And down we go.
Running out of excuses to use when this is over…
Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who voiced support for the measure, were absent for the vote. It needed a simple majority to pass.
Rotating. Villains. And the “same, logical” voices want to block/report our voices here because we vote/advocate third parties.
I swear, most democrats are plants put there to ‘go rogue’ whenever there’s a slight chance of something beneficial to the working class passing.
I don’t know if most of them are plants, but enough of them are. I noticed that during Obama’s terms. Nothing ever got done because there was always some D stopping shit. There were some usual suspects, probably the lowest bidders who didn’t plan on staying in office anyway.
Too many centrist neo liberals. Democrats and Republicans are pro corporation and billionaire, us working schmucks need to find a way to get a party working for us.
I first read this as plants, of the green leafy variety. Somehow I also think that is apropos of how little the Democratic caucus does. Congressional shrubs, who just sit there looking pretty.
Because how voting currently works in the US no third party candidate would/has get close to winning.
Worse, third-party candidates are actively counterproductive. Here is the classic short video explaining how first-past-the-post voting systems inevitably lead to a two-party state.
Question, here in Canada we also have an awful FPTP system from the top down, yet, we’re a multi party system.
Sure, Liberals and conservatives dominate the Parliament but the Bloc and NDP keep them in check. Hell, even the the few little Green seats can make or break a vote sometimes.
How come these never happen in the US? You had and currently have independent candidates in the senate.
How come more independents or minor party members don’t get voted in? Maybe in the form of someone whose popular locally and well know by the community.
The political history of Canada is just flipping back and forth between the Liberal Party and Conservative party (with the name of the Conservative party switching now and then). I consider it very weakly “multi-party,” IMO the third parties act as spoilers more often than they act as a “check” on government. The main thing that’s keeping third parties around is that minority governments aren’t completely ineffectual. I’d rather see coalition governments like those common in Europe, though.
(Because blue no matter who folks keep screaming lies)
We all know about the evils of first past the post here, but voting blue doesn’t. Fucking. Work.
Didn’t say it did work. I’m not presenting a solution here, I’m not the messiah.
For a problem like what the US currently has, IMO they’re kind of past the point where voting alone is going to solve it. They needed to change their voting system before an authoritarian despot took control. Hopefully they’ll remember this when trying to piece some sort of new government back together once he’s gone.
So they needed to fix it in the 1700s? The US has always been an authoritarian shit hole that replaced divine right with capital right. The whiskey rebellion is proof none of the founding fathers gave a singular shit about democracy or freedom.
The whiskey rebellion is proof none of the founding fathers gave a singular shit about democracy or freedom.
The greatest lie that the working class has been fed is that its rulers care about them.
Nah. Freedom and democracy has always been for wealthy white males. They literally see themselves as human and everyone else as animals.
The earlier the better I suppose. Americans kind of trapped themselves by turning their constitution into a holy book, though.
The literal living deification of Washington guaranteed that would happen, though, so its not exactly surprising they developed a sacred text along side their new god.
The thing that works the least is shitting in the pool, which is what voting third party is.
Voting alone was never going to work. Organize then we can talk about whether voting third party makes sense or not.
Voting period was never going to work in this system. And worse, voting third party is explicitly harmful to any chance of progress so fuck that
A rep from a Alaska introduced a bill that would attempt to make ranked choice voting illegal 🫠 just open tyranny
ms palin lost due to rank choiced voting.
Why, is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party or is it just because you think voting for the Dems to lose yet another election is the winning strategy?
It’s a psychological problem at this point for why third parties never win, even if they overwhelmingly represent the interests of the masses.
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, we live in a first-past-the-post system where votes disappear into a black hole if they aren’t cast for the candidate with the plurality of votes, you smarmy fucking dipshit.
But there’s nothing inherent to the system that says the candidate with a plurality of votes has to be Democrat or Republican right? So what the fuck is the problem?
How did your Harris vote work out for you? How did your Clinton vote work out for you? What would have changed if you’d instead voted third party in either of these elections?
Do you honestly think that even if a Dem wins in 2028 that the Republicans will just disappear, “we defeated them!” and they just go away? The Republicans keep getting elected because of the Dems, their shit candidates, and their bullshit milquetoast policy that never helps anyone. What have they done to deserve our votes other than “not being Republican?” You know who else isn’t Republican? Third parties.
That’s the same as all voting systems currently implemented around the world.
No, it isn’t.
Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections
Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.
In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.
is it illegal for a majority of people to vote third party
No, they just choose not to. Fewer than 99% of legislative offices at the state and federal level are held by third party or independent politicians. No third party candidate for President has won a single Electoral College delegate since 1968, and Perot won almost 20% of the popular vote in 1992. In 2024 not one 3rd party was on the ballot in all 50 states, only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states. Did you know that when Bernie Sanders was first elected Senator in 2006, he actually won the Democratic primary but turned down the nomination to run as an Independent? So he already had the name recognition of the Democratic voters.
Unless and until your state has ranked choice or approval voting all you’re doing is lowering the threshold that the most popular candidate from the other end of the spectrum needs in order to win. The best strategy for change is to vote in the Democratic primaries (this is the important part, that people aren’t really doing today) and then for the Democratic nominee in the general while simultaneously working to get election reform on your ballot (and only 26 states allow direct ballot initiatives, the rest require the state legislature to put initiatives on the ballot for a direct vote by the public).
They choose not to because they think other people won’t and those other people don’t because they think that you won’t. It’s a big feedback loop.
From my perspective, the Dems are a shit party that’s more than happy to work with Republicans to destroy the country and its people, yet people still argue that they’re the “good guys” and that they deserve to win elections despite a Mt. Everest size pile of evidence to the contrary.
Furthermore they keep throwing elections in order to get Republicans elected so what the fuck is your vote even good for if you’re just voting for a losing (D) candidate? You might as well take the risk and vote 3rd party in this situation because even if you lose it’s still not going to change the outcome.
You say that primary votes are important, yet the DNC is more than happy to crush a popular candidate like Bernie if it’s not their chosen candidate. They put their thumb on the scale to sway the nomination toward the person they want. In 2024, we didn’t even get a primary because Biden went back on his word of only running one term and then dropped out to give us Harris. Again, what was your vote even good for here? Nothing.
All of you guys want to fix things yet staunchly refuse to try anything different while expecting things to get better by repeating the same failed strategy. They won’t. How many more elections will it take for people to realize that?
How were they absent for the vote? They better have a good reason.
no we dislike you because you helped elect trump and that was clearly your intent.
Useless.
Buy the ticket, take the ride!
Wish HST was here for the commentary.
Pretty sure he would look at today’s world and go, “I made the right choice”
Even if it passed, that’s not going to stop Trump from doing what he wants.
He has veto power even if it had passed 51-49
Ehh, good. The more Americans are bailed out, the less they suffer the consequences of their actions.
May the complacency of the left and the idiocy of the right reap their fullest rewards.
the complacency of the left
I have to assume you’re using “left” in that peculiar American sense in which it means “center right”. The actual left are not complacent, but they’re unrepresented.
Yes, he’s referring to neo-liberals.
Neo-liberals always align with conservatives when their wealth is threatened.
when i start talking politics with people, i regularly have to preface the conversation with “i am an extreme outlier that is very far left” because i get very weird looks for saying things like, “all people should be able to eat.”
its a weird state of being trying to defend something kind.
Preaching kindness is a dangerous business. Be careful out there.
The actual left is very much also complacent. Mango man’s goons just robbed an innocent family (of citizens, though I shouldn’t need to specify that) blind and where’s the action? Where’s the outrage? Where are the goddamn strikes?
Where are the goddamn strikes?
I think that’s lack of organization, given how difficult companies have made it for workers to unionize, rather than lack of will. Also lack of numbers, given how many workers have become Trumpists or consider unions to be evil communism.
Yeah so the actual left should be doing something about that right the fuck now. Anything else is complacency.
i cast itchy lower back upon you
Agreed. I welcome all the suffering that is about to befall consumerists.
They only have themselves to blame, and their incessant greed.
