• MonkRome@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m all for ranked choice voting, but eliminating FPTP and a two party system doesn’t fix as much as people pretend it does. Using Bernie Sanders as an example, if Sanders found a way through the primaries he would have stood a good chance in FPTP. But he would have stood no chance whatsoever with ranked choice voting, because he would have been overshadowed by objectively more popular candidates. The truth is Biden got into office because he was popular. He wasn’t my choice and he wasn’t many of your choices. But all over the country there were aging Biden supporters that looked at him like he was the only option. Ranked choice voting doesn’t really change that. A great many Biden supporters hated Bernie. Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have won a general election in ranked choice, because he wasn’t popular enough and had no moneyed interests behind him. If anything FPTP presented the best option for Sanders to get past the post exactly because overall popularity doesn’t matter as much as just being slightly better than the other guy in a general election and voter apathy in the primary.

        Additionally, having lived through several ranked choice votes in local elections I haven’t seen even a slight improvement in outcomes. The same moderate milquetoast candidates win time and again with messages that exploit fear of change more than hopeful messages of the future.

        We would have to get money both out of politics and out of journalism before someone further left has any chance of winning nationally. We also need to do the grassroots work to change peoples minds on policy in general, and put good politicians up and down the ticket. All the paid fearmongering around left wing policy does more damage than FPTP ever could, imo. Changing voting structures doesn’t change voters policy views.

    • greenkarmic@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      This will never work until you can vote for as many party as you like instead of just one. They will never allow that, to keep control with this forced 2 party system

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Unfortunately so long as 30-40% of your country seems to actively want either the collapse of the government or a religious theocracy, you gotta vote for the lesser evil. Once fascism is no longer a threat then you guys can worry about spinning up new parties.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Once fascism is no longer a threat then you guys can worry about spinning up new parties.

        And fascism will never be less of a threat, because the Democrats we’re stuck with keep trying to appease fascists instead of treating them like the threat they are.

      • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Seriously we need ranked choice voting not just people voting for third parties. Third parties lead to Orange Hitler when first-past-the-post voting system makes 3d parties into non-viable election spoilers.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Ranked choice in federal elections is **never going to happen ** . The duopoly/(money) will never allow a threat to their power. It can be done at local and state. But, you’ll have to organize a viable 3rd party for federal, which has been damn near impossible without money. Which the 2 parties control.

    • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      People are so busy worrying about getting people to vote for the lesser evil that they’re not stopping to ask why we’re voting for evil in the first place. The American political landscape has been this way for decades, if not longer, and every generation has been putting that discussion off for the next.

      • orrk@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        because the alternative to voting for lesser evil is having the guy that thinks the Holocaust wasn’t a bad thing run things, you may want to change the voting system, but you ain’t doing it when you’re dead

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            We’re talking about genocide here. You’re handwaving away the concept of evil because you don’t want to be judged for supporting war crimes.

            I’m judging you anyway.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Nah, we’re talking about the validity of a term, and genocide or not, evil, and good, are nebulous, arbitrary terms people only attach to conceptsor events they personally agree or disagree with. They’re subjective, and therefore not helpful.

              That doesn’t change because you think you can invoke Godwin’s Law to try to justify it.

              If you actually cared about stopping genocide, it’d be you saying that.

              Don’t waste your breath judging me; I ignore the courts.

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Nah, we’re talking about the validity of a term, and genocide or not, evil, and good, are nebulous, arbitrary terms people only attach to conceptsor events they personally agree or disagree with. They’re subjective, and therefore not helpful.

                Like I said, you’re just handwaving away any word you don’t like hearing by denying that it has any meaning at all.

            • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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              11 months ago

              We’re talking about genocide here.

              Weird, I clicked on a post mocking the US electoral system and not a thread about genocide. Maybe you’re thinking of another post?

    • pelerinli@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      This. Where you see a election between A and B, they want you to choose between this too because A is propellant and B is tow for same direction; they are not giving you freedom of choosing your direction.