cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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People who won't vote for the Democrats don't necessarily see the world the same way as people who do vote D. Really go have a look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020
There are ethical lines some people actually won't cross, e.g. voting for the Ds who make anthropogenic climate change worse and so are causing a mass extinction, sell weapons to people actively committing a genocide, further an economic system that rewards narcissistic sociopaths and punishes ethical people, ...
Go look at the linked graph above again. You may not agree, but understand that there are people who do, and to get these people to vote for the Ds, you need to convince them why voting for omnicidal, genocidal, greedy sociopaths is the right thing to do. The "lesser evil" argument doesn't work on them, because if you look at the linked graph above and compare the distances between the parties, and understand there are ethical lines between the Ds and leftists/socialists/Greens/etc. they won't cross; then it means vastly better arguments need to be put forth. Yes the Rs are psychopaths and openly racist, but compared to the slightly less (compare the distances on the graph) sociopathic Ds, then
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13.
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
If there are no ethical options, then activity making the world more evil isn't something these people will do.
Yeah but not voting just shifts everything further right.
voting establishment dems… also shifts everything further right
I really don't think you should abstain, I really think you should vote. But if you think abstaining is going to do any good, then for the love of all that is holy, do direct action.
But come on. Do everything you can do. Don't stay home on election day. Express a preference.
i don’t think abstaining is the answer either. well not necessarily. it depends. i voted D last presidential election, with great nausia. but i will defend to the death everyone who did not vote or voted third party.
my thought is this, in order to stop this ratchet rightward, not only republicans must be stopped, but so too the democrats. and as such when there is any option for a progressive candidate(and i mean provably so) they should be voted for. but if the choice is between a republican and an establishment democrat you should vote third party. voting for less systemic harm is not good enough, voting for the status quos is not good enough.
and for the people wingeing about the spoiler vote. they get to choose one and only one:
either the progressives have so small a number that a candidate that represents them is not viable, in which case they are not responsible for the loss of the election, the democrat establishment is
OR
the progressives are numerous enough that their abstention forces the democrats to lose. in that case they are not responsible for the loss of the election, the democrat establishment is
I don't mean to be "that" person, but people have been talking about third-party candidates for as long as the U.S. has been a de facto two-party system. They don't win, and it's not the problem.
Just gonna leave this here. We are 15 years too late to do anything, and this is why:
The 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United vs FEC case effectively blocked the ability to enact limits on campaign spending. The Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to the billions of dollars that have since poured into the election system, enabling those with access to concentrated wealth to have vastly more influence over our political system than the average American.
https://americanpromise.net/citizens-united-vs-fec/?
money is not everything, and if any good outcome is still possible then forcing democrats to not be controlled opposition is the priority. but i do believe that is not possible, as you say. in which case voting at all is pointless, and we should enact amendment 2
Money is not everything, I agree.
Money is a HUGE motivator for many people, though. Enough to put a thumb on the scale and change history.
i know. it was why we didn’t get bernie sanders
As much as I'd like every American to pick up a gun and end this corrupt government, as intended, it simply isn't going to happen.
Same with a general strike. A general strike would bring this government to its knees and in a non-violent way. Never gonna happen though. You can't achieve that kind of solidarity.
Plus, what happens after a theoretical revolution happens? Hopefully there's another structure already planned out and ready to go or you get a power vacuum and things get even worse.
then you argue for capitulation to tyrany. then there is no point in listening to you as you have already given up to death.
Why?
If you don't vote, you don't deserve to live in a democracy. Full stop. The options you end up with will NEVER, EVER be identically bad. There will ALWAYS be a better option. Not voting is childish and foolish.
Third party is fine, unless it's a presidential election. A third party CANNOT win a presidential election. Not even close. So by voting 3rd party in a presidential election, you're saying you're fine with the worst case scenario.
False. Voting for a candidate in a race that absolutely under no circumstance can win is an act of futility and stupidity. In the last presidential election the 3rd party candidate with the most votes only got 0.5% of the total votes cast. Under no circumstances could they win.
In what reality is voting for less harm a bad thing? If you KNOW it is going one of two ways, then how could it be bad to vote for the option that results in less harm?
one where due to complicity of the democrats, the supreme court is currently arguing over removing the ability of a class from suing the government offer relief from the violation of people’s rights. that means if the government were to start violating people’s rights, every single citizen would have to separately sue for their individual relief, and the government can shop for their preferred judges, and can not be forced to stop until after there cases conclusion, which can take a decade.
one where we currently have concentration camps one where we are guilty of genocide one where women face trial as they are in labor, because they choose a natural birth method over c section. and a judge has the doctor subdue the woman against her will, causing the death of her child. one where the democrats put up token resistance, but who’s true masters are the same as the republicans.
bone is already exposed, it’s too late to turn down the heat
So you don't believe voting Republican shifts things MORE right than voting establishment Dem?
Cuz in the end, I would prefer as least to the right as we can possibly get. And in the reality we live in, that means voting Dem when it comes down to election day.
i am saying that worrying about the heat of the fire is a little late when the bone starts showing through the burn. it’s far fucking too late to talk about slowing down the run to tyranny. the supreme court just the other day is talking about removing the ability to sue the government as a class. instead every single citizen will have to sue the government all at once to seek an individual remedy to the government violating their rights. a situation that would IMMEDIATELY choke the courts to a halt, and the government will drag out the case for decades, and then entire time, the courts are barred from stopping the government until the conclusion. and the government gets to shop for the judges trump installed. you are out of fucking run way to be talking about “slowing” the charge rightward. and the democrats are just as complicit btw. they just still fake shame.
To a point. At some point, lesser-evil, blue-no-matter-who people realize that they cannot prevent the right from gaining power without the help of these other people they have lost. They realize the only way to get these people to vote D is to shift D leftward. Then everything shifts to the left. This process has already started and barking at the people forcing this change won't do a thing against the Rs. Helping the change progress faster might.
The problem is that when leftists don't vote, the Democrats look at the data analytics and they see fewer leftists and more centrists. If you didn't vote, they think you're a centrist. They're gonna go rightwards to try to get you to vote for them. So if you're a neutral voter, you're accountable for the rightward shift in the Overton window.
But the party can see when voters leave their party and register with other parties. They can see people fleeing the Democratic Party and registering for parties like the Green Party or the California Peace & Freedom Party or just registering as Independent. They have access to this data. It sends a message.
That's not a problem that's a feature
Well I think it's a problem, but I can see how someone who is pro-genocide would see it as useful. Personally, I think we should be taking it into account in our decisions. Ignoring and praising it helps the fascists.
True but this process only works to a point when they've lost so many such voters that they keep losing elections the more centrist/right they go. I think we're somewhere around, perhaps just past that point as of the last prez election. Once that crisis is reached, either it's handled internally by alternative ideas - like running leftist candidates, or externally by having independent leftists candidates beat D candidates in elections. If Trump's admin wasn't such an abject failure at delivering what it promised, we probably wouldn't be talking about D midterm wins. A midterm victory would prolly give a false sense of recovery for Ds but should they continue business as usual (and they likely will) we'll be back in crisis soon after. Perhaps not too dissimilar to Kier Starmer's approval trajectory.
Well, no. That whole argument rests on one crucial assumption: that the people in charge of interpreting the analytics want to win. They don't. Those people work for big business, and are being paid to tell the Democrats a lie that persuades them to make bad choices and lose. That way, the Rs win and pass business friendly laws.
You can't rely on the Democrats doing a decent job interpreting the analytics. You're overestimating them.
Theres more than two options. Its an absurd premise to begin with.
There's literally only two options until we change the voting system. Something that is unlikely to happen under Democrats in the near future but guaranteed to never happen if we continue giving MAGA power.
The UK also has a FPTF voting system, yet the Lib Dems won enough votes in the past to form a coalition, and currently the 5th biggest party in parliament (Reform) is leading the polls, and the 8th biggest (Greens) is often-times polling in 2nd place. Even if you might not win the next election, you can help build something that gets the "only-ever-vote-for-1-of-the-2-leading-horses" people to also vote for it after that.
Some people will never vote for parties that cross ethical lines like genocide, omnicidal climate change, capitalism, oligarchy... For these people the lesser-evil is still way too evil.
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13.
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
And when the LibDems last had a coalition, with The Conservatives, they were complicit in a very British genocide, that resulted in the culling over 130,000 disabled poor, in very cruel ways, amidst media jeering it on with lies.
Contrast that to the kinds of power sharing that happens in the devolved parliaments...
These are not the same.
Mathematical game theory might be too abstract for some. You're correct but I'm worried the message may be seen as arguing for entrenching the status quo, it's a packaging problem for a bitter pill.
Sure but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than telling everyone not to vote.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t end FPTP but this has become a thought ending cliche.
England is mostly FPTP they have ditched both Labour and the Conservatives in the last few years according to the polls. Canada has FPTP and they have 3 viable parties.
The math is not preventing a third party. This mindset is.
Yep. The self fulfilling defeatism prophecy. And *poof!*, the truth of it vanishes once it stops getting uttered and believed.
The best comparison is probably the “Biden is the most electable candidate” narrative from the 2020 primary.
Can you tell me the last time NDP won a federal election in Canada?
Was it around the time when they passed their nationalized healthcare service? The healthcare service that wouldn’t be a thing without the NDP. The kind of healthcare we still don’t have here in the US. The kind of healthcare that polls at like 70% in the US.
Reminds of the Princeton study...
I'm not arguing that the NDP didn't do anything for Canada I'm a staunch supporter of them, but Canada has been barreling closer and closer to a two-party system and to cover your eyes and say it doesn't exist because it's inconvenient is insincere at best
Things can go either way. Canada can be moving away from the NDP; England is moving away from their 2 entrenched party. To cover your eyes and say FPTP makes things we literally have historical examples of impossible because it’s inconvenient is simply ignoring reality.
Yes FPTP does make it harder and we should end FPTP, but it is possible. Especially when both of the 2 major parties are refusing to address massively consequential issues such as healthcare and the military industrial complex.
Agreed, it's intensely frustrating that we've found ourselves caught in a very American "lesser of two evils" system where the major parties don't give a fuck about the average person. We have a lot of positive change happening at the provincial level. However, a handful of exceptions in the face of an avalanche of examples to the contrary. That said I don't want to bully someone for hoping, if you think it doesn't matter, go for it.
Its not correct. That's not how statistics work. Its very much possible for a non-democrat or non-republican to win. Predicting likely outcomes doesn't mean those things will happen. Y'all sound like MBA bros.
Not under FPTP unfortunately.
You dont think that both parties could offend the majority of americans and cause a third party to win?
I'd argue that Donald trump was third party at the start, and that republicans and democrats offending most Americans is how we ended up with him.
If Bernie or someone like him were to win the presidency, would they be considered a democrat or an independent?
Donald Trump has always been their boy, even through his trust buying phase.
In 2004, a friend who had worked with Trump, came back to our home town for new years, in our fave pub, and told us what a joke of a played narcissist he was, being primed by his psychopathic handlers for a puppet presidency. It stopped seeming like an absurd plausibility about a decade later.
He's their boy.
Bernie, alas, also, not the token virtue paragon we've had presented to us to placate us with as much as we'd like him to be. Solution space may be elsewhere yet.
Every time I mention this "elsewhere" though I get called an idiot who doesn't understand that there's only two choices.
When confronted with that, the socratic method may help.
No, I really don't, did you see 2016 and 2024. They voted in utter incompetence rather than consider it. I agree with you that it's incredibly frustrating but in order for a third party to be viable ranked choice would need to be introduced. It's a bitter pill.
Think of it like a trolley problem:
Edit: corrected %.
You pull the D lever. You get an immediate result.
Besides, compromise doesn't work this way. Whether you like it or not, you live in a country that has embraced fascism. They are a clear and present danger to the entire globe. But, sure, tell the parents of the dead Iranian schoolgirls that "Hey, I wasn't about to compromise my values just to save your little girl's life!"
Being complicit in making the system more evil is fine for people who vote for the Ds; but if the Ds want the votes of the 41% of people who didn't vote (some because they won't cross ethical lines like voting for a pro-genocide, pro-omnicide, pro-capilatist party), then they need a different argument than "vote for the lesser evil again bro", because that didn't work against W and worked only a third of the time against Turmp. The Ds need to either give better reasons for voting for them, or they need to stop being a pro-genocide, pro-climate cascade, pro-capitalist party.