this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I’m not even convinced it’s even real leftists posting this stuff. It often seems like astroturfing. Not only would fake leftists possibly sway undecided voters, but they also tarnish any positivity the left deserves. Win-win for the right.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I'd like to think you're right.

But I have heard borderline stuff like this in real life from people whom I know are solid progressives. (Admittedly, these are folks on my soccer team who are almost 2 decades younger than me. I can't imagine what ending their teens during a pandemic was like so I kind of expect their politics to be wildly different.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"Borderline" is entirely different. Voting for Harris while being salty about it is a perfectly reasonable thing real progressives should do, and it's exactly the opposite of what these astroturf third-party propagandists are calling for even if the (alleged) sentiment is adjacent. That "border" is a knife edge and the difference between a genuine progressive and a[n effectively] pro-Trump useful idiot comes down to which side of it they fall off.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

That's absolutely true and very well put. Doing the right thing and being happy about it are two very different beasts.

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Astroturfing exist to poison the minds of on lookers. If useful idiots didn't adopt the warped logic they wouldn't astroturf.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

It blows my mind that people are dumb enough for it to work but in an era of razor tight electoral margins, even a few idiots can matter.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 5 days ago (3 children)

It's all the fault of the Democrats. If they had run Bernie he would have been voted in and we wouldn't be here.

The fact that Bernie endorses Harris is meaningless, because he's not a real Socialist.

Things I've heard today on Lemm.ee

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 days ago

Ahaha, you had me terrified for a sec there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Who on .ee are you seeing comments like this from?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

I've never seen a fellow .ee like this. Curious to hear what communities it's on

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

B-but Bernie is an independent and not in any party. Therefore the democrats can't really run him.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I’ve had people telling me that I have “blood on [my] hands” because I’m voting for Harris. It’s insane. These people have no fucking concept.

If Harris wins, it will be by razor-thin margin. If she loses, trump wins. If trump wins, the genocide will get cranked up to 11. So voting 3rd party means even MORE “blood on my hands” than a Harris vote.

At least with Harris, there’s a CHANCE she can be reasoned with and stop the bloodshed.

These “Harris = genocide” people are liars, just trying to get trump elected - to sabotage this country.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Even if that 1 to 10 scale was in magnitudes (10^n), 11 would still be an understatement for what Donald Dump would encourage Israel and Russia to do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

There is a world where abstaining could be a reasonable approach. That world probably disappeared before I was born.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

But Palestine hurr Durr

You dumb fucks know how many more Palestine's there's gonna be if he gets in? You can kiss Ukraine goodbye, and probably hong kong too. This is nothing.

2016-2020 was the beta test. If this goes into production we're all fucked.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

You dumb fucks know how many more Palestine’s there’s gonna be if he gets in?

It seems like such a basic concept; trump means more dead Palestinians. How can someone simultaneously claim to support Palestinians and advocate for more dead Palestinians?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

shortsightedness is a stubborn affliction

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I imagine that folks on both sides believe this comment is about the other one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Good point. Same goes for fake news. Let's address the fear and anger on both sides first, only then we can get some facts in.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (4 children)

I haven’t done the math. Assuming full support, is there a 3rd party candidate on the ballot in enough states to actually win?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (3 children)

The last time a 3rd party candidate had an actual shot (and it was a looooong shot at best) was in 1992 when Ross Perot ran. He split the R vote badly enough that it handed the election to Clinton.

So long as we're using first past the post a 3rd party candidate has a vanishingly small chance of doing anything other than helping elect the opposition.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

And the lesson the Republican Party learned from that was to support the Greens—or any vaguely left party—hard.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Admittedly, watching PR play out across the rest of the world kinda scares me. Israel is paralyzed into a destructive war because the ruling party is in a coalition with a few crazy extremists who will bring down the government (and thus expose Netenyahu to criminal trial) if their increasingly wild demands aren't met. Germany's having a clusterfuck of a time etc.

While there would be different parties, imagine the horribleness of a PR system right now in America. You could easily see a scenario where RFK acts as kingmaker and gets to demand whatever from trump or Harris. Given that trump would sell his children (maybe sub Melania for Ivanka) for the presidency, who knows what insanity would ensue? And there would be no real mechanism between the election and the next one to reign them in.

I didn't think there was anything scarier than a trump presidency until thinking that one through. Uggggh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Yes, I was there and that’s not what I was asking.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Nope. The Green party's got their candidate on the most states' ballots, and they only managed to get 38 states. Granted, it's still mathematically possible, considering the threshold is 270 votes, and the states that have Stein on the ballot comprise 440 votes... but still. Would be incredibly, almost impossibly difficult.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Stein and Oliver both do, though that's certainly not going to make a difference in their actual chances

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What bothers me about the people taking the bit of time and effort to go vote for 3rd parties is that there's really no point to it. Making sure your own vote doesn't matter is insane to me when voting isn't mandatory. They could've just done nothing and achieved the same outcome.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

They only be a statistical footnote that almost nobody will notice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

If anything, lefties shouldn't be a single issue voter at all. They should be picking someone who might move toward that direction and have the chance to win, not abstaining.

As the famous word goes: Evil triumph when good men do nothing. You can't abstain or do protest vote and expect anything to change under Trump, that single issue you hold so important will get worst, or even impossible.