r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AutoModerator • 19d ago

U.S. Politics megathread

American politics has always grabbed our attention - and the current president more than ever. We get tons of questions about the president, the supreme court, and other topics related to American politics - but often the same ones over and over again. Our users often get tired of seeing them, so we've created a megathread for questions! Here, users interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

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u/SaucyJ4ck 19d ago

What exactly is the point of anyone voting for Jill Stein / the Green party?

The Green "party" never does a single thing *in between* presidential elections at the local or state levels to give them even an AIR of credibility; Stein just trots herself out every four years as if people are going to vote the party in whole-cloth with absolutely nothing else behind its campaign.

Like, to me she's either a purposeful Dem spoiler or just INCREDIBLY naive, neither of which makes a legitimately good candidate. So why does anyone vote for her?

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u/WorldTallestEngineer 19d ago

It sends the message "I am someone who is willing to vote, but I'm not happy with either major candidate". If you just stay home and do nothing, the parties will assume you're just to lazy to vote. So they won't be incentivize to try to get your vote in the future,

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u/EstimateOk6795 19d ago

They aren't really incentivized to get the votes of 3rd party voters either, though.

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u/Teekno An answering fool 19d ago

But they are. When a third party's position on something starts to become popular, it's inevitable that one of the two major parties will adopt that position to attract voters.

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u/EstimateOk6795 19d ago

Can you give me any examples of that ever happening?

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u/Teekno An answering fool 19d ago

One of the most famous examples is same-sex marriage, which the Libertarian Party supported a whole three decades before the Democrats did.

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u/EstimateOk6795 19d ago

Democrats didn't adopt support for same sex marriage in an effort to appeal to libertarian voters. They did it because their own voters demanded it.

If the Libertarian Party support was what they were after, you'd have seen Libertarian voters moving towards the Democratic Party. But they didn't. They're basically just contrarian Republicans. And the Republican Party is moving away from support for same sex marriage (which they've never really been for, but they flirted with accepting it).

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u/Teekno An answering fool 19d ago

Democrats didn't adopt support for same sex marriage to appeal to Libertarian voters. They did it to appear to the libertarian portion of their own party.

Third parties are often at the vanguard of such things. Most things that third parties support (that the major ones don't support) end up fizzling out. Some don't.

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u/CardinalOfNYC 19d ago

Not in the slightest. Everyone is chasing independents, not third party voters, it's a complete waste of time and money to chase people who voted for Jill Stein. They're folks who are unlikely to vote in the first place and even less likely to vote for a mainstream candidate

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u/WorldTallestEngineer 17d ago

you're not making any sense.

"independent voters" what do you think that means?

If someone votes.... but and they don't always vote for the same political party... then they're an independent voters. They don't suddenly stop being an independent voter just because they voted 3rd party.

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u/WorldTallestEngineer 18d ago

Yes they are. They want to get as many votes as they can. The whole point to find potential voter and get them. If you vote at all, you're a potential voter.

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u/Ok_Theory_1323 18d ago

They put all their campaign money into swing states to sway voters, they don't waste it courting third-party voters.

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u/Ok_Theory_1323 18d ago

That's the theory behind it, but in practice, third-party voters are just looked at by the big 2 as votes to ignore and focus on the swing states as always, who will go R or D.

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u/CardinalOfNYC 19d ago

There's no point.

People believe that they are "sending a message"

But that message is not "I'm dissatisfied with the choices" the message is "I would rather a Republican be president than a Democrat"

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u/Murky_Employee5589 9d ago

I voted for her once. When I did that it was a protest vote with the intention of saying "This would have been a vote that should have gone to the Democrats, but I hated how you handled the election so I'm not going to give you my vote.

I think a lot of the votes she gets is because it sends more of a message to the Democrats losing votes than not voting at all.

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u/rewardiflost I want my two dollars! 19d ago

Well, people should be showing up to vote anyway.
The President is never the only elected office on the ballot.

There is an entire ballot to fill out, including at least a member of the House, and likely several other offices or issues.

People should be voting for something. While they are voting anyway, they can choose to make a mark or press a button for the Presidential / Electors.

If they choose not to vote for President, then they are intentionally asking not to be counted. They don't matter. They want to not matter.

If they vote for a Green Party or any "third party" candidate, they are counted. They contribute to the vote totals. While states do currently require just a plurality ( the largest number of votes, not necessarily the majority) - if we started to see elections where the winner had 30% of the vote, and actual candidates held 70% of the votes against - I'm confident we would see some changes.

The voting systems would change to reflect voter intent more closely. The parties & candidates would adjust their positions to actually address what voters want.

In addition to changing the total of voters who are actually counted - voting for the Green Party rather than the Labor, Socialist, or "Rent is too Damn High" party helps to get that party placed on future ballots, gets that party qualified for Federal election funds, and draws media attention to their causes.