform, but those will never be implemented without massive pressure. It happens locally, but exposure and understanding of these ideas is more impactful and reaches a larger audience when on a national stage when the whole country is watching.
  (Vote Kamala, but demand better.)
- Hank is grinning cause he's hoping the people will do anything for 3.5 years. He's then frowning because after not doing anything for 3.5 years the people talking about the duopoly and third parties chose the laziest option of voting against their interests in the only time in the last 4 years when the conclusion was actually forgone.

- This comment has some real I dont understand or acknowledge the consequences of my actions, vibes.
  
  the consequences of my actions
  Who is the president and who did you vote for last time?
- Genuinely curious, do you believe wrong ways to protest exist?
- There's lightyears of difference between "stop throwing paint on statues and blocking roads" and "stop sitting on your privilege with your vote and allowing the disemprivileged to be meat grindered because you think this time it'll teach the incredibly privileged who happen to be nearest to you politically a lesson."