[ SECRET POST #3496 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3496 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #500.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[morieris]

Huh. You know, maybe this will be a push for people to consider third parties in four years.
Also, local elections. Not enough people pay attention to local elections.

[(Anonymous)]

American presidential politics is fundamentally not set up to have third parties work. It would be more likely that we'd have a dissolution of the present party system followed by it reforming in 4 or 8 or 12 years in a new alignment that still featured 2 major parties.

[dethtoll]

I don't think the Dems are going to dissolve. The GOP is in the process of tearing itself apart, something that's been in the works since the Tea Party movement first appeared. The Dems have no equivalent reactionary insurgency, certainly not one that's had 7 years to build up and whip up a populist frenzy. Like Bernie himself, most Bernouts are not loyal Democrats; at best, they historically voted Democrat because they're not Republicans.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt but definitely not going to happen. The American election system cannot sustain anything but a two-party system. Melodrama of this election aside, most people are going to vote party lines, same as always, and no, the masses aren't ripping up their party memberships, either.

Maybe if the US had a Parliamentary system instead...

[(Anonymous)]

I would argue that FPTP is a bigger issue than presidential/parliamentary system. You could easily have third parties as a real thing if you implemented some kind of ranked choice voting system (you could even hammer it into place with the electoral college if you wanted to).

[dethtoll]

The problem is first-past-the-post, not how our government is actually structured.

[sarillia]

Yes. I'm so tired of hearing people go on about voting third party for the president but not do anything to support third parties in local elections or even in Congress. You can't just stick a third party president in the White House and surround them with nothing but Republicans and Democrats and expect them to be able to accomplish everything you want them to accomplish.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Even if by some completely unexpected miracle a third party candidate got enough votes to win the election this year, they'd still have their hands tied when it comes to trying to make their platform a reality, because Congress is such a ridiculous stalemate nowadays. So the candidate's supporters would wind up just as disappointed with the outcomes as they would if Clinton or Trump were in office.

I would love to see more variety in candidates, too, certainly, and maybe someday we'll eventually get to that point. I do sympathize with the idea of people feeling frustrated that a candidate doesn't fully speak for them*. And I obviously can't control how people choose to vote. But third party supporters' decision to go that route this year seems a very simplistic solution to a bigger problem, and I feel a lot of them don't seem to think about that fact.

*That said, I also feel some voters think they have to be 200% in agreement with a politician in order to support them, and they forget that that doesn't always have to be the case, nor will it always be the case. Not all Republicans/conservatives think the same way on certain issues, nor do all Democrats/liberals. And sometimes people from one side will agree with people on the other on certain issues.

It's like some people can't comprehend the concept of nuance and balance, and figure it has to be all or nothing.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Bah. 100%, that should say, not 200% :p. Wow.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel stuck in a place where I don't agree 100% with either candidate and I'd be happy to vote for the candidate who I agree with more, but both of them either make shit up or lie so much or flip flop on everything that I have no idea what either of them will bring in reality.

TPP > anti TPP > back to pro TPP again. What am I voting for??

[(Anonymous)]

I think that may hearken back to the split in approval ratings for national bodies vs local bodies. Congress has an abysmal approval rating collectively, but almost all of them get re-elected individually. My Congresscritter is great, but yours sucks. My local (D)/(R) is great, but the rest of them suck.

People want other options at the top federal levels but don't take steps that way locally because they're happy enough with what's happening locally. (Over-simplifying - voter apathy, media coverage discrepancies also are huge factors.)

[erinptah]

This!

You also can't have someone jump from "no political experience" to "highest office in the land." Jill Stein seems like good people, but the only position she's ever actually held is "town meeting representative for Lexington" -- and that was five years ago. At least Gary Johnson was a state governor -- but as a Republican, because Libertarians haven't worked up that far in their own right.

(obligatory note that this is also one of many reasons Trump would crash and burn if we were obtuse enough to elect him)

[feotakahari]

Slightly OT, but I'd like to argue the statement that Jill Stein is good people: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2016/07/29/theres-nothing-green-about-jill-steins-vaccine-stance/#3b8ceb0e6465 I'm on immunosuppressants, so this is personal for me.

[erinptah]

So she's used language that panders to antivaxxers, and that's not good. But she's also flat-out said "As a medical doctor, of course I support vaccines." And other unequivocal statements about how they're good and important. (Which they obviously are.)

I'm not saying not to criticize her at all, I just think, on balance, that still puts her on the light side of the force.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, come on. She used the words "toxic substances like mercury." The amounts of mercury in vaccines at the time were so minuscule you'd have to take a hundred vaccines at once to approach what you get eating a single freaking can of tuna. We don't need politicians, especially not politicians who are doctors, for pete's sake, pulling bullshit language to pander to anti-vaxxers. And away from real science.

[dethtoll]

Yeah, this. Trying to waffle and understate the importance of vaccines and making vague references to common anti-vax rhetoric isn't good in any sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Jill Stein is a piece of work. As someone who has extensively been working in healthcare for many years, I have zero respect for her. They should recall her medical license.

[dethtoll]

It's not like the two major third party candidates are even viable this year. Libertarian party hahahahahaha no. Green Party is a bunch of patchouli-huffing pricks in hemp who reject anything approaching a high-school level of science and seem to be physically incapable of having a real dialogue about meaningful environmental solutions in favor of screaming their heads off about vaccines and GMOs, and their chosen candidate is a Russia- and Brexit-loving moron who called autism a "public health calamity" and "epidemic" and rambles like a subway vagrant when asked simple questions that should be trivial for a physician like her to answer. She isn't even on the ballot in all 50 states.

Even ignoring first-past-the-post it's clear that third party is a waste of time this year.

[(Anonymous)]

That might be the case, but it would be disastrous since there are still more people who blindly and stubbornly support anything republican or democratic. Having the stragglers not vote or vote for another party would just mean more scattered voting but still it's either Trump or Hilary's game.

Basically you gotta decide the lesser of two evils and vote for them so the other one doesn't win. 3rd parties don't stand a snowballs chance in hell.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem is that you can't jump straight to third parties at the federal level and expect to get anywhere. If the goal is to have third parties be taken seriously as a viable alternative to the big two, they've got to get the support at the local and state level first. I agree with you that not enough people pay attention to local elections, but I would include third parties in the group of people not paying attention.