The Electoral College is the big factor in a third-party nightmare for Democrats

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[–]ActuallyNot 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The electoral college system is kind of fucked.

But it's more fucked now than it has ever been.

That's attributable to GOP gerrymandering more than third parties. Gore in 2000 and Clinton in 2016 won more votes than the person elected by the electoral college, and there was a bias then of about 1% in the GOP favor. Since the federalist society took over the Supreme Court, and they removed any recourse for gerrymandering, that has almost certainly got worse.

[–]TiberSeptim 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think removing it would be worse though. Basically if you went to pure popular vote, then nobody outside of a major metropolitan area matters at all. Los Angles, New York, SanFransisco, Chicago — that’s enough to win outright.

[–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It doesn't seem right to adjust the value of a vote from a city down compared to a vote from a small town, so that one party is competitive. The idea is that they'll adjust their policies to have the more general appeal.

Clinton's margin over Trump was less than 3 million.

Bush beat Kerry by 3 million, so a republican can, in living memory, actually win. Although to be fair, he was buoyed by the brutal and unjustifiable invasion of Iraq for some reason. Perhaps people thought that it has something to do with the September 11 attacks.

[–]TiberSeptim 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Except they won’t because even if every small town agrees on politics, the population is such that you get at least 40% of the vote from the top ten mega cities. The option that would work in that case is to mostly ignore those small towns and simply focus on urban issues.

[–]UncleWillard56 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Much like the Democrats backed Biden to just beat Trump, I think I may vote third party just to tip the apple cart on the two major parties. They both suck and neither gives a fuck about us. Why not go for broke and elect a third party candidate? How much worse could they do? Knocking out both major parties is in our best interest.

[–]makesyoudownvote 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Democrats share nearly nothing in common these days except a hatred of the right.

That's why everything that Democrat politicians say uses such vague language. They oversimplify complex topics into little trite sayings like "It's all about love" or "I just think they deserve human rights" and then act offended if you dare question what these human rights are or how they might not mesh with what is being suggested.

They discourage discussion and thought because it risks unraveling the alliance of so many different people who really don't actually have the same goals at all.

Don't get me wrong here, the Republican party isn't exactly a shining example of collaboration either. I'm extremely surprised there wasn't more of a schism in 2016 when Trump was elected, because he shared very little in common with the majority of Republicans at that point, but the party sort of adapted to him.

Honestly, not in a left vs right way Hilary Clinton was literally the more literally "conservative" candidate in that election, and in many ways so was Biden in the next one. They are old school establishment who don't shake very much up, and basically just give you more of the same. That's what conservative means more or less. That said they both want desperately to seem progressive, and don't have any real moral compass at their cores to guide them, so they do end up pushing things that are not at all conservative. They want woke points and are willing to lie about their own past to get them.

I honestly wish we could just get away from this stupid party system and get people who are willing to really stand for something unique. To really share their perspective.

[–]sandmax 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I need a sponsor