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this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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I get the sentiment, because I hate our two choices, too, but until first past the post system is changed, the lesser of two evils will always be the most practical choice.
They also seem to fervently believe:
Any time you ask for details on step 2, you get an unhinged rant with zero plausibility.
My best guess, if they actually believe there's a path to a ranked choice system and aren't just being doomers, is that they think a bloody rebellion will do the trick.
Yeah, there's a lot of tankies that pretend they are progressives so they don't get laughed at outright. They'll take their masks off 10-20 comments down the thread where few people actually see.
I tend to find that the people who believe in participating in the 2 party system also do these same steps. Why would either party do away with FPTP? Neither one has any incentive to do it. At least third parties often have it listed as part of their platform and have incentive to do it because they can't easily get elected within the current system.
The way it will happen is grassroots local compaigns. Those don't have as much need for FPTP and are more likely to be politicians who care. Eventually you build up enough to change things locally, then change state laws. That might be enough there, but it can potentially be pushed further and go for a national campaign once you have enough momentum.
It won't change by the president or congress right off the bat. That's not how this sort of thing happens. I wish it were. It'd be a lot faster and simpler, but it just won't work.
Your part 3 and part 1 are the same.
This is the ??? part you left out:
You don't just stop voting because FPTP is rigged and wildly corrupt. You fight with every weapon at your disposal, even the ones rigged against you.
This is how Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii did it. This is how everyone else needs to do it.
What exactly is your plan for changing first past the post?
You could make the case that if the democrats actually supported that, it's worth holding your nose and voting for them in order to open up other options in the future. But they don't support it, because they benefit from it. So basically you're asking the left to keep voting for the democrats unconditionally forever while they don't address any of our concerns and refuse to make any sort of reforms that might allow us to have a voice in the future. How is that a viable path to accomplishing anything?
The plan is to keep voting in every primary for the most progressive candidates and then voting for the least bad people in elections while pushing for reform. However hard it is to enact change while Democrats are in power, it will be impossible while Republicans are.
I'll pose the same question to you: how is not voting for the least bad viable candidates, thus guaranteeing the worst candidates get into power, a viable path to accomplishing anything?
Did you not notice what the DNC did to Sanders in the last Democrat primary???!
It's not just a case of "a few bad apples".
I noticed that voters didn't turn out to vote for him. The DNC doesn't get all the blame.
But what I'm being told over and over is if Biden cuts off support for Israel he'll lose the election. Which means moderates and liberals won't vote for a progressive candidate who makes it through the primaries leading to whatever nutjob is running on the other side.
So our reward for being pragmatic and holding our nose will be the same as voting 3rd party today.
It's just as impossible to enact reform through the Democratic party. Especially when you adopt the approach of "vote blue no matter who." The Democratic parties interests in terms of voting reform are directly contrary to the interests of voters, and will never allow it happen unless they have no other choice. If they know they can count on your support no matter, then you have forfeited whatever negotiating power you've managed to accrue.
To the extent that electoralism is worth engaging with, strategic voting as part of a bloc is the only way to make it worthwhile. The goal should be to build an organization or movement that can say, if you refuse to give into our demands, we will not vote for you and you will lose. In the short term, it might mean losing an election, but if you can demonstrate that power, then in the future you'll be able to make a credible threat of withholding votes to get what you want, and if they cooperate you won't have to follow through. If that organization is able to coordinate other actions like strikes, then all the better.
It's like this: two countries are facing a powerful invader, and the only way to fend them off is through an alliance. But country A says, "I know you need us to survive, so we demand 99% of your territory in exchange for an alliance." If country B follows the ideology of "lesser evilism," they'll agree to that, because 1% is better than 0%. But how did that happen, when country A needs the alliance just as much? Because lesser evilism is stupid and irrational. At some point you have to set a red line and say, this is the absolute minimum that I'll accept, and I'll reject anything less even if it means the deal falling through and me facing a worse outcome. And "no genocide" is decidedly inside of that line.
There are a few ways of going about it. One is third parties. If you vote for the Green Party for example, you get voting reform, anti genocide policies and a much better enviromental policy. At the same time Biden is still much better then Trump and being realistic about what you can get should also be part of voting strategy. Also it is incredibly important to say, that citizenship does not end at the ballot box. You got to and can do more to influence politics. So I would probably vote Biden in a swing state and Green Party in an state, which is not a swing state. This matters in two ways. Firstly the more people vote third party, the more likely they can get into some actual power, but also the Democrats see that they can gain potential votes, by improving policies.
Also no lesser evil has to be distinguised from compromise and deals. If you get an actual improvement out of doing something, it can be worth doing even at a price. So if two countries face a powerfull invader, it can be worth making a deal that country A gets 40% of the invaders land and country B also 60%, if country B is already stronger for example. In that case both get something out of it. However without the alliance both would probably fail. In this case the question is, if Biden would actually net improve the US compared to today.
The point of the hypothetical is to demonstrate why the principle of lesser evilism is incorrect. Not every deal has to be exactly equal, the question is what to do when offered a terrible deal when the other party needs you just as much as you need them, and the answer is to bargain even if it means a risk of the deal falling through.