While Education and Organizing is building the parts for a new engine the rest of the year.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Your vote matters.
If 100% of voters voted liberal in the upcoming election, the one after that would have way more left leaning candidates.
Your vote directly matters.
I don't honestly see why that would be the case. If they've already won, why bother changing?
If the right never wins, they move further left to collect more centrist votes. If the right moves more left, the left moves more left to differentiate themselves and appeal to the more progressive crowd that might otherwise vote green party or some other third party.
This has actually been happening for the last few decades but in the other direction. Left leaning voters not turning out for elections, partially because Dems have a history of suppressing exciting progressive candidates meant that Dems sought more centrists to compete with the right. Particularly after 5 of the 6 presidential elections went to Republicans between the late 60s and late 80s So they moved further right as a result. Both Clinton's, Obama and Biden are not progressive, they're barely left of center. The Democrat Party actively discourages progressivism, particularly in presidential candidates, to make them feel "safe" and "reasonable" to centrists. That shift to the right meant that the right has had to appeal more to the relative eccentrics on the right like anarcho-capitalist libertarians, the Christian nationalists, and the white nationalists. And not just at a presidential level but on every level even down to school boards. Thus our current status quo.
Not that Nixon, Reagan, or the Bushes were at all good people, but at the very least they didn't feel comfortable publically and openly appealing to bigotry and the dismantling of the federal government as a campaign tactic. That is no longer the case with the modern GOP.
That would be the theory, but it doesn’t seem to actually play out in practice. Look at the UK, where worsening performance in recent elections and drastically worse polling at present is leading to their right wing doubling down and being upset that their leader’s policies aren’t right-wing enough.
Or Australia, where at the last election our right-wing had its moderates absolutely wiped out by even more moderate independents (and in some cases, by proper progressives). There are no prominent moderates left in their parliamentary party. As a result, the people who are left are the right wing of the party, and they have selected as their leader a rabid tough-line conservative.
To move the Overton window.
As we see with the Republicans eating themselves, there will always be opportunists looking to take down their own and fill the Gap. But we can use that to our advantage to get the legislation we actually want. But we kind of have to take care of the crazies before we can 100% focus on fixing our house.
That didn't exactly answer the question. If Democrats consistently get all the power, why would they bother changing? Don't they already have what they want?
Speaking for myself, voting for down ballot candidates is the first step towards changing a party. My home city secured a progressive majority in 2022, and previous elected progressives are now running for higher offices. It's always a process, and when done right provides better changes for the years to come.
Maybe we can ask that when they actually do get all the power, because they've consistently lacked the majority needed to do any worthwhile changes.
Democrats aren't a monolithic entity that wants to gorge itself on power and then sit around fat and happy. It's a bunch of competing politicians who are constantly at risk of losing their seat - if not to Republicans, then, as in Cali, to fellow Democrats who propose a different line.
Dems haven't bothered changing even when they lose power. Part of the reason we are in this mess. They most go left or wither on the blue dog vine.
Question on more left leaning candidates - do you think there's a possibility a progressive party can actually gain traction?
I like the thought of revamping the Green Party as it's goals seem more relevant than ever, though they have to shed the kooky perception they've gained.
No, a third party will never make traction with our current voting system in place. The solution is the push the Democratic party left like Republicans have sprinted to the right (but obviously to not go crazy like they did).
Who said anything about a third party? I, for one, am hoping that the Republicans self-destruct thoroughly enough that the Democratic Party becomes the more right-wing of the two major parties.
Wouldn't that be lovely.
Ok same question if Ranked Choice Voting was in place?
I can speak firsthand here and say that the answer is yes. Australia uses Instant Runoff Voting for our House of Representatives, and Single Transferable Vote for our Senate. I’ll concentrate on the Reps here because it’s by far the more politically powerful of the two, though it’s worth noting that STV being a somewhat-proportional system makes it even better for minor parties.
The Australian political climate was, for most of my youth, not too different from America’s. Our conservative "liberal national coaltion" is not quite as awful as the Republicans, and Labor is a bit left of the Democrats, but it was very much a two-party system in practice. In 2010, after years of slowly doing better and better, the Greens won their first seat. They came second on first preferences, at 36.17% to Labor’s 38.09%. But the Greens received preferences from minor parties like the Sex Party, and even from the LNP in their attempt to destabilise Labor, and ended up winning the seat 56.04–43.96
Now, this is the innermost city electorate of Australia’s most progressive city, and you’ll note that even in FPTP, Labor would have won, which wouldn’t be a disastrous outcome. But the Greens saw an over 13 point swing toward them in that election alone, which is only possible in a situation where voters aren’t afraid of the spoiler effect leading to the LNP winning.
They’ve kept that seat ever since, and at the last election in 2022, the Greens almost won that seat entirely on first preferences, with 49.6% of the vote, and 60.2% after preferences were distributed.
Even more excitingly, in 2022 the Greens won their second ever seat. And their third and fourth. These all in a much less typically progressive area, the inner Brisbane seats of Brisbane, Griffith, and Ryan. Brisbane and Ryan previously belonged to the LNP, and Griffith was previously Labor. In Brisbane and Ryan, the LNP lead on first preferences, but the Greens lead in Griffith. If it were only down to these three parties, Labor would have won Brisbane, since the Greens came third by just 11 votes. The Greens would have won Ryan and Griffith. But thanks to preferences coming in from the smaller candidates (most smaller candidates are further right than the LNP, but most notably the Animal Justice Party pulled in a couple of per cent), the Greens finished ahead of Labor, leading to Labor being eliminated and most of their votes going to the Greens candidate. As a result, right now, I am living in an area represented federally by a Greens member. I also have a Greens state representative, and I’m hoping that something similar will play out so that in just under 2 months, I’ll also have a Greens councillor.
The rise of the Greens party in Australia has been incredible over the last couple of decades. It’s still slow progress and there’s a long way to go. Sadly IRV is not a proportional system, so despite polling about 10% nationally they still only have 2.7% of seats—if you’re going to switch systems, try to switch to a proportional one if you can!—but it is a system that allows for this kind of growth to play out in a way that it simply can’t when voters are forced to vote strategically for the least-worst of two main options, lest you get 2000’s Ralph Nader play out in Florida.
If they aren't even winning in state elections, aren't even winning in house elections, aren't even winning in senate elections
They don't have the voting base for president.
except when I'm the minority in my area and my vote gets thrown in the trash
It still matters. It pushes candidates towards you ever so slightly.
The two party system isn’t good, but it works fine as long as people fucking vote.