#third party voting

[creature-wizard]

Whatever happens, two things remain true: 1. Trump might be distancing himself from Project 2025, but his Agenda 47, which is on his website, is basically the same thing. 2. Third party voting is useless without ranked choice voting; it's mathematically impossible to elect a third party candidate. DO NOT SPLIT THE VOTE.

[sirenium]

if you even think about voting third party fuck you, shut the fuck up, vote blue. I am not the first to say this but in America there is no fucking choice other than red or blue. Vote blue. Vote blue, or human rights are fucked. Being genuinely serious. If Trump or some other republican clown gets into office we all might as well throw in the towel for all the basic rights and quality of life we'll get.

"oh but Kamala's a cop!" I am being so serious when I say I couldn't care less when the alternative is forced detransition. Get your head out of your ass and stop playing pretend and acting like there's a feasible choice other than democrats, because there fucking isn't. Transition changed my life for the better, and I am facing the possibility of having to throw that all away because some pretentious fucks decided to split the damn vote more JUST for Trump to be elected. I don't care if I'm in a blue state, because I have enough brain cells and basic decency to see that not everyone IS; if you want to gamble the lives of queer people and anyone who isn't a cishet white male just for a huff of moral superiority, I genuinely hate you. It fills me with so much fucking rage that people can just pretend their precious third option will do SHIT. IT WON'T.

Fucking GOD. Anyways, this has been a PSA to vote blue or you have blood on your hands. :3

[uboat53]

Well, RFK Jr. is all but admitting his campaign was a ploy to help Trump win, Republican operatives are committing fraud to get Cornel West on the ballot in Arizona, Jill Stein is openly talking up her genuine love for Vladimir Putin, and the Libertarian Party is such a wreck that my most openly libertarian friend has stepped back from their organization.

Is it time to admit that there is no genuine third-party option in America anymore?

[frozenoj]

Have you heard about the nonbinary third party presidential candidate Jasmine Sherman and their indigenous vice presidential candidate partner Tanda Blubear?

I have! Jasmine Sherman is one of the only candidates (for any office, not just president) I've seen that still cares about covid.

Here's one of their tiktoks about their platform for anyone who isn't already familiar!

[forwards-beckonrebound]

So as of the very disappointing news that we've all received (so far) I want to make it clear that if you voted for Trump or third-party, I don't want you to interact with my account.

In fact, go fuck yourself. This is has NOTHING to do with politics, but you willingly voted for a convicted felon who hates women and queer people all because you couldn't stand the idea of a black woman being the president.

Once again, America proves how much it hates women.

To those who voted blue, thank you for not choosing gas prices and moral superiority <3 I'm sorry things turned this way, but we still have a few days before things are official. Don't give up! ꒰⁠⑅⁠ᵕ⁠༚⁠ᵕ⁠꒱⁠˖⁠♡

[dicapiito]

Too many people took surviving Trump’s first term for granted.

[speakingthetruth25]

To all third party and abstinence voters, I hope your happy. We told you Kamala was better than Trump. We told you he would implement project 2025. WE TOLD YOU QUEERS AND IMMIGRANTS WOULD BE IN DANGER

But you wanted so bad to be a little saint. To shame others say oh I won’t have blood on my hands Kamala is just as bad as trump. The politics of united states is less important that the plights of palestine . Im a good person. You focused on Palestine when we were screaming that trump would hurt us all

Are you happy? Trump did the ceasefire, but look what you done. Trump put horrific people in congress, we have Elon doing a nazi salute, he’s taken away dei, he’s targeting trans people, HE PARDONED JANUARY 6.

I hope you suffer.You fucked around now you find out

[smoreboi]

so i just wanna complain for a second. my dad is a right leaning centrist. he, thankfully, is completely against trump being in office. he votes third party republican.

i know leading up to this election i would make jokes about voting for a third party. i did not tho, because im not blind to how fucked our government is, and i would rather a vote go to damage control than just be wasted.

if you voted third party and are now upset with the results, im gonna say that’s kinda on you. if you can’t forget your pride for 2 minutes and vote for someone you kinda don’t like to stop someone you really don’t like from taking office, just. unfollow me actually.

these results have me terrified for my and my friends actual lives! i have friends that are Haitian, i and most of my friends are queer/gay/trans/etc., im afab and so are a good amount of my friends, and we’re all in danger with this man as president. maybe that isn’t worth shit to you, maybe you actually don’t care. In which case, actually just. identify yourself so I can block you. because that’s kinda fucked imo

i voted kamala because i believe in damage control. why couldn’t you

[quoquomodo]

ohhhh sorry!! my bad!!! i must have not realized that your candidate actually will defund + refuse the us imperialist war machine and stop little children being brought back to their parents in plastic bags full of body parts after they're blown apart by us-funded israeli weapons!! vote blue no matter who, right??

[creature-wizard]

It's finally dawning on me that a lot of hard leftists actually do think the US presidency is already a dictatorship.

Like they think that the reason the Biden administration didn't cancel college debt on the grand scale they pictured, is that he just didn't want to. They have no comprehension just how much Republicans were working against him to stop literally anything he could do to make things in this country less dogshit. (BTW, this is why we need to vote blue all the way down the ticket.)

And then they think they can elect some third party rando with no actual allies in the senate or congress or anywhere, and people will just have to do what they say, and won't try to sabotage them even harder because they're even further left. (The aforementioned efforts to sabotage Biden? It would be even worse for an actual leftist president.)

Like no, sorry, the US presidency is not actually a dictatorship.

[fish-in-need-of-a-bicycle]

If you are voting third party this election, congrats! You are doing exactly what the republicans want you to do. https://apnews.com/article/4089fb0c9ebb16002e56a1c254a21b0e

[herhimthem]

*taps microphone*

.. so about Jill Stien-

Aes🇺🇸 on X: "If this video goes viral, Jill Stein’s political career is done. https://t.co/vpfVrGZaN3" / X

[dancesingay]

Yes, Trump's VP did in fact say this about him.

[dicapiito]

This Far Leftist shit really does scramble brains and make people not even have any common sense anymore.

There will not be a revolution because most Black People know the Far Left is as racist/antiblack and antisemitic as the Right.

That said; there’s something extremely harrowing about seeing Black People still embrace that bullshit. From “ Democrats are bad. All bad” when we are the base of the fucking party to celebrating a CEO being shot because “ US Healthcare” when the reality is white and nonblack PoC vote against better Healthcare regulations in so many elections but that’s a conversation that can’t be had with the Far Left. They’re too far gone and embracing the same shit as MAGA.

It’s the horse shoe theory at work and neither the Far Left nor Right can be reasoned with because they’re that far gone.

Hate seeing this happen to a relative and made sure to make a politics binder debunking misinformation for another. I won’t do it here because most users on this site have a one track mind and think, “ Dems are bad. We are getting a revolution after the GOP destroy everything”

It’s sad to see people believe in misinformation and frankly I do want that TikTok ban to happen. It won’t be much since the other social media websites exist but it’s a start. The way misinformation is spread and so many people believe the nonsense is extremely depressing and there’s not much one can do to de-program all the misinformation one has been led to believe.

I mean when people still wanna argue about Kamala Harris being a cop and twisting words and beliefs the bullshit that she “ locked Black Men up got weed” or the 1994 Crime Bill that Black People wanted and blame Biden and or Clinton; or whoever the fuck is the target this week of leftist misinformation there’s just not much reasoning you can do with those who are committed to being stuck on stupid

Fuck Leftists and Fuck the Free Palestine movement and everyone who supports that antiblack/antisemitic bullshit lmovement” .

Fuck Jill Stein and all third party candidates.

Fuck Trump voters

Fuck third party, aka a Trump vote, voters as well.

At least the Far Left and the Right are united in learning that playing around with voting is going to have extreme consequences and I can’t wait to see what happens to the jokers who wanted to joke around with this election. Let’s see if any of them will finally learn to stop believing bullshit that Russia literally keeps feeding them after finding out that Trump is going to fuck over so many even worse than the first time.

I just hope that Kamala Harris voters aren’t as affected but considering how 2020 played out with the pandemic and another on the near horizon; that sadly won’t be the case..

Believing misinformation is going to be extremely costly..

[afloofybat]

thoughts on third party voting

Recently I saw a post on Instagram that made me very mad. It was advocating for voting for a third party candidate in the upcoming American 2024 presidential election because “Harris is still a cop,” “both [Harris and Trump] are h*tlers,” and so on. It took me a while to think through why I was so angry, but I think I have some words for it now. 

First off, the United States currently has a two-party system where the winner takes all. For a third party candidate to win, they would have to overcome both the Democratic and Republican parties with popularity and votes. The US does not currently have a good system for voting. We do not get election days off, voting is not compulsory, we do not have ranked voting (see ref 1), and a lot of people are not interested in voting. A single third party candidate would need to build an incredibly powerful coalition, built over more time than 3 ½ months, to realistically have a chance at winning, and none of the current third party candidates do. In fact, this original poster listed three different third party candidates, including Jill Stein and Cornel West, running right now and said to just pick your favorite. The lack of support for a single one in this post illustrates the complete lack of a coalition that could take on the two major parties and win. 

Secondly, even if there is a miracle and a third party candidate wins the presidency, they must have a Congress that will support their initiatives, and, right now, the House of Representatives has 212 Democrats, 220 Republicans, 3 vacancies, and 0 Independents (see ref 2). The Senate currently has 47 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 4 Independents (see ref 3). Hopefully, the third party candidate’s coalition would have inspired a lot of people to run as third parties for Congress so that the new president would have enough support to pass any legislation. Otherwise, they would be stuck with very limited power to affect change. 

Thirdly, I’m beyond frustrated with the seemingly lack of understanding of the US President’s power; there is no one person who will be able to fix everything, especially in 4 or 8 years. They have to be able to work with a lot of people to get even some changes passed. That is largely what politics boils down to. If you want a third party candidate or many third party candidates to have a chance, then you need to start thinking ahead now for the 2028 Presidential election and beyond. You need to vote in every single election you can, from local to national. You need to campaign for them and for policies that would allow for a multi-party system in the US and other policies you want and get millions of other people to vote with you. Otherwise, your vote for a third party or no vote at all helps one of the two main candidates. If you want that to change, then work needs to be done over time, not less than 3 ½ months from the election.

I have seen arguments that it should not matter whether you win or not, that you personally win by exercising your right to vote for whomever you want. I find that argument incredibly short-sighted and completely callous to the needs of other people. I am absolutely an advocate for balancing your needs with others’ needs, but to not consider the broader picture of how advocating for voting third party when they do not have the infrastructure in place to support them is grossly irresponsible. 

There are real and valid criticisms against Harris. One of the most serious ones is that she comes from an administration that supports Israel in its unconscionable genocide of the Palestinian people through sending weapons and not taking a stronger stance against the genocide and mass cruelty. But it is a grave mistake to ignore everything else and the broader picture, including the many good initiatives that she stands for, such as restoring Roe vs Wade in legislation, calling for police reforms after the murder of Sonya Massey (see ref 4), and more. Unfortunately, we as individuals cannot pick a single person who embodies all that we want in a leader. We can pick the leader who will get us closer to where we want to be as a nation and then continue to move in that direction the best we can, while also continuing our own efforts to support the causes that we believe in. I will include a list of groups and activists who are fighting to free Palestine at the end of this post. 

Another argument that presented itself in the comments of the original Instagram post was that we should “REVOLT” and “BURN IT DOWN AND START OVER.” I get incredibly angry when I see calls to “burn it all down and start over.” It is cruel to the world around us. Sure, you can delete a draft or toss out a drawing, but it doesn’t work that way with people or the world at large. The scars left behind run terribly deep. I’m so tired of people who are calling for fighting and revolution when revolution and war destroys so many things for generations. I grew up listening to stories about my grandparents who lived behind the Iron Curtain during World War II and who were exiled to Siberia and imprisoned. I read so much bloody history, from all the warfare around the world, the rampant destruction of so many Native cultures, the Nanjing Massacre, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the French Revolution, and beyond. I do not wish that on anyone, especially if it can be avoided by voting and participating in our current system to try to make it better and to help it heal. Revolution should be a last resort, and we don’t need that now. What we need is for people to vote, to hope, and to believe that we can move in a better direction without burning everything to the ground. 

I don’t know the original poster’s life. I don’t know what they face, but what they expressed in this post showed me a combination of disinterest to affect meaningful change and dogmatism to a grave fault, and for my life I cannot see how it helps anyone. In this system, we have to poke it and correct it along until it heads where we want to go, even though it often means that we vote for someone that we don’t 100% agree with. I want a multi-party system in the US. Many other countries, such as Australia, France, and New Zealand, have their governments allocated by representative percentages, which I think is far more effective for the actual population’s needs. There is a lot we, as Americans, could do to make our system better. But pretending that “everyone just needs to vote for a third party candidate” when almost no one knows their names and will not remember them after the election is not understanding how to affect actual change. 

Is Harris perfect? No. No one is, and no one can or should be. But she’s a hell of a lot better than Trump and his cronies and broligarchs. But it’s not just fear that motivates my choice. Kamala Harris is the means to get us closer to a better world this time around, and she has a real, meaningful shot to do it. That’s why I’m voting for her. 

List of individuals and groups that advocate for the Palestinian People:

Rashida Tlaib, Palestinian American Congresswoman: https://tlaib.house.gov/ 

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ 

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights: https://uscpr.org/ 

AJP Action: Lobbying for Palestinian Rights: https://ajpaction.org/passionate-advocates-for-justice-its-your-time-to-advocate-for-palestine-in-congress/ 

Jewish Voice for Peace: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/ 

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting

https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown 

https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm (all the way at the bottom has the current 118th Congress statistics)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/23/kamala-harris-sonya-massey-killing-police-reform 

[justawanderer]

Listen

Is Kamala the greatest option we have ever had?

No.

Is the Democratic Party a bastion of change and hope?

No.

Are they a better alternative to a literal Tyrannical Evangelical Christian State?

HELL YES. Why the fuck would ask that? We can vote to split into multiple parties later we have to get rid of this heritage foundation think pot Now.

VOTE for Kamala

VOTE for the Dems in your local and state elections

VOTE blue

You do not have to be registered Dem, just stop the orange felon from getting into office.