• chaogomu@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Simple question, where are the Whigs today? Gone? Because that’s what it takes to have a different party. The Whigs imploded, and the Democratic Republicans then swept the elections for a couple of years until the Republican Party coalesced.


    Gore did not in fact win. Not because he didn’t have more votes, but because it was close enough that Republicans could steal the election. I Ralph Nader had not been on the ballot, Gore would have easily pulled the win. But several thousand unimpeachable votes.

    This is called the Spoiler Effect. It’s the mechanism by with Durverger’s Law works. A vote for a third party is a vote against your own interests. Ralph Nader voters were horrified to learn that they helped Bush win the election.

    But all this debate here is effectively in a vacuum. We’re not actually talking about the current election. A vote for a socialist third party in this year’s election is a wasted vote. Full Stop. You’ll not impress anyone, and the socialist candidate will not care about you. And that’s because the “socialist” candidate is likely a Republican plant. Because the two major parties know about the Spoiler Effect, and Republicans specifically have been funding the “left leaning” third parties to split the vote so that they can win.

    If you as an individual want to harm yourself, I’ll not really care. I can’t stop you. But if you start advocating for others to join you, I’ll call you out as a Republican plant, working to fuck over the rest of us.