this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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Here goes:
PSL is running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
Here’s your chance to not be like the ops meme.
Under no circumstances should anyone with a functioning brain consider this as a good idea. It’s a sacrificed vote. A worthless ceremonial attempt to “protest” by casting a vote for someone that has a barely above zero chance to win.
It’s nothing more that pageantry and it’s irresponsible.
And there is probably no one that would in good faith, ask you vote for this person that isn’t trying to siphon votes from Harris.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE.
Votes aren’t sacrificed, they’re cast and counted. The count is public so you know they aren’t tossed into a pit after their hearts are carved out with an obsidian knife or burned on a stake or whatever.
I think the description of pageantry probably isn’t one to invoke when we’re staring down the barrel of three weeks of constant detailed media coverage focused on every detail.
I also think it’s pretty vile to describe voting for a party opposed to genocide as irresponsible. Irresponsible to whomst exactly?
A vote isn’t ceremonial or protest (and if it were protest it would be a lot cooler!).
I just want to take a minute to examine the protest vote rhetoric for a second. People only deploy it to imply that a vote they name protest is not valuable, not effective, immature and other pejoratives.
Why would anyone listen to the input of a person who looked at the history of the last twenty years or even the last century and not just thought “yeah, that’s immature, ineffective and worthless” but then tried to convince the people who are voting third party, overwhelmingly young people, of it?
I am literally asking anyone who would vote for either of the two major parties or a third party to consider the party for socialism and liberation in good faith. I don’t care who it siphons votes from. If a party thinks they need third party voters then they can adopt third party platforms.
This obvious admission of entitlement says everything about how you have nothing to lose in this election, and therefore have no one’s best interest in mind aside from your own.
That is of course if we are to even assume that you aren’t here to support a spoiler and disrupt an election.
You’re creating a strawman of me to argue against.
It’s pretty clearly in bad faith. Why not actually respond to anything else I said instead of quoting one short sentence outside of any context and building a bunch of assumptions around it?
It’s laughable to suggest that my vote against genocide has no one’s best interest in mind but my own.
Your claim that I’m speaking from a place of privilege and entitlement also falls pretty flat when it’s the high and privileged place of entitlement that’s defined by rejecting genocide.
Why not try a different line of reasoning.
Because there is no reasoning with you. There never was, and there never will be. You all make sure of that when you refuse to argue in good faith. So to counter- I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
And based on the ratios- it seems to me that they do.
From your perspective what would constitute a good faith argument for me to make?
I’ve tried to be civil and respectful even when I’m being treated with veiled insults and direct baseless accusations even when you finally end up appealing to your viewpoints popularity.
Doesn’t this seem a little beyond parody to you?
Again, I’m not here to reason with you, I’m here to ensure people reading along can see the foolishness in your ideology.
Save the false civility. I’m not buying it.
So my civility is false, nothing I say is in good faith and you’re just here for the laughs.
what is my ideology?
It's bold of you to assume everyone who would vote 3rd party would otherwise "vote blue no matter who". Also, not everyone lives in a swing state.
No ones vote should be wasted, regardless of who you're voting for. Vote for the person with the highest likelihood to win, with the closest platform that you could potentially get on with.
If its hard, write a pro/con of the two possible winners, and then choose who has the least cons for you personally.
Congrats, you now have part of a voting plan, and you'll have a affectual vote .
Glad to hear of your new found efforts to pass state level electoral reform and do away with the First-past-the-post voting system that is source of what you call "vote wasting".
Id love for that to be the way it happens. Sadly that's down to local elections, but I can promise you Trump won't give you that
Just say you want Trump to win. No need to hide it.
Why would I say that? I’m literally advocating people support a party running against trump.
It’s pretty safe to say everyone is aware of what you’re advocating for here.
I’ve made it abundantly clear, I want people to vote for the party for socialism and liberation no matter what political party they might have been planning on voting for.
Greens? They’re empty triangulators, vote psl instead.
Republicans? They’re the vile servants of capital who have no intent to disentangle America from foreign wars. Vote psl instead.
Democrats? Also the disgusting servants of capital who have no intent to stop the genocide, vote psl instead.
I'm sure lemmy.ml will be able to do what nobody has been able to do in the 200+ year history of the US and make third parties relevant! Great job! /s
The meme is that you're supposed to try to improve the system in between elections, not just throw away your vote every 4 years and call it a day
If third parties aren’t relevant then who cares if people vote for them?
I agree that people shouldn’t just throw in the towel and vote for one of the two major parties when they’ve been working so hard in the non election years to build a workers state.
Might wanna change your tactics then, bud. Your work doesn't seem to be paying off. The US has never been further from a worker state.
Psl does represent a change in tactics I think. Their focus on organizing normal people instead of grabbing at the reins of power held by liberals or hyper focusing on campuses is different from the communist organizations of olde.
The PSL is a joke. Everyone knows this. They’re not even on the ballot in many states and need to be write-ins. Suggesting anyone vote for their dumb shit within mere weeks of an election is absolutely as bat-shit bad faith as it gets.
You know damn well they cannot win. It’s mathematically impossible. Yet you’re still pushing that garbage. Oh, wait. You actually want them to gain traction? Let’s say for a second that I even believe you. So let’s say you truly want them to win. Here’s what you do:
You vote for who has the chance to win, them you do the hard work over next three and a half years of helping your chosen candidates gain the attention they need to be viable- Cavas, town halls, all that shit. And if they happen to lose again- which they will…
do it again. And again, and again.
But to expect and ask people to vote for two complete nobodies that just show up at the eleventh hour with little to no effective roadmap to any legitimate policy- and fleece votes away from the one person that actually has a chance to defeat a man who has said he intends to turn the military against his own people?
Seriously … what the ever-loving fuck, man?
I don’t think the thing about the ballots has been true for a while. I didn’t pay attention to it because I’m not “in it to win it” as you might condense the position, but there’s only eight states in which they’re not either on the ballot or have the official write in seal of approval.
So, they actually could win! It’s not mathematically impossible I don’t think. Barring faithless electors, but that might cut a little too close to the bone of actually recognizing that our votes are largely meaningless under a system which is designed to keep the majority from power…
I have been doing the work. Not always for psl, both because I’ve been doing it longer than they existed as a party on my own radar and because I’ve developed from a disillusioned liberal into a communist over that time, but for at least sixteen years I’ve been politically active outside of elections and concurrent with them at a level so local it blurs the line between political praxis and just helping your neighbors.
I am not expecting people to vote psl. Psl isn’t expecting people to vote psl! The party itself treats the electoral campaign as a base building operation rather than a way to take power and a way to heighten the contradictions.
I also think an end to genocide is a legitimate policy. This tea though…
It might not be best to bring up turning the military against Americans as an indictment and motivator against trump. People might remember the military cracking anti-genocide protester heads under Biden and say “hey, wait just a minute!”
There’s two things I’m noticing this election season, and I’m not trying to hang the first thing around your head although you can wear the second one with pride:
There’s a strong undercurrent of fascist collaboration a-la niemollers famous poem. It doesn’t matter if the military are out there fighting anti genocide protesters, liberals would never be at the anti-genocide protest.
Everyone except for my people and my supporters are a foreign op, a plant, a secret member of the other major party, a spoiler or just acting in bad faith! This is a real bummer because it means that not just is it harder to talk to people because you gotta build trust for two days before they’ll entertain the possibility that you might have a real commitment to the ideas you’re talking about but also that the person to person connections that a communist society is predicated upon are breaking down even more.
If we can’t trust, respect and understand each other, how can we ever live in a society free of borders and hierarchy?
If the party itself doesn't expect people to vote, then why vote for them?
They want you to join their mailing list, , understand the platform, and hopefully a decent percentage of people will work to bolster them in local elections over the next four years.
You really have a lot of faith in your fellow Americans, don't you?
Understand the spoiler effect. A vote for a third party is guaranteed to support the first-party that you likely oppose the most. It does not help anybody, except for whoever is furthest from your goals.
You think we will get any traction on voting reform with a first-party in charge? No. The game is massively stacked in the established parties favor, and changing that will damage their power, unless they form strong allegiances with third parties who caucus along side them.
They need to work from the ground up. You need a reality check. This country will go to hell in a hand basket if everyone who leans even a little bit left doesn't step up and vote for the establishment candidate on the left.
We're already halfway there. Look around. Look at how expensive homes and food are. The middle class no longer exists. The majority of them are drowning in revolving credit debt trying to keep their families heads above water. Anybody who is deeply indebted is, obviously, beyond broke.
And worse than that, my family pays more in health insurance premiums than we do in food. That is fucked. Staying healthy shouldn't be more expensive than staying alive.
Neither I nor psl seriously think enough people will vote psl for them to win. I should have been clearer :)
Parties that vie with liberals to share the reins of power are the precursors to parties like psl, the dsa is a great example, psl recognizes how that strategy failed and are not trying to caucus with liberals except for in strategic circumstances.
The spoiler effect is exaggerated. Take me for example, I haven’t voted for an establishment party for fourteen years (at the state and national level). If there wasn’t a psl id vote some other third party that is as close to my ideals as possible. If there were no third parties id write in.
People aren’t saying “gosh, I just want someone a little better than the democrats” or “these republicans are too woke!” They’re recognizing that those two parties don’t and can’t represent them, maybe less so on the republican side, and choosing to vote third party instead of not voting for that seat.
I’m sure there’s lots of research showing that the spoiler effect is real, but personally speaking, and speaking for people I know who vote third party, and speaking from the experience of door knocking and then working the polls, third party voters aren’t going to be shamed or lectured into voting along mainstream party lines.
But let’s say you’d rather trust the science than some weirdo on the internet, and you believe that third party voters are just democrat voters who aren’t there yet.
Shouldn’t the democrats adopt the policies that entice them?
If third party voters are required to win this election, and they oppose the genocide, shouldn’t the democrats take real tangible steps while in power to stop the genocide and get those votes?
Psl has been working from the ground up. I don’t know what else to say. If you have a chapter near you they’re probably out there.
Things are fucked, I agree with you. There are material reasons why and psl is closer than any party I’ve ever interacted with in terms of recognizing the problem and working towards a solution.
Under no circumstances should anyone even consider voting for the psl at this time. It’s a throwaway vote and hurtful to the chance we have to keep Trump the fuck out of our politics.
The time to have considered them is LONG past. They didn’t do any of the work to make themselves viable. And as the far leftists/socialists like to say-
“The onus isn’t on the voter to do the work. It’s on the candidate to be electable.” Right?
De la Cruz is not electable, because there has been zero work towards any viability.
Harris IS electable. She’s campaigning. She’s interviewing. She’s debating. She has a good chance to win. Her policy is sound and believably possible in a real world. She has a track record of being politically astute and educated.
De la Cruz is nobody.
Don’t listen to this shit that the bullshit psl is here for anything other than to disrupt an election.
If the dems need psl votes to beat trump they should adopt psl policies.
Psl has done so much work towards viability that they actually have enough electoral votes available to win.
Which, of course, makes de la Cruz electable!
I believe Harris will do what she says she will do: continue to arm israel. I don’t want that so I didn’t vote Harris!
And Trump or Harris will get in anyways.
So you just 100% contributed to whatever you didn’t want to.
They know exactly what they’re up to. And it’s plain for anyone else to see as well. We’re just not allowed to say it out loud here.
I don’t see how I contributed, I didn’t vote for Harris or trump.
I’m not just gonna roll over because the party I support can’t win this election cycle (it can actually win though!).
Everybody says you gotta start small but when I’m out here supporting and building a new party suddenly out comes “no, not like that!”
Why aren't you trying to improve the system between elections? It's clear you understand the flaws of First past the post voting. Why haven't you been doing something about the spoiler effect you are so very concerned with?
How do you know I'm not?
Gloria La Riva, PSL’s 2020 presidential candidate, got a total of 85,623 nationally.
Do you think Claudia de la Cruz will beat that?
Does she have a path to presidency?
Harris or Trump will win and to think anyone else has a chance at this stage of the game is delusional.
She can win if you vote for her.
Really, I think you’d have a really good point if winning were all that mattered.
Election turnout is used to determine all kinds of stuff like funding, ballot presence, event eligibility, media coverage and it does a lot for public awareness.
Plenty of consultants, analysts and workers from the two major parties themselves examine third party turnout when triangulating their platforms and policies.
I don’t think the idea that only candidates who are already in a position to win the presidency should be considered is a very good tack. It’s really hard to defend, relies on some easily disproven misconceptions about the electoral system and if you succeed it just drives people who would vote away from voting at all.
Maybe try a different line of reasoning?
The time to show support for third parties was months ago. Not less than a month from an election
No one in good faith remains to support any third party. It’s mathematically and empirically known there no third party has a remote chance to ever win at this point.
You appear to me- to be here in bad faith and only in bad faith to disrupt an election.
Oh the time to work towards the change I want to see in my country is months ago? Back then people were saying it was years ago. Years ago people were telling me the same as you, I should have been at it months ago.
I’ve been doing the same thing that whole time.
The best time to support party for socialism and liberation was months ago, the second best time is now.
I explained in my comment that you replied to how there’s so much more than winning to take into account. Surely you aren’t just gonna accuse me of bad faith actions after you ignore my ideas? That would almost be like arguing in img_megamind.jpg bad faith.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for the better of the two presidential nominees then vote all PSL down ballot where they can make real change?
Why wouldn’t that work?
If I cared more about supporting the democrat or republican policies than about building an alternative, yes.
Of course, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to support republican or democrat policies and don’t trust the democrats to do what they campaign on almost a decade and a half ago, so personally I would never do that.
And I’m here voicing support for a third party which has a platform wildly different than the republicans and democrats so it’s pretty clear I don’t want to support republican and democrat policies at all.
You kind of clumsily skipped over the main question here.
I promise you I didn’t.
I don’t want to support republican or democrat policies.
Voting for a candidate who is running at the head of either of those parties tickets would be supporting their policies and platforms.
So no, that wouldn’t work.
Don’t worry, I’m gonna vote party for socialism and liberation wherever I can on the ballot too and my distaste for the two major parties softens the more localized the race is, both because the outcomes at stake are unique and the candidates are less doctrinaire.
But no, I’m not gonna vote for a democrat or republican for president but then put the party for socialism and liberation in downticket.
E: wait a minute, if you really thought the down ballot races were what mattered wouldn’t you be positing that I vote democrat at the local level?
What gives? Which one matters, president or everything underneath it?
But that isn’t building a party.
That’s like building a skyscraper by putting together the top floor first.
I just told you explicitly that I’m going to vote for party for socialism and liberation in every race they’re running a candidate in.
Wouldn’t wouldn’t not voting for their presidential candidate be like not putting a roof on your skyscraper?
And I don’t fault you for not catching my edit, but what’s the deal with claiming that the non presidential stuff is what really matters? If that’s true then why do you care who I cast a ballot for in the presidential race?
I already responded to that, you edited your comment after I replied.
I just saw, no harm meant by it :)
To address your edit, both the republican and democrat parties are already built.
Have been for a couple years.
As I said above, I have no interest in supporting republican or democrat policies. The existence and age of genocidal options doesn’t change my aversion to them.
Again, you’re skipping the question and throwing out meaningless catchphrases.
Why would I want to build parties that are already built when my goal is to topple the existing ones and replace them with ones that are younger and hungrier for change?
Farting in the wind by voting a third party presidential candidate isn’t going to do that.
I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here but i directly answered why I wouldn’t vote for a democrat at the top of the ticket. Because I don’t support their policy positions.
What are the meaningless catchphrases?
What did you mean by your sentence in the middle there about building parties? I read it a few different times but couldn’t tell what you were trying to say.
As I said before, way up at the top of our replies, there are real effects that come from voting for a third party candidate, although I appreciate the phrasing given out usernames.
Voting third party down ballot builds third parties.
Democrats and Republicans have already built their parties so why would you need to help build them?
Voting for a presidential candidate is a choice, Trump or Harris directly or indirectly.
Voting down ballot is voting for change.
Please limit the amount of questions per comment, it’s hard to keep it all straight and feels like gish galloping.
I don’t know what Gish galloping is. Would you prefer I hit you with three comments to something you write in order to ask three questions?
Voting for a third party for president also builds that third party and is voting for change as well. I find that pretty hard to refute considering it’s literally measurable.
I will not vote for trump or Harris.
I dont intend to help build democrat or republican parties.