• Euphorazine@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Alaska, a red state, is reportedly trying to remove their rank choice voting. This isn’t a “Dems” problem, it’s a two party problem.

    https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Repeal_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2024)

    Even if state and local elections are ranked choice, the presidential election will still be a first past the post election and the electoral college is still designed for a two party system.

    • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Obviously the Republicans are completely hostile to rcv, but the nominal progressives here aren’t hoping the Republicans will implement rcv, they think Dems will. I have someone arguing exactly that to me in another thread because three congresspeople are currently setting a proposal up to be shot down.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        So you primary in Dems who will support ranked choice. This is .ml, surely you’ve all heard of entryism?

        • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Entryism doesn’t work, putting yourself under the discipline of a party apparatus that runs contrary to your goals means you either get extricated or you conform.

          The dems don’t give a shit about primary results. Bernie’s relative strength in the primary meant nothing to Biden and understandably so, because why should he give a shit when Bernie endorses him and the bulk of the progressives are so whipped they vote for him anyway?

        • anarcho_blinkenist@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago
          1. That’s not what entryism is. Entryism isn’t “voting democrat candidates who support xyz in primaries.” Entryism is infiltrating an organization’s membership with communists(or what have you), with the intent to change the basic proportional makeup of its membership ranks, and so change its interior political composition, and so its exterior action.

          2. Entryism is explicitly and categorically denounced by every serious ML as having proven historically and politically ineffective at best, and actively counterproductive and opportunist at worst and most common by far; and has been in explicit terms criticized as such for a century. Saying “Surely you’ve heard of entryism?” to Marxists is like saying “Surely you’ve heard of filling masks with lavender to keep away the miasma?” to an epidemiologist.

          3. The point mentioned in #2 is by a factor of 100 extra true for an organization like the democratic party, which is (just like the Republican party) a monstrous behemoth of leagues of multi-generational dynastic establishment careerist ghouls, thieves, racketeers, and murderers from multi-billionaire elite university family empires; whose entire operations are financed, advised, organized, and run by and for the richest imperialists in the world, with uncountable streams of both open channel money and dark money from private billionaires, banks, industrial monopolies (fossil fuels, pharma, agribusiness, etc.), arms dealers, conglomerate Super PACS, shady Think-tanks and “NGOs,” and the Israel lobby. Obama’s cabinet was hand-picked by Citigroup. Biden has appointed all the most heinous neocons and war criminals he could find, even bringing back convicted massacrists like Elliot Abrams; and hiring the most corrupt people he could find, such as a Chevron lawyer who defended the destruction of the Amazon and poisoning of Indigenous people to head his Environmental executive. All while outflanking the Republicans on the right of many issues including immigration.

          **

          The Democrats actively benefit just like the Republicans from hyper-restricted 2-corporate-party system, proven by them, currently as we speak, sending out leagues of dark-money Super-PAC-financed lawyers to every state they can to try to purge 3rd parties off the ballots; actively killing democracy. This is their goal and interest, because it is the goal and interest of their donors. They have no interest in a different or better world and never will. Even someone as milquetoast as Bernie ran into endless smears and obstruction and undermining and got nowhere and has capitulated more and more to the right wing by hitching his boat to this circus. The liberal darlings “the squad” have each capitulated or even become active careerists and attack-dogs for the establishment imperialists against alternatives and progressives, barring Ilhan Omar who has faced endless shit and isolation even from the rest of that coward group of “progressive” dems, to say nothing of the establishment that actually runs the show with their army of equally-careerist factory-stamped liberal interns at their beck and call, pipelined from upscale colleges with PoliSci degrees to do whatever bidding they want.

          The Democrats are not going to change for anyone but their donors and have proven it for decades; and they are structurally incapable of being budged internally toward anything remotely resembling democracy or socialism. Entryism to the democratic party is beyond a dead end. It would It would be more effective and principled to vote third party and continually elevate a working class party (Like the PSL) and visibly starve the democrats of votes for their failures and betrayals and making it known that is the reason; which would force a political reorientation of the democrats if they ever want power again. This necessary reorientation is impossible within the Democratic party structures, so the ruling class would have to figure out to desperately float a reformist “labor party” or “progressive party” to capture people being funneled to the PSL socialists, and this reformist party would receive an influx of the less-far-right careerist liberals from the Democrats fleeing to the new party “like rats from a sinking ship;” while the Republicans and remaining establishment Democrats proper inevitably join together in a coalition like David Lloyd George’s Conservative-Liberal coalition, or like Macron’s doing with the fascists in France. It’s not even much of a leap for them compared to the existent state of things — they’ve already been converging for decades and most of us have already come to feel the effects of it.

          And this way by elevating the PSL, a real working class party who have a broader picture for revolutionary change than limiting to parliamentary dog-and-pony shows against the richest most evil people on the planet, you’re actually helping the ground-up elevation of meaningful on-the-ground working class politics which speak to the 35-50% who are so disillusioned and disenfranchised by the lies and corruption and bloodthirst of the corporate-imperialist duopoly-of-exploiters that they don’t even vote — and activating them into actual meaningful political movement-building and action with a revolutionary long-term perspective, while forcing the establishment’s hand to intercede how it can, highlighting the contradictions and failures of the system. Instead of finding new ways to capitulate to it (which are actually the same ways people have been capitulating to it for a century).

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Doing something that demonstrably doesn’t work isn’t how you get what you want. If you want an option besides Democrats and Republicans, voting for someone else where those two options have a lock on winning does nothing besides vent some spleen.

        I’m not saying doing nothing is the solution, or even voting for the two main parties is the solution, but doing something that has been shown to be completely ineffective is not the solution.

      • booly@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        This is a counter to the Democratic party supporters you see everywhere who always get irrationally upset at third party voters, not about Republicans.

        Plenty of us Democrats are very much in support of a ranked choice voting schemes, or similar structural rules like non-partisan blanket primaries (aka jungle primaries). The most solidly Democratic state, California, has implemented top-2 primaries that give independents and third parties a solid shot for anyone who can get close to a plurality of votes as the top choice.

        Alaska’s top four primary, with RCV deciding between those four on election day, is probably the best system we can realistically achieve in a relatively short amount of time.

        Plenty of states have ballot initiatives that bypass elected officials, so people should be putting energy into those campaigns.

        But by the time it comes down to a plurality-take-all election between a Republican who won the primary, a Democrat who won the primary, and various third party or independents who have no chance of winning, the responsible thing to make your views represented is to vote for the person who represents the best option among people who can win.

        Partisan affiliation is open. If a person really wants to run on their own platform, they can go and try to win a primary for a major party, and change it from within.

        TL;DR: I’ll fight for structural changes to make it easier for third parties and independents to win. But under the current rules, voting for a spoiler is throwing the election and owning the results.

    • venusaur@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It is a two party problem but dems and their cult-like followers act like the politicians they worship can do no wrong. Both parties are businesses and that’s it.

    • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      if they wont give us what we want or need they dont deserve our votes, maybe next time they will offer more than “im not the other guy”, if the democrats will not be pushed left then they should be destroyed.

      • CasualPenguin@reddthat.com
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        2 months ago

        In order for politics to align towards your values you have to vote for the candidate closest to them, which forces the losing parties to get closer or die, which pushes the winning party to move towards you.

        If you throw away or don’t vote none of that happens because you have no impact.

      • StinkySocialist@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        You are correct, but everyone is too afraid to work together to find a better candidate/ new party. We no longer can organize ourselves. We can only be organized by institutions apparently. I’d love to be proven wrong on this but watch how much resistance you get. Just trying to suggest that maybe we could do better. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

    • bastion@feddit.nl
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      2 months ago

      Those three Democrat are focusing on the thing all of the Democrats and Republicans should.

      • OmnislashIsACloudApp@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        oh yes the standard reply.

        Rs actively tearing it down like in Alaska

        Ds putting forth a bill to do it but only started by three of them this time around

        “both sides are the same!”

        yawn

        • bastion@feddit.nl
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          2 months ago

          Did you even read what I wrote?

          Those few Dems are clearly the ones pushing this. But that it should be bipartisan and should have more support in general has nothing to do with false equivocation.

          The irony here, though, is that because of your partisan BS, you clearly interpreted that as an insult to the Democrats.

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      So three of the more than 250 elected democrats are trying, not for the first time by the way, to get the rest of their party to take it seriously. Talk to me when more than 2% of the Democrats do something about it because otherwise its basically just a platitude.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        2 months ago

        Bills are often started by one or a few people to get voted on by others. It will be resisted, but not by the side that would do well with a ranked choice with other left-sided third parties.

        • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          That would make more sense if this was their first time putting this bill forward, but it’s not. They’ve tried this before and none of the other Democrats could be chuffed to stand behind it. This isn’t new.

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            2 months ago

            Bills don’t often get passed on the first try. If anything you should be critical that this is only the second time, it ought to be a constant attempt to change a system that seemingly everyone not making a profit from is against. I’ll also say that the only way anything like this will get passed is through the left, the right does not want everyone to get a vote. So it will likely fail again somewhere unless the ratio of left-right shifts. As is true of any bills that favor the public good.

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Meaningful RCV implementation and meaningful gun control in the US are like talking about alien contact. Fun to talk about, but it’s not going to happen in any of our lifetimes.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      This is a few people not the party as a whole.

      Notably there is a platform out there for the Democratic candidate. Unless I missed something RCV is not on the agenda.

      • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Do those goalposts have little feet on them?

        “Democrats wouldn’t do this”

        Democrats do this

        “No, not like that”

        Look, I said it in a dumb meme format so you know it’s true

        (I appreciate you for posting here, just making fun of you 😊)

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          This is like saying Republicans oppose sending weapons to israel because Thomas Massie exists.

          The meme says implement. If you think a small minority of a party can implement RCV you don’t understand how the system works.

          Especially if you actually look into what was linked and see that this is not the first time. The Democratic party has already shot it down in the past.

          • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Implement doesn’t mean “manifest from the aether with zero work”. It means do every step until it’s done. This is like step 5 of a lot.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The Dems will preserve a political model that’s at least malleable. 3rds will need to work together to push ranked choice more and more into voters’ field of view.

    Republicans will swan-dive into fascism, in which case 3rds (and everyone else) are fucked.

    Dems aren’t going to help 3rds directly, but any one who wants the possibility of a 3rd party victory later is committing political suicide by failing to vote blue as a means of buying time. Voting 3rd when that 3rd has no potential for victory is self-destructive.

    • isaaclw@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Also just following the green party a bit and educating your self about them… you learn that the green party is as focused on selfish personal horse race politics that deals with power plays, as the dem party (though on a smaller scale) instead of actual change.

      This political cycle, Green party had a chance to radically push the Dems on palestine, by putting up a candidate that would drop out if Dems changed their position on support for Israel.

      Jill Stein rejected it.

      Just the fact they rejected it shows to me that they’re not serious about actual political change. They just want to be a spoiler. They continue to only run in general elections instead ofnpushing in states.

      So I guess i have no home party, but Ill vote for the lesser of two evils still.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        This is incredibly dishonest. The Greens actually did the compromise thing in 2020 and didn’t go as hard so Dems could beat Trump.

        In return they got Democrats doing Genocide and AOC Pelosi now yapping about how Greens are “predatory” honest because they dropped in the 2020 polls.

        Democrats can not do Genocide they don’t need to Greens to bow down for them.

        • isaaclw@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          In return? Dems have always been for genocide. Joe Biden has been terrible for Israel Paleatine.

          Dems are better on this issue than they ever have been (Biden excluded) due to activist pressure, no thanks to Greens.

          Pelosi actuall said in March that we should limit sales to Israel. I don’t think people realize how incredible that is.

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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            2 months ago

            Dems are better on this issue than they ever have been

            Which is why Harris is saying she’s going to keep sending bombs to israel to burn Palestinian babies with and she’s signaling that she wants to start a war with Iran right?

            Pelosi actuall said in March that we should limit sales to Israel. I don’t think people realize how incredible that is.

            Ok… Did they do it?

    • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      The Dems will preserve a political model that’s at least malleable.

      Much like during covid when they gave preferential treatment to themselves while simultaneously working to remove the Green party from ballots.

      -More to the point your comment runs contrary to reality and the very nature of the joke pointed out in the meme.

      • Skyrmir@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The green party only exists because the GOP keeps giving them money. The only time anyone ever hears a damn word out of them, is when they’re showing up to split the Dem vote for the GOP.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          You might want lay off the Blue MAGA conspiracies for a bit.

          Commission certifies Jill Stein eligible to receive federal matching funds (2024)

          Based on documents received on June 3, 2024, Jill Stein and Jill Stein for President 2024 (JSFP) fulfilled the agreement and certification requirements and contributions

          To become eligible for matching funds, candidates must submit Candidate and Committee Agreements and Certifications as well as raise a threshold amount of $100,000 by collecting $5,000 in 20 different states in amounts no greater than $250 from any individual.

          Also the entire Democratic party runs on AIPAC which is actually funded by Republicans. Dems reaching unprecedented levels of projection.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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              2 months ago

              When everything Democrats don’t like is a Russian GOP state agent because someone drew some text on an image and they did zero fact checking, you know they’ve reached MAGA levels.

              If any of these insane conspiracies were actually true the Green party would not even be allowed to run. The Democrats have done everything to try to concern troll the Greens off ballots in most “democratic” fashion.

              • mashbooq@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                They might label some people incorrectly as russian agents, but the reality is that there is a concerted effort by russia to undermine the US democracy, mostly directed at the Democratic Party, and making some mistakes doesn’t make them delusional.

                It’s pretty hard to prosecute propaganda in the US due to the First Amendment, so it’s not accurate to say that just because the Greens can run, they must not be russian agents.

                The concern about the Greens is eminently logical: they are never going to win, so the best they can do is take votes from the Democrats, allowing the fascists to win. This is in fact what happened in the election of Polk, leading to the Mexican-American war and the theft of Texas from Mexico, which was then admitted as an additional slave state. Further, the Greens do little to nothing other than run in big national races, so it’s not a leap to think they’re deliberately running a spoiler campaign.

                Finally, none of that has anything to do with the silly attempt to label Democrats as “Blue MAGA”, since MAGA is a quasi-religious fascist personality cult, none of which can be credibly attributed to Democrats.

                • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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                  2 months ago

                  Top Democrats like Biden and Harris are bought and paid for by AIPAC. Which is funded by you guessed it: Republicans. And israel.

                  The reason it’s called Blue MAGA is because Democrats are also Zionists.

                  Zionismis a religious fascist Death Cult. And the Democrat Zionist cult is currently complicit in Genocide and the denial of Genocide.

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        …and a swan-dive into fascism is preferable to that because…?

        Our political model is janky as fuck. I don’t need to explain the pitfalls of a two-party system to you - I already know you fucking hate it or you wouldn’t be eyeing a 3rd in the first place. I hate it too. But a two party system is what we have, which means you have three options:

        • Red (fascism)

        • Blue (not fascism)

        • Let the other voters choose Red or Blue for you (abstain or vote 3rd).

         

        Which of those options will do the best job of accomplishing YOUR goals?

        What even are your goals? 3rd party as POTUS? You gotta lay the groundwork first. 2016 was the perfect stage for a 3rd party victory within our current model: we had an absolutely hated candidate running on both of the big two; a voterbase just as sick of the status quo as they are now; a Libertarian with a genuinely likable personality, some solid policy stances, and who managed to shift the “crazy” that Libertarians were reputed for to an honestly charming variety of “quirky”, and a surprisingly steady stream of coverage by the media. We will never see better conditions for a 3rd victory in our current model.

        So how did the Libertarians do with that perfect storm? 3%. They got fucking 3% of the vote. How do those conditions compare to today’s? Red is running that same hated sack of shit Trump; but Blue couldn’t find a candidate hated as much as Hillary if they tried to - to the contrary, Harris is churning up optimism like I’ve never seen before. The die-hard Reds and Blues aren’t going to change their votes over that, but the folks in the middle are going to be far less inclined to vote 3rd than they were in 2016. 3rds have gotten pretty much zero media attention this time around. They literally do not stand a chance to beat even 2016’s 3%, let alone enough to actually win.

        Your only way to the top is to change the political model into one that’s more favorable to you; and the easiest way to do that is to keep not-fascism in power long enough to get the general population pissed off enough about not having ranked choice that it starts making its way into bigger and bigger elections. Your next-easiest path to victory is insurrection… that most likely both fail and get yourself killed, so please don’t do that. Your least-easy path to victory is to allow fascism to take root, as that will push the model even further away from your reach: if that happens it’s game over for everyone except the fascists.

        If you see a different option that’ll lead to a 3rd victory in our current model, I’m all ears; but if not, you still need to set the stage with favorable conditions, to include preventing the stage from being burned to the ground.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    New York City established Ranked Choice voting in 2020 under a Dem Mayor and majority Dem City Council.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Does this mean that by voting Republican we can secure abortion rights? The answer is no.

        Actually, by your own post, in Alaska it does.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Isn’t what they established in Alaska thanks in large part to democrats???

    Edit: lol, seeing a lot of downvotes but I’m not seeing anybody refuting it either. Feel free to prove me wrong of course!

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      I don’t even know what you said before but it’s pretty amazing you’re proudly boasting about a comment with zero content calling users republican trolls.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Progressive Democrats will and do. Neoliberal ones do not as they only care about the donor class