In the US, getting 5% of the national vote qualifies you for federal funding. It’s a high barrier to entry, but surpassing it would allow a party to further spread its message.
Winning the presidency is not the only goal for third parties. They contest for a lot of other reasons. Some are grifters. Some use it as a platofrm to increase their party’s reach. I think voting third party is good for signalling a lack of faith in the tired two party duopoly. Voting between the two big parties is essentially meaningless anyway. If the bourgeoisie don’t like what the people elect they can let the electoral college off the leash or just do lawfare like they did with Bush/Gore in a case that is not meant to be used as a precedent for other cases for some reason.
I think voting third party is good for signalling a lack of faith in the tired two party duopoly.
Unless you live in a swing state, it costs literally nothing to vote left of genocide, and the duopoly does track these votes and they can nudge future decisions. If you do live in a swing state, I think tactically voting within the duopoly shouldn’t be pre-emptively altogether dismissed, but considered case-by-case.
Even if a major crisis brings about the second overthrow of the duopoly, who will that party’s donors be? Almost certainly the bourgeoisie, and if not, it almost certainly won’t survive a second election.
Pre-revolutionary Marxists use the vote to develop their organizational & rhetorical skills, promote their messaging, and count their numbers, with the understanding that revolution won’t come from the ballot box.
Honestly making the existing two parties panic and make changes to get votes back is still a good idea, and if you get the ball rolling in earnest then I still believe we can see the rise of a third party.
Idk. You need like half the voters voting for you to become President and there can only be one President.
And that’s not even accounting for a bourgeois “democracy”, in which no challenge to the ruling class interests would ever be tolerated. Loooong history on that to look at. Ask Allende about moderate social revolution through elections. Ask France about strategic electoralism. 80% of the US could vote for Claudia and she would still never take office, one way or the other.
Revolutions against the bourgeois class are won from the end of a gun and by no other means, otherwise we’re submitting to a state monopoly on violence designed to be used legally against us.
It’s so perfect; it’s a reputable Western newspaper so you can share it in almost any setting, just preface it for plausible deniability with something like: “It’s a hilarious read, one of the greatest modern liberal intellectuals debates a genocidal maniac throthing at the mouth!”
Libs love the idea and usually swallow the bait expecting funzies, they looooove them a stuck-up Brit “talking truth to power” and handing out “hitchslaps”.
And then Stalin absolutely demolishes Wells and it really fucks with their world. Wells says FDR’s New Deal will bring about socialism in the USA and Stalin’s like nah cause the economy is in the hands of capitalists so at most you will get some concessions which capitalists will keep fighting to revert. Stalin’s arguments are so clear and concise, and his predictions are so plainly correct, while Wells is just being confidently wrong and terribly smug about it.
I had some success with it too, including one well-meaning lib literally telling me the next day, “Stalin was right” which are the three words I would not expect a lib utter under any circumstances.
Idk. You need like half the voters voting for you to become President and there can only be one President.
I’m not saying don’t vote for a third party but it’s not going to do much unless you have atleast half the country behind you.
In the US, getting 5% of the national vote qualifies you for federal funding. It’s a high barrier to entry, but surpassing it would allow a party to further spread its message.
Winning the presidency is not the only goal for third parties. They contest for a lot of other reasons. Some are grifters. Some use it as a platofrm to increase their party’s reach. I think voting third party is good for signalling a lack of faith in the tired two party duopoly. Voting between the two big parties is essentially meaningless anyway. If the bourgeoisie don’t like what the people elect they can let the electoral college off the leash or just do lawfare like they did with Bush/Gore in a case that is not meant to be used as a precedent for other cases for some reason.
Unless you live in a swing state, it costs literally nothing to vote left of genocide, and the duopoly does track these votes and they can nudge future decisions. If you do live in a swing state, I think tactically voting within the duopoly shouldn’t be pre-emptively altogether dismissed, but considered case-by-case.
Even if a major crisis brings about the second overthrow of the duopoly, who will that party’s donors be? Almost certainly the bourgeoisie, and if not, it almost certainly won’t survive a second election.
Pre-revolutionary Marxists use the vote to develop their organizational & rhetorical skills, promote their messaging, and count their numbers, with the understanding that revolution won’t come from the ballot box.
Honestly making the existing two parties panic and make changes to get votes back is still a good idea, and if you get the ball rolling in earnest then I still believe we can see the rise of a third party.
And that’s not even accounting for a bourgeois “democracy”, in which no challenge to the ruling class interests would ever be tolerated. Loooong history on that to look at. Ask Allende about moderate social revolution through elections. Ask France about strategic electoralism. 80% of the US could vote for Claudia and she would still never take office, one way or the other.
Revolutions against the bourgeois class are won from the end of a gun and by no other means, otherwise we’re submitting to a state monopoly on violence designed to be used legally against us.
This!
Also, when I need to discuss “change through burgeois electoralism” with libs I love sharing this interview:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240930111014/https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/1934/10/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin
It’s so perfect; it’s a reputable Western newspaper so you can share it in almost any setting, just preface it for plausible deniability with something like: “It’s a hilarious read, one of the greatest modern liberal intellectuals debates a genocidal maniac throthing at the mouth!”
Libs love the idea and usually swallow the bait expecting funzies, they looooove them a stuck-up Brit “talking truth to power” and handing out “hitchslaps”.
And then Stalin absolutely demolishes Wells and it really fucks with their world. Wells says FDR’s New Deal will bring about socialism in the USA and Stalin’s like nah cause the economy is in the hands of capitalists so at most you will get some concessions which capitalists will keep fighting to revert. Stalin’s arguments are so clear and concise, and his predictions are so plainly correct, while Wells is just being confidently wrong and terribly smug about it.
I had some success with it too, including one well-meaning lib literally telling me the next day, “Stalin was right” which are the three words I would not expect a lib utter under any circumstances.