If, like me, you abhor militarism and #genocide, please join me in voting for Dr.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
You are campaigning for people to vote for someone who is not going to even get into the double digits of votes, in an election where quite a few States may come down to less than 2% of the vote. You are campaigning for people not to vote for the person that is right on the line there, in order to stop the person who has literally said repeatedly that he wants to kill all of the Palestinians on top of going after minorities in this country.

You are depressing the votes in favor of protecting queer and disabled people, and other marginalized groups, and most ironically, the candidate who is openly in favor of a ceasefire. You are not depressing the votes of the neo-nazis who want to kill not only Palestinians but every other marginalized group: they are coming out in droves.

You are most definitely campaigning in favor of a Trump win.

George Maschke

@Raccoon I am not suggesting that anyone vote for Donald Trump. Rather, I am suggesting that people vote for the major candidate who doesn't support the genocide of the Palestinian people: Jill Stein.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
Jill Stein is not a major candidate. She has run repeatedly and never made 2% of the vote. At this point there is no reason to believe she will get any further than that this election, however, 2% of the vote in the dozen or so States where things could be on the line could be enough to flip the election.

This is an all Hands-On deck situation: y'all keep complaining that we have a "with us or against us" attitude, but at this point, you are pretty much throwing every marginalized group under the bus.

Queer lives matter.

Disabled lives matter.

Black lives matter.

Jewish lives matter.

Palestinian lives matter.

Stop throwing us under the bus for this.

George Maschke

@Raccoon Sorry, I was not willing to vote for what you perceive to be the less evil of two candidates who support genocide.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
You were willing to throw marginalized groups under the bus.

Let's just remember that and be clear about that.

When Donald Trump said he would end democracy itself so he could go after queer people, disabled people, Hispanic people, Jewish people, black people, Palestinian people, Islamic people, and pretty much every other marginalized group, and Kamala Harris said "vote for me and I'll make sure those groups are protected", you chose to throw us all under the bus.

I have one simple demand for people like you.

I want you to volunteer for the suicide hotline, because they were completely overwhelmed in 2016 the first time he ran. I want you to volunteer at the soup kitchens that people like me used to run, because we were completely overwhelmed during the Trump presidency.

No one is going to argue with you that the two-party system is bad, of if you had said "let's build a system where Jill Stein can be a viable candidate".

Other people should not have to suffer for your actions.

George Maschke

@Raccoon I suggest you direct your ire toward the Democratic Party, which undemocratically selected a presidential candidate so unpopular that she's in serious danger of losing to a candidate so unpopular as Donald Trump.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
I do not control the Democratic party, but as a queer disabled person who really wants to live in a democracy and not some weird fascist thing, that is who I have to vote for.

Once again, if you had come in saying, "let's do what we can to get rid of the two-party system", I would not only be wholeheartedly agreeing with you, I would say that was already my plan: supporting Kamala Harris is part of that.

But here you are saying that people should vote for a spoiler candidate, someone who has no chance of winning, as opposed to the candidate who will not severely hamper our ability to get rid of the two-party system: Trump will go after the democracy itself, and entrench the two-party system further, favoring his own party.

So, by doing this, you are actually supporting the two-party system that people like me have been actively working to get rid of.

Once again, you are throwing our country away, and throwing marginalized groups under the bus, including Palestinians.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
The most frustrating thing about this is, we are actually really close to getting some major movement here: frustration with the two-party system has reached a crescendo, and we will likely be able to get ballot measures in quite a few States to implement something like ranked choice, which is a system under which Green Party candidates WOULD be viable.

Under Kamala Harris, we might actually be able to get rid of the Electoral College and the two-party system, creating a more democratic government, and cutting through a lot of this division and dissatisfaction that's happening.

Not voting for Kamala Harris, not offsetting the Neo-Nazi vote, is risking a Trump presidency, which will make getting rid of the two-party system nearly impossible.

If people want to get rid of the two-party system within their lifetimes, they need to vote for Kamala Harris.

George Maschke

@Raccoon I appreciate your arguments, and I think they are rational, though I don't agree with all of your premises. How would you feel about voters in safely "Blue" states voting for Jill Stein to signal dissatisfaction with the duopoly?

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
So here's my concern there. In the past two elections, there have been plenty of "Safely Blue States" like Michigan, which went "Red", and plenty of "Safely Red States" like Georgia, which went "Blue".

Could Georgia, or even Texas be the deciding factor? Could Harris win the big swing States but lose by like, Michigan? And how is Trump going to spin it if she wins by only a few electoral votes?

Voting third party doesn't really do anything for us. I understand the frustration that drives it, it's a very real issue, but Jill Stein has never done anything to actually further the third party movement. In fact, her status as a distraction (funded heavily by Putin and Republicans, mind you), has actually harmed the movement to make third party candidates viable.

I would say what people should do right now is vote for Kamala Harris and the democrats, to secure our democracy, and then we spend the next 4 years capitalizing on the frustration with the two-party system.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
Because there are a lot of options here, in terms of grassroots efforts, local candidates, primary challenges, ballot measures, and people we already have in office like Bernie Sanders and AOC, who are already fighting to undermine the two-party system from within.

We could get something like ranked choice, or any sort of multi-choice voting, in a state like Florida where we can put those things directly on a ballot.

I also think we have a very real shot at this very moment of getting rid of the Electoral College in the next 4 years: we have reached a breaking point on that one, and with the Democrats in power, we will have a party that will be 100% behind ending it.

That's one of the reasons I'm supporting Kamala Harris, not simply because I like her, but strategically speaking: she offers a lot of opportunities for change down the line.

Trump doesn't offer that, Trump offers getting rid of the democracy and going after dissidents, which will only set us back.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
And once again, I really have to stress this, when people tell people to do anything other than voting for Kamala Harris right now, as if that is going to make some meaningful change at this time somehow, despite similar movements having never made any meaningful change ever in history, they are undermining our ability to get her elected instead of Trump.

And once again, I understand the frustration, I am absolutely there with you, I even vote-traded with my mom for Gary Johnson in 2016, having her vote for him in Texas while I voted for Hillary Clinton in Florida... But none of these third-party shenanigans have ever gotten us anything other than pulling votes away from candidates who can win.

And you may be thinking "but I wasn't going to vote for her anyway", or that yours wouldn't matter, but ask the question: how many potential swing voters are you discouraging from going out to vote for her by doing this?

If Trump wins, can you really say you didn't help him by campaigning against Harris?

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
And to be clear, I know you're in California based on that ballot: it's pretty much the only state I would (hesitantly) think is safe to vote third party in at this point. Stein will probably get a few percentage points of the vote there... But what will that actually do?

California has never been a good state in general to base political strategy off of: that's why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, and it's why Nancy Pelosi was never viable on a national stage. I myself wouldn't recommend that national politicians pay that kind of attention to it.

On top of that, once again, we have seen these campaigns repeatedly since before I was born. I've never seen any outcome from them other than distracting from a similar major party candidate who can win.

I don't want to distract from my question though: what makes you think you're not discouraging swing voters in potential swing States from voting for Kamala Harris by campaigning for Jill Stein?

George Maschke

@Raccoon So, I am not under any illusion that I have any significant influence on anyone. I'm just sharing my opinion with any who care to listen that Harris and Trump's support for genocide should disqualify them both, and that Jill Stein represents an anti-genocide alternative. If a viable alternative to the duopoly is to emerge, I think that now is the time and that a candidate's support for genocide should be absolutely disqualifying.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@gwm
And I'm disagreeing that Harris actually supports genocide: Trump and Netanyahu certainly do, but the Biden administration has been very clear that this is entirely about Hamas and Sinwar, and everything out of them seems to be a further indication that now that Sinwar is dead they have gotten to the end of their patience for Netanyahu's war crimes.

Either way, we are not at the point of having a two-party system be viable, so throwing the democracy and marginalized groups under the bus as some sort of protest that will fall on deaf ears anyway isn't really going to be helpful.

Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

@Raccoon @gwm

This has already happened. From 2016::

#uspol #jillstein #spoilers

pst

@gwm @Raccoon
posting this again as Maschke keeps pushing Stein as a peaceloving … something

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@pst @gwm
Oh yeah, Jill Stein is an absolutely abhorrent human being, let's not sugarcoat that. Even if she were viable, I'd say Kamala Harris has much better character.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@TruthSandwich @gwm
Just another example of how Bernie Sanders has so much better character than Jill Stein: he would never sacrifice the policies he's aiming for just to be on the ticket, no matter how much money he was being paid. That's why he ran as a Democrat in that election: he didn't want to pull votes from a Democrat.

That primary run led to a schism within the Democratic party that rooted out a chunk of the corruption.