#'why don't you vote better reps in' i'm not allowed to vote on the republican ballot because i'm not registered as a republican

[queerdiazs]

everyday i think of the way the american south is treated and everyday i get more fuckin mad about it

my way of life has been romanticized and watered down into an aesthetic for the internet yet if a majority of you were to ever meet me or somebody like me in real life you'd hate us because we don't fit into that cute little cubby you've made for us. it makes me laugh thinking about the way most of you would react if you ever saw a coal miner fresh off work and on their way home.

and it's not a big deal really but it's a big deal to me because a lot of you call yourselves progressives but you're actually everything you accuse people from the south of being :)

[starberrywander]

Y'know what? I have just decided that I'm gonna use this blog for "vote third party" stuff. I know the side of tumblr I float around in tends to be pretty anti-voting but this is what I personally think is best so I'm going to firmly plant myself right here.

Anyway here's my pitch:

"Why vote third party? What if the republicans/democrats (whichever you think is scarier) win and make our lives hell? Shouldn't we be realistic and vote for the lesser evil to keep the greater evil out of office? Third parties can't win in the setup we've got now! Its a waste of a vote!"

My response to those concerns (because they were mine approximately 1 week ago) is the question that made me rethink: Do you really want this scenario to repeat every election season? Because I certainly don't. And using the same "solution" is just gonna get these same results.

Additionally, there are plenty of discussions on this site and off of it where people have highlighted the damage done by both major parties. Since this site tends to lean liberal/left I'll briefly mention one of the things that got me thinking, which is that democrats benefit from republicans being as horrible and scary as possible. There are people who have explained it far better and I'll reblog them if I see them again, but the general premise is that if you're scared enough of the republicans then you'll vote for whatever candidate the democrats put forward just to keep Trump or whoever out of office. Even if that democrat is a horrible choice as well and also makes things worse.

The republicans and democrats are basically both fanning each other's flames because the worse the other is the better their own chances of both winning the election and getting away with disregarding the people's interests in favor of their own. I'm not a historian, but I am fairly certain that is the process by which fascism happens. We really do not want fascism. The chances of things getting better instead of disastrously worse are pretty slim if we allow this cycle to continue.

Which is why the smart, strategic vote for USAmerica's (and the rest of the world's, lets be honest) future is third party. How? Lemme answer with another question: how often do you hear some variation of "I would vote third party if they had a chance, but I don't want to waste my vote"? For me the answer is "very often." There are a lot of people with that attitude.

Voting third party shows people that there is enough backing that the candidates may have a chance, making them more willing to vote for them. Its probably not gonna turn around an entire federal election in one year just from advocacy, but if major support for third parties starts showing up in the numbers it will effect future outcomes.

It also puts pressure on the existing parties. Even if a third party doesn't win, if they get enough votes to pose a serious threat to the re-election of the Rep or Dem politicians then those two parties will have to start changing their policy approaches to be more appealing to the audience that they are losing. In other words, voting third party can change the outcomes to be more like those third party policies that you prefer even if not a single third party candidate actually wins. Because the threat alone will require politicians to course correct because the strategy they've been leaning on is failing.

And this doesn't just apply in federal elections. This same principle also applies in local and state elections, where third party candidates are known to have won in the past. Increasing the amount of third party politicians winning at any level will show that the actively voting public is moving away from the Big Two. Get that ball rolling fast enough and we can change the entire trajectory of our country's politics, hopefully for the better.

As for which third party, its up to you. Vote for whoever you genuinely want to see win. The more support you add the more viability that party will have and the more people will be willing to pick them. And if you still want to be a little bit strategic, then you can go for the biggest one whose policies you actually like, even if they aren't your first choice. Because realistically there is a higher chance of getting third parties actually in office if we vote for ones who already have an active group of supporters.

Anyway rant over. Hope I've convinced at least a few people. Enjoy your day

[qqueenofhades]

Hey, i just wanna say thank you for your political posts because this is the first time in literal years that i've felt any sort of understanding of the american political system and why shit is as bad as it is. Honestly I've even come out of reading a lot of then with optimism as weird as that may sound, because it seems like things CAN be made better and thats something i really needed to know.

So yeah uh, thanks. I guess.

Aha, you're welcome. I do try. There is so much toxic and illiterate political misinformation out there, from both right and left, that I am not always sure how much good it does, but at least I'm saying it, so, yeah. Ever since I started posting more regularly about politics, my block list has grown exponentially and looking at my notes is often an.... interesting.... experience, but there you have it.

The last six years have been unprecedented in American history, and even if we've grown more or less numb to the constant cavalcade of disasters, we shouldn't normalize them. Nor should we think that everything is totally fucked and beyond any kind of fixing. That sort of "nothing matters so just either give up or put all your hopes in a fantasy revolution to fix everything!" thinking is never going to do any good for anyone, and it's not even reflective of what's really going on. It's hard to tell among all the GOP screaming and extremism and threats, but 2022 is (at least thus far) representing the first sustained move away from Trumpism that we've seen since Trump first got elected. Things are getting better, and if there's a good result for Democrats in November, they have a chance to continue doing so. Even the professional liberal handwringers and concern trolls extraordinaire at MSNBC just ran this graphic:

Yes, the Republicans are so dangerous that they can't be allowed to get anywhere near power again, and I worry that too much of the country doesn't see that (and will be helped out by Democratic voter apathy, but we did just have that barn-busting result in deep red Kansas, so... yeah, I think Team Blue is paying attention). Yes, the Supreme Court will kill us all if it doesn't get fixed, and soon. But people who are acting like "oh it doesn't matter that the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, nothing is going to happen" like... what? The reason the Republicans are screaming about how it has never happened before is because it has never happened before. Because while we have had shitty terrible crime-adjacent ex-presidents before, none of them have been as bad as Trump. We don't know what yet, but this means something. I have been as skeptical of Garland as anybody, and I'm still waiting to see what comes when the J6 committee finishes its hearings. But this increases the public pressure for accountability, and the FBI followed up the raid by seizing cellphones belonging to Trumpy members of Congress (including coup-supporting GOP PA Rep. Scott Perry). The recovered documents are reportedly so sensitive that the FBI had no choice but to send in the gang to execute a search warrant, signed by a Trump-appointed federal judge and a Trump-appointed FBI director. Welp.

Anyway, the point is: boy, do I also struggle with the "things are terrible and there's nothing to be done" mindset. But it isn't true, the people who are telling you that have a vested interest in your disempowerment, and for all its flaws and failings, there's absolutely no reason we have to abandon our venerable old democracy to the absolute worst of what America has to offer. People voted en masse in Kansas and defeated Republican extremism -- IN KANSAS! There are some great progressive Democrats running for Senate, and getting just a few more will rid us of having to kowtow to God Emperor Joe Manchin and Grand Vizier Kyrsten Sinema every single time we want a bill passed. And we got that whole above list of accomplishments done in the worst possible political circumstances, so, uh. Maybe the Democrats actually do know what they're doing, just a little. (Also, I will personally pay ten dollars to anyone who can actually, thoroughly, and satisfactorily explain to me how the Democrats "are really a right wing party!!!" Just saying).

So yes. Things can get better. Things ARE getting better. Things can continue to get better if we continue to act in a way that makes that possible. Etc etc my favorite quote about how to engage with a flawed and frustrating reality: "you are not obliged to complete the work, but nor are you free to abandon it." Because. Indeed.