Voting for Jill Stein is only “taking a vote away” from Harris if you assume that the voter would’ve voted for Harris without Stein in the race.
That’s a big assumption and I don’t think there’s any good reason to make such an assumption.
Based on which party they’re registered as? That doesn’t mean much, it doesn’t mean they’d definitely vote for the D candidate if there wasn’t another option. You’re assuming that the D candidate otherwise has that vote locked down just by being a democrat.
You can’t “steal” a vote because no one owns that vote except the individual voter and the individual voter is not being robbed when they decide to vote 3rd party.
Great deduction skills there.
Sure, you can’t literally steal a vote, but either you’re unfamiliar with American colloquialisms or being deliberately obtuse. It’s a term that describes exactly what you’re doing here - actively trying to convince people to vote against something using deception.
Yes, you’re being deceptive by trying to drive democratic voters to split their vote so the right wins. I have yet to see you make a single good faith argument here.
Exactly what I’ve been saying. Democrats are clearly making a choice to die on and sacrifice our democracy to the hill of imagined centrist voters that make perfect, unquestioning and loyal followers for their party. If they lose for it then they alone are responsible for their loss and they should be the ones we direct our anger at for leaving voters on the table in what they themselves call a close and existentially important race.
If they would rather lose elections than court progressive voters, if they would like to win without us as they so clearly do; because we are less convenient to their bottom line than the aforementioned loyal centrist; then that should be laid bare for the world to see. We shouldn’t let them pass their strategic failures off on voters for having morals and sticking to them.
In reality a not insignificant portion of them would probably vote for Trump to “own the libs” honestly.
Let’s break down this bullshit: A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. The election clerks count ballots marked for Stein and report the vote totals that Stein received. A vote for Jill Stein is literally a vote for Jill Stein.
The statement that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump is, of course, metaphorical. It’s asserting that a vote for Stein is morally equivalent to a vote for Trump by the speaker’s moral reckoning. It’s a rhetorical shortcut. This shortcut rests on the notion that either the voter would have voted for Harris, or that it is a moral imperative to stop Trump above all else.
That’s a moral judgement call. Other people may judge differently. Flatly stating that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump so vehemently and absolutely elides any possibility of discourse and clearly tells the Stein voter that the speaker will not listen to or consider any of their views, or reasons to vote for Stein.
Fine, you believe that, but when has telling people more or less directly that you do not have any intention of considering their political beliefs won them over to your side? How is that a good tactic? If it worked, then why not employ it on Trump supporters? Go ahead, tell them that the party you support will ignore what they think and want, and demand they vote for your candidate.
If it doesn’t work on them, why should it work on Stein voters?
Nailed it… Probably gonna catch a lot of down votes from lib shills… But fuck 'em, this is exactly right. Honestly, I think any of these bullshit articles that will clearly push people further away must be part of the plan to help Trump… Or are the libs really still just this stupid? Have learned absolutely nothing from all their time losing
Fucking thank you for saying it.
(and for saying it more eloquently than I have been able to.)
Right?! I need to use parts of his post for the endless people yelling at me for voting third party. lol
What a bunch of horseshit.
At best, third party voting has led to splitting votes and Woodrow Wilson winning despite having only 41% of the votes and at worst, it’s done absolutely nothing.
This is why a vote for third party is a vote for trump. Because no trump supporter is gonna vote third party. If you’re voting third party, it means one less vote for Harris which means less smaller chance of her winning which means higher chance of trump losing. Anyone saying otherwise is either dumb as fuck or is purposefully trying to split the votes to help trump win.
More accurately, a vote for Stein is a vote for whichever major party candidate the voter wouldn’t have voted for. In most cases, someone voting for the Green Party would vote for Harris, so it’s a vote for Trump.
That isn’t a moral judgement, it’s the facts of a two party system. -1 vote for Harris = +1 vote for Trump, no other votes matter.
And that’s not telling someone you don’t consider their political beliefs. Considering their political beliefs, they should vote for the major party candidate that they agree with the most, or they will effectively be voting for the one they agree with least.
That’s not the approach with Trump supporters because Trump is the major party candidate they agree with most, by definition. If anything one should try to get Trump supporters to vote 3rd party, Libertarian or for RFK or whoever.
Axiomatic AF for your horsefly-ass to buzz in here calling this pile of excrement a delicious meal.
Your ‘protest vote’ for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
And it always has been.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn’t a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn’t have won, because the margins were just that thin.
That’s assuming green party voters would vote for the dems, which probably isn’t the case. They’d be more likely to just not vote.
Guess the Democrats would be better served by being more welcoming rather than just calling Green Party voters idiots then.
For the editor and anyone else who does not understand math: people voting for Trump means Trump gets a vote.
A vote for Jill Stein means Trump does not get a vote.
Would you rather have someone vote third party or vote Trump?
For industryStandard and whoever else may not understand FPTP: a vote for Kamala is a vote against Trump
A vote for Jill Stein is not a vote against Trump, and in fact hurts Kamala’s chances the same way a Republican voting for RFK hurts Trump’s chances
Would you rather have someone vote to stop Trump or throw away their vote?
Jill Stein is literally only running to steal Kamala votes to improve the chances of Trump winning
The whole thing feels like an argument intended to push people away rather than rally support.
I’ve noticed a LOT of Lemmy’s seem to want to push people away rather than welcome or rally support when it comes to uncommitted voters or third-party voters… Very surprising to me.
It’s almost like we expect bad faith interactions from people trying to interact with bad faith.
Weird, right?!
Sigh. Sorry deleted by moderator for replying with same thing they said which was I feel necessarily aggressive but it’s understandable.
Anyways;
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
Those voting 3rd party will still vote dem down ballot often and will also support dems on amendments and ballot measures.
It is not worth losing the vote across the board, so just chill out and let them vote.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes. Biggest difference in PSL/Green and DNC is stance in Israel/palestine and some socialist policies. (Well and PSL wants to nationalize the top 100 companies, but that’s probably too much of an ask). Instead of any of that they’ve decided to praise Israel and crack down on immigration. So… sure if you want to court republicans go for it but don’t cry when leftists refuse to vote for you.
Also… people complaining trump supporters don’t vote 3rd party: 80% of third party votes in 2020 were right (libertarian+constitution at 1.22%) 20% were leftist (Green+PSL at 0.31%) so… yeah… 4x more right wing than left wing 3rd party voters.
Edit: updated numbers using 2020 data.
Those down ballot victories wont mean much in an environment where we have carved out the heart of our democracy and replaced it with dictatorship. Also the problem with the policy positions that would allow Democrats to win n green voters are also such that adopting them would cost >n moderates which is why people haven’t adopted those positions mercenary though they are.
The green voters should adopt a pragmatic strategy whilst pushing for stuff like ranked choice voting or some such at the state level which would allow them to actually win federal office something they haven’t done in 40 years!
A vote for Green Party/PSL/etc. is better than the alternative for those voting third party: not voting at all.
That’s not the only alternative. There is overlap in the spheres of voters of the green party and democratic party.
IF the DNC actually wanted those votes it would court those votes.
The issue is the spoiler effect which is a result of the overlap.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis, and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option. This means there is no spoiler.
The spoiler effect is at best a bad hypothesis
No, it’s well understood, and very clearly exists. Here is an example using randomly generated voters ans candidates:
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
Total people: 1047
Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates"
Total people: 1047
Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER
Kruger - 93 votes
Maikol - 91 votes
The problem is that these are in effect venn diagrams. There will always be overlap, and that’s the problem. That’s what leads to election results being changed by the entrance of an irrelevant candidate (the spoiler effect).
and has never been proven to effect actual votes.
That’s because the spoiler effect most easily happens in races that are already close, because we don’t do much actual real life testing with actual elections because of the uncountable number of variables, and because doing it the python data science way is significantly more meaningful because of the aforementioned number of variables problem.
People voting third party just would not vote if there was no third party option.
If that’s really true, then this whole idea about the democratic party trying to earn the votes of green voters is bunk. Either there is no overlap, in which case it’s bunk. Or there is overlap, in which case we have a spoiler effect.
Again, 4x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left. If it was they would’ve actively tried and court progressives past Obama. The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised. It’s pretty obvious why many refuse to vote for a woman who used DNC funds to fight against the progressive candidate in primaries, or an old man who helped write one of the biggest anti-crime bills (which ends up a large anti-minority bill) and said nothing will fundamentally change, or now a prosecutor who is “tough on immigration” refuses to denounce those actively committing genocide.
Medicare for all, or not supporting a genocide, or plenty of other options available to help attract progressives if they wanted it.
BUT again, rather than not vote at all those can at least vote 3rd party and still help down ballot. A lot better to win house and senate than lose everything.
Edit: updated to correct ratio of 4x based on 2020 data
Again, 6x as many third party votes on the right. Spoiler effect ain’t shit to the left.
On its own that statistic is meaningless, as it doesn’t tell you how much overlap there is, and therefore how much spoiling there is. And regardless of which side, the spoiler effect is a symptom of a terrible voting system. The entrance of an irrelevant candidate should not sway the results of an election at all.
Additionally, everything is looking like it will be a very close race, in which case every bit of the spoiler effect matters, even if more of it is on the right, which you haven’t established.
The overlap exists yes but the DNC has not moved left much in 12 years leaving progressives pretty disenfranchised
I don’t like it either. But my point stands, there is an alternative choice.
The problem here is the spoiler effect, the system in which we elect representatives. It is in large part what allows the doupoly to remain uncompetitive.
I don’t really see the appeal of Jill Stein but going after the few thousand people voting her is a ridiculous plan. It’s not like they are going to vote for third party or Republican senators. If they are going to vote third party, they are doing it for key issues; no point in shooting yourself in the foot so that they become nonvoters and you Congress seats.
the supreme court run by the Federalist Society is seeing a serious deterioration in rights and a vast expansion of corporatism. I’d argue the denial of more federalist society court judges is far more valuable (to both americans at home and the international community at large) than literally anything the fringe parties could contribute
likely a green party president would just be impeached if he/she refused to tow the line on israel or whatever - note that trumps first impeachment was on denying ukraine weapons.
While I appreciate the idea that we have a democracy in the US - corporate rule has become far more likely because of a decades long campaign by the far right billionaires to seize control of it
