this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I'm just sitting here thinking how everyone acknowledges the necessity of a third choice, and in their next breath decry anyone who even mentions they might not be willing to hold their noses this time and vote for the two establishment parties.
It's so obvious that articles like this want us to continue as we always have, never even mentioning that there is another way. One could surmise it's the media's own subconcious bias, but i think I'm more cases the media really prefers we think of elections this way. The past 20 years of massive media conglomeration allowed by both parties shows they stand to benefit regardless of who wins, as long as it's one of the two. So that's all they ever mention. I'm a time where it's never been more clear we needto move away from the two parties dragging us to the right.
I can hear the replies now, and sure; it's true that if you vote for a different party it won't win them the presidency. It's a pie in the sky ideal no one sane thinks could happen.
But how complicit is the media in this truth? How much of the supposedly free democracy is lost by the media's deliberate omission of other options? We know the power of media to elevate politicians up to public consciousness. We all watched media make Trump the nominee in 2016.
The establishment parties know the power of media and use it constantly to advertise. This article is no different. It is a farce. After keeping Trump in the public eye constantly, the media, crowning their own presidential candidate, then demands we not vote for him, but for their choice. All while keeping mum on the fact either choice won't hurt them much. All silent on the fact there are other candidates on the ballot. In a time of more core dissatisfaction than ever. Regardless of our politics, it's obvious what theirs are and they receive concrete benefits by artificially narrowing our free system down to two bad options for us, and only wins for them.
How many of us know by heart the old adage "voting third party is throwing your vote away"? Where did we learn this? How can we hold that true while also believing our democracy is free and true?
Ranked choice voting is the solution. So long as we use first past the post voting, voting for a third party candidate is a waste.
This can be changed by being active and supporting progressive candidates on the state and local levels.
No, ranked choice has serious issues and won't likely fix the issue. I'd prefer to avoid citing specific alternatives because they all come with their own biases and trade-offs. One example of surprising results is the Burlington, VT mayoral election, which is contentious because the winner was neither the plurality or majority winner.
That said, I think it's a case of "don't let perfect be the enemy of better." If RCV is on the ballot, I'll vote for it. But I'd very much prefer one of the other many alternatives because I think it doesn't resolve the spoiler effect satisfactorily and can have very surprising results.
I highly recommend looking into the various alternatives and reading up on condorcet winners before jumping on the RCV bandwagon.
Regardless I think an even better solution is to focus on fixing gerrymandering. I think we should consider proportional representation in the House, which should get more third parties elected and give us a real shot at breaking the two party system there. I think we'll always have one of the two major parties in the White House just based on voter demographics, but changing at least on house of Congress should force the President to actually work across party lines instead of waiting until their party gets a majority. Having Democrats and Republicans need to cater to the greens, libertarians, etc would be awesome.
multi-member districts would help a lot, too.
How would that work?
Imagine picking the top 3 candidates instead of only one.
Combine multiple districts into one, for example.
Immediately makes things more purple, and closer in proportion to the region
Wouldn't you just get more candidates from the same party? It might complicate gerrymandering, but I think it would still happen.
I'd much rather have proportional representation, so you'd vote in whatever primary you want to select candidates, then vote for your preferred party, and then seats are assigned based on percentage of votes won. That should work well for the House at least.