Generally, third parties that act as spoilers can have an effect in the long-term. As an example, a lot of Republicans were up in arms at George H.W. Bush after his broken “read my lips; no new taxes” promise as well as his support for NAFTA and voted for Perot. This essentially handed the election to Clinton, who raised taxes to higher than Bush had raised them and signed NAFTA. In the short-term Perot voters completely sabotaged their own goals and (since presumably most were aligned with Bush on other issues) hurt the GOP position on most everything else. However, since that election, no Republican on the national level has dared to even suggest raising taxes. The NAFTA thing is more complex and the GOP continued to be pro-free trade until Trump, but IMO Perot laid the seeds for Trump’s protectionism at least.
I do agree that this election is a terrible time for left wing voters to try to send a message to Democrats though, the stakes with Trump are just too high.
That’s really the issue at hand here; it’s a matter of priority- is it more important to send your message to the Democratic party that you REALLY are concerned about climate change and the environment by voting Green, or is it more important that you put one more vote in the tally against Trump and the GOP, knowing that the race will be close?
Ranked choice voting would allow for both, but we currently don’t do that. So the real question is whether your message sending is more or less important than opposing the GOP.
I mean, if it was a more normal situation, in terms of having relatively sane Republican candidates who haven’t gone off the deep end, versus centrist Democrats, then sending a message is probably admirable- you’re getting a variation on the same theme, either way you vote with the major parties in that case.
But this isn’t one of those cases- your option is the dumpster fire that is the Trump administration, versus something more sane. Sending a message by voting third party is a tacit vote for the GOP this time around. That’s what third party voters are missing in this particular election.
The only instance of a third party candidate who did not “take” votes from the other two parties was Perot in 1992. Turnout was so high that year, as compared to a typical election, that it is easily argued that Perot brought voters to the polls.
(This is borne out by analysis of down-ballot drop-off because you had a lot of people who came to vote for Perot and did so, essentially walking away from the rest of the ballot.)
It’s not that the Democrats and the Republicans are entitled to all the votes. It’s that the Democrats and Republicans are the only parties that matter in American politics. Suck it up, third party supporters, it’s true.
So the only way your vote matters is if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican. If you vote for some third party, you’re just talking about politics without doing anything.
If you have a political issue that you think is important, you need to make a decision. Do you want to just complain about it or do you want to do something about it? If you want to do something about it, you need to join one of the two real political parties. They’re the ones who are going to get elected and actually change things.
If you think you’re “sending a message” by voting for a third party, you are. But the message you’re sending is “You can ignore me and the issues I care about.”
Ain’t going to argue with the principle, but on the technicality not all Australian jurisdictions use full preferential voting (federal is) but others allow partial or exhausting preferential voting.
None the less you can vote #1 for the Snowflake Party as your Utopian candidate and #2 for LIB/LAB/DEM/GOP as the least undesirable mob you can live with. Possibly push the major down to 3,4 or 5 is you feel like being cantankerous, but who you preference after your first major party is largely academic.
One way to re-game the system, in the case of really appalling candidates, would be a “sweetheart deal” with a friend or relative of the other camp. Find a never-Trumper who still wants to vote R because they all the same can’t bear to vote for a Democrat, and both pledge to vote third-party-of-your-choice.
Of course, you’d have to really trust each other to do the right thing in the polling booth.
Right. Us Dems are not “entitled” to third party votes. But if they dont like the current regime, then we will cheerfully let them come in from the cold and vote to get rid of trump. Please.
But dont say you hate and wanna get rid of trump and then say you will vote 3rd party of the dems dont nominate your boy.
Yes. Because trump is really really bad *and getting worse.
*
Your basic rights are in danger. In four more years of trump he will put in two more SCOTUS Judges and then there’s no stopping him. What rights do you like? Clean air? Gone. Clean Water? Gone. Freedom of the press? Gone. ACA? Gone. Equal rights for women? Gone. For Minorities? Gone.
Interesting how this dire emergency places an obligation onto voters who aren’t ‘mainstream’ Democrats but not the Democratic Party or those ‘mainstream’ democrats. Why is the burden of fighting entirely on other people abandoning their principles, but not the Democratic Party putting forward a good candidate who isn’t simply awful? Surely if things are so dire, the Democrats and the Democratic mainstream should be willing to hold their noses and put forward a candidate who isn’t into bombing brown people (Biden and Clinton both voted for the Iraq war, and both think that carpet bombing civilians in countries we’re not at war with are OK), and isn’t so deep into the pockets of big corporations?
Also, this would be more believable if both major parties didn’t make the exact same argument at every election going back at least to 2000. “Third party might have been OK then, but NOW things are so bad that you have to vote for whoever we put up” loses its’ sting when you’ve been hearing it for two decades.
How are you determining that? Trump has been brutal at reducing the power of the federal government, especially in the area of minority rights, labor rights, banking regulation, education, and environmental protections. And Trump has attempted to cut back the ACA, though it’s proven difficult since people seem to actually like the protections it affords. I mean, the LP platform outright calls for removing environmental protections, financial regulations, labor protections, anti-discrimination protections, any kind of public healthcare, and public education funding. Even Trump’s ham-handed weakening of NATO fits with wanting no foreign entanglements.
From the 2016 LP Platform:
Governments are unaccountable for damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection. Where damages can
be proven and quantified in a court of law, restitution to the injured parties must be required.
We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types
Employment and compensation agreements between private employers and employees are outside the scope of government, and these contracts should not be encumbered by government-mandated government-mandated benefits or social engineering.
Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever
standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism,boycotts and other free-market solutions.
We favor a free-market health care system.
Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of choice.
Suck it up. You’re the minority faction. Why should the majority faction give in to the minority?
If it turns out I’m wrong and the voters decide they’d rather have Sanders, then Sanders will be the mainstream Democratic candidate. And then I’ll be telling Biden supporters to suck it up and vote for Sanders.
You have a list of a hundred things you want. And Candidate Allen supports all one hundred items on your list. He is your dream candidate.
Then there’s Candidate Brown. He’s in the same party as Allen. And Brown only supports two items on your list.
Finally, there’s Carter. He’s the candidate of the other party. He supports zero items on your list.
Brown beats Allen for the nomination. You think Allen is great but a majority of people preferred Brown. So the general election will be between Brown and Carter.
So here’s your choices:
Stay true to your dreams. Write in Allen’s name on Election Day. Carter wins the election and you get zero things you wanted.
Vote for some third party candidate who I won’t even bother making up a name for. Carter wins the election and you get zero things you wanted.
Stay home of Election Day to register your disapproval. Carter wins the election and you get zero things you wanted.
Vote for Brown. Get two things you wanted.
Grown-ups pick number four. They don’t believe that magic works and that they can make things happen by wishing really hard. Grown-ups make the best they can out of the circumstances that exist. They understand that getting a little is better than nothing.
You know, I am really tired of the meme that Biden was in favor of the Iraq war. First of all, just about everyone but sanders voted for it. Next of all, Biden got a personal promise from Shrub that he would not invade- but of course Bush lied. Afterwards, Biden admit he was fooled and he was wrong in voting for it.
And unless you are filthy rich, you have to take $ from the big corps or you simply wont win. Period. It is just fucking stupid for the Dems to hobble themselves in such a critical race by not taking pretty much every dine that doesnt come from the KKK.
Next- “the dems” dont choose their candidate by going over a list and picking the one that has the most appeal to everyone. *The voters choose.
*
So if you prefer sanders, for example, fine. Work and vote for sanders. But if he loses, vote for any dem- or all your freedoms (excpet to own guns, oddly) will be flushed down the toilet. Yes, maybe it is the “lesser of two evils” but one evil is the guy who just wont recycle and the other evil is ted bundy.
