[mikema63]

Early voting always favors democratsOf course the systems are different. Greece has multiple parties, spanning a wide range of ideological opinion, while the US has only two, and two that are actually very similar in practice. I believe that's his point.

Most countries can simply switch parties if one fails to deliver, which is good for keeping everybody in line. Voters in the US don't have that option, so they're forced to pretend that one of the parties in the neoliberal Center will magically change its spots to behave as a "Left" or a "Right" party would. This is completely unrealistic, and allows both Center parties to run dangerously amok.

I think that's Noemon's point, and, if so, I agree

.

*googles greek voting system*

So they have proportional voting systems.. (just ripped this off of wikipedia so Noemon feel free to correct me)

My entire point has always been that the american voting system inevitably leads to third parties. The president doesn't have to have a majority of the vote to win. A greek party needs to have the majority of the vote to govern without forming a coalition with the party that took votes from it.

If the same were true of the US you could have an election where trump get's 42% Hillary gets 40% and the greens get 18% and the dems and greens rule in a coalition which forces the democrats to adopt a bunch of progressive positions in order for the coalition to operate. In real america you get a president Trump.

That's the major difference that continues to be unaddressed. You alternate between complaints about voting your conscious (which is fair enough) and this fantasy that the american electoral system is anything other than what it is. If you want to approach the american electoral system with the dream of making third parties viable you should support maine's efforts to change it's voting system to instant runoff and push for a constitutional amendment that would change our voting system nationwide.

[Red Barn]

Ranked choice voting is on the ballot in Maine specifically because we have a tradition of third party voting, and have had multiple three-way splits in recent years.

IOW, widespread dissatisfaction with the two party system has to be demonstrated in some concrete form before you can demand changes to the system.

Regularly voting for the LoTE, pretending that some crooked warmonger is "progressive", insisting that every imaginable goal has to be accomplished within the system as it exists today - all these are reactionary positions put forward by those who benefit from the craptastic and dysfunctional.

Why are you falling for this junk when you know better, Mike?

[mikema63]

Ranked choice voting is on the ballot in Maine specifically because we have a tradition of third party voting, and have had multiple three-way splits in recent years.

And you also have an abominable racist running your state, what's his name again? Smoothie? Shiftie? Something like that.

While it's nice that maine is able to do this under it's state constitution it's much harder in the national government. You either have to have 2/3 majority of both houses of congress vote for it, and then get it ratified by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states.

It's not something the people themselves get to directly vote on, the people in power vote on it. Worse, you need a 66% majority of the people in power to vote on it and then 3/4 of all state legislatures to ratify it. Obviously if it ever got to that point one party will be pushing it because they are being hurt by the splitting of their votes. The other party is going to be opposing it with everything they've got because it helps them.

If the party supporting it is having their votes split they simply aren't going to have 66% of the seats in the house and senate and aren't going to control the state legislatures of 75% of the states.

The only way to feasibly get such an amendment passed is by organizing state conventions and then figuring out a way to still get 75% of the state legislatures to approve it. In a vote splitting scenario it's simply not going to happen because the party who wins out from the vote split isn't going to stop the splitting for the other party.

IOW, widespread dissatisfaction with the two party system has to be demonstrated in some concrete form before you can demand changes to the system.

Do you think I plan to take a nap if Hillary clinton wins? There are thousands of ways to continue to push my interests in realistic ways. Simply voting for hillary clinton does not magically make me unable to push my interests in the primaries or through activist groups.

Regularly voting for the LoTE

Yes, you don't like the argument about voting for the lesser of two evils, and frankly I think it takes a position of privilege to ignore that argument. Not voting for the lesser of two evils would materially damage my life and the lives of other minority groups. No Hillary Clinton isn't solving my problems for me, but Donald Trump and republicans generally would do incredible material damage to my life.

I'm frankly sick of having people tell me they are too pure to vote for the lesser of two evils, and the only people I ever hear complaining about it are usually straight white college students that don't have to worry about being discriminated against. Who don't have to worry about how they are going to buy food for their kids. Who tell me why would I vote for her if she didn't support gay marriage years ago. I'm supporting the candidate that isn't going to put crazy people on the supreme court who will strike down gay marriage, strike down roe v. wade, and god knows what else.

Let's take the example of the food stamps program. Food stamps is popular among democratic constituents and unpopular with republican constituents. Under Hillary the food stamps program will fare better than under Trump. This may not make all that much difference to you against the wider scale of political philosophy, and against Hillary's hawkishness, but it matters to the people who struggle to feed their kids. I grew up on food stamps, I watched my mother go without dinner so that my siblings and I had enough to eat.

So she's a hawk, so's trump. There isn't much difference there, your right. The differences that are there matter to people though, in real material ways. Not everybody can afford ideological purity.

pretending that some crooked warmonger is "progressive"

I am under no illusions.

insisting that every imaginable goal has to be accomplished within the system as it exists today

I don't believe that. There are many goals that can be achieved outside of the system in some way or another.

Not my goals, and you haven't offered an alternative that wouldn't result in real world hurt to a lot of people right here and now.

all these are reactionary positions put forward by those who benefit from the craptastic and dysfunctional.

That's all well and good, but your alternative is to make it moderately more craptastic and dysfunctional.

Why are you falling for this junk when you know better, Mike?

My life experiences are different from yours.

Edit: I didn't get much sleep last night so I'm overly grumpy and defensive. I'm probably going to back off for a while.

[Hong Wu]

So do you guys realize that in ten days, Trump will be President of PoFo?

[Pants-of-dog]

No interest engaging in an argument that is full of nuance anyway. Of course it can be argued that she wasn't being an anti-vaxxor, that's the nature of dogwhistle politics. To one person it can mean one thing, to someone who is looking for the answer that they want it can mean another. She basically says she understands the concerns because the wolf is running the chicken coup. My point is that the analogy fails because the vaccines that are being sold are completely safe, have been tested, and therefore her saying that each and every vaccine should be tested is not just stating the obvious but dangerous pandering.

So no, I have not dropped the argument, I just don't think there's much more to be said about it. We'll just go back and forth because in essence she worded it in such a way that we both are right. She is saying she supports vaccines, but she did make an anti-vaxxor argument as well.

If only she had released something to clarify exactly what she meant after this whole thing became a media story!

Please note that Clinton is the one who profits the most from this supposed confusion concerning her stance on vaccinations. While I have no evidence that Clinton is behind this, she does have the means, motive and opportunity to do so.

I would be voting for a 3rd party candidate if say Romney or Mccain were running, but not Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is not going to win because of your one vote.

You see, unless you live in a swing state in a close race, there is no need to vote for the centrist candidate.

The attacks on abortion rights have been slowly creeping up. A majority of Americans now do not support abortion based on choice, which Hillary does. Her position is, unfortunately, progressive. I don't like the current state of affairs any more than you, but I have to accept that it is what it is and fight for what I can.

If you wish to define supporting a forty year old decision as progressive, go ahead. I prefer to push the debate towards something that is actually consistent with the idea that women control their own bodies.

Simply supporting the status quo means that the right gets to set the debate, and they invariably assume the reactionary position. This means we then get to have the same old talk about when we get to control women's bodies. If we support candidates that are actually progressive, we get to set the debate, and the right is forced into holding the status quo.

If you vote for Clinton, you are basically giving up the choice of which discussion to have.

Donald Trump wants to fix the economy with tax breaks. The infrastructure investment that is about a trillion dollars is a much better idea than that and one that is generally a center-left idea in the context of American politics.

I understand that. Again, that is simply not good enough. You seem to think that this is a discussion about Trump versus Clinton. It is not. It is about voting "strategically" versus voting for the candidate that supports your ideology.

Very problematic, I agree. But she does support Warren and Sanders, politicians that stand with the Standing Rock protesters. When you're running for president, you can't be out in the open about every position. She said that they have a right to peacefully protest, which seems to imply that she does not support those tactics.

These musings on her possible opinions are all well and good, but the people who are being attacked by police need more than that.

To get back to the point, her domestic policy is equivalent to doing nothing, which is (ironically enough) the very reason you cite for why we should not for a third party. If nothing progressive gets done in either case, then there is no good reason to make concessions to those whom we do not actually support.

Re: the other stuff--my objective is to protect my country from the horrible ideas of Donald Trump and advance the progressive agenda in any way I can. That means voting for HRC and the down-ticket candidates.

I understand what you are trying to do.

What I wish you would understand is the fact that you are supporting a person who is not progressive and actually works against progressive and leftist goals.

[Red Barn]

Edit: I didn't get much sleep last night so I'm overly grumpy and defensive. I'm probably going to back off for a while.

Probably a good idea, as you do seem grumpy and defensive - as well as being uncharacteristically off point with this obviously canned, completely inappropriate "privilege" routine.

You're better than that, I think, even in this new, rather dreadful incarnation.

[Pants-of-dog]

Actually, I was the first person to bring up the idea that being able to be ideologically uncompromising in an election is a privilege.

If I was a minority voter in a swing state, I may feel as if i have no real choice except to vote for Clinton.

[Red Barn]

Honestly, Pants, I don't think he's making the same argument.

I think he's jumbling up class and identity politics in an obviously fraudulent way, while you just seem to be acknowledging the fact that certain demographics have understandable litmus test issues.

Your point I don't dispute at all.

[noemon]

I think that's Noemon's point, and, if so, I agree.

That's not my point and I am not trying to make a case for the alleged benefits of a multi-party system. My point is rather that political systems change and the voting system adapts to new realities. In Greece we witnessed this transformation occurring rapidly, we went from 2 parties commanding 85%-90% of the vote/seats in 2009 and all the elections before that, down to 50% in 2011(and still 80% of seats) and down to less than 30% in 2015, combined vote of the 2, not for each. That is a huge transformation and only recently has the voting system changed from a quasi first-past-the-post to accommodate those changes in a more representational style and this has not been finalised yet as changes take effect from the second elections after they are enacted. Syriza is now governing Greece with 35% which has not happened since the 1920's crisis.

This is not to make the point that it's a good thing, that's a separate conversation, I am merely noting that what I considered unthinkable(like Mike for example) did actually happen and it happened fast as well.

[Red Barn]

Okay then.

What would you say led to that change in Greece?

Also, what did you mean by the statement that a major US party coopting dissent is "dangerous"?


I'm now quite confused, I'm afraid.

[noemon]

The economic crisis is the obvious answer, but essentially it has to do with the crisis of trust towards the establishment. And this is more complex than simply saying...."it's the economy stupid". This was brewing regardless of the economy and the economic crisis stripped the establishment parties naked, the economic crisis was a catalyst not a cause in my opinion.

This is why the phenomenon is more important than it seems especially for countries that do not have economic crises on that magnitude but have other kinds of potential crises that could act as catalysts, like for example racialism.

Also, what did you mean by the statement that a major US party coopting dissent is "dangerous"?

I think it is out of order. Establishment parties act as pillars for the poles in the internal political dialectic, when a major party takes the pole from France and puts it in the North Pole, that in my opinion has possible catastrophic consequences(or be the catalyst in fact), while if a new party establishes the pole at the North Pole and pulls it from there that is more palatable for the internal dialectic. Tectonic shifts should take place smoothly, otherwise the earthquakes create chasms(vacuums). At the very least that should be the modus operandi of the establishment parties.

[Red Barn]

Right. But how did they do this?

My assumption is that they simply started voting for already existing parties outside the mainstream . . . yes?

[noemon]

New parties were founded and people voted for them. Golden Dawn, Potami, ANEL, DIM.AR, these are 4 brand new parties created from scratch and now commanding a respectable 25%, SYRIZA is the only pre-existing party that went from 3% on the fringes on 2009 to ruling government in 2015 with 35%. It was lucky to be there before the crisis and thus absorbed the lion's share compared to the new parties.

[Red Barn]

Wow. Other than Golden Dawn, I didn't know that many were new. That's really interesting.

Would you say their very newness was or is an important factor?

I think it is out of order. Establishment parties act as pillars for the poles in the internal political dialectic, when a major party takes the pole from France and puts it in the North Pole, that in my opinion has possible catastrophic consequences(or be the catalyst in fact), while if a new party establishes the pole at the North Pole and pulls it from there that is more palatable for the internal dialectic.

Soooo . . . would it be fair to say that you feel existing parties should maintain a consistent character? For the sake of stability and compromise, say, with new parties popping up to express changing public sentiment?

(Sorry if I'm way off base here. I'm really not familiar with your political views at all.)

[noemon]

Yes, the newness was even their major tagline, "down with the old establishment, on with the new" sort of thing, but that can only get you up to a certain point and yes as well, I believe that new parties should express the new waves, the old ones should stick to defending the very order they are after all responsible for.

I don't know why you 're apologising though.

The thing is we are witnessing similar situations to varying degrees all over Europe(France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, UK, Germany) and this will cross over the Atlantic at some point as well.

[Red Barn]

I was apologizing for very possibly making a complete hash of your idea, but I think I understand it better now. I even agree (I think).



The fact that the Democratic Party actually refers to itself as "the Left" kind of encapsulates my own feeling on this point. I'd dislike these guys much (much!) less if they calmly and openly admitted their neoliberal/Centrist agenda, and allowed themselves to act - dialectically, as you say - as a sort of buffer between actual Left, Leftish and Right parties.

The fact that they don't do this, and instead try to position themselves as the absolute outer Left limit of political possibility, is really what makes them so dreadful in my view.

[noemon]

Can't really blame them for doing what they can do since no other party is challenging their ideological credentials. I mean you can't really expect from them to do anything out of moral considerations, they can only be forced in their corner.

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

@Pants-of-dog I understand your idealism, and I commend it. My voting strategy is that I want the rest of the world to know that we absolutely rebuke the policies and ideas of Donald Trump.

By the way, Jill Stein had another reddit AMA and she was talking about the danger of microwaves and was engaging in nuclear power skepticism. This is the kind of junk science that is the reason I can't get behind her, not just the ambiguous anti-vaccine speech.

By the way, it was people in the AMA that were questioning her originally, it had nothing to do with the Clinton campaign. Stein is polling at 1% or less, the real spoiler for Clinton is Johnson.

[Red Barn]

Can't really blame them for doing what they can do since no other party is challenging their ideological credentials. I mean you can't really expect from them to do anything out of moral considerations, they can only be forced in their corner.

Right! This is exactly why I keep encouraging people to vote third party!

See what I mean?

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

The Democratic party does contain 99% of the left-leaning to left politicians (Bernie is the exception). It also contains a lot of center left, center, and slightly right of center politicians. For years leftists have shot themselves in the foot by discrediting the Democratic party and not participating in the system. Now people want a seat at the table because of Bernie. And you expect there not to be backlash?