the damage he added to the system isn’t going to be easy to fix. especially by democrats who enjoy those tools as well.

Yeah, they might take us from a 90 degree angle to the right to a 87 degree angle to the right.

I was about to downvote you because you disagree with my statement, but I agree with yours’s so it cancelled out.

I do think third party vote are extremely powerful, and the whole “it a vote for the bad guys” must be a Psyops of some sort, because how powerful it actually is.

If you disagree with me, please, tell me why and on which point. I am usually very busy but today is one lucky day where I have nothing to do, so I do have time. And more importantly, if I am dead wrong and need to shut up about third parties, I should figure it out sooner than later.

Apology, If I sound patronizing, I am sorry. I just want to make sure there is no room for misunderstanding.

My opinion on voting third parties

First observations/assumptions:

• Elections are won on razor thin margins.

• Political parties do not care (or value less) for the vote of those who do not vote.

• 3rd parties have no hope on winning. Worse still, they might act as a spoiler effect. IE if you were to rank 3 candidates (2 major and 1 third party), if your preferred party is the 3rd party, voting for it will only benefit the party you desire the least.

I hope we can agree on those terms, otherwise, reply, but if we have to argue about those premises, I doubt we share a common understanding on reality.

Lets simplify an election, 2 major candidates, one has policies that will hurt you or you strongly disagree with , but the other one is without a doubt, way worse. lets call the A and B respectively, but there is a third part C (C is not a specific party, but whichever third party you like) that has no chance on winning because that is how first pass the post works. It does make sense to vote for A. There are four strategies:

• Vote A: the thing we are expected to do, the “Lesser evil”.

• Don’t Vote: given that voting C is a waste anyways. there is no point.

• Vote C: and benefit B due to spoiler effect.

Vote A no matter who

A wins

Things get a bit worse, you dissatisfied but it would have been way worse would B had won. Next election comes and the same scenario happens again.

That is not because the parties decided to suck again, it is because A and B are interested in winning AND appeasing their corporate donors. So they tow a fine line on how much influence they can sell and still have a chance to win. So this repeats every single election. What is the result? constant decay, with the occasional victory of the B. C does not have that problem because C isn’t a single party, if it takes corporate donations and you dislike their policies then C is another 3rd party that des that.

And by now we can see how we are living in Fascism, even if half the previous administrations were A.

A loses

Things are much worse now, it would have avoided if A won, but nothing you can do, next election arrives and the same happens. But this time B knows what it can get away with and will be worse. And A knows people are more desperate and does not have to improve.

Don’t vote

You refuse to participate in the system. Both A and B (actually everyone who voted is public record) know you have effectively disenfranchised yourself. When it comes to who to pander next election, they will completely ignore you, and any subgroup/cross section that affects you will have one less vote, so if you are disables, their focus in disabled issues is now worth a vote less.

Not to put a tin foil hat, but the more disenfranchised people there are, the more it benefits A and B, as they both can now ignore more social issues than before, and sell more political power to whoever will buy it.

Vote C: vote 3rd party and lose the election:

We already said what will happen, it is agreed upon in the premisses. In fact, we can agree that this is the exact same as not voting. Same outcome. Except, there are two key points.

• You did not disenfranchise yourself.

• The party C, which represents you and you prefer has another vote.

This is paramount, because next elections, they will want your vote. because they know you vote, your intersections will still have weight for them, and not only that, they know exactly which policies they must adopt to get you back. And by that, I do not mean that they will encourage you to return, but they know what you do for you to return. Because if they adopt those polices next election, then you are faced with risking B to win, but A is close enough to C for you to prefer them rather than risk B again. And to suffer through B again because of the minor differences between the new A party and C, would be petty. So even if you think C would improve the nation more than A, A (with the adopted policies takes from C) policies wont makes things worse anymore, and might even improve things.

To reiterate, the difference is that next election cycle, A will have a strong interest in adopting the policies you wanted compared to if disenfranchised yourself, or worse, you enabled them with your vote.

Vote C: vote 3rd party and A wins but with the C’s policies you wanted.

Wait, am I suggesting that voting 3rd party might make A win with C’s policies? No, but almost. If you intend to vote for C early in the election cycle, and if the interest is enough that C is projected to win 1% of the vote. Then both A and B will scramble to adopt said polices. Although because you preferred A to B, it is likely that it would be much easier for A to adopt them.

And congrats about 1% of the electorate has managed to strong hand A to actually care about not making things worse.

You might consider, maybe it is enough to bluff, so the polls and anyone you know, think you will vote for C, but when the election arrives you vote for A even if they did not adopt any policy, because B winning is still worse. Then not only the same thing that we talked about when you Voted A. But this time worse. because they will know that party C being a threat in the polls is meaningless. And C would need a much higher polling number to influence A.

And on top of that, not only you put your idea into the winning ticket, you also now moved the Overton window towards your idea, and by doing so, encourage every voter to consider it. maybe Increasing the number of people who want it, and then forcing the existing politicians to support it.

Psyops?

I don’t mean that there is any conspiracy I can point to. Just how the media works, corporations (including media) donates to those parties to favour them over the public welfare. So they directly benefit from A or B winning with neither of them caring about you. Do they prefer A or B? doesn’t matter, many corporations just donate to both so their bribes benefit them regardless of who wins.

And given how powerful voting 3rd party is, they do not want you to know that.

Example: Brexit referendum

I will give you one from when I was a student in England in 2015. The whole notion of Brexit was still far to the right in the Overton window. No way anyone would have considered it even a possibility. But a tiny few did. But instead of protesting and asking one of the major two parties to adopt those unpopular policies (they would have gone right wing with the Tories, but they were also in favour of retaining EU membership). The galvanized around a third party UK independent party (UKIP). If you check the polls, you will see that both major parties were neck to neck, and UKIP (although still undoubtably projected to lose) held a significant vote share AND had clear policies that could be adopted. So nearing the elections, Tories promised a referendum on Brexit and immediately absorbed those votes, and securing the win, not “improving their odds”, but increasing their share so much it is no longer a close race. And the Tories performed really well at the polls.

The assumption that the Tories did, was that given only 20% of the polls wanted Brexit. The referendum is just a symbolic gesture. As they assumed it was guaranteed to go with “remain”. However. given how suddenly there is a referendum on Brexit, something unimaginable a few months prior. Brexit is no longer a fringe unpopular idea, far yonder the right of the Overton window, it IS the Overton window, and now the previous polls on those who wanted Brexit became irrelevant, as not all the public is taking said question seriously.

Brexit won, that what UKIP 3rd party wanted, there can be no more effects after this. Nope. There were even more favourable changes (for Brexiters). Besides a few Tories stepping down (including David Cameron), A lot of politicians from both English parties decided to become pro Brexit, as they now also want to co-opt those policies. Solidifying something that was fringe a few months earlier, into a core national unshakeable national value.

Note, I did not agree with the result of this example, (meaning Brexit), however this is likely the most visible recent historical case where voting 3rd party in a 1st pass the post election was done proven itself as an incredibly powerful strategy.

My opinion on this midterms

They might help. chances are they will take away some conservative power. I hope that there will be enough change for proper impeachment and removal, but this can help;

Both parties are running primaries campaigns. obviously not for the presidential elections, but for all the seats that are up to election. Given that only a fraction of citizens vote in the primaries, your vote will have many times the power than in the election. This way, you can push for candidates with policies you like. Resulting in more popular candidates (Look at Mamdani).

Thanks