Trying to build viable third parties by voting for them in presidential elections is like trying to build a third door in your house by repeatedly walking into the wall where you want the door to be.

Third parties are mathematically impossible until we ditch first past the post voting:

https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

We need our vote to be a list, not a checkbox.

No, no, THIS time protest-voting to allow fascism will work to usher in a real left-wing movement in this country, promise! /s

But but, building a real third party from the ground up in local elections and/or changing our voting system from first past the post takes a lot of time and real effort. That's a lot of hard work. It's a lot harder than just showing up to one election every 4 years and casting a vote that makes you feel like you're special and smarter than everyone else.

except that you could end up with a 3rd entrance by doing that ... eventually

Primary elections are how parties change. Primary elections are how the Republican party became what it is today. They are often the highest-leverage vote you can cast if you're in a solid district.

You'd need to grow the third party / greens by having them become a viable party in local elections and state elections first. The greens have failed to do that. Which means they have no chance except to spoil the election.

"Why would I vote for a primary party candidate who supports ranked choice voting when I can just throw my vote away on a third-party candidate that will never be elected? I've got principles!"

Want to build a viable third party for presidential elections? Start small at the city/county level and eventually you will have candidates at the state/federal level. Today's city council is tomorrow's senator/president. Does it really surprise anyone that a relatively unknown and unproven candidate outside of the two major parties doesn't get any traction in a federal election?

Look up The Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell.

Falwell made himself a big deal in the GOP by getting his troops to show up at every single local Republican event with enough votes to make sure that they got everything they wanted. It started small with sheriffs and county clerks, and then Congress members.

If only there was some kind of proven road map where countries who has been dominated by their ruling elite using the two party trick went on to form a kind of labour movement that forced a third choice on the ruling class....

Maybe in America. But check other countries. They have preferential voting systems.

I was a proud third party voter for a long time but changed my mind after watching CGPGrey’s video about first past the post. It’s not really ABOUT trying to change minds but FPTP voting rules really do mean that a two party system is bound to very basic human psychology.

Some of these third party people could get elected to the senate if they tried, but have to try for the top job with no experience because their ego can't take that they don't know everything.

If I run hard enough, I'll put a me shaped hole in the wall though.

768 votes wth is wrong with Americans bruh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Tehreek-e-Insaf

If you can create a successful grassroots political party in an environment where your party members and constituents are constantly attacked, murdered, bombed, jailed, tortured, votes faked, votes destroyed, and vote miscounts, you can definitely pull it off in the USA.

It took Pakistan only 20 years to cause a collapse of their corrupt 2 party system and challenge the military dictatorship. People never believed PTI would mount any sort of challenge, but they did by building a solid populist movement, despite facing all of the above.

The "you must vote the lesser evil" is a fallacy that both parties in the USA perpetuate in an attempt to convince you to believe 3rd party voting is a waste of time.

You can't just sit back and complain about the rigged system like "but muh first past the poll voting" as if either Democrats or Republicans will change the system in any way to make it easier for their rivals.

This is exactly why I dislike the Democratic party in particular so much. They are a corporate monolith that pretends to care about your leftist demands by handing out pennies worth of change to get your vote, then the second they refuse to actually significantly change something you demand, they have the audacity to blame you, the voter, for not sucking up to their shitty policies when they inevitably lose the election.

Current case in point: "There is no genocide in Gaza, and we believe we can win without our constituents because our opponent is a mentally insane baby ".

Shittiest take on this community by far.

You mean in the USA? I guess the more viable path is to campaign to fix their democracy from within the democratic party. And then make new parties.

Permanently Deleted

We need to demand approval choice voting. Every time we hear anything about third parties in this country, we need to use it as a launch pad to tall about approval choice voting

lemmy.world going hard against third parties over the past few days, what has spooked them?

There’s a caveat: That statement only applies to a house that’s designed to only have 2 viable doors.

I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Kamala but I won't shame people who can't bring themselves to do it.

The wall will wear down eventually. I think.

This is the same tone set by the people who whined that we were refusing to vote for Biden and oh look now Biden isn’t in the race anymore because we refused to accept him.

Keep accepting the one candidate that they spoon in front of us without asking if we actually want that one

American shower thoughts

no it isn't.

I dunno about this analogy. I think the doctor proved that with enough time, anything can become a door.

There will never be an acceptable time to vote third party according to liberals. Unless you're fine with an infinite state of groveling towards people in power. If we can't even push them left on genocide when it could cost the election, we can't move them left on anything. The status quo is fine for people who have the resources to deal with it and people not effected by Police brutality and other negative effects.

Yes but the other two doors open straight into hell.

And even if the candidate wins, then what? They have no say in Congress. It's the House of Reps and the Senate that passes legislation. Your new third party candidate can only choose to sign or to veto bills passed by the House and Senate.

Beau on it https://youtu.be/-KX8xddKfeM

Progress is slow. Start with killing the popularity of the second party/party you absolutely don't align with/party that will move the needle away from your party first.

Why do you care if the person you voted for wins?

Outside of "not letting the other person win", you should vote for who you align with, or who represents you best.

If more people stopped caring about voting for "the viable candidate", we'd probably see a third party in American politics...

I've never voted for a major party presidential candidate in my life. It has never cost anyone anything, because I used to live in a deep red state and now live in a deep blue state. There's a better chance of helping a candidate hit thresholds that would qualify them for things like campaign funding, then there is of Tennessee or Illinois being the pivotal swing state. The vast majority of Americans are in similar situations, there's only a handful of states where your presidential vote matters at all.

Despite this, and the fact that I've voted for Democrats down ballot, liberals hate me, and are always trying to fight me over it. Why? Because the presidential race is the only thing anybody cares about. For all the countless, identical debates over the presidential race, I've seen virtually no discussion on here of other elections. Culturally, your take on the presidential race is how your political identity is defined. That cultural tendency is so powerful that it can even bleed into foreign countries.

The more people focus on my presidential voting behavior, which has no potential to affect anything, the more it reaffirms that such behavior is important. The reason that people care so much about my vote is not because they care about the outcome, it's because they want me to display a sign of loyalty, to bend the knee, to conform to their norms. But if everyone's going to treat it as an expression of identity, then, all else being equal regarding the outcome, it would be better to define myself according to what I actually believe. The fact that people get big mad over someone voting third party even in an extremely solid red or blue state is all the more reason to do it. My vote doesn't affect your life at all since it's totally irrelevant to the outcome, so stop obsessing over what amounts to a personal decision.

These snarky jabs are missing the point. I'm not a major party prodigal son casting a spite vote, I am actually not interested in either of their platforms and want to force them slowly over time to change.

Insane levels of cope from the party that's suing states to remove the "unviable" third parties to protect their genocide candidate's chances at beating someone who is literally incapable of forming basic sentences

You should get out of the shower...

The parties are already there or you couldn't vote them, this example is stupid. Supporting parties with blood in their hands is endorsing evil.

It kinda looks like your arguing that voting doesn’t work.

All this anti-third party logic fails as soon as the goal is outcomes regardless of which political party ends up taking credit. Just 5% of the GE puts another platform on every ballot in the next cycle. And, that immediately places immense pressure upon the duopoly.

It's so simple there's now a massive amount of state-sponsored propaganda trying to prevent too many from figuring it out.

You know Democrats are cooked when they start attacking third party voters instead of Trump voters.

Especially now people really start paying attention to the third parties.

Stupid fear mongering like this is why your politics is stuck in the last century.

But whatever floats your boat.