• @[email protected]
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    383 months ago

    I cringe every time I see this come up.

    Because it isn’t what you actually mean, and the horrible logic of it makes it easy for the Lemmy Lefties to dunk on.

    Of course a 3rd party vote isn’t a vote for Trump any more than it is a vote for Kamala.

    What it actually is is a discarded opportunity to vote against Trump. Which is also dispicable, but actually accurate.

    Everyone knows that’s what you mean by this, but the Lemmy Lefties will play dumb and latch onto that logical fallacy every time.

    • @Ultraviolet
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      273 months ago

      It’s the trolley problem again. This time, you have 3 tracks and 2 switches. The trolley is headed towards 5 people, one switch sends it to 1 person, and the other switch would send it to 0 people, but it’s broken. Voting third party is pulling the broken switch, knowing the 5 people will die but you’ve shifted the responsibility from yourself to whoever was supposed to fix the switch.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        I like your analogy. Let me expand.

        This same situation happens every day. For years now, 1 person has died every day. Nobody pulls the broken lever, but if people started pulling it, it would start working. For the first couple days or weeks, 5 people would die each time, but eventually we would be able to get the train on a safe track.

        • @[email protected]
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          63 months ago

          The whole post is an example of a propaganda technique where you keep repeating one thing over and over until it becomes a default thing where people don’t even question the logic.

          The ones capable of refuting it feel tired because of the sheer number of posts while the vulnerable ones get affected.

          Today both sides “feel” that the use of this propaganda is fair game cuz the other side is already doing it.

      • @[email protected]
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        03 months ago

        I really like your take on this. So how is the switch going to get fixed, when the only time anyone pays attention to the fact that it’s broken, is when lives are on the line?

      • @Cleggory
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        -163 months ago

        Why do neoliberals bring up the trolley problem as if it is some settled debate among scholars that there is one clear possible answer?

        • @Ultraviolet
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          253 months ago

          I’m not a neoliberal, I’m a socialist. I’m just not an idiot who will give a fascist free rein just because his opponent has the same shitty foreign policy as every politician in the whole fucking country has. There is a difference between the status-quo level of bad and catastrophic.

          • @Rhoeri
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            33 months ago

            Excellently put!

          • @Cleggory
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            3 months ago

            Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

            *Harris supporters with violence fantasies: https://lemm.ee/post/45695948/15722267

            Your fears of fascism are ignorant of the capacity that Democrats exhibit.

            • @ameancow
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              3 months ago

              Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

              Yah, I’ll take “Things that didn’t happen” for a thousand, Alex. Let me guess, they did the “you’re going to be the most _____ person in the camps” joke and you took offense to the harsh, practical truth of it, so rather than reconsider whatever performative BS you were trying to use to justify voting against a clear and present danger, you decided to do exactly what the right does, and spin natural consequences and hurt feelings to make yourself a victim.

              edit: I was absolutely right, 100% accurate. Lets just ignore the clowns, shit’s too serious out there to fuck around with this performative BS.

            • @[email protected]
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              33 months ago

              Harris supporters on Lemmy have called for me to be put in a concentration camp.

              Lol no they haven’t.

                • @[email protected]
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                  43 months ago

                  “I hope I get to watch you suffer the consequences of your actions since you doomed me too”

                  “That’s a death threat!”

                  Sure buddy.

                  • @Cleggory
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                    Lazy quote changing gaslighting.

                    I hope people like you are the first people put in the camps

                    I will look forward to the order to launch on your nation

                    Mode removed some of your fellow Harris supporter’s threats, but not before you all upvoted and clapped.

                • @ameancow
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                  13 months ago

                  Are you SERIOUSLY so messed up in the head that you take this as a call for YOU PERSONALLY to be put in a camp? Are you really that dense? We don’t want you then. Go right, join them, they will embrace your need to be a victim and will supply you with a thousand other ways to cry how unfair people’s jokes and rhetoric are.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          Edit: I think my point was too subtle. What I meant was that it seems like lefties will bicker and infight rather than focusing on the bigger enemy first, until that enemy manages to seize power and it’s too late. We’ll be “united” in that we’ll be executed together.


          Sometimes, I wonder if a Trump victory would be the only way to get the various leftist factions to stop arguing and stand together, side by side, united in the fact that fascists don’t care what flavour of ideological opposition they’re executing.

          Who gives a shit about whether the Trolley Problem is settled - it’s about your answer: Which option do you endorse?

          • @lemonmelon
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            103 months ago

            We had a Trump victory once. Spoiler: it didn’t unite the factions.

          • @WrenFeathersM
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            63 months ago

            It didn’t in 2016. I wouldn’t expect it to be different now.

              • @lurklurk
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                43 months ago

                Oh he did, people just don’t pay attention

                • @[email protected]
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                  03 months ago

                  Look, my point is that he’ll probably be even worse this time around if he gets the chance. I’m painting a (hopefully exaggerated) image in an attempt to convince people that the left should unite on the big issues and push for a point where actually progressive parties are more than a spoiler in a fucked up system.

              • @WrenFeathersM
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                3 months ago

                Yeah. But the writing on the wall was legible enough then to know what we were in for. It’s now in bright flashing neon, and they still won’t budge.

                • @[email protected]
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                  63 months ago

                  I think my point was made poorly: I don’t think they’ll work together. He has gone fully mask off now, I worry he might pull a Reichstagsbrand 2 and start eliminating his opponents. And no matter how fractured we may be, no matter how we see our differences, at the end of they day we’re all leftists and to him, that’ll be enough to lump us all together as enemies.

                  I worry that the only way the leftists will unite is by being thrown into the same mass graves.

          • @[email protected]
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            3 months ago

            As a center-leftist supporting third party candidates (Go Claudia de la Cruz!), no a Trump victory won’t unite the left, because a Trump victory won’t make me like the Democrats more than I do now. If the Democrats want my vote, they will have to start appealing to me as a voter (stop supporting Israels war, reduce military spending, etc)- but the Democrats don’t have these policies and a Trump victory won’t change that.

            Tl;dr a Trump victory changes nothing for my stance as a third party supporter

            • @[email protected]
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              3 months ago

              You missed my point. If Trump manages to pull off what he literally and explicitly endorses, we’ll land in the same grave together and be united that way. He has praised Hitler. You know, the guy who used a fire to suspend civil rights and persecute political opponents.

              Support progressive politics in local elections, but right now, damage control is the strategic option.

              Put differently, is “protect civil rights” not an issue on your ballot?

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            Some people say this out of desperation about the french left : what if we had five years of Le Pen, wouldn’t that consolidate the left? Well, perhaps. Should we try something else first? Probably

            • @[email protected]
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              13 months ago

              Yeah, that was actually my point, but it was phrased poorly: Trump talks about sending the military against citizens. If he gets his way, we’ll stand sideby side - in front of the firing squads.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          The trolley problem isn’t “settled debate” for the same reasons that Kamala vs Trump isn’t “settled debate”.

          The point of the trolley problem and why it’s analogous is that it’s coming up fast and you must choose to either pull that lever or not. Whichever choice you make, that’s the moral character you’ve chosen to exhibit.

          • @Cleggory
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            -63 months ago

            What is the moral character of someone incapable of questioning the validity of orphan crushing trolleys?

    • @[email protected]
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      83 months ago

      They loved Bernie and praised him to the skies.

      Then he endorsed Biden and Harris.

      Now he’s a ‘sheepdog’ that rounds up people to be slaughtered.

      • @keyez
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        3 months ago

        That’s a new one, what are you referring to by him being a sheepdog?

        Edit: Funny people on here and reddit just downvote people instead of replying when they post incorrect information and get asked about it

        • @[email protected]
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          33 months ago

          I saw “sheepdog” for the first time yesterday. As I stated in my first comment, I take it to mean that he’s rounding up sheep to be slaughtered.

          To me, expecting any candidate to be perfect is silly.

          I like NYC Mayor Ed Koch’s line. “If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, see a psychiatrist.”

    • @Lyricism6055
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      23 months ago

      If nobody votes 3rd party then we’ll never have a 3rd party candidate that matters.

      It’s like bicycle infrastructure. Nobody wants to ride bikes on a highway, but you won’t see bike riders until there’s a trail somewhere for them to ride on. You can say it never matters and that there aren’t any cyclists out there, but you’re wrong. I think there’s a lot of Americans looking for another party right now.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        Under FPTP, we’ll never have a 3rd party candidate that matters.

        The 2-party system is a direct, mathematical result of FPTP + time.

    • @Cleggory
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      -83 months ago

      Not everyone lives in a swing state where votes actually matter.

      • @freddydunningkruger
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        Do you know what will definitely NOT help get rid of the electoral college? People wasting their votes on 3rd party spoilers

        Do you know what would MORE LIKELY move people to demand the elimination of the electoral college? Harris getting 10 million+ more votes, and Trump either winning the electoral college or attempting a coup based on lies because a swing state was close.

        The more votes Harris gets, the clearer the will of the people, the harder it is to pretend there was voter fraud.

        • @[email protected]
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          13 months ago

          “You have to vote for a candidate that refuses to represent you so that people who don’t care about the will of the people will think that you support that candidate.” is a new one.

        • @Cleggory
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          -73 months ago

          What a bold and bizarre claim to think there is any winning margin that would repel suspicions.

          If Harris wants liberal votes, why is she courting Republicans?

      • capital
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        43 months ago

        Thank goodness not enough people in “safe” states think that way.

        • @Cleggory
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          -113 months ago

          They use the same logic of people in swing states??

      • @theonetruedroid
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        33 months ago

        I think we have the best chance to break the third party at the local level.

      • @Rhoeri
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        -13 months ago

        You sure seem to have every excuse in the book, don’t you?

    • @[email protected]
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      -293 months ago

      The Dems are running on Trump’s 2020 platform. Build the wall. Lock up immigrants. Both parties are far-right shitholes, and it’s time people started realizing that.

      The Dems in 2028 will be calling for mass deportations.

      • @[email protected]
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        133 months ago

        ^ This right here. Exactly my point. They are going to keep telling you Kamala and Trump are the same so you spoil your chance to prevent Trump from taking office again.

        They are not subtle, and they do not care about the fallout of a Trump reelection. They are privileged enough that it won’t affect them or their loved ones. It’s despicable.

      • @Rhoeri
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        53 months ago

        This went so far past just being wrong that it might just end up creating an entirely new paradigm of stupidity.