Democrats should combat this by advocating for ranked choice or approval choice voting which is a fairer voting system and won't allow for "spoilers"
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Seems kinda dirty that Jill Stein would even consider "doing business" with the GOP. I kinda figured as a third party leader she of all people would put her morals and beliefs above numbers.
she is, and always has been, at best an out of touch accelerationist, and at worst a fascist sympathizer and collaborator
I think this is a losing issue for Democrats to be putting effort into.... while third party candidates may be spoilers in our current system the solution is not to try and disenfranchise those parties - it's terrible optics and, if you want to capture green voters there are so much easier tactics.
Yep, and the reason they rely on non-Democratic operatives for this stuff is because the DCCC will blacklist you if you help a third party/independent campaign.
If you need the expertise to get on the ballot, your best chance is to hire someone that worked for one of the big parties before.
Instead of handwringing about spoilers, maybe democrats should run on some of the policies that are overwhelmingly popular instead so there's no room on the left for someone to run.
But voters and politicians aren't one and the same. Voters have every right to call out spoilers. Politicians, I don't see doing it all that often, but even still you have a point there. They could listen more to what people actually want rather than being afraid of alienating centrists.
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I think it’s really important for people to know that fringe parties are being propped up to divide the left.
Might make voters realize a pragmatic choice will result in an outcome more aligned with their goals.
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That 3% that third-party candidates typically earn makes a big difference when polls are showing 49% to 48%. It’s fair to question a Republican’s motive to support a candidate with opposing views to their own party.
With a tip of the keyboard to a certain someone who has blocked me and won't see this (a shame really):
Since many in this community have a habit of resorting to personal attacks when responding to posts recently, I’ll say this: I support and respect everyone’s right to vote for who they want to. Just as I support the ability of anyone to point out to someone the consequences of their actions. ;)
I’m just posting this article that’s already available on a much bigger platform than Lemmy—I didn’t write it, just sharing it for discussion.
Lol I love it. It's almost a badge of honor to be blocked by that user. They seem to want to be aware of people countering their troll campaign so they can bait those people into saying something that will get them banned. So you really must have upset them to get blocked.
I did the math last night. On average they've posted or commented about every twenty minutes, assuming they sleep 8 hours a day, since they created their account a month ago. Posting at this rate, almost entirely in favor of third parties. Hmmm.. I wonder why. They don't give a shit about third parties; only about keeping Democrats from getting votes.
Oh, I saw the numbers! That was terrific that you pulled that together!
And yeah, their history shows that they’re either chronically and desperately online (sort of sad actually) or posting like they’re getting paid for it. I don’t envy the mods for having to deal with all the chaos that user causes, but the user is almost preternaturally good at threading the needle of the rules.
Luckily the election will be done in less than two months and then I have to guess we won’t seem them again for another four years ;)
Lol they just banned me from their super legitimate "socialism" community because they wanted to keep tabs on me but not be countered in public as much.
Ha! Congrats!
Yeah I agree with all of this. I do think it's a shame though that the rules are all they will go on. There ought to be some algorithm for determining likelihood of trolling. This dude would definitely be way over the threshold of any such algorithm that was worth a damn.
With all the news about the Russian campaign with influencers, I had to wonder if the Feds are even aware enough of the Fediverse to even begin to look at what’s happening here. We certainly know state sponsored misinformation campaigns are active and in place and targeting folks who are disaffected for a variety of reasons, so if Russia and China had networks specifically targeting various corners of the Fediverse, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Theoretically we’re a much richer ground for them than corpo-sponsored sites filled with normies (which we now have proof they’re already active with).
In an election where the margin of victory in some states will be on the scale of a few thousand (or maybe even hundreds), it would seem a likely strategy.
Yeah I definitely think you are onto something. The audience is much smaller but the advantage is that a lot of people here really are so left they despise Democrats and would probably be easier to convince not to vote than your typical Democratic voter. Trolling campaigns here would have a much more concentrated target audience. They already know they don't need to convince conservatives on mainstream social media.
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If your second paragraph is implicating who I'm thinking since you're basically using a direct quote of theirs, then I'm not at all surprised by them blocking you. They love to take quotes out of context or ignore half of a quote for their own benefit. I love that you're directly calling them out. Good on you for actually knowing how our election system works.
What this? Oh just Jill Stein enjoying dinner with known traitor Mike Flynn and the guy who wants Democracy destroyed and Trump in office— Pootie.
Yep, she's the greenwashing candidate who comes out every four years to collect a paycheck and espouse Libertarianism. An absolute grifter.
With a tip of the keyboard to a certain someone who has blocked me and won’t see this (a shame really):
I can take a pretty educated guess as to who that is. You're not wrong for posting this in the slightest.
These shenanigans are the exact type of bullshit that shows the U.S. is a failed democracy, and is in need of severe election reform. That goes for the form of financial reform, switching to more representative types of voting like approval voting, measures taken to make gerrymandering impossible, etc.
The irony in my discussions with that other user is that I wholeheartedly agree we need viable third parties. And to your point, we desperately need election reform. But their willful ignorance of the fact we need to put out the house fire before we start discussing changes to building codes is the kicker.
The sad thing is that all the current third party candidates are useful idiots and not viable alternatives. And with democracy literally on the line, there’s not any real option other than acting like an adult and casting a ballot for the only option that moves us forward. And then the day after Election Day, start doing the real work to fix this for every Election Day thereafter.
You're being too generous by thinking they give two shits about third parties. That's just the angle they've chosen for Lemmy.
Oh, I have my suspicions about their motivations but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re coming from a genuine but terribly misguided point of view. Sort of Hanlon’s razor :) Like many of the third party candidates they so fervently support (not even sure who they’re voting for now, it seems to change frequently), they don’t need to be knowingly in on the con to still be useful - and perhaps more useful to certain parties if they are unaware.
Yeah. I mean, them posting every 20 minutes starting 3 months before the election thing, despite getting constant pushback, makes me feel quite justified in my conclusion. Normal people just simply would never do what they're doing. Their motivation could be something else. But whatever it is, the behavior is very unhealthy and suspect.
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It’s insane. It’s like trying to debate a wall. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to just trying to counter the wrongheaded arguments if I don’t see anyone else doing so.
sounds like I had the exact same conversation with this person not long ago.
So many of us have - it’s sort of amazing. It doesn’t help that they often copy and paste common responses to different people, so in some cases the conversation is pretty much the same verbatim on their end.
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Hey, you never need to apologize for sharing news unless it's fabricated - some people may downvote articles they disagree with but most of us just appreciate the folks that find stories to share.
They are being facetious because the user they mentioned constantly posts in favor of third party candidates and had taken to writing a bizarre disclaimer like this to essentially troll the many users they're pissing off with their behavior