- cross-posted to:
- agitprop
- cross-posted to:
- agitprop
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Oh totally, this is why Melenchon is the prime minister of France now!
France is an excellent example actually; voting third party led to a fourth party win; if America can successfully empower both a third and fourth party then we end up with more choices down the line, so yeah, vote third party.
It's a bit horrifying, but I've met people who would unironically think this is a great idea.
You bet! The party that won didn't get the power but don't let this affect your actions.
Absolutely, more parties offers more choices and removes the duopoly we currently have.
Idk. You need like half the voters voting for you to become President and there can only be one President.
I'm not saying don't vote for a third party but it's not going to do much unless you have atleast half the country behind you.
In the US, getting 5% of the national vote qualifies you for federal funding. It's a high barrier to entry, but surpassing it would allow a party to further spread its message.
Winning the presidency is not the only goal for third parties. They contest for a lot of other reasons. Some are grifters. Some use it as a platofrm to increase their party's reach. I think voting third party is good for signalling a lack of faith in the tired two party duopoly. Voting between the two big parties is essentially meaningless anyway. If the bourgeoisie don't like what the people elect they can let the electoral college off the leash or just do lawfare like they did with Bush/Gore in a case that is not meant to be used as a precedent for other cases for some reason.
Honestly making the existing two parties panic and make changes to get votes back is still a good idea, and if you get the ball rolling in earnest then I still believe we can see the rise of a third party.
Idk. You need like half the voters voting for you to become President and there can only be one President.
And that's not even accounting for a bourgeois "democracy", in which no challenge to the ruling class interests would ever be tolerated. Loooong history on that to look at. Ask Allende about moderate social revolution through elections. Ask France about strategic electoralism. 80% of the US could vote for Claudia and she would still never take office, one way or the other.
Revolutions against the bourgeois class are won from the end of a gun and by no other means, otherwise we're submitting to a state monopoly on violence designed to be used legally against us.
This!
Also, when I need to discuss "change through burgeois electoralism" with libs I love sharing this interview:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240930111014/https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/1934/10/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin
It's so perfect; it's a reputable Western newspaper so you can share it in almost any setting, just preface it for plausible deniability with something like: "It's a hilarious read, one of the greatest modern liberal intellectuals debates a genocidal maniac throthing at the mouth!"
Libs love the idea and usually swallow the bait expecting funzies, they looooove them a stuck-up Brit "talking truth to power" and handing out "hitchslaps".
And then Stalin absolutely demolishes Wells and it really fucks with their world. Wells says FDR's New Deal will bring about socialism in the USA and Stalin's like nah cause the economy is in the hands of capitalists so at most you will get some concessions which capitalists will keep fighting to revert. Stalin's arguments are so clear and concise, and his predictions are so plainly correct, while Wells is just being confidently wrong and terribly smug about it.
I had some success with it too, including one well-meaning lib literally telling me the next day, "Stalin was right" which are the three words I would not expect a lib utter under any circumstances.
one well-meaning lib literally telling me the next day, “Stalin was right”
Show
They meant that specific interview of course, not Stalin in general, and they're as left as libs come. Still couldn't believe my ears.
Thanks for the link. I've only read one of Wells' books and had never considered whatever his political views were. Even good science fiction tends to intertwine with very disappointing politics. Wells takes so many giant Ls here, not least of which is to fingerwag at Soviet success for its revolutionary necessities, which I'm sure would have been apparent had he been there to experience those conditions. He seems to imply he would have simply debatebro'd the Tzar into accepting some reforms. I get the impression Wells was convinced Keynesianism was some new higher and evolved form of socialism, which has to be the biggest L of them all.
