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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The lesser of two evils is still evil. We need a 3rd party.
End FPTP and electoral college. They were racist victorian policies anyway
How do we do that without voting?
How do you do that with voting?
Thanks. That’s what I meant. I’m old.
Victorian? Sorry, no. Late Enlightenment, Georgian, or US Colonial periods are more appropriate terms.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, I want to vote for the lesser of three evils.
If we can get to 5 and make the evil pentagram of US politics…
Meh. Everyone is evil. Evil is a misleading, arbitrary, nebulous term that is really unhelpful in reality.
Did you mean for this to be read in Sideshow Bob’s voice?