• CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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    19 hours ago

    “The two party system makes things terrible but dont you dare vote for any party other than the two parties or else things might become terrible.”

    And people wonder why nothing ever changes.

    • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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      18 hours ago

      *Gestures at everything*

      Stuff changed. Are you happy with the changes? Cause I’m not. I want positive change, but I’d rather have the status quo than this. And I’d especially rather have incremental improvement rather than rapid devolution.

      Refusing to vote in your best interests because you want faster change is absurd. Make changes happen where and when you can, and vote rationally.

        • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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          15 hours ago

          Yup. No doubt. But the choice between “things are bad” and “fascism” is, while distasteful, an easy choice. The spoiler effect means that in a First Past the Post voting system, mathematically, if you decide to instead vote for the idealistic but unpopular “things could be better,” all you’re doing is removing a vote from “things are bad,” which only benefits “fascism.”

          It sucks. I know it sucks. But it’s what we have right now. Ideally we can make a better system, but we won’t get there by letting fascism win. At least not without a LOT MORE people dying.

          Again, make positive change where and when you can, and vote rationally.

          • Oppopity@lemmy.ml
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            12 hours ago

            Yup. No doubt. But the choice between “things are bad” and “fascism” is, while distasteful, an easy choice.

            Is genocide not fascism?

      • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        This is the status quo. If you want positive change then you need to make a change instead of repeating the same behavior over and over while expecting different results.

        I legitimately don’t understand how you can gesture at everything terrible happening around you while arguing that voting differently for once is “voting against your own best interests.” If that’s the case then what’s happening now is in your best interest, and you should be happy about that because this is the result of constantly maintaining the status quo every single election.

        • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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          14 hours ago

          What’s happening right now is happening because people didn’t go out and vote against it. Trump didn’t gain a significant number of votes from 2020 to 2024, Harris just didn’t get nearly as many as Biden did. Yes, there were plenty of reasons behind this, but regardless, she would have been better than Trump.

          The only thing necessary for the triumph of fascism is for people to not vote for the only viable non-fascist candidate.

          I’m not trying to defend the system. It’s broken. I’m just saying vote rationally based on the reality you live in.

          • FridaySteve@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            What’s happening right now is happening because people didn’t go out and vote against it

            But in American elections generally (and specifically the US presidential election), with very few notable exceptions, there’s no way to vote against a candidate. I wish there were. For example, in Brazil you can “white ballot” or null vote, which people do as a protest. In Colombia this can actually force a redo on the election. But in America we can only vote in favor of one of the options presented or not vote in that race.

          • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            What’s happening now is the culmination of things that have been happening for a long time. Trump getting defeated wouldn’t have stopped it and we can look at the 2020 election as proof of this. Even after he croaks, this will happen (as evidenced by Dick Cheney’s late demise) until the people stand up against it.

            The system is broken and following the rules and path laid out by that very system isnt going to fix things.

    • Kaigyo@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I mean, if you’re voting within a “first past the post” voting system for a solo position, then yeah you cannot vote outside the two expected, establishment choices and expect it to do anything other than spoil the next candidate you would have chosen.

      You have to change the voting system first to something else like ranked choice.

      There’s a fun little article about it here.

      • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        Well if you’re so eager to keep people voting for the establishment choices, you really shouldn’t complain when either one of them wins, nor should you complain about the state of the government as both represent the system working exactly as you want it to.

        Frankly, we should just simplify things by making everyone’s vote automatic based on which ever one of the two parties you register with and restrict any unapproved party or candidate from running for office. There’s no point in filling out ballots as this just leads to people voting incorrectly and opens the possibility of things happening outside of the establishment’s expectations, which is bad for everyone.

        We just need to have faith and hold on to hope that the establishment will change the system that keeps them in power at some indeterminate point in the future, but for now we must do as the establishment commands.