2020 was… truly unique. It was so hard to stay away from doom scrolling, and I (and many others) were pretty disillusioned by the sad fact that so much of our country legitimately supported the Orange Man. I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night of the election because I genuinely considered it to be a make or break decision for America.
My point is that looking back on it, in the end the only real difference I made was at the ballet box. This year I’m going for the Head-in-the-Sand approach. I’m done with the political memes. Done with the Twitter screenshots. It just riles me up and this year I’m gonna do my best to fight that.
I see a lot of people here frustrated with our two party system. I too am frustrated. Donate to FairVote to get ranked choice on the ballot in more states. Ranked choice voting allows voters to express actual preferences between more than two parties and it is a win no matter who you normally vote for. Many states have a ballot measure system that can be used to pass legislation without requiring the agreement of the state legislature. Several US states have implemented ranked choice voting already. http://fairvote.org
Preferential voting is a far superior system.
For those unfamiliar, here’s an example:
If you like a minor party, say, the Green party, hate another minor party, say, Libertarian, more than you hate the Republicans and would settle for Democrats if you had to, then your vote would look like:
- Green
- Democrat
- Republican
- Libertarian
And if your (1) Green candidate didn’t have enough votes to win outright, and no-one else did either, then your vote would go to the (2) democrat, who has all the (1) democrat and (2) democrat votes added together. If the democrat didn’t have enough votes to win, then it would go to the Republican.
This is simplified, but should be enough to give the idea of how your vote always matters, and allows a better variety of ideas to flourish.
ALSO: post-election, say the democrats won, but only did because they got a lot of second round preferential votes from the Greens voters, that would help convince them that if they want to stay in power, they need to adopt more Green policies.
If parties get elected with no help and just because the other option is orange meltdown, it does little to encourage improvement. All they have to be is better than the other side (who lies all the time anyway, making “better” appear more subjective than objective).
How to help fix voting in the USA:
- Preferential voting
- Nonpartisan government body to create voting districts (remove Gerrymandering completely)
- Fix the money: Caps on political donations. Full transparencies on all political donations and spending. Corporations aren’t people.
- Standardised ballots
- Disband the electoral college
- Change the size of the house/senate
Even some of the best countries’ voting methods are being constantly tweaked and improved. Nothing is perfect, but it’s an embarrassment how far behind the USA is.
In 2016, I was an Independent. Straight down the middle. Would consider reasonable Democrats, Republicans, and 3rd party candidates.
In 2020, I was an Independent leaning Democratic. Would not consider Trump. Biden was locked in. Would hesitantly consider reasonable Republicans or Independents on a split ticket.
In 2024, I’m a Democrat. Will only consider Democrats up and down the ballot. No 3rd parties.
I dont think republicans have been reasonable on the whole at any point in my lifetime. Even Mccain was questionable and he was the best the republicans had.
Imo, there used to be a few reasonable individual Republican candidates here and there. But now they litmus test into these insane issues and they don’t adapt when things change in society. They just dig in their heels and start mud-slinging. I’m not even bothering with them anymore.
Do you live somewhere where voting for Democrats even matters?
Its the US so…no.
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Right now, the choices are between boring corporatists and 100% concentrated evil. It’s not that hard a choice.
the boring corporatists are fully backing a genocide rn
not really seeing how that doesn’t qualify as 100% concentrated evil
I think they’re saying that the not-hard-choice is to abstain
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“Every president has backed this genocidal state. Why try to stop the trend now?”
Backing genocide and not telling Israel to stop bombing, as even Republican presidents like Reagan have done, takes Biden from ‘the lesser of two evils’ to just evil. I won’t support genocide.
I won’t be shamed for not supporting genocide either. That’s on the Democratic party and Biden.
Frankly I don’t think there much boring about the genocide the corporatist is enabling.
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for. I swear Israel is part of the national narrative on both sides and I don’t understand why.
Volunteer and try to primary those old bastards out of office. The Squad is getting bigger every election.
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for.
Then I guess I’m not voting huh? I don’t support colonizers, genociders, or the intersection of the two.
If you avoid everyone who supports Israel in this fight you won’t have anyone to vote for.
Yea I’m aware that’s why I’m writing in hunter Biden.
After voting for people who explicitly said they dont care about my support only to be blamed for their failures I’m putting my foot down and not voting for anybody enabling a genocide.
Don’t worry I live in upstate new york so unless I literally wad up my ballot and throw it at Biden so hard he dies my vote will have literally zero effect on the presidential race and I’m aware this is a very privellaged position to have.
I’m also voting straight working families party in local elections which usually get about 80 votes and the working families party candidate is the same as the dems.
I’m going to complain about not having a primary option for president, vote for the left-most person I can in the primary, and then vote down-ballot (D) in November. There’s nothing I need to research with respect to these modern conservatives. Most democrats aren’t really much better in most ways, but at least I can look my marginalized friends and colleagues in the eye after the election.
Yeah pretty much this. Not much point to me following the political discourse and all that, all it’ll do is just make me angry and depressed.
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Yeah I feel you, the green party has some good positions. But then they go ahead and nominate people like Jill Stein, who has some good but many horrible foreign policy ideas like ending NATO and allowing Russia to do whatever it wants to eastern European countries. In climate areas has relatively good positions, but then despite claiming to follow science she will constantly reject it when it comes to her own bizarre theories about vaccines, banning wifi from areas with children, or trying to ban gmos that have extensive evidence for safety until they meet some arbitrary threshold in her own head and scientists prove a negative, which is impossible. Not to mention what that would do to food prices and create widespread shortages and hunger and cause actual harm around the world if she got her way.
I’d love viable third parties, but they’ve been picking terrible candidates lately, so I don’t really see the appeal atm. I think the path forward there is being active in primaries and pushing candidates forward in the main parties forward who support alternative voting systems like rank choice. Otherwise while we still have first past the post voting, any but the main two parties is never really going to be viable and will probably just end up being counterproductive to their own stated goals.
It’s not a question of policy. Republicans literally killed people last election trying to overthrow democracy.
Not that I even like democrats, but anyone who votes red after Jan 6th is fundamentally an enemy of democracy.
This sham democracy that you fervently support kills people everyday.
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Voting is the least you can do, so I will choose to vote against Capitalists and not for genocide. If you can’t even do that bare minimum, you don’t deserve democracy.
…what anti-capitalist do you think you’re voting into office?
The PSL candidate.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States. PSL was established in 2004 and claims to be active in a wide range of social movements. PSL describes its primary goal as the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of socialism.
Yeah, that sounds viable. 🙄
PSL are a bunch of losers. They can’t even win local elections, let alone put any of their people in state or Federal offices.
I’d be happy to vote for someone better who isn’t pro-capitalist and pro-genocide, who do you suggest?
There is no electoral solution to the accelerating depravity of this evil and crumbling Empire
Probably vote blue all the way down the line but I’m going to be shitting on the democratic party publicly and loudly for all the fucked and/or cowardly shit they do because not as bad != not bad.
I honestly think the worst kinds are the delusional people who try to make themselves believe they’re “above it all” by voting Democrat for the president and then Republican for their representatives…
Ffs learn how government works in today’s era… Maybe that was ok 50 years ago, but now it’s just “you’re on the other team, fuck your clean bill that’s just saving puppies and children, I’m voting no so my supporters don’t see me voting with Democrats!”
Very fair and measured approach. I wish more Americans would adopt this strategy.
Definitely not voting for either of the parties that killed Roe v Wade or any of the parties that support the zionist genocide of Palestine. That leaves…PSL again I guess
Same as usual. Vote for the least harmful candidates while advocating for actual grassroots improvements, because voting harder won’t move America to the left, ever.
I’m voting for the most progressive candidate possible in the primary, and then whoever’s not the Republican in the general, and I fully intend to do that for the rest of my life.
The Republican Party has some plans they’re putting together, and between that and the rhetoric that most major Republican politicians and candidates spout these days (very specifically including Trump), it’s abundantly clear they’ve more or less completely given up on democracy, and are planning on dismantling a significant proportion of the core institutions of our country and government, which will effectively usher in the American Empire (as in: a possibly theocratic, but definitely authoritarian and likely outright fascist dictatorship). To be clear: that would be a Very Bad Thing. You think Russia is troublesome now? Wait until Trump or someone similar starts treating them like an ally, emulating as much of Putin’s power structure as possible just because they think it’s cool and would make them look powerful, and potentially teaming up to do shitty things to the rest of the world because we have something like 95% of the nuclear weapons ever produced, and while Russian ones are in a questionable state, ours definitely work.
If Republicans win this next election - and especially if they are able to secure the presidency and both houses of Congress - I genuinely don’t think things will recover without significant domestic political violence, which may ultimately result in a civil war. I’m doing my best to prepare for some “GTFO” contingencies that could be executed in the next few years, but it’s not an easy thing to do, and there’s still a huge number of unknowns in a ton of dimensions.
If you think I’m being hyperbolic, you’re not paying attention.
Oh hey look, it’s the only rational voting strategy in a FPTP elective structure! Anyone who thinks different is just more evidence we need Civics back in our schools.
more evidence we need Civics back in our schools
Maybe we need more math as well - have you heard of the Ultimatum Game? Sometimes the rational strategy is to reject unfair split offers, even if that makes it a guarantee that you both get nothing.
I’ve taught game theory. Voting isn’t the Ultimatum game, because the most a third party is going to do is shave off a few percentage points, resulting in the main party losing, resulting in the main party generally becoming more conservative. Look who ran after Reagan - the entire Democratic Party shifted right with the third way. Look who we ran after Trump.
In voting the way it’s currently configured, there are two elements from game theory that apply. The first is minimax strategy - minimize the maximum damage your enemy can do. Above all that means keeping republicans out of office if you care about minimizing harm to women, minorities and immigrants, the poor, and the LGBT community.
The second concept that applies is the BATNA - the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If the negotiated agreement fails (we get a left democrat on the ballot) our next best alternative is to get a Democrat elected.
We came within a hair’s breadth of not having another election, and at the very least we will be looking at a roll back of LGBT rights, a nationwide abortion ban, and a massive crackdown that will make sure they don’t lose any more elections.
the most a third party is going to do is shave off a few percentage points, resulting in the main party losing
If the third party can force the main party to lose, then it holds ultimatum power and game theory rules apply. The main party irrationally keeps rejecting the ultimatum and as a result keeps losing. To execute the threat of the ultimatum even after the unfair split has already been offered is the paradox of game theory. You have to appear credible enough to carry out such a threat, but the only reliable way to appear credible is to actually follow through on such threats every time.
The Democratic party keeps losing and shifting right because it acts irrationally and fails to execute optimal game theory strategy. It could have offered the left a fair split and we could have all had guaranteed single-payer medical care, food, and housing, but instead none of us will have women’s rights, and the immigrants and gays among us will be herded into cages.
That is literally not how it works. That’s how people think it should work, but when you see that it doesn’t, you have to turn back and review your premises and your model. I know the way you think it should work and how you want it to work, but when it doesn’t work you need to revise.
The problem is this - the feedback loop is insufficient and the correlation is unclear. If you are directly negotiating with someone, then you can play Ultimatum. If you are one of a hundred million people casting a vote for one person or another, you cannot. Perot cost Bush I the election, and Nader cost Kerry the election. Neither party decided that they needed to move in the direction of the spoiler candidate. They’re especially not going to do so for 3p candidates who pull in the low single digits, even if they lose by low single digits, because they’ll think they can get more by moving towards the center.
You can vote however you want, but don’t base it on a theoretical foundation that has less than zero application to the scenario you’re modeling. It really, honestly is a minimax choice, and if you are truly an ally for those of us in marginalized communities, you have to recognize it.
I’m not being a right winger here - I’m a member of the DSA and this is in line with what they (and people like Chomsky) advise. But I’m not talking about even that angle. I’m just talking minimax and BATNA. If negotiations fail (ie we didn’t get Bernie), the best alternative is Hillary. At least Roe wouldn’t have been overturned and we wouldn’t have states suing to make ten year olds give birth to their rapist’s babies.
So I am proposing that the Democratic party is acting irrationally and suboptimally, but you claim that the Democrats are acting most optimally, and it is the fringe left that is acting irrationally instead by refusing to accept a unfair split against all game theory guidance, causing all of us to eat shit (despite them making up only low single digits). Yet if the Democrats are so rational, how come they keep losing? Shouldn’t they have found an optimal strategy to get around the irrational ultimatum of the left? Yet here we are.
I do not mean this to come off as blunt as it sounds, but I’m trying to be both clear and concise.
What you’re talking about is not how game theory works. What you’re doing is taking the most basic, highly abstracted representation of a generic idea and expecting it to correlate with reality. It’s the same thing people do when they ascribe some kind of wish fulfillment to the free market or to evolutionary dynamics. It’s not even a platonic ideal - it’s drawing a supply/demand curve and thinking you understand how prices work in a market economy. Here’s the main issues you’re running into when you try to play Ultimatum with something the size of the Democratic Party:
- Noise. There is a permanent base of 3-5% of the electorate that’s going to vote Green, or whatever. The protest voters almost never rise above that noise floor. Focus on a single (potentially complex) issue would help. Green rallies (and others) often have everything from antivax to prison reform to the environment to voting rights to BDS and BLM. All of those things (except the antivax) might be important, but there needs to be a central focus. IMO it’s voting rights - I’d love DSA to drop everything to just start suing states and protesting for voting rights, because everything else is lost without that. We can even both/and, as long as there’s a vision and a focus on a main first objective. Right now we’re coming off like a bunch of verses from We Didn’t Start the Fire. Ultimatum with multiplayer and a noise function is a completely different game.
- Feedback loop. The consequences for actions needs to be tightened up, and they need a wide base. There needs to be visible and constant representation out in front of both cameras and politicians. This can be people like the Squad or figures like Robert Reich, but there needs to be a uniform voice that doesn’t wait for the election cycle. Groups like Moms for Liberty have this kind of thing on lock. They have a brand and spokespersons and will host and endorse, or else attack on Fox News within hours of a political decision. They’re shit in every way, but they can work the machine. Ultimatum with a delayed feedback loop is a completely different game because the failure of the deal is less attributable.
- Solidarity and messaging. The majority of Americans want universal health care. The majority of Americans want green energy. The majority of Americans want a cease fire in Gaza. By spreading opinions across multiple realizations of this top level policy objectives, we dilute the message. Ultimatum requires identifiable players with identifiable agendas.
We as voters aren’t playing Ultimatum. Instead, we are playing minimax as an emergent strategy to defend the rights of marginalized populations.
Not having another sham election sounds like a great outcome to me.
Sounds great, but then the genie grants it and you don’t get any more elections, sham or otherwise. I’ll take the illusion of democracy over blatant mask-off fascism, personally.
If you live in the “illusion of democracy” then the elections don’t matter in the first place, so we may as well forego the mask so taht even blind people like you can see it. And polite fascism is actually worse because then liberals like you will support it and chastise others for pointing out the emperor has no clothes.
For example, do you know who started using drones to bomb civilians? Do you know who first started putting kids in cages? Because liberals like you think he was the greatest president to ever president, and you gleefully supported him since he was polite with his fascism.
Lotta unsubstantiated assumptions about me there. Maybe reassess your own biases before offering analysis.
Sometimes the rational strategy is to reject unfair split offers, even if that makes it a guarantee that you both get nothing.
Yup. Mutually assured destruction: either the malfeasant and murderous can get right and start fixing what they’ve ruined, or I don’t have a single issue becoming a lead weight around the country’s neck. Ain’t like this country hasn’t tried to kill me by cop more than once anyway, I have no reason to want to see this awful joke of an empire perpetuate.
Is there a neutral review of project 2025 that you can point to? That site is ass and either points to a book you can buy or a thousand links to PDFs.
Please define “neutral review” in this context.
The whole thing is unrepentantly and deeply biased, and it’s intentional.
I don’t know if this matches your definition of “neutral”, but it must be said that “neutral” is not synonymous with “unbiased”.
Yes I meant unbiased, but I was unsure if even using that word would be taken the wrong way. I don’t want to be taken as a centrist or anything like that, because I’m not even close.
I just want a flat clinical review of what it says versus what it actually means without clickbait sensationalism. It is plainly bad, that much is obvious. But what are the real-life, bureaucratic implications of its potential execution?
Thanks for the link, I’ll definitely check it out.
The Constitution needs to be rewritten anyway and we are overdue, preserving the status quo is enabling American fascism.
Voting by mail as usual.
Trying to avoid customers that can’t shut up about how wonderful trump is.
“I think he’s the antichrist but he’s doing a good job”
You know, bat shit insane things republicans say.
Live in upstate new york so unless I throw my ballot at Biden so hard he dies my vote will have exactly zero effect on federal elections.
So voting for people who think public education is a positive and not communism in local elections where the differential is 12 votes and writing in Hunter Biden for president because it’s funny.
It can be easy to feel like a drop of water in a large ocean when it comes to national elections. But you should also vote in your county and state elections; you can probably make more of a difference there.
I’m not saying “don’t vote in the national election”, but just know that there are other elections to vote in, and thry are just as important as the nationals.
Yah I can vote for the red mayor who wants more cops or the blue mayor who wants more cops. Freedom rings!
Unless you’re in a big big city, mayoral and council races can actually have a lot of diversity in terms of political outlooks. Never forget that a town elected a dog as mayor. Nobody that pure would ever make it to federal office.
There certainly are places like that. I’d vote for a dog over any of our candidates in the last local election. Or anyone running on banning the damn roadside signs. Alternatively, the candidates themselves have to pluck them out from along the highway on ramps and whatever other places they’ve been planted the night of the election and before the morning light.
Our local election was bupkis. The red one won because the blue one won last time and nothing changed and people are still unhappy. The mayoral race prior went about the same way, but the blue one won because the red one in the office did nothing differently and no one was happy.
You understand that “voting for a dog” for mayor is just Conservatism right? You know make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub, Reagan etc?
I was trying to use a funny example to illustrate the point that a lot more things are possible at the local level than the federal level, particularly in terms of electing a candidate with more diverse political alignment. Anyway, most of the time when an animal wins a mayorship, it’s in an unincorporated area where mayor is more of an honorary title than an actual political position. The point is that local races are still worth voting and participating in.
Vermont, my former residence, has a republican governor that’s been repeatedly reelected who the country at large considers a RINO. Non-federal level parties may differ significantly from their national stances.
It’s actually the same in BC, Canada where I emigrated… the BC Liberals were partially anti-choice and deeply religious (so closer to the CPC than LPC), as such they recently rebranded to “BC Unity Party”… did they check that their new name didn’t acronym to BCUP? No, they did not.
There’s so many acronyms here my head is spinning
One of them also wants to ban books from school libraries.
