And did that selfless doctor use medical billing codes that would charge the least amount to the patient? Does that doctor take a modest pay compared to the other medical staff who also play a vital role in the saving and preservation of lives. And how much time does that doctor spend with patients compared to the rest of the medical staff?
Edit: I am referring to the doctor who wrote the letter to the editor that this entire article is about. There is a hyperlink at the very beginning.
What does this have to do with anything that is being discussed in the article?
Can’t tell if bot or posting to the wrong thread…
Please expand because the article is about “protest votes” and the top level comment I responded to is seemingly about how the doctor who wrote it should have earned less money. It seems completely non sequitur.
I think they’re talking about the comment you responded to.
At least, I hope they are.
Oh that would make more sense.
Yeah, sorry about that. I did mean the one you were responding to.
No worries. It was obvious in retrospect
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Looks like I’m not the only one on Lemmy who’s not voting for the Duopoly. This is an awesome thread. Thanks for posting, OP!
I wish we’d yell at the non-voters at least as equally as the 3rd party voters.
Exactly. It’s the apithetic and doomer non-voters that are the real issue in US elections. Voter turn out is usually abhorrently low.
People can have all the fights they want about third party votes for president and other high offices, but third parties have great potential to make local/regional change. Sometimes it feels like people forget there is more than just a president in this country.
I’m not seeing any non-voters in these types of threads.
But yeah, non voters are a bigger problem.
I wish we’d yell at democrats for failing to appeal to voters, which is really one of the most basic responsibilities of a politician.
It’s impossible to appeal to everyone. 6 in 10 Americans believe Israel has a right to continue it’s fight with Hamas. 6 in 10 Americans are also sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. The Dems are attempting to thread that needle. And while I don’t agree with the unconditional support of Israel. The US is heavily invested in partnership with Israel and foreign policy has always shifted painfully slow. Despite all the death in the world, the US is involved in the least death it has been involved in since the WWII. We’ve been constantly at war since WWII. And shifting from the US being constantly at war to only arming our allies is at least some improvement.
One things certain, if Trump wins authoritarians will be emboldened worldwide and the amount of death will increase much much more, including here.
Forget appealing to everyone, democratic party policy fails to appeal even to democratic party supporters: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/5/8/support-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-increases-across-party-lines
Given these polls, one would think that the democratic party wouldn’t be so supportive of israel, the far-right party in charge there, and its campaign of genocide, yet the party keeps going full throttle all-in on support. Democrats like to use the excuse of their hands being tied, but their hands aren’t tied here. In fact, if democrats did nothing it would be an improvement, because they’re actually putting in the extra effort to increase funding to israel and vetoing UN resolutions against them.
Yeah I generally agree, but I suspect that every politician that attends national security meetings is constantly being told that Israel is a necessary partner. Combine that with a strong Christian and Jewish Israel lobby and even a good person may recognize that they can’t gain power to do all the things they want and also oppose funding Israel at the same time.
It’s the paradox of political power, it’s why if I went back into politics I would do activism instead of elected office, with activism you have the freedom to put your energy where you want without compromise. In politics compromise is fundamental, even necessary, even when dealing with unquestionably immoral things. Personally I think being afraid to spend your political capital means you have failed, but id also probably lose if I ran for office.
Yes the Dems need to win but you’re giving them too much credit. We don’t need to make them sound competent with “they’re threading the needle”, because they aren’t. Doing that will give people a false sense of security that there are adults in the room. At best, the voters are the adults, not the Dems.
Have you met voters? Pretending like voters are any better would be pretty hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
Doesn’t that explain what our parties have to offer though?
If the dems actually wanted to destroy trump, they should’ve nominated michelle.
The dems actually want genocide instead.
How they gonna nominate someone that has only ever said they will never run for president. Dumbest take I have ever seen on lemmy. Michelle would never be president, she doesn’t want it.
Amen!
They don’t care, they’ve got corporate cash to spend.
Me too. It’d take some of the heat off of me for once! haha
Right?!
If you think casting any ballot is a form of protest you need to learn what real protest looks like.
Hint: It doesn’t involve participating in the system you’re protesting.
Not voting indirectly also is a vote for Trump.
no, it’s not
Yes, it is
if that were true, you could prove it. there is no world in which non votes are counted for Trump
In the actual world, governed by actual mathematics, you are incorrect. This has been repeatedly pointed out to you, with illustrative examples, by many people. Your stubborn, willful ignorance cannot change the fabric of reality.
Still no proof, friend.
this is just hand waving. it’s not proof.
indirectly
Say there are 9 voters. Four vote for Trump. Five heavily disagree with Trump (more than Trump’s four supporters). Three of them vote for Harris, two refuse to vote. Then these two people helped Trump since he’s winning now.
It works exactly the same on a much larger scale.
The only votes that help a candidate are votes for that candidate. A non-vote doesn’t help any candidate.
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Good point!
Not voting isn’t a protest either. Disrupting the voting? That would be a protest. But the Greens and Stein don’t have the balls for that.
Maybe we should be asking Democrats why they aren’t trying harder to satisfy leftist voters instead?
If you guys think the spoiler effect isn’t real then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. I voted Green in 2000. Never again.
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I voted Green in 2020 because I hated Biden, and after 4 years of a Biden presidency I have concluded that I was a fucking moron and that my vote for Hawkins didn’t amount to shit.
I remember what the Trump admin was like, and we’re just now concluding the Biden admin, and when I look at the options on the table right now, I have:
- Trump: A fascist who wants me dead.
- Harris: A milquetoast liberal that will do a fine job at governing.
- Stein: A valueless Green Party spoiler who is rooting for Trump (who wants me dead).
- Not voting: A coward’s way out.
Harris is the obvious choice for anyone who actually wants America to improve.
Climate town just did a really interesting video about how the election in 2000 was literally stolen by the Republicans via brothers Bush and Bush and their corrupt secretary of State in Florida. And honestly wouldn’t matter if you had voted red, Green blue purple or rainbow.
Green votes were well within the margin that would have triggered the automatic recount. It just would have been an automatic recount for Bush, not gore. Meaning if they blocked the hand recount like they did, it would have gone to gore.
Yes, it was stolen, however they were only able to do that because the margins were close. Had the green voters instead voted for the candidate closest to them that had a chance (Gore), then it would have mattered.
The people who don’t vote will far out number those who vote for Jill Stein. Why do we let them off the hook when they would have a larger impact on the election.
Don’t get me wrong, Jill Stein sucks, but don’t blame her voters. Blame those who don’t vote to blame those who blindly vote for trump because of “the taxes”
I am tired of blaming someone who gets 2% for when bad things happen. Blame the 30% who did nothing.
I realize a portion of those who don’t vote are due to voter suppression, bring the fire you bring for stein voters to those suppressing votes, it will be a more effective strategy. Stein and her voters are an easy scapegoat.
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Voting for Jill Stein is only “taking a vote away” from Harris if you assume that the voter would’ve voted for Harris without Stein in the race.
That’s a big assumption and I don’t think there’s any good reason to make such an assumption.
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Exactly what I’ve been saying. Democrats are clearly making a choice to die on and sacrifice our democracy to the hill of imagined centrist voters that make perfect, unquestioning and loyal followers for their party. If they lose for it then they alone are responsible for their loss and they should be the ones we direct our anger at for leaving voters on the table in what they themselves call a close and existentially important race.
If they would rather lose elections than court progressive voters, if they would like to win without us as they so clearly do; because we are less convenient to their bottom line than the aforementioned loyal centrist; then that should be laid bare for the world to see. We shouldn’t let them pass their strategic failures off on voters for having morals and sticking to them.
To be fair, while I’d be like whoa lets not say centrists don’t exist, someone going “Hm idk Donald Trump’s policy of … lets just let cops go wild and kill anyone they want for one day sounds pretty rational and good lets weigh that with Harris’ policy.” is uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh not a fucking centrist.
Agreed, friend! You get my upvote.
I mean those perfectly loyal clown fearing pineapple pizza hating plastic people are clearly here in the comments with us. They would have voted for a dementia addled corporate goon if he hadn’t literally gone silent for 30 seconds during a debate. They will throw our “privilege” in our faces, and claim that we don’t care about minorities so we aren’t doing everything in our power to bend the arc of history away from Trump. Not even realizing that their own cowardly groveling is the fucking reason he ever got a spot on the ballot.
The residents of Ohio and Pennsylvania who are undecided aren’t here. They’re undecided because they can’t be bothered to look. Or they’re so disillusioned with the concept of representative government they ignore it as a defence mechanism.
Awesome post!
I mean those perfectly loyal clown fearing pineapple pizza hating plastic people are clearly here in the comments with us. They would have voted for a dementia addled corporate goon if he hadn’t literally gone silent for 30 seconds during a debate.
Right, and every one of those “vote blue no matter who” folks already voted for Biden in the last election and barely eeked out an electoral college win. It’s a dice roll if they can do it again. If democrats want to widen that margin then all they have to do is offer literally anything at all to progressive voters.
Agree with everything you’re saying. The white moderate (re:MLK) is willing to throw anyone under the bus to save their own asses. They will not stand up for what’s right if it comes at the risk of losing their seat, so all you have to do is threaten that seat and they will all collectively sit nice and pretty.
those perfectly loyal clown fearing pineapple pizza hating plastic people
Is this like the MTG space laser lizard Jews?
You think…centrists are imaginary?
My friend, you might be in a bit of a social bubble. Like someone in the deep South who only ever sees Trump yard signs and thinks “everyone” supports Trump.
Nope, didn’t say that. I said the perfect voters they are courting instead of progressive voters are imaginary.
Oh, well that’s still pretty stupid. Centrist voters are by definition less loyal, since they have to be courted in the first place. Democrats don’t expect centrist voters to be unquestioningly loyal, or else they wouldn’t even advertise to them.
No, I’d say they’re pretty loyal to republicans (else you’d be correct, Democrats wouldn’t be courting them with republican policy) and they don’t question the status quo or capitalism, which gives Democrats plenty of room to maintain loyalty to their donors.
Based on which party they’re registered as? That doesn’t mean much, it doesn’t mean they’d definitely vote for the D candidate if there wasn’t another option. You’re assuming that the D candidate otherwise has that vote locked down just by being a democrat.
You can’t “steal” a vote because no one owns that vote except the individual voter and the individual voter is not being robbed when they decide to vote 3rd party.
Great deduction skills there.
Sure, you can’t literally steal a vote, but either you’re unfamiliar with American colloquialisms or being deliberately obtuse. It’s a term that describes exactly what you’re doing here - actively trying to convince people to vote against something using deception.
Yes, you’re being deceptive by trying to drive democratic voters to split their vote so the right wins. I have yet to see you make a single good faith argument here.
Voting for a minor party in terms of the effect on the outcome is approximately equivalent to not voting.
In reality a not insignificant portion of them would probably vote for Trump to “own the libs” honestly.
A not insignificant portion of them will vote for Donald because they are MAGAs cosplaying about wanting a third party.
Your ‘protest vote’ for Jill Stein is really a vote for Donald Trump
And it always has been.
Sometimes the Green Party protest vote is a vote for George H.W. Bush.
And George W. Bush.
And Donald Trump (the first time).
If the Green Party wasn’t a thing, there would be a lot of elections that the Republicans wouldn’t have won, because the margins were just that thin.
That’s assuming green party voters would vote for the dems, which probably isn’t the case. They’d be more likely to just not vote.
I’m not sure I agree with that estimation, but even then I’d say that the majority of Green Party voters who would decide to vote anyways would probably vote Dem over GOP, and that still matters.
Because only one of those parties is trying to deny me basic human rights, I can’t say I’m sympathetic to anyone who would choose not to vote out of spite just because they don’t personally have as much at stake.
You must not have been alive in the 90s or 00s if you think Dems wouldnt and dont want to deny your basic human rights
I remember when the Dems repealed roe v Wade.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
I was definitely there when the dems tried to ban music based on it’s offensive nature.
Oh wait that was Reagan and the GOP. My mistake.
I was there when the Dems banned foreign travelers based on nationality.
Oh wait that was trump and the GOP. My mistake.
Neither Dems nor the GOP did the first one, Dems did fail to ever codify the right to privacy or bodily autonomy though, despite every legal scholar for 50 years saying roe was a Shakey decision.
The second one never happened, unless you’re confused by just the general existence of the FCC with your half remembered fantasy, and yes, I do remember when Dems fully supported banning travellers based on nationality, Biden cowrote that bill.
That could mean that 60% of the US leans green.
Or they’re just apathetic and attaching a social meaning to their apathy feels good.
Guess the Democrats would be better served by being more welcoming rather than just calling Green Party voters idiots then.
Not idiots, just woefully misguided to the detriment of others.
And you guys wonder why you all lose voters to third parties. lmao
Because you can’t self reflect?
Don’t confuse your ego with the world outside yourself.
I have no problem with any of that. I’m just not voting for your candidate. Thanks!
No, no one is wondering why a tiny fraction of the public willfully chooses to throw their vote away. It’s actually impressive that on this one issue only half a percent or so are so woefully uneducated. We don’t need to wonder why, all we are concerned with is that fascism is on the ballot and so we need you to stop spreading this donkey-brainery because we even need morons to vote for Harris. If Trump is elected, as everyone paying attention knows, we are absolutely fucked. No amount of pretending to be a socialist will change that. Btw, come the fuck on. You are not a socialist. We all know what you are. WoKeFrEe is perhaps the only sliver of truth in that story you call a profile.
she ran during obama as well so it was also, technically, a vote for mccain
Ah yes, I remember how protest voting went in 2016
That wasn’t the reason why democrats lost in 2016.
I remember the dems nominating a canidate who was hardly liked within the party and had no appeal without, and who was deeply concered in learching the party to the right… how about instead of assuming the dems are correct and the voters are wrong lets look at why the voters are disatisfied
Ah yes, I remember the dems nominating someone terrible who strongly deserves to be protested.
It didn’t actually have any effect on 2016. Even if every single Jill Stien voter had gone to Clinton, she still would have needed to win over 50% of Gary Johnson’s voters to win.. Since it’s pretty unlikely that half of the Libertarian party’s votes were from disaffected leftists, no, the protest vote did not cost Hillary the election.
Why don’t democrats invest in actually bringing people to their movement instead of wasting their time on shitting on 3rd parties? Let people vote who they want to vote for, and who they feel voices their opinions the best. That’s what democracy is at the end of the day.
Why don’t third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead of wasting their time shitting on democrats? I’m not saying there’s not plenty of good reasonsto shit on democrats but if any third party wants to be taken seriously they should start acting like it.
Why don’t third parties get out there and win some local elections and then build their way to the state level instead
Because that’s never been how the slaver system works.
shitting on
democratsboth partiesThe people who run the system.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there’s obviously a market for it. People that would’ve otherwise stayed home instead of voting for the democrats now have a voice. That’s what democracy looks like, at least in most European countries that is. It’s fairly normal to see smaller parties pop up that better represent a subsection of the electorate than to see huge monolithic parties that try to encompass everything.
Because people are clearly unhappy with the democratic party, so there’s obviously a market for it.
There isn’t though. No third party has ever won the presidency.
In Congress, there has never been even 1% of them being third party. Same with the senate.
Where exactly is the market, and why is it not at all reflected in any part of the elected government?
Is it perhaps because it doesn’t exist?
Oh the paradox of the third party. They’re too weak to make a dent, but also the root of all evil. This sounds like fascism to me.
If they’re so harmless, then why do you care if a very small portion of the electorate votes for them? After all it won’t make a dent, right? :)
If they make such a big dent that the democratic party needs to run smear campaigns against them, then how come they’re so harmless and underrepresented?
To me it looks like you have a dysfunctional system. They are popular enough to be voted by a huge chunk of the electorate, thus hurting the big legacy parties, but your system is built in such a way that they end up being underrepresented at the national level.
If they’re so harmless, then why do you care if a very small portion of the electorate votes for them? After all it won’t make a dent, right? :)
I didn’t claim that anywhere.
To me it looks like you have a dysfunctional system.
The US does, so the looks are correct.
Let’s break down this bullshit: A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. The election clerks count ballots marked for Stein and report the vote totals that Stein received. A vote for Jill Stein is literally a vote for Jill Stein.
The statement that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump is, of course, metaphorical. It’s asserting that a vote for Stein is morally equivalent to a vote for Trump by the speaker’s moral reckoning. It’s a rhetorical shortcut. This shortcut rests on the notion that either the voter would have voted for Harris, or that it is a moral imperative to stop Trump above all else.
That’s a moral judgement call. Other people may judge differently. Flatly stating that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump so vehemently and absolutely elides any possibility of discourse and clearly tells the Stein voter that the speaker will not listen to or consider any of their views, or reasons to vote for Stein.
Fine, you believe that, but when has telling people more or less directly that you do not have any intention of considering their political beliefs won them over to your side? How is that a good tactic? If it worked, then why not employ it on Trump supporters? Go ahead, tell them that the party you support will ignore what they think and want, and demand they vote for your candidate.
If it doesn’t work on them, why should it work on Stein voters?
What a bunch of horseshit.
At best, third party voting has led to splitting votes and Woodrow Wilson winning despite having only 41% of the votes and at worst, it’s done absolutely nothing.
This is why a vote for third party is a vote for trump. Because no trump supporter is gonna vote third party. If you’re voting third party, it means one less vote for Harris which means less smaller chance of her winning which means higher chance of trump losing. Anyone saying otherwise is either dumb as fuck or is purposefully trying to split the votes to help trump win.
No, this is absolute bullshit.
Well, now that you put it that way…
Well said, not horse shit.
Not surprised to see your bullshit here.
Negativity is not the solution.
Axiomatic AF for your horsefly-ass to buzz in here calling this pile of excrement a delicious meal.
Maybe blame the disappointing candidate instead of voters hoping for a better life.
More accurately, a vote for Stein is a vote for whichever major party candidate the voter wouldn’t have voted for. In most cases, someone voting for the Green Party would vote for Harris, so it’s a vote for Trump.
That isn’t a moral judgement, it’s the facts of a two party system. -1 vote for Harris = +1 vote for Trump, no other votes matter.
And that’s not telling someone you don’t consider their political beliefs. Considering their political beliefs, they should vote for the major party candidate that they agree with the most, or they will effectively be voting for the one they agree with least.
That’s not the approach with Trump supporters because Trump is the major party candidate they agree with most, by definition. If anything one should try to get Trump supporters to vote 3rd party, Libertarian or for RFK or whoever.
Fucking thank you for saying it.
(and for saying it more eloquently than I have been able to.)
Right?! I need to use parts of his post for the endless people yelling at me for voting third party. lol
Or you could optionally pull your head out of your ass and stop the campaign
Great post!
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Nailed it… Probably gonna catch a lot of down votes from lib shills… But fuck 'em, this is exactly right. Honestly, I think any of these bullshit articles that will clearly push people further away must be part of the plan to help Trump… Or are the libs really still just this stupid? Have learned absolutely nothing from all their time losing
Thanks! I knew what kind of replies I’d get, and did. Essentially, doubling-down on the electoral calculus argument, and not considering that other people have different motivations.
I am soooo happy to see how many people are disagreeing with the “a vote for third party is a vote for Trump!” bs that usually so approved here. This discussion thread has made my day! lol
Bibi marches from genocide to a full-scale war in the Middle East. The donkey glumly follows its master. But they fein suprise when we don’t meakly trudge behind.
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