Exactly, there were two anti war candidates running (Green and Libertarian for if you’re anti war but still hate the poor), but they got a similar number of votes to RFK Jr who had dropped out several months earlier, meaning you’re on par with people who not only wanted RFK to be president, but had also somehow missed the news that he’d joined Trump.

Meanwhile, over 80 million voters stayed at home. That’s more than voted for Harris or Trump.

See UKIP (now Reform) in the UK as an example of how not winning can still get you what you want. They got a bunch of votes (although nowhere near enough to win, or even get any MPs), but they got enough votes to scare one of the main two parties into going along with their scheme in order to get those voters back on side.

Now in this case what they wanted was fucking stupid right wing exceptionalist nonsense (leaving the EU) that neither of the main parties wanted because it was economic suicide, and the only reason Britain didn’t just implode and disappear off the map is because we did it really half arsed, and will hopefully rejoin the EU at some point down the line.

But you could do the same with left wing subjects as well. You just need people to vote for it, to show that they’re willing to fuck your numbers up for what they want.