this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024

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447

A longtime GOP operative helped the Green Party’s Jill Stein get on the N.H. ballot. Democrats smell mischief. (www.bostonglobe.com)

submitted 2 months ago by geekwithsoul@lemm.ee to c/politics@lemmy.world

128 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"According to FEC filings, the Synapse Group has worked for Republican Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this cycle, as well as GOP candidates for Congress. Synapse has also been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for field and canvassing work by America PAC, the outside spending group started by allies of Musk that has spent millions of dollars this election cycle to boost Trump and oppose Democrats."

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[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 91 points 2 months ago (8 children)

With a tip of the keyboard to a certain someone who has blocked me and won't see this (a shame really):

Since many in this community have a habit of resorting to personal attacks when responding to posts recently, I’ll say this: I support and respect everyone’s right to vote for who they want to. Just as I support the ability of anyone to point out to someone the consequences of their actions. ;)

I’m just posting this article that’s already available on a much bigger platform than Lemmy—I didn’t write it, just sharing it for discussion.

[–] DogPeePoo@lemm.ee 64 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What this? Oh just Jill Stein enjoying dinner with known traitor Mike Flynn and the guy who wants Democracy destroyed and Trump in office— Pootie.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna742696

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago

Yep, she's the greenwashing candidate who comes out every four years to collect a paycheck and espouse Libertarianism. An absolute grifter.

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hey, you never need to apologize for sharing news unless it's fabricated - some people may downvote articles they disagree with but most of us just appreciate the folks that find stories to share.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

They are being facetious because the user they mentioned constantly posts in favor of third party candidates and had taken to writing a bizarre disclaimer like this to essentially troll the many users they're pissing off with their behavior

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Lol I love it. It's almost a badge of honor to be blocked by that user. They seem to want to be aware of people countering their troll campaign so they can bait those people into saying something that will get them banned. So you really must have upset them to get blocked.

I did the math last night. On average they've posted or commented about every twenty minutes, assuming they sleep 8 hours a day, since they created their account a month ago. Posting at this rate, almost entirely in favor of third parties. Hmmm.. I wonder why. They don't give a shit about third parties; only about keeping Democrats from getting votes.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Oh, I saw the numbers! That was terrific that you pulled that together!

And yeah, their history shows that they’re either chronically and desperately online (sort of sad actually) or posting like they’re getting paid for it. I don’t envy the mods for having to deal with all the chaos that user causes, but the user is almost preternaturally good at threading the needle of the rules.

Luckily the election will be done in less than two months and then I have to guess we won’t seem them again for another four years ;)

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Lol they just banned me from their super legitimate "socialism" community because they wanted to keep tabs on me but not be countered in public as much.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago

Ha! Congrats!

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I agree with all of this. I do think it's a shame though that the rules are all they will go on. There ought to be some algorithm for determining likelihood of trolling. This dude would definitely be way over the threshold of any such algorithm that was worth a damn.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

With all the news about the Russian campaign with influencers, I had to wonder if the Feds are even aware enough of the Fediverse to even begin to look at what’s happening here. We certainly know state sponsored misinformation campaigns are active and in place and targeting folks who are disaffected for a variety of reasons, so if Russia and China had networks specifically targeting various corners of the Fediverse, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Theoretically we’re a much richer ground for them than corpo-sponsored sites filled with normies (which we now have proof they’re already active with).

In an election where the margin of victory in some states will be on the scale of a few thousand (or maybe even hundreds), it would seem a likely strategy.

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

Yeah I definitely think you are onto something. The audience is much smaller but the advantage is that a lot of people here really are so left they despise Democrats and would probably be easier to convince not to vote than your typical Democratic voter. Trolling campaigns here would have a much more concentrated target audience. They already know they don't need to convince conservatives on mainstream social media.

[–] aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And not one post about efforts to advance alternative voting systems.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

It's worse, if you try to suggest that the problem is the system they'll instead blame anything else.

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[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

With a tip of the keyboard to a certain someone who has blocked me and won’t see this (a shame really):

I can take a pretty educated guess as to who that is. You're not wrong for posting this in the slightest.

These shenanigans are the exact type of bullshit that shows the U.S. is a failed democracy, and is in need of severe election reform. That goes for the form of financial reform, switching to more representative types of voting like approval voting, measures taken to make gerrymandering impossible, etc.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 21 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The irony in my discussions with that other user is that I wholeheartedly agree we need viable third parties. And to your point, we desperately need election reform. But their willful ignorance of the fact we need to put out the house fire before we start discussing changes to building codes is the kicker.

The sad thing is that all the current third party candidates are useful idiots and not viable alternatives. And with democracy literally on the line, there’s not any real option other than acting like an adult and casting a ballot for the only option that moves us forward. And then the day after Election Day, start doing the real work to fix this for every Election Day thereafter.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

It’s insane. It’s like trying to debate a wall. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to just trying to counter the wrongheaded arguments if I don’t see anyone else doing so.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

sounds like I had the exact same conversation with this person not long ago.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So many of us have - it’s sort of amazing. It doesn’t help that they often copy and paste common responses to different people, so in some cases the conversation is pretty much the same verbatim on their end.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As I said yesterday, I can't believe he is not banned yet. Repeatedly claiming that he doesn't care about the spoiler effect because he "doesn't believe in it" and copy-pasting long (often unrelated) walls of text at people verbatim sounds to me like multiple violations of the "good faith discussion" rule.

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah, there are several ways I think they are violating rules. Copy pasting long walls of text should be an open and shut case of spam, for one.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

It's almost like they have an agenda.

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're being too generous by thinking they give two shits about third parties. That's just the angle they've chosen for Lemmy.

[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I have my suspicions about their motivations but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re coming from a genuine but terribly misguided point of view. Sort of Hanlon’s razor :) Like many of the third party candidates they so fervently support (not even sure who they’re voting for now, it seems to change frequently), they don’t need to be knowingly in on the con to still be useful - and perhaps more useful to certain parties if they are unaware.

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah. I mean, them posting every 20 minutes starting 3 months before the election thing, despite getting constant pushback, makes me feel quite justified in my conclusion. Normal people just simply would never do what they're doing. Their motivation could be something else. But whatever it is, the behavior is very unhealthy and suspect.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have to be extremely careful with my words here since calling someone a troll is against the rules, and the user has also shown he's very happy to report even the slightest perceived rules violation.

I think the agenda hypothesis is possible, but I'm getting more and more convinced he's doing what he is doing because it gives him some sort of pleasure. I think he enjoys getting people to argue with him. I think he enjoys knowingly dancing around the letter of the law whilst ignoring its spirit - gleefully reminding others to "please be civil". I think he enjoys getting others to lash out and subsequently reporting them.

That's what I think their motivation is.

[–] LifeGivesYouLemmys@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You might be right that this is all their motivation is, but the timing and singular topic of interest is far too suspicious for me to ignore. I mean they definitely take pleasure in being a deranged hall monitor, though, don't get me wrong.

As for accusing them of being a troll... We are simply discussing a hypothetical user. No one has mentioned any username. No rules broken here!

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 points 2 months ago

Could be suspicious activity for sure, but then again think about it this way: what better time and angle of attack to choose if you're looking to get people on the internet riled up?

[–] revelrous@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In posts that user has given different replies to the same comment of mine multiple times, minutes apart, seemingly unaware they were doing so. Sus to me.

Back when twitter was a thing, for my rep had a social media 'minion' army that managed propaganda accounts, multiple people per account to pretend to be voters with 'concerns' about Dems. This felt the same.

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[–] LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If your second paragraph is implicating who I'm thinking since you're basically using a direct quote of theirs, then I'm not at all surprised by them blocking you. They love to take quotes out of context or ignore half of a quote for their own benefit. I love that you're directly calling them out. Good on you for actually knowing how our election system works.

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[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 78 points 2 months ago (42 children)

Democrats should combat this by advocating for ranked choice or approval choice voting which is a fairer voting system and won't allow for "spoilers"

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They should.

They won’t because they benefit from the system too.

But they should.

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[–] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 12 points 2 months ago (17 children)

Yeah, election reform should be the first priority …once this election is done. And age limits for federal offices and judicial appointments. And federal standards for how federal elections are held. And roughly dozens of other things :)

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[–] Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 52 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Putin’s Jizz Stein wants Nato disbanded, the US to give up their SC veto, and revoke weapons to help Ukraine defend itself while simultaneously forcing ‘peace’ (subjugation) negotiations with russia.

For those that don’t understand how the Electoral College + FPTP voting works, voting for her means helping donald become president due to the spoiler effect.

2015 Stein breaking bread with Putin, his senior staff, and Mike Flynn (later Trump's national security advisor

[–] MrMakabar 37 points 2 months ago

Just as a bit of context:

Willy Wimmer is a German former Bundestag member, who is massivly into conspiracy theories and at this point far right
Michael Flynn was one of the contacts between Trump and the Russian government. He plead guilty to that
Cyril Svoboda was one of the guys who gave Voices of Europe an interview in which he supported Russias position on Ukraine. Voices of Europes interviews were paid and used as a way to finance the far right in Europe using Russian money. It is currently under EU sanctions. His former party has distanced themself from him, due to his ties to Russia.
Emir Kusturica is a Serbia film director, who makes propaganda films and has far right pro Russian positions. His wife is well his wife.

The rest are obviously all Russian politcal figures and well Jill Stein. The photo was also taken at a Russia Today celebration. Just saying.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 42 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'd also like to point out something I've heard way too much lately:

maybe democrats should run on some of the policies that are overwhelmingly popular instead so there’s no room on the left for someone to run.

I've heard probably a dozen variations of this statement by now.

The spoiler effect is the result of geometric distance between candidates, not the strength of policy positions. If anybody tells you that the democrats should just do X, unless X is switching the country over to approval/star/rcv, or some other system that is more representative, they don't know what they're talking about.

Here is an example using a randomly generated set of voters and candidates. The first election is just two candidates, the second election is identical, but with an extra 3rd candidate

Total voters: 765
The winner was favorable to 56% of voters
lachlan - 427
emma - 338

Total voters: 765
The winner was favorable to 44% of voters
emma - 338
lachlan - 312
omalley - 115

Any party, any candidate can fall victim to this, no matter how strong or inspirational they are. This is simply the result of everybody voting for the candidate closest to them.

A good electoral system will not have the results changed by an irrelevant candidate. But our current systems are vulnerable to this, and it is disastrous for the state of our country.

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Seems kinda dirty that Jill Stein would even consider "doing business" with the GOP. I kinda figured as a third party leader she of all people would put her morals and beliefs above numbers.

[–] Quill7513 26 points 2 months ago

she is, and always has been, at best an out of touch accelerationist, and at worst a fascist sympathizer and collaborator

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