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Don’t Fall for the Third-Party Trick
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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I’m planning on voting PSL and you can too.
They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to Israel.
PSL and De La Cruz are only on the ballot in 18 states for 220 Electoral College votes. They literally cannot win.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access_in_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election
Taking votes away from Harris only helps Trump.
If winning were the only effect that voting had then you’d have a great point.
No ones taking votes away from Harris, if she wants to get psl voters she can take up policy positions they support.
Winning really is the only effect and sometimes, not even then.
Votes are used to determine ballot access in future elections, funding, event presence and of course, by the two major parties to figure out where they could pick up an electoral vote or two by tacking a third parties platform onto their own.
Why some parties and political movements even use voting as a means to organize and raise awareness around their platforms and issues!
No third party has reached those thresholds in years.
2020:
2016:
2012:
2008:
2004:
2000:
And before then?
Even if the threshold for funding and ballot access isn’t met, voting third party helps get your party at events, tells the major parties how popular their platform is and builds support and awareness.
The last time a 3rd party got any significant portion of the vote was Ross Perot in '92 and '96, it had 0 significance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election
18.91% in '92, 8.4% in '96.
Before that, you have to go back to '68 where a racist 3rd party won 13.5% of the vote, and the South, also had no significance beyond that election.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_United_States_presidential_election
I think you’re making a mistake here. You’re gonna wanna stick with stuff like you had before where you imply nothing can change.
Perot 92 and 96 were extensively studied and had far reaching effects on domestic policy, campaign strategy and both gave rise to the spoiler/throwing your vote away discourse in the modern day and were also proof that it was false after people had time to study the results.
I remember after 92 people would spit on the ground when you brought up nafta. They didn’t know about it before the election that year and the deal was all but signed at that point. Perot dragged that thing into the light and that campaign is the reason trump could speak to people’s memories when he said how bad it was and talked up how good the usmca would be (even though it’s basically a continuation).
I like when people bring up the reform party because there were lots of well studied measurable effects and they didn’t come from serious disciplined parties like one might think of psl or something as but from the abstract, goofy reform party. They even fucked up in 92 and had a little will-they won’t-they drop out.
There’s some study or article in the 92 Wikipedia article that references people’s exit poll sentiment that they “would have voted for Perot if they thought he could win”. Not just in passing either, but reaching the conclusion that he could have won if those people had voted for him.
Did they not vote for him because they didn’t think he was for real after the drop out?
Would the reform party have been able to make more of Perot clowning on hw and Clinton if it had been running candidates in downballot races?
On a more touchy-feely level, I wouldn’t be bringing up how the American political system is most vulnerable to third parties when its sclerotic leadership is struggling to differentiate some of its two parties policies.
Not if I wanted to convince people not to vote third party at least.
LOL - Perot, and his charts, changed nothing. He became a punchline in '96 with his "Ok, I dropped out, no, wait, I'm still in."
His supporters went on to Ron Paul, who was equally ineffective.
Perot absolutely had an effect on American politics. I already brought up nafta which is the obvious thing for anyone who remembers that time, but did you know that his particular type of outsider conservative populism has been compared to trump?
I didn’t, but it’s easy to see him as a precursor to 2016.
Like I said before, you’re making a mistake saying third parties can’t be effective. One of the legs of the argument against third parties is that they’ll have an effect on the election! Not to mention the obvious truth that third parties have pushed and pulled major party platforms!
It’s better to stay with the mopey, “nothing can change” argument instead. At least people who already believe that will agree with you. Suggesting third parties don’t have an impact is both provably false and undermines your point.
As we all know, time doesn't pass and yesterday is today. Nothing ever happens for any reason. The world is exactly the same as it was decades ago.
Tell you what, I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll personally donate $1,000 to any 3rd party that cracks 3% nationally in the upcoming election.
You don't have to, that isn't my point. My point is that countless quantitative changes over time result in qualitative ones. Society is wildly different as Capitalism continues to decay, and the 2 parties continue to move forward with that decay. There will be a turning point.
All a third party really has to do is become popular enough to break the narrative that only red and blue can win. Once it happens it's a landslide because everyone is feed up with the current system. If red and blue start to lose votes and popularity they are forced to change their politics
Both the red and blue party are supporting a genocide. Taking away votes for them helps mankind
She's on the ballot where I live. I'm probably voting for her.
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah! Celebrate throwing away your vote! Wooo!
The vote is counted. It gets tallied for the candidates it’s marked for.
Yes. And who do you think has a chance to win the election?
Any candidate who gets 270 electoral votes.
Right. And PSL cannot get 270 votes from 18 states. It's literally impossible. You're throwing your vote away.
Do you think winning the electoral college is the only effect that a third party vote has?
Especially for a party like PSL that runs down ticket candidates there’s much more than winning the ec.
The winner wins the election and becomes the President and Vice President. That is what happens, not whatever your fantasy makes up.
Wow, is voter turnout used for anything else?
No. Voter turn out is how many people are voting. What else do did you think it is?
This election, sense you don't seem to understand it somehow, is for the president who will be in charge of our country for at least the next four years. As well as for the office holders downvote.
Not voting for one of the only two people that are able to win is throwing your vote away and giving Trump the edge. Any vote that is not for Harris gives Trump an easier time to win.
If you don't care which person gets elected, then that's fine. But if Trump gets elected and you don't like it, you only have yourself to blame.
Wait how is it throwing my vote away? The ballot is tallied for my preferred party. The ballot doesn’t give trump an edge because it isn’t cast for trump.
By your logic that same third party ballot gives Harris an edge and the two edges combine and cancel out. Or explode. Or something.
How am I to blame for trumps ostensible victory when I don’t vote for him? Are all voters to blame just like me? Are democratic strategists who author Harris’ rightward move to blame? Is Harris herself to blame in the case of a trump victory?
Multiple people have explained all of it to you in this post and others. You are refusing to listen. I'm done with you, I'm sorry but you're either extremely naive or you're willfully being an idiot. Either way you're annoying to talk to.
if you think you have a coherent explanation how third party is throwing ones vote away i'll ilsten.
it seems like most people rely on "your party can't win" and dont engage with how there are effects outside winning involved with american elections. i also get a lot of accusations of helping trump win that break down under the slightest questioning.
Willfully being an idiot, it is then.
So do the simultaneous edges my vote gives both Harris and trump cancel out or explode?
Do you think effects outside of winning a particular race are made up?
Do you think the way to build representation is to work at the grassroots level except for in elections?
Do you think everyone but you doesn't understand how elections work?
No, but I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t.
How do you seriously ignore everyone that's responded to you with facts about how the presidential election works? Do you cover your eyes and not read anything at all or something?
Seriously, how is it possible for you to be as dense and willfully ignorent as you are?
If you think I’m ignoring the facts, lay them out.
If the case is as straightforward and clear as you say it is then you’re a copy-paste away from converting someone away from voting third party.
Actually talk to me about this instead of calling me names.
Now there is the possibility that I’m not seeing a surfeit of replies because someone’s defederated from my instance, but I think in that case they wouldn’t see my comments and be able to reply to them.
Local elections is where most of the current people in power got started. Anyone voting for third party in the presidential race missed the boat.
We desperately need more real third-party participation in politics, but voting for third parties in presidential elections doesn’t make that happen—the US voting system isn’t a business that adapts its products to meet consumer demand.
PSL and De La Cruz are only on the ballot in 18 states for 220 Electoral College votes. They literally cannot win.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access_in_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election.
Taking votes away from Harris only helps Trump.
No third party has reached those thresholds in years.
2020:
2016:
2012:
2008:
2004:
2000:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election
18.91% in '92, 8.4% in '96.
Before that, you have to go back to '68 where a racist 3rd party won 13.5% of the vote, and the South, also had no significance beyond that election.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_United_States_presidential_election.
This does not work in a FPTP system. Every vote you peel off the Democrats just enables the Republicans and sets reform back even farther. The only way telling people to vote 3rd party is helpful is if they were going to vote for the GOP. Peeling votes away from Democrats HURTS the chances of other parties to be viable in the future.
I mean unless you are intentionally being obtuse I feel like you know damn well what people mean when they say “A vote for X is a vote for Trump”. It’s not a coincidence that so many Republican allies and organizations are promoting and pumping up 3rd party candidates to run in various swing states and pull votes away from Harris, this isn’t a new tactic and historically has absolutely changed elections.
A vote not for Harris is one less vote for her too. Not voting for anyone and then waking up getting the person you didn’t want winning should not get a Pikachu face. That single vote won’t matter statistically, but it’s the mindset that if lots of people think the same way, and they do, then it will matter.
It’s okay to vote thinking, ugh, fine…I’ll vote Democrat even though I hate the choices. If everyone thinking that way votes, we’ll have a left wing sweep. That would be a refreshing change of pace…then we can put pressure on those reps who listen to people to make the hard changes that right now always get opposed because of party.
I learned about spoiler candidates in 8th grade civics.
Spoiler about spoilers: spoilers can spoil actively, or passively. It doesn’t really matter after the fact, the point is how their words and existence as a candidate influence the success chances for the 2 leading candidates.
Let’s say Trump has 47% support… his theoretical maximum.
That means “Not Trump” is at 53%.
The problem is “Not Trump” is divided among Harris, Stein, and West. Stein and West draw from the Harris camp, not the Trump camp.
So instead of 47% Trump, 53% Harris, you get 45% Harris, 5% Stein, 3% West, Trump wins.
Do that in a few key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Trump gets a 2nd term, actively making things worse for all those people who voted for Stein and West.
But I know you'll ignore all of the above again just like you did before.
in order to make it easier to track all this, i've got a spoiler block with links to the posts you referenced and my responses to them. it's at the bottom of this post. there's four, two of them were replies made to people other than me and one was a top level comment. the fourth and biggest one is a conversation i'm in, responding to the other person and engaging with what they say in good faith.
so no, i'm not ignoring everyone who's responded to me, and i'm not ignoring you.
in order to keep this from descending into minutae, i've recognized a few broad responses to "i'm voting third party":
"You can't win and winning is all that matters."
"You can't have any effect."
"You're gonna spoil it."
the first is false, the second and third contradict each other and are also false.
If you think there's a broad type of argument against voting third party that i missed, let me know.
since i never got to actually break this one out: if the democrats want my vote, they can adopt the policies i want.
I think people who claim "a vote for x is a vote for trump" are just trying to shame me into voting for their candidate using manipulation and falsehood. they usually don't respond or give up that tack when i say "no, that's not how it works", so i don't know what they actually mean because i never get to really dive into it. feel free to dive into it.
you wrote about spoiler effects using popular vote, but we're talking about the electoral college, so that's pretty moot. seems like its hard to blame candidates losing on the spoiler effect rather than the electoral college being fundamentally undemocratic.
spoiler
Local elections is where most of the current people in power got started. Anyone voting for third party in the presidential race missed the boat. was you replying to someone other than me so i never saw it.We desperately need more real third-party participation in politics, but voting for third parties in presidential elections doesn’t make that happen—the US voting system isn’t a business that adapts its products to meet consumer demand. was a top level comment that i never saw or didn't think was interesting if i did.
Here's everything from "PSL and De La Cruz" all the way to the link about the '68 election. it's split up in several responses in that comment chain, but i think that's that whole section.
I did not ignore anything that user said. they ended up trying to claim that perot had no effect, which is a pretty bad place to paint oneself into.
This does not work in a FPTP system. Every vote you peel off the Democrats just enables the Republicans and sets reform back even farther. The only way telling people to vote 3rd party is helpful is if they were going to vote for the GOP. Peeling votes away from Democrats HURTS the chances of other parties to be viable in the future. was not a reply to me and i never saw it.
I think all the rest is a unique comment by you, but let me know if i missed something.