this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024

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Don’t Fall for the Third-Party Trick (web.archive.org)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by jordanlund to c/politics

449 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that 'some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest' of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called 'social fascists.'

After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed

Karl Marx 1850

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (40 children)

I agree entirely, in regards to politics in 1850's Germany with its diverse multiparty political ecosystem.

As for current American politics, where we are deeply entrenched in a societal tug-of-war in an ostensible two-party system, where third parties can swing policy in a largely undemocratic direction by spoiling the vote in close elections, I disagree completely. Third parties serve no purpose in a two-party representative democracy.

If we can break the two party political duopoly, then I will never complain about another fringe party voter ever again. Until then, you better fucking vote for the lesser evil, because letting the greater evil win, as we learned in 2017-2020, is really fucking bad.

If anything, letting Democrats win the next few major elections could spell doom for the Republican party as a whole, and give us a chance to introduce some actual competition to the Democratic party.

I wish that I could snap my fingers and have it fixed today, but that's not how societies work. Accelerationism always requires violence, and violence isn't how you should uphold democracy, unless you are defending its pillars against a direct threat. A two-party duopoly is something we the people need to defeat.

That means we need to abolish the electoral college, introduce universal mail-in voting, defeat all right-wing disenfranchisement efforts, and introduce ranked-choice voting to all elections. These are radical changes that will take a lot of work to accomplish, and that will face a lot of opposition.

Under Democrat leadership, these things are possible. Under Republican leadership, we'll be lucky if we still have elections.

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[–] jordanlund 7 points 1 month ago (59 children)

Marx didn't live long enough to see just how ineffectual that line of thinking actually is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I don't think "ineffectual" is the word you're looking for there.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Same capitalists trying the same failed tactics of voter suppression.

Every one of his perspectives of capitalism and it's bourgeoisie governments still rings true.

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[–] riodoro1 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

„Democracy”

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It can be even more crooked than the article states. You HAVE to have 270 electoral votes to get the presidency.

If third party candidates in any capacity wins some electoral votes, there's a good chance that no one at all will get at least 270 total.

When that happens, it means the House gets to pick anyone they want who was on the ticket, by majority vote.

In this manner, a third party candidate could get 135, trump could get 134, Harris could get 269, and then even though the cast majority of people would have voted for Harris, the House, which is currently republican led would simply just vote Trump into office.

This is also why it's pretty much impossible for a third party candidate to ever become president, unless the third party was already the house majority beforehand. No matter how great a third party candidate could be, there's just no way one could appear and take enough electoral votes to total 270 in an election, even if they were the clear majority winner by public vote. "The house always wins."

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[–] someguy3 7 points 1 month ago

I see a ton of this here, especially from a certain instance.

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