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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/151111

With the dust is settling from their defeat on Tuesday, it’s becoming clearer that there was some incredible malpractice going on in the Democratic party. As shown in the tweet I linked, Biden delayed dropping out even though his team knew it was going to be a complete blowout for Trump. Then, we have Harris’s campaign spending over a billion dollars and still losing all of the swing states she needed to win.

For all the Democrats who would never vote Republican and would have never voted third party, are you now considering voting third party in future elections? If not, what would it take?

  • KoboldCoterieEnglish
    32·
    4 days ago

    If not, what would it take?

    A viable third party candidate. Before anyone says it, Jill Stein is not it. Alternately, a voting method that allows voting third party without just enabling a GOP sweep (again).

    It’d be great if this resulted in some major revision of the Democratic party from within, but I’m not holding my breath. I will, however, continue voting for the “less bad viable option” if the “more bad option” is on par with Trump.

    • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOPEnglish
      5·
      4 days ago

      That’s fair, but if the Democrats are also running candidates that aren’t viable or not running viable campaigns, then you’re just compromising your principles for nothing.

      • KoboldCoterieEnglish
        22·
        4 days ago

        It’s about who has a chance of winning. If you’re trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you’re kidding yourself.

        I’ve said this before and I’ll continue saying it: Trying to inject a 3rd party candidate into the presidential race is foolish. A much better tactic would be trying to push for 3rd party candidates in smaller races for local / state government, or congress. Doing that is a lot easier, and can make small incremental changes that add up over time. There simply isn’t a realistic way for a third party candidate to compete in the presidential race until the voting system is changed.

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOPEnglish
          5·
          4 days ago

          If you’re trying to argue that any candidate other than Harris had a chance of beating Trump in this recent election, you’re kidding yourself.

          I’m not trying to argue that. I’m saying that it’s becoming apparent that the Democratic party is in such bad shape that they had no chance to beat Trump either. If they fail to make significant changes, to their personnel and their platform, they are going to keep failing in subsequent elections. If they’re going to lose anyway, then there’s got to be a point where progressive Democrats start voting with some dignity for third party candidates.

      • DdCno1@beehaw.org
        13·
        4 days ago

        A decent human being doesn’t vote for the most principled candidate, they instead vote for the candidate who would hurt the fewest number of people by winning while (importantly) actually having a chance of winning.

        Moral absolutism isn’t moral, it results in people getting hurt, because whoever adheres to it decided for themsevles that their principles are more important than fellow human beings. The sooner you realize this, the better.

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.workOPEnglish
          7·
          4 days ago

          It was actually self-defeating to run on a platform that got an (enthusiastically received) endorsement from Dick Cheney.

          • averyminya@beehaw.org
            8·
            4 days ago

            Pasting my own comment, as I really think there was a reason for this.

            "I’ve been seeing a trend for the last few years and I think it explains the shift that people have been pointing out in the Democratic party. The way in which many Democrats felt railroaded into Hillary in 2016, I think the same is happening to the Republican party, albeit more unknowingly. There is a not insignificant amount of Republicans who have been disenfranchised from voting red because that’s just what you do. It all comes down to the Republican party being split by the MAGA cult, with those Republican voters wanting to return back to the status quo of red vs. blue. Of course what they don’t realize is that the culture war that the conservatives have been imposing is what created this whole situation in the first place.

            Anyway, this is where Dick Cheney comes in. Yes, a representative of that culture war that brought us here, but not a MAGA cultist. An endorsement from one of the most recognized Republicans is an attempt to move back towards the classical conservatism, away from the clamoring fervor that the Trump presidency put the country in.

            That is to say, if the Green Party is meant to siphon votes from Democrats, The Classical Republican Dick Cheney is meant to appeal to the votes from Moderate Republicans and maybe convince some Republican voters who would have voted red “because that’s what you do”, to instead vote for Kamala.

            This isn’t to say his endorsement of her isn’t damning and that the leaders of the Democratic haven’t been shifting away from the left. Just positing that like many of us, there’s a portion of Republicans out there who are just as tired."

            I wrote this pre-election results. Can probably tell. But basically Tl;Dr Cheney is a classical conservative and his endorsement was an attempt to return to the status quo pre-MAGA, as a way to hopefully return to the Republican vs. Democrat split, instead of this 4 way split between leftist, liberal, conservative, and MAGA voters.

            Obviously, that didn’t sit that well with the Democrats and the leftists. I get where the campaign was coming from, I don’t agree and it was a bad move, but I understand it.