Green Party nominee Jill Stein is expected to use her running mate to tap into the growing anger at Democrats over their support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Echoing this, if no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, then the decision goes to the house of representatives, currently majority Republican. Actually voting for Stein or another third party is unlikely to get them elected to office, but introduces multiple potential ways to get Trump back in office.
The Bernie approach of getting into the primaries introduces the opportunity to debate the establishment and better advocate for change from the front runner.
EDIT: Each state gets one vote in the house of representatives when electing the president, so the existing Republican majority doesn't apply. This probably would make it easier for Trump to get elected because populated Democrat states have the same number of votes as less populated Republican states.
Echoing this, if no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, then the decision goes to the house of representatives, currently majority Republican.
Then the Democrats should find a candidate that is strong enough to not have to worry about that. That's what democracy and voting is all about. It's not just about who YOU want to win.
I don't like Harris enough to vote for her. So I am voting for Stein. As is my right.
Let's be real. Votes for third parties in already decided states such as California or Missouri only help promote in some small way a diversity of parties that the US sorely needs.
I think it's only in battleground states where it would benefit someone to think more tactically about the use of their vote versus participating in the system as intended, i.e. voting for their preferred candidate.
If your state is deeply in the hands of your closer-aligned party, then probably, though down-ballot races are always important to consider too. Even things like school boards.
If your state is deeply in the hands of your most-opposed party, though, you should be aware that flips can and do happen. Our "swing state" system is by no means stable, which states are "swing" changes pretty steadily, and broad waves are still very possible. Additionally, by making a state come closer to even, you can force your opposed party to devote some of their limited resources to defending it in the future. So, you can hurt a party by voting for their opponents even when they have a strong grip.
It's useful to consider a historical context, where over the 2.5 centuries, the elections have shifted every which way. There really is no predicting what the future holds beyond the most immediate, short-term horizon. It is absolutely not stable, though, never has been. It's not intended to be, after all, otherwise we wouldn't have things like term limits.
That's nice and correct, and I would love for the Green party to succeed, break the bipartisan dominance, and finally get a foothold in the government. However, at the moment, Trump needs to lose at all costs. At the moment, I believe all Stein is going to do is draw votes away from Harris and boost Trump's ratio.
Vote for who you want, by all means, but please, consider the impact in regard to the current political theatre.
I don't think there's any issue with voting for Jill Stein, RFK or Mickey Mouse as long as you're doing so with the full understanding that they will not win. As long as you've fully incorporated that into your mental calculus and it still seems to be the best course of action, do as ya like.
While I agree it's the right of every member of a democracy to vote for the candidate they think best, it's also important to not be blinded by naive ideology and participate in these incredibly flawed systems pragmatically and practically, as they do not work in the way they advertise and must be manipulated in order to achieve the most positive possible outcome.
Jill Stein winning a single vote in the electoral college is not a possible outcome.
I'm concerned and angry you're throwing away your vote, but in the end, your state isn't likely to be close enough to matter anyway, it will either go Trump or Harris.
I'm regularly struck by the literal insanity of politics, but this whole deal with Israel is a particularly notable example.
The fact of the matter is that we have no idea what Harris's actual opinion of the situation is. Regardless of what it might actually be, she has to support Israel, which at this point means supporting a government of literal murderous psychopaths who are simultaneously carrying out a genocide in Gaza and a violent incremental illegal land grab in the West Bank while also brazenly trying to provoke, and drag the US into, a war with Lebanon or Syria or Yemen or Iran. And why does she have to support all of that patent evil? Because if she doesn't, AIPAC will spend millions and millions of dollars trying to destroy her, like they already destroyed Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, for daring to have principles.
And what's the likely net result of that? To elect a Republican, which is to say, a member of the party of actual antisemites.
They accuse Democrats of being antisemites merely for calling genocide genocide, and meanwhile, the actual antisemites - the people who comtinue to hold to the notion of Jews as evil, money-grubbing vermin who are conspiring to take over the world, are Republicans, even including Republicans in high office, like "Jewish space lasers" Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Think about how insane that is - a politician has to publicly support a genocidal regime or face being called an antisemite and having an Israeli advocacy group spend millions and millions of dollars to destroy her and instead elect the candidate from the party of actual Jew-hating antisemites.
And as if that isn't enough, we have Jill Stein in the middle of it all, who, with zero chance of actually winning, is free to take the position that any rational person should take, and the position that the majority of the Democratic base takes - that genocide is genocide and is rightly condemned. And that then introduces the risk that she'll draw off enough Democratic voters, merely by taking the position held by the majority, so the position that the Democratic candidate should take, that it will hand the election to the Republican - the candidate of the party of actual antisemites.
The whole thing is bludgeoningly insane. I don't think anyone could've created such a grotesquely dysfunctional and actuslly counter-productive system if they'd deliberately set out to do it.
And yet that's the world we live in - the world we're forced to live in - a world warped by the literal insanity of a wealthy and powerful few.
I mean, should money be speech, and thus campaign contributions protected by the first amendment? It's kinda pants-on-head stupid, unless you want money to run things. Which some folks do, of course.
Good points. And I'm tired of it. So that's why I vote for who I want to win, and not just the candidate of Reddit/Lemmy member's opinions of who they want to win.
Do y’all in the Green Party have anything to show for yourselves past this person? I’ve never seen a local showing. It seems like y’all do nothing except run for president every four years, then vanish. I mean I know Republicans who do more for local conservation and green initiatives than y’all. Really.
Do y’all in the Green Party have anything to show for yourselves past this person?
The party has been around since the 1980's, friend. Maybe you need to look up Ralph Nader. I know you are young and don't know your political history, but maybe do some research before you engage in a debate about it. I mean, come on man, did you even Wikipedia?
The Green Party's membership encompasses the fourth-highest percentage of registered voters in the United States, with a total membership of 234,120.
I’ve never seen a local showing.
Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 Greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006.[68] Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).
As of February 2024, there are 144 elected officials who identify as Green Party.
So yes, there are Green Party members in local politics.
It seems like y’all do nothing except run for president every four years, then vanish.
We haven't vanished. There are 144 elected officials who identify as Green Party in the USA. And the European Green Party one several prominent elections in Europe.
I’m not “debating” you, I’m asking if you have anything to show for your party.
I know the supposed platform, and I know the presidential candidates. What I don’t know is why your candidate thinks anyone should give a shit about her when she’s nowhere to be found except when she’s deciding to run for president.
Either y’all aren’t doing anything worth celebrating or you’re bad at communicating your successes and both of those are pretty firm indictments of your ability to follow through on the national level with any of your stated goals. But that presumes any conviction in those stated goals, and again: I’m not sure I can think of any reason to think y’all have any such conviction.
“She could have said, ‘I hear you, we’re going to address this, and if you want it to get better, elect me instead of Donald Trump,’” Zahr told NBC. “But instead she suggested we want to help get Trump elected … as if we owe her something and she doesn’t owe us.”
This is the attitude of Dems. Vote for our candidate because if you don't you'll be sorry.
To be clear, I'm voting for Harris because the threat of another orange shitbag presidency is too great to ignore, but I'll do so irritated that I don't really have a choice.
This is the attitude of Dems. Vote for our candidate because if you don’t you’ll be sorry.
Yep. And the personal attacks I have gotten from posting this article here, have shown many Lemmy users to have the same attitude.
In fact, Lemmy's are so mad that I am voting Green, they have being going into my communities and downvoting everything I post, even if not political. They're even voting down my posts supporting elementary teachers who teach Special Education students. I mean, if Lemmy users wanna spend their day doing downvoting every post I write, it's fine, but it's really weird to me and just makes me laugh. BUT it does make me feel kinda important! lol
I totally respect and support your right to vote for Harris. But I just can't, so that's why I'm going Green.
Yeah apparently on Lemmy if you criticize Biden or Kamala you want trump to win. There's no nuance of "hey maybe we should force a better choice than a genocide enabler who will stick to the status quo as it has been for the past 40 years and change nothing, or an orange more evil genocide enabler"
Like I absolutely don't want trump as a president. I also absolutely don't want my taxes and money going to kill innocent people. These are not two contradictory viewpoints but people don't seem to understand that. Hell, even Kamala doesn't seem to understand that based on her rhetoric.
I'm tired of the white house being concerned or disappointed by Israel. If your child concerned or disappointed you so much and didn't change his or her behavior, you would put in some consequences. Otherwise you would be a shitty parent. That simple.
Lemmy is one of the most intense echo chambers out there. It's very funny that a self-professed anti-hierarchical, decentralized message board site like this falls in line so neatly behind whatever candidates the corporate media tells them to and then browbeats anyone who dares to consider alternatives. Americans' refusal to vote third party plays a big role in why the two major parties are so completely unresponsive to the public's interests and desires. They won't win, of course, thanks to FPTP, but voting for them pressures the two parties to change their platform to win over their voters.
This is precisely why the corporate media is so invested in vilifying third party voters. Every election from now until the end of recorded history will be "the most important election ever" (or "the last election ever," as they've been painting it recently) and anyone who refuses to vote for the lesser-of-two-evils candidate is a willful apostate who's worse than a Trump voter. And the masses buy into it, and then it's naked tribalism and hysteria from there.