Good Discussion on the Majority Report About Voting Third-Party
36 minutes?? TL;DW? I skimmed through and it’s just two people talking (with a lot of background noise), maybe about AOC? It didn’t seem to even include any clips or other first hand sources of what she said.
They take a phone call from a Palestinian American advocating for Jill Stein, then proceed to debate the merits of 3rd party voting. I found the conversation contemplative considering this is going to be an ongoing discussion until the election.
I know 36 minute is carve out time, but it actually was a pretty decent discussion with some interesting harris tea leaf reading.
MR is based. Left is best. However, I don’t always agree with them on their perspectives or conclusions. And while its wildly unpopular here on lemmy, I think its totally fine for you to vote third party (or not at all) if thats what your heart or mind compels you to do. And like, frankly I’m written AOC off, and I totally agree with this caller in their initial sentiment. MR report always wants to pretend that they’ve got the “most strategic” view of how to vote, but like seriously, the entire crew (and I’m a paying member), was way the fuck off on their strategy around voting for Biden.
Democrats are constantly looking for a punching bag to blame their complete and utter failure of leadership. If the incredibly microscopic number of votes that would go to the greens this cycle is enough to keep the Democrats out of office, its because the Democrats have completely failed this election cycle. Also, the greens have been shiiiiiiit this election cycle. I highly recommend this interview on the Marc Lamont Hill show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5LHxqEAhTg.
I would especially like to highlight the point Sam makes at 8 minutes. I want to point out that the logical conclusion of this view that he shares (around strategic voting), is basically the same justification Blue MAGA was making here. And its wrong. Its completely wrong. Sam does not have the right of how to use your vote to move things in regards to power. If we all would have gone with Sam’s approach to strategic voting, Biden would still be the nominee and we would be UTTERLY FUCKING LOSING this election, and possibly looking to the greens to save us. The entire problem with Sam’s perspective is that he sees the results as forgone conclusions: and he’s wrong. He’s wrong in his theory of history and how history happens, and in his theory of change. And Iove Sam dearly, but he absolutely has the wrong of it here.
Emma actually gets it right (starting at minute 11). The Harris campaign/ administration has the absolute wrong position on this. And you do not owe them your vote. In-fact, if you just hand them your vote, you stand zero chance of moving them to a position that is actually popular with voters. This obligatory “blue-no-matter-who” approach to voting is completely counter productive, because it continuously allows the entire system to shift to the right, which is absolutely less popular with voters. Democrats are actually less effective as candidates when voters apply this strategy. Politicians need to move their positions to gain votes. Its not voters job to move to where poltiicans are.
AOC and Bernie completely ate shit with their un-bashed support of Biden, and Bernie and I aren’t on speaking terms until he can use the word “genocide”.
I don’t agree with them either, but I appreciate that they were willing to discuss this when other political commentators won’t even entertain the question.
Only every 4 years tho…then they disappear…which is exactly AOCs point.
They don’t disappear. We just forget about them because the news cycles stop reporting on them, by design, to maintain the horse race of the duopoly. We can’t say we want another option for a political party, and then condemn that party when it’s not supported and doesn’t make an impact in elections. An alternative political party isn’t going to spontaneously appear with 30 million registered members. If we want a third party, we have to support it.
The Green Party has been around since 1985. It’s the 4th largest political party in America behind the Libertarians. It has over 244,000 registered members.
I’m not advocating that you should vote for the Green Party. I’m only explaining why AOC’s complaint is insufficient.
Ryan Grim on Breaking Points has a pretty interesting perspective on it. A lot better and more nuanced than whatever circlejerking is going on at Majority Report here.
Posted the discussion.
bernie and aoc took a secnd bite at the “push biden left” apple and missed. I think it was a reasonable attempt considering prior successes.
also, we have no idea what policy consessions they may have secured from biden for some progressive fire supression. of course no consession matters if you dont win the election, so…
I am willing to give bernie and (by some extension) aoc some room here. bernie has zero control over the ticket (very well could have been biden), so I genuinely think he was and is, with walz, covering as many progressive bases as he can cover.
Well this was a massive disappointment from Majority Report. Just massive Genocide apologetics and BuTrumP for 30 minutes.