Bro, Canada and the US have been doing the whole “vote centrist and tell the progressives that we’ll get to their utopic ideas ‘just as soon as we get to these goalposts we totally won’t move’” thing for decades and it’s only gotten us massive delayed, half-assed progress at best, but mostly just contributed to the ratcheting effect. It doesn’t work, we’ve seen it not working in real-time, its time we gave up on that crap.
If you don’t vote for what you want, you aren’t going to get it. If you the people you vote for learn they only have to be marginally better than another boogeyman party then they are also going to learn that they don’t need to listen to you. As fucked up as the system is, no party actually gets votes that are weighted more than another’s. It’s not like votes for other parties’ are literally counted at half the rate; we can turn this shit around tomorrow if we actually did something about it. And there IS something starting, progressives are getting more power and attention, and people are getting energized. Don’t kill that momentum, lean into it, show that you support it and let others feel comfortable to show their support, too.
The simple reality that I see when I talk to “strategic” voters is that they’re scared, and they worry about everyone else being scared, too. It’s always “well, maybe next election…” until it’s “ok well this time I don’t think it’s the right time to…”.
Bro, people have been doing what you’re doing for those decades too. How’s that working out?
Back to what I was actually saying, since you somehow read my words and arrived at the opposite conclusion, the system needs to change. Ranked choice voting is a good example of a “modest reform” I mentioned. It has already gained some traction in the US and scared the shit out of the GOP so badly they started passing bogus laws to ban it elsewhere. That one reform, which is highly doable, would completely fix your issue with strategic voters.
So instead of hoping the big party will chase those third party votes or hoping maybe next election, work toward real change that will fix the problem.
Explain how what I’ve been doing has been haopening for decades. I’m specifically saying that way too many people have been scared into strategic voting and that we all need to start voting FOR things instead of against them. Literally said it’s not been happening, because it fucking hasn’t been and I would like to stop being so alone in standing by my convictions.
Ranked choice would be sick and I know it’s the way forward. Here in Canada the centrist LPC was elected largely on updating our electoral system IN 2015 and then nearly immediately went “it’s too haaaaaard” when they realized that they would probably never win another election. That was blatantly anti-democratic and should have led people to never vote for them ever again, but they are STILL in power because we’re a bunch of spineless cowards. We TRIED to do what you’re asking and it DID NOT WORK. The only times we’ve seen the LPC do anything good are when they’ve had a minority government and the progressive NDP could use their leverage to force them to do the right thing. The NDP, I might add, used ranked-choice voting for their recent leadership race.
Go take a long walk off a short pier. The cold water might help clear your head.
Bro, Canada and the US have been doing the whole “vote centrist and tell the progressives that we’ll get to their utopic ideas ‘just as soon as we get to these goalposts we totally won’t move’” thing for decades and it’s only gotten us massive delayed, half-assed progress at best, but mostly just contributed to the ratcheting effect. It doesn’t work, we’ve seen it not working in real-time, its time we gave up on that crap.
If you don’t vote for what you want, you aren’t going to get it. If you the people you vote for learn they only have to be marginally better than another boogeyman party then they are also going to learn that they don’t need to listen to you. As fucked up as the system is, no party actually gets votes that are weighted more than another’s. It’s not like votes for other parties’ are literally counted at half the rate; we can turn this shit around tomorrow if we actually did something about it. And there IS something starting, progressives are getting more power and attention, and people are getting energized. Don’t kill that momentum, lean into it, show that you support it and let others feel comfortable to show their support, too.
The simple reality that I see when I talk to “strategic” voters is that they’re scared, and they worry about everyone else being scared, too. It’s always “well, maybe next election…” until it’s “ok well this time I don’t think it’s the right time to…”.
Bro, people have been doing what you’re doing for those decades too. How’s that working out?
Back to what I was actually saying, since you somehow read my words and arrived at the opposite conclusion, the system needs to change. Ranked choice voting is a good example of a “modest reform” I mentioned. It has already gained some traction in the US and scared the shit out of the GOP so badly they started passing bogus laws to ban it elsewhere. That one reform, which is highly doable, would completely fix your issue with strategic voters.
So instead of hoping the big party will chase those third party votes or hoping maybe next election, work toward real change that will fix the problem.
Explain how what I’ve been doing has been haopening for decades. I’m specifically saying that way too many people have been scared into strategic voting and that we all need to start voting FOR things instead of against them. Literally said it’s not been happening, because it fucking hasn’t been and I would like to stop being so alone in standing by my convictions.
Ranked choice would be sick and I know it’s the way forward. Here in Canada the centrist LPC was elected largely on updating our electoral system IN 2015 and then nearly immediately went “it’s too haaaaaard” when they realized that they would probably never win another election. That was blatantly anti-democratic and should have led people to never vote for them ever again, but they are STILL in power because we’re a bunch of spineless cowards. We TRIED to do what you’re asking and it DID NOT WORK. The only times we’ve seen the LPC do anything good are when they’ve had a minority government and the progressive NDP could use their leverage to force them to do the right thing. The NDP, I might add, used ranked-choice voting for their recent leadership race.
Go take a long walk off a short pier. The cold water might help clear your head.