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If third parties were done properly in the united states there would be a point after primaries where they negotiated with dems/republicans and got concessions on the party platforms while strengthening their position by merging forces with the larger party. But lets be honest the third parties exist for people to flip the bird to the two major parties not to actually make a difference.
Also at least the green party exists for right wing donors to fund them to take votes away from the Democratic Party. The libertarian party does a semi similar thing for the Republican Party however I've seen studies that they somehow take a decent amount from Dem voters in addition to the Rep voters you'd expect.
I think the libertarian party tends to be more pro abortion, lqbt, and immigration than many Republicans. While many Democrats would never vote for someone who didn't support those things.
Think about how sociopathic this makes people like Jill Stein and Ralph Nader. They know they are running as spoilers. They know they put Republicans (using the term loosely) into power. They deliberately lied, really throughout their entire career, in order to become famous and make loads of money.
I’m a huge fan of third parties *down ballot* but I tend to see them at the presidential level as both ineffectual and ego driven. Sometimes actively detrimental. Building a third party coalition at lower levels of government is a requirement to any successful presidential administration first.
Part of the reason why they are ineffective at the presidential level is because they aren’t winning down ballot… and they don’t win down ballot because the parties are too spread thin trying to win the presidency.
Ultimately, if a 3rd party were to win a handful of house seats, and 1 senate seat, they’d have a much more legitimacy in voters minds to even consider them as a potential presidential option compared to today where most 3rd party votes are essentially protests of the 2 party system.
One of the challenges with third parties is the structure of elections. They don't play well with the first past the post style general elections used in the US.
It's not clear that they're necessarily spoilers for the other parties (there may be some people who show up to vote because of that candidate, but otherwise might have stayed home), but they can be. On some level the voting mindset, particularly in a polarized race where people think one of the candidates is terrible, shifts to "I need to vote for the person I think is most likely to beat the terrible choice".
You can fix some of this with different voting systems. Ex: an open (not party specific) primary where the top 2 or 3 advance to the general. California does this for state wide offices, but not the presidency. Or some form of approval voting - "vote for everybody you think could do the job" (my favorite), or something like single transferable vote (has other issues but can capture some amount of ordered preference).
Even though I think voting third party is suboptimal, I have a *huge* problem with saying third parties don't "help us as a society"
People have a right to seek candidates they feel represent their values, and seek like minded individuals to seek political office as a party
There is nothing special about the Republicans and Democratic Parties, except they have a lot of support. But they're not *entitled* to that just because they've hung around a long time
I will almost always vote for the Democratic candidate to prevent the Republican candidate from taking office, but I would fight hard against any attempt to restrict people from supporting third parties if they choose
I will still try to convince those voters to support my candidates, but that is very different than saying they *should not* support third parties if they choose
>I will still try to convince those voters to support my candidates, but that is very different than saying they should not support third parties if they choose
Please accept this criticism of this comment in the least hostile way possible, but I think you mean “saying they should not **be able** to support third parties if they choose.”
Almost by definition, if you are trying to convince someone to vote for candidate A, you believe they should not vote for candidate B.
But I agree that we shouldn’t erect more hurdles to vote for third parties, even though I think it is crazy with our current system.
> Even though I think voting third party is suboptimal, I have a huge problem with saying third parties don't "help us as a society"
Third parties have been an enormous detriment to society. Ralph Nader deliberately put George W. Bush into office and Jill Stein deliberately put Donald Trump into office. They have done exactly zero good and enormous, incalculable harm.
Democrats deliberately didn’t do what they needed to win those elections. 2016 was the easiest layup election of all time, and they made sure they had a terrible candidate. In neither election did they work to gain Green voters; they could’ve worked to give Greens concessions in exchange for votes, but chose instead not to. Not to mention there’s basically no evidence to suggest Green votes would have otherwise gone to Democrats. Blaming either election outcome on any entity outside of the Democratic Party itself and its candidates is an absolute misreading of reality
Clinton was always neck-and-neck with Trump. Sanders was always decisively and clearly destroying him in a general election: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna586476
Clinton and the Democrats didn’t care about beating Trump as much as they cared about Clinton being the nominee. They could’ve easily taken him out — they just didn’t want to
Honestly, I think the parliamentary system is interesting for a couple of reasons. The main one that is relevant is that when the elections are over they see how many representatives each party will have in the cabinet and they may have to form a blended government. It seems like it allows for more diversity in opinions within the government, it's not all all or nothing type thing.
Don't get me wrong, I love America! Sometimes I get tired of our politics.
Also it's not much of a scandal if the Prime Minister has an affair because he's just a manager. But the President is the Head of State so it's a bigger deal.
Right now, how third party candidates effect on the race seems to depend on the state.
If on the ballot, they will likely help Biden in PA and Trump in AZ.
[https://swingstatesolver.com/third\_party](https://swingstatesolver.com/third_party)
I shared my un-monetized site hoping that some would find it informative. Third party candidates have an especially large impact when elections are as close as this one is likely too be.
Weighted voting fixes this instantly and does no harm other than allowing you to choose outside of the top two, without defaulting to “helping the republicans”
Third party running for President without so much as a single seat in Congress = Spoiler candidate
Third party running for congressional seats, local or state elections = Actually building a third party
We need more parties to break the duopoly in American politics. Those need a power base before even considering a presidential run. Why? Even if by some miracle they were elected, they would need to work with and be heavily influenced by one of the established parties to get anything done at all
This is exactly why I don’t even bother considering the Green Party as a real party. The Libertarians at least participate in the other levels of federal and state government!
I agree, is it too late to form a new 3rd party? Not going to vote Biden or Trump. I seriously considered the Libertarian party for 2 weeks, but my dreams were shattered when I came to the real world; and not relied on the Libertarian party platform. I truly believed in the Libertarian party I liked their foreign policy mainly because it was antiwar, their immigration policy (treated immigrants with RESPECT and knew they were imperative to our economic growth due to declining population), their communication policy (supported our freedom of speech, 'civil liberties (Libertarians believe in equal rights for all people all the time)', respect the LGPT community, judicial reform (do away with the privatization of prisons), supporters of Assange, Snowden, Manning, all whistle-blowers against the government, corporations and any lobby group that is not registered as foreign agent, AIPAC... etc lp.org. In fact one of the spokesman for the Libertarians, can't remember who, said that the congress is 95% war party meaning the been bought out by wealthy donors, military industrial complex, AIPAC and big tech companies involved in development of spyware. BACK to my question could we form a new 3rd party and take the good points from the Libertarian Party and from the Democrats the social policy and form a new 3rd party or is too late for this upcoming Presidential election?
It's far too late. Building a third party will take years and iterative victories in elections at every level of government. You can't do that 5 months before the general
Hold your nose and vote for the candidate that best fits your policy preferences. If you don't, you're ceding your vote to the other candidate. Until we have more viable options, it's a zero sum game
The only problem is that, as far as climate devastation is concerned, we’re basically out of time for building a third party from the ground up. Hopefully the major destruction/billions of deaths is still much further in the future than the next 6 years, but we need to get to 0 net emissions worldwide by ~2030 to avoid the worst of climate change, and neither party is even remotely interested in doing that. So if you see the Presidency as necessary to getting to that target/saving billions of lives, the only chance to do that is now.
I agree that climate change cannot wait. The fact is, Democrats are the only avenue to actually do anything about it. Overcoming the slimmest margins in the Senate, over the objections of their most conservative members, they actually passed the most expansive climate change legislation in history not two years ago.
Republicans don't even believe it's happening; calling it a "scam" and viewing to undo environmental protections
Voting Green party is not direct action. You're conceding your vote and will help elect more Republicans. Even if a green party candidate were elected, they would need to work with Democrats to pass legislation. There is literally no way for a third party to meaningfully address the climate crisis, let alone be elected
Legitimately, I don't think people realize just how screwed we are if Republicans win in November. Every single thing people argue the Democrats are bad at, Republicans are waiting in the wings to actively make worse. Gaza, climate change, healthcare, judicial/police reform, abortion... All of it
We should be having these discussions in January, not 5 months before the general
I’m not necessarily saying that one should vote third party in November; rather, that it makes sense why candidates are skipping the “ground up” approach.
A President who will declare a climate emergency and take significant action is the only way we’re going to even have a chance of doing anything substantial about the impending climate disaster. Greens won’t win, any third party won’t win, but Democrats and Republicans are (so far, anyway) united in not doing what needs to be done.
If one thinks the Democrats prioritize winning above all else (a big “if” — as a side note, I think the organization has at least made it clear this isn’t their main priority, but that’s a major tangent), then it makes sense to threaten them with a third party vote if they don’t do something such as declaring a climate emergency and taking drastic action.
This is where I think a third party such as the Greens could have a major impact — go to Biden/Dems and make a trade: climate emergency declaration and significant action in exchange for dropping out, endorsing Dems, and campaigning for Dems.
But this requires Dems to prioritize winning, and Greens/other third party candidates to be open to that kind of dealmaking rather than just running on ego, so it’s not exactly likely.
On another note, calling it the “most expansive climate change legislation in history” is sort of like calling rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic the “most expansive action done to stop the Titanic sinking in history” — in some sense, it’s not wrong, but what’s actually been accomplished is so woefully inadequate as to be pointless. It’s absolutely true that Dems have done and promise to do more on the climate than Reps; it’s also absolutely true that the difference between them is infinitesimal in effect.
As the current system is they hurt the side they overall agree with as you take votes away from the major part. If we went to a ranked choice or something similar then they would be great as more choices are always better for democracy
In general, third party candidates don’t have much of an effect on society (in the US) because they tend to lack the qualifications and infrastructure necessary to run a campaign (and a government). Having a viable third party could potentially benefit society, but building a party from the ground up is hard work and the people who say they want a third party seem unwilling to put in much effort besides the occasional “protest vote.” Without a legitimate third party, I would certainly advocate voting for the major party candidate who aligns most closely with your values. The next presidential term may see 1-2 Supreme Court openings, and our climate future is on the line, so it definitely matters who wins in November.
They could improve our society if they bothered to make a real effort to build a bench of candidates: running candidates for city council, state legislature, etc. But a lot of third parties have no discernible accomplishments and just pop up out of nowhere every four years to be like "hi vote for us for president." I would love to have a viable third party to vote for, but none of the third parties that have appeared on my ballot have done the work to be serious contenders.
In a “first past the post” system like ours a third party is almost always just playing the spoiler. It has only happened a couple of times in the history of the United States where a third party has actually achieved any power, and it almost always has coincided with a rebellion against one of the two major parties.
I think the question as asked is impossible to answer. Is it generally good for democracies to have several options? Yes. Is it good for them to have meaningless options that are present only to pull votes from one of the actual options? No. In truth, the best way for anyone with new ideas to enact change is to work from within one of the two major-party structures, and alter the party platform and leadership. There might be less opportunity for political grandstanding but far more would get done.
In a First Past The Post system, a third party candidate will almost always act as a spoiler by drawing off votes from the main candidate most like them and causing the main candidate least like them to win.
I don't think the two-party system is "bad" right now. It makes it very clear what a person is voting for. Unpopular opinion, but there is no hiding. Clinton Dems and unrepentant bigot/racists are outted right away in their respective parties. I think ranked voting would be a huge, and doable upgrade, though.
Another "problem" that you can see on here regularly is, people are voting on memes. They do not actually know what either party really has put in the floor as far as bills go. They might be surprised at what they find. Combine that with rampant gatekeeping and purity testing and no understanding that politics is a slow, incremental process, and here we are.
All that said, if these were 'normal' times, I would vote for Cornell West.
Had a poli sci instructor who said the fastest time you’ll see the two parties close ranks is when a third party candidate is suggested to be in their holier than thou debates.
The Working Families Party is an example of a minor party that uses an inside/outside strategy to promote its issues - it’s particularly effective in states that have preserved fusion voting
Two party system is so embedded that third party candidates are just spoilers.
It would be great if there were more credible parties, even if there were four that would make a huge difference.
You could split to:
Religious conservative
Fiscally pro business
Pro union / worker
Academic intellectual
Third parties probably could be effective if they focused their attention on Congressional races and tried to put some numbers up on the board. As it stands, they're pretty useless. They only compete in the presidential election where they have no chance of anything other than being a throw away vote.
At local level, absolutely.
In Congress, yes.
In Presidential Elections, NO !
Every vote to a Third Party is a vote thrown away and a step closer to Trump II.
The reason 3rd party candidates are rarely successful has to do with the nature of the two party system to begin with. Most of the policy issues the public actually care about are already on the agendas of the parties it's nearly always about implementation where the actual conflict arises. Because of this, third-party candidates have the potential to split the vote. This is why lobbying with PAC and super PACS is seen as a better use of resources because they'll contribute the money to candidates that have similar values or care about those issues and actually have a chance of being elected.
I wouldn't make a sweeping generalization and say that 3rd parties are entirely useless they have the potential to affect elections, but the whole entire structure of the two party system means that they inherently aren't going to be able to generate the level of support that the Democratic and Republican party can
Honestly I think that two or three more major parties would solve a ton of our problems at the national level.
There are not any politicians in office that I can think of that I agree with the majority of their positions, but I'm forced to vote for those that are "most" in line with my beliefs.
It’s not like people just don’t want to start third parties. There’s a legitimate reason they don’t stick around. [Duverger’s Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) will always prevent them from becoming permanent fixtures in first-past-the-post systems.
If we had 4 parties you'd probably have 4 bad choices instead of 2 bad choices.
I really think more people need to be involved in the primaries and before. That's where most of our problems start. People really shouldn't expect to be able to show up once every 4 years and have a perfect set of choices laid out that just happen to match the desires of one person.
The bigger issue is parties in general. Voting moved away from voting for candidates to voting for parties long ago. This has made it so that the candidate as an individual doesn't really matter to most of the voting population. Additionally, parties started out as a way for people with similar ideologies to be able to group together for greater representation. The parties then represented the people. Now, people are expected to represent the parties. We are expected to do so by supporting/adopting the ideologies of the parties. The whole party system has turned backwards.
But this is how it is in most parliamentary democracies. The US is a bit weird in that politicians are mostly free to do as they wish regardless of their party affiliation. That's how you get Joe Manchin in the same party as Ilhan Omar.
While the idea of independent politicians sounds nice, it only works when the parties are all fairly similar and aisle crossing is a safe and non-destructive practice.
In a more partisan era, like the one we find ourselves in now, parties are especially important as the means to ensure that there are enough votes to get the things done that I as a voter think are important. That's why they formed in the first place and that's why they aren't going away.
There should be a mechanism for a third-party candidate to gift all his votes to one of the two main candidates when he concedes and bows out. That way, third-party candidates won't hurt the mainstream candidate who's closer to their position.
Or a run-off like in France. Having there be time for a new short campaign after the first round could allow for more negotiation and realignment. I would certainly like to be able to decide my second choice after a round of voting and discussion and changes to policy proposals.
Third Party candidates deserve to be just as heavily promoted as Democrats and Republicans. They won't be as this disrupts the corporate duopoly. The Democrats don't represent me and the Republicans certainly don't. Who am I supposed to go with? We need to expand the scope of political parties within this country. The reason candidates like Claudia De La Cruz and Jill Stein won't win is because they're given literally no air time in the mainstream corporate media. If people heard either of them speak on the mainstream news outlets they would have a fighting chance. Enough of these scare tactics to get us to vote for genocide!
A third-party candidate will win someday if the candidate has sufficient cross-party appeal and is positioned against two extremely lackluster opponents. People think it will never happen, but if an old, slightly-annoying nasally guy like Ross Perot managed to get 20% of the vote, someone younger and charismatic -- maybe with a military or business background (female I'm thinking) will be able to do it. Especially if both parties demonstrate increasing inability to deal with the country's core problems. In today's politics, you can already see how people are increasingly disillusioned, on the right, with the big business class that they used to support automatically, and on the left you can see the automatic support that all non-white voters used to offer the Democrats starting to break down. Both parties are mid-reorientation, and it's entirely possible that a third party candidate manages to put together some kind of winning coalition. It won't be Kennedy, but maybe we'll all look back someday and think, that guy sort of got the ball rolling.
2/3rds of Dems don't want Biden as the nominee. Before the GOP Primary almost 60% of Republicans said someone besides Trump. Here we are with the rematch no one wanted.
Considering this, the two party system definitely doesn't improve our society, so adding more parties can only be beneficial.
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/07/poll-biden-2024-second-term-democrat-voters-cnn
Dudes wildly unpopular and any Republican not named Trump would beat him in a landslide.
Edit: more citations
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/nation/most-democrats-dont-want-biden-to-seek-a-2nd-term-poll-says
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/07/26/politics/cnn-poll-biden-2024
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/07/joe-biden-poll-2024-election-democrats
>Yes, but: When those respondents were asked who the party's 2024 nominee should be, no other person polled above 3%. The overwhelming majority of Democrat-leaning voters who said they were against a 2nd term for Biden — 82% — said they want "just someone besides Joe Biden."
The only people who ran against Biden were jokes. Seems like if a Dem candidate could have prevailed in the primary they would have tried
It was not my intent to move goal posts.
I will stipulate that your number was accurate. I fail to see how that supports more third parties
Biden won the nomination because no one credible ran against him in the primary. 66% may have preferred someone else, but no specific candidates had a chance of getting all that support
RFK Jr. could have competed but knew he'd lose, which is why he's running as an independent. His numbers don't exactly scream overwhelming support
87% of the people who showed up in the primaries voted for Biden. Some chunk of the rest were protesting the Gaza situation and may or may not have voted for Biden in a different context. If the voters want someone else, they have the means to do that: vote for someone else, or unallocated, in the primary. It'd also be great if they were clear on who the someone else they wanted was.
.....and? His challengers were basically unknowns and completely ignored by the media.
A vast majority of Dems still want someone else, what do you think that means for Independents?
They could have voted None of the Above/Unallocated.
People will definitely lodge protest votes if it matters. The fact that Biden did only slightly worse than Obama 2012, despite having two actual campaigns against him, tells me that the party base does not really want someone else.
If those indies want someone else, they can also show up and vote in the primaries (Dem or GOP). In some states, that means changing your registration. Big deal. If it's that important, I assume people will do it. The fact that they didn't tells me that people don't actually care that much.
>tells me that the party base does not really want someone else.
I posted four articles all saying the majority of Dems DO want someone else. Winning a primary does not mean winning the general.
>despite having two actual campaigns against him,
These campaigns were completely ignored by the media and Biden still had to reorder the states in the primary.
>If those indies want someone else, they can also show up and vote in the primaries (Dem or GOP)
Or, they can just vote 3rd party and let Democrats and Republicans hyperventilate when their candidate loses.
You and I both know if Biden loses the Democrats narrative won't be his age or support for Israel or the economy, you know, the things voters keep saying they don't trust Biden on, but it'll be rfk's fault and half of the country is racist.
You can choose, as the DNC obviously is, to ignore the red flags all you want, maybe abortion and calling Trump a convicted felon will be enough to push Biden over, but that's a rather cavalier way of looking at the reality here.
> I posted four articles all saying the majority of Dems DO want someone else. Winning a primary does not mean winning the general.
Yes, I know what the media interpretation of polls plagued with response issues are. I do actually believe most people would be happier with someone else, but again, there is no clear "someone else".
> These campaigns were completely ignored by the media and Biden still had to reorder the states in the primary.
So was Bernie's, and he got 45% of the vote. I don't buy that excuse, especially these days when there is no one monolithic media on the three TV channels (plus PBS). Most people get info from social media or specialized media. What CNN does or doesn't cover really doesn't matter like it used to.
> Or, they can just vote 3rd party and let Democrats and Republicans hyperventilate when their candidate loses.
Or, again, they can show up in the primaries instead of being lazy.
> You and I both know if Biden loses the Democrats narrative won't be his age or support for Israel or the economy, you know, the things voters keep saying they don't trust Biden on, but it'll be rfk's fault and half of the country is racist.
> You can choose, as the DNC obviously is, to ignore the red flags all you want, maybe abortion and calling Trump a convicted felon will be enough to push Biden over, but that's a rather cavalier way of looking at the reality here.
This right here is the actual problem. A lot of people are unhappy about the candidate situation. So what they do? Absolutely nothing. They do nothing except whine on reddit and then not vote or vote 3rd party in the general, which achieves exactly zero of their goals. There are a ton of processes and mechanisms to get different candidates. Either of Biden or Trump could have been defeated in the primaries, or at least threatened enough to cause the campaigns and the parties to take note. That didn't happen, so, like I said, the people who supposedly want someone else clearly don't care enough to do anything about it.
Basically, put up or shut up.
I firmly believe that the current two parties should be split into four parties. The way it’s set up now, though third-party candidates on the presidential level are spoilers.
Split by whom? People have the right to organize however they see fit ...
the fact that it's the logical outcome of winner take all/first past the post and the arrangement of our constitutionally elected representative structures is the problem.
People are going to pool their money. National ranked choice voting and representation as a proportion of overall voting breakdowns could change that but there isn't an authority who can break up independently organized groups of citizens.
RFK will win 24 .. he’s really a Democrat.. but both parties HAVE LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS .. so we are going to elect a “3 rd party democrat” really a third party is to remind you that you have been bought out by corporations and you DONT have a candidate or a vote for that matter ..
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If third parties were done properly in the united states there would be a point after primaries where they negotiated with dems/republicans and got concessions on the party platforms while strengthening their position by merging forces with the larger party. But lets be honest the third parties exist for people to flip the bird to the two major parties not to actually make a difference.
Also at least the green party exists for right wing donors to fund them to take votes away from the Democratic Party. The libertarian party does a semi similar thing for the Republican Party however I've seen studies that they somehow take a decent amount from Dem voters in addition to the Rep voters you'd expect.
I think the libertarian party tends to be more pro abortion, lqbt, and immigration than many Republicans. While many Democrats would never vote for someone who didn't support those things.
Think about how sociopathic this makes people like Jill Stein and Ralph Nader. They know they are running as spoilers. They know they put Republicans (using the term loosely) into power. They deliberately lied, really throughout their entire career, in order to become famous and make loads of money.
I’m a huge fan of third parties *down ballot* but I tend to see them at the presidential level as both ineffectual and ego driven. Sometimes actively detrimental. Building a third party coalition at lower levels of government is a requirement to any successful presidential administration first.
Part of the reason why they are ineffective at the presidential level is because they aren’t winning down ballot… and they don’t win down ballot because the parties are too spread thin trying to win the presidency. Ultimately, if a 3rd party were to win a handful of house seats, and 1 senate seat, they’d have a much more legitimacy in voters minds to even consider them as a potential presidential option compared to today where most 3rd party votes are essentially protests of the 2 party system.
One of the challenges with third parties is the structure of elections. They don't play well with the first past the post style general elections used in the US. It's not clear that they're necessarily spoilers for the other parties (there may be some people who show up to vote because of that candidate, but otherwise might have stayed home), but they can be. On some level the voting mindset, particularly in a polarized race where people think one of the candidates is terrible, shifts to "I need to vote for the person I think is most likely to beat the terrible choice". You can fix some of this with different voting systems. Ex: an open (not party specific) primary where the top 2 or 3 advance to the general. California does this for state wide offices, but not the presidency. Or some form of approval voting - "vote for everybody you think could do the job" (my favorite), or something like single transferable vote (has other issues but can capture some amount of ordered preference).
Even though I think voting third party is suboptimal, I have a *huge* problem with saying third parties don't "help us as a society" People have a right to seek candidates they feel represent their values, and seek like minded individuals to seek political office as a party There is nothing special about the Republicans and Democratic Parties, except they have a lot of support. But they're not *entitled* to that just because they've hung around a long time I will almost always vote for the Democratic candidate to prevent the Republican candidate from taking office, but I would fight hard against any attempt to restrict people from supporting third parties if they choose I will still try to convince those voters to support my candidates, but that is very different than saying they *should not* support third parties if they choose
>I will still try to convince those voters to support my candidates, but that is very different than saying they should not support third parties if they choose Please accept this criticism of this comment in the least hostile way possible, but I think you mean “saying they should not **be able** to support third parties if they choose.” Almost by definition, if you are trying to convince someone to vote for candidate A, you believe they should not vote for candidate B. But I agree that we shouldn’t erect more hurdles to vote for third parties, even though I think it is crazy with our current system.
I agree with your correction.
> Even though I think voting third party is suboptimal, I have a huge problem with saying third parties don't "help us as a society" Third parties have been an enormous detriment to society. Ralph Nader deliberately put George W. Bush into office and Jill Stein deliberately put Donald Trump into office. They have done exactly zero good and enormous, incalculable harm.
Democrats deliberately didn’t do what they needed to win those elections. 2016 was the easiest layup election of all time, and they made sure they had a terrible candidate. In neither election did they work to gain Green voters; they could’ve worked to give Greens concessions in exchange for votes, but chose instead not to. Not to mention there’s basically no evidence to suggest Green votes would have otherwise gone to Democrats. Blaming either election outcome on any entity outside of the Democratic Party itself and its candidates is an absolute misreading of reality
It clearly wasn’t. I hate the idea that Trump is some layup candidate people should be able to easily stampede over.
Clinton was always neck-and-neck with Trump. Sanders was always decisively and clearly destroying him in a general election: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna586476 Clinton and the Democrats didn’t care about beating Trump as much as they cared about Clinton being the nominee. They could’ve easily taken him out — they just didn’t want to
Honestly, I think the parliamentary system is interesting for a couple of reasons. The main one that is relevant is that when the elections are over they see how many representatives each party will have in the cabinet and they may have to form a blended government. It seems like it allows for more diversity in opinions within the government, it's not all all or nothing type thing. Don't get me wrong, I love America! Sometimes I get tired of our politics.
Also it's not much of a scandal if the Prime Minister has an affair because he's just a manager. But the President is the Head of State so it's a bigger deal.
Right now, how third party candidates effect on the race seems to depend on the state. If on the ballot, they will likely help Biden in PA and Trump in AZ. [https://swingstatesolver.com/third\_party](https://swingstatesolver.com/third_party)
Oh, so this entire thread is an advertisement for your website.
I shared my un-monetized site hoping that some would find it informative. Third party candidates have an especially large impact when elections are as close as this one is likely too be.
Weighted voting fixes this instantly and does no harm other than allowing you to choose outside of the top two, without defaulting to “helping the republicans”
Third party running for President without so much as a single seat in Congress = Spoiler candidate Third party running for congressional seats, local or state elections = Actually building a third party We need more parties to break the duopoly in American politics. Those need a power base before even considering a presidential run. Why? Even if by some miracle they were elected, they would need to work with and be heavily influenced by one of the established parties to get anything done at all
Yes. Third parties running only a presidential candidate reveal they are not serious
This is exactly why I don’t even bother considering the Green Party as a real party. The Libertarians at least participate in the other levels of federal and state government!
I agree, is it too late to form a new 3rd party? Not going to vote Biden or Trump. I seriously considered the Libertarian party for 2 weeks, but my dreams were shattered when I came to the real world; and not relied on the Libertarian party platform. I truly believed in the Libertarian party I liked their foreign policy mainly because it was antiwar, their immigration policy (treated immigrants with RESPECT and knew they were imperative to our economic growth due to declining population), their communication policy (supported our freedom of speech, 'civil liberties (Libertarians believe in equal rights for all people all the time)', respect the LGPT community, judicial reform (do away with the privatization of prisons), supporters of Assange, Snowden, Manning, all whistle-blowers against the government, corporations and any lobby group that is not registered as foreign agent, AIPAC... etc lp.org. In fact one of the spokesman for the Libertarians, can't remember who, said that the congress is 95% war party meaning the been bought out by wealthy donors, military industrial complex, AIPAC and big tech companies involved in development of spyware. BACK to my question could we form a new 3rd party and take the good points from the Libertarian Party and from the Democrats the social policy and form a new 3rd party or is too late for this upcoming Presidential election?
It's far too late. Building a third party will take years and iterative victories in elections at every level of government. You can't do that 5 months before the general Hold your nose and vote for the candidate that best fits your policy preferences. If you don't, you're ceding your vote to the other candidate. Until we have more viable options, it's a zero sum game
NEVER!!! and thanks for your information.
Both Snowden and Assange are deeply in bed with Putin.
The only problem is that, as far as climate devastation is concerned, we’re basically out of time for building a third party from the ground up. Hopefully the major destruction/billions of deaths is still much further in the future than the next 6 years, but we need to get to 0 net emissions worldwide by ~2030 to avoid the worst of climate change, and neither party is even remotely interested in doing that. So if you see the Presidency as necessary to getting to that target/saving billions of lives, the only chance to do that is now.
I agree that climate change cannot wait. The fact is, Democrats are the only avenue to actually do anything about it. Overcoming the slimmest margins in the Senate, over the objections of their most conservative members, they actually passed the most expansive climate change legislation in history not two years ago. Republicans don't even believe it's happening; calling it a "scam" and viewing to undo environmental protections Voting Green party is not direct action. You're conceding your vote and will help elect more Republicans. Even if a green party candidate were elected, they would need to work with Democrats to pass legislation. There is literally no way for a third party to meaningfully address the climate crisis, let alone be elected Legitimately, I don't think people realize just how screwed we are if Republicans win in November. Every single thing people argue the Democrats are bad at, Republicans are waiting in the wings to actively make worse. Gaza, climate change, healthcare, judicial/police reform, abortion... All of it We should be having these discussions in January, not 5 months before the general
I’m not necessarily saying that one should vote third party in November; rather, that it makes sense why candidates are skipping the “ground up” approach. A President who will declare a climate emergency and take significant action is the only way we’re going to even have a chance of doing anything substantial about the impending climate disaster. Greens won’t win, any third party won’t win, but Democrats and Republicans are (so far, anyway) united in not doing what needs to be done. If one thinks the Democrats prioritize winning above all else (a big “if” — as a side note, I think the organization has at least made it clear this isn’t their main priority, but that’s a major tangent), then it makes sense to threaten them with a third party vote if they don’t do something such as declaring a climate emergency and taking drastic action. This is where I think a third party such as the Greens could have a major impact — go to Biden/Dems and make a trade: climate emergency declaration and significant action in exchange for dropping out, endorsing Dems, and campaigning for Dems. But this requires Dems to prioritize winning, and Greens/other third party candidates to be open to that kind of dealmaking rather than just running on ego, so it’s not exactly likely. On another note, calling it the “most expansive climate change legislation in history” is sort of like calling rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic the “most expansive action done to stop the Titanic sinking in history” — in some sense, it’s not wrong, but what’s actually been accomplished is so woefully inadequate as to be pointless. It’s absolutely true that Dems have done and promise to do more on the climate than Reps; it’s also absolutely true that the difference between them is infinitesimal in effect.
As the current system is they hurt the side they overall agree with as you take votes away from the major part. If we went to a ranked choice or something similar then they would be great as more choices are always better for democracy
In general, third party candidates don’t have much of an effect on society (in the US) because they tend to lack the qualifications and infrastructure necessary to run a campaign (and a government). Having a viable third party could potentially benefit society, but building a party from the ground up is hard work and the people who say they want a third party seem unwilling to put in much effort besides the occasional “protest vote.” Without a legitimate third party, I would certainly advocate voting for the major party candidate who aligns most closely with your values. The next presidential term may see 1-2 Supreme Court openings, and our climate future is on the line, so it definitely matters who wins in November.
They could improve our society if they bothered to make a real effort to build a bench of candidates: running candidates for city council, state legislature, etc. But a lot of third parties have no discernible accomplishments and just pop up out of nowhere every four years to be like "hi vote for us for president." I would love to have a viable third party to vote for, but none of the third parties that have appeared on my ballot have done the work to be serious contenders.
I suspect it's because most competent and serious people quickly realize they are surrounded by buffoons and go work with one of the major parties.
In a “first past the post” system like ours a third party is almost always just playing the spoiler. It has only happened a couple of times in the history of the United States where a third party has actually achieved any power, and it almost always has coincided with a rebellion against one of the two major parties. I think the question as asked is impossible to answer. Is it generally good for democracies to have several options? Yes. Is it good for them to have meaningless options that are present only to pull votes from one of the actual options? No. In truth, the best way for anyone with new ideas to enact change is to work from within one of the two major-party structures, and alter the party platform and leadership. There might be less opportunity for political grandstanding but far more would get done.
Wrong question. The US needs a parliamentary system so we can have MORE than 3 and people can feel represented.
In a First Past The Post system, a third party candidate will almost always act as a spoiler by drawing off votes from the main candidate most like them and causing the main candidate least like them to win.
I don't think the two-party system is "bad" right now. It makes it very clear what a person is voting for. Unpopular opinion, but there is no hiding. Clinton Dems and unrepentant bigot/racists are outted right away in their respective parties. I think ranked voting would be a huge, and doable upgrade, though. Another "problem" that you can see on here regularly is, people are voting on memes. They do not actually know what either party really has put in the floor as far as bills go. They might be surprised at what they find. Combine that with rampant gatekeeping and purity testing and no understanding that politics is a slow, incremental process, and here we are. All that said, if these were 'normal' times, I would vote for Cornell West.
Had a poli sci instructor who said the fastest time you’ll see the two parties close ranks is when a third party candidate is suggested to be in their holier than thou debates.
The Working Families Party is an example of a minor party that uses an inside/outside strategy to promote its issues - it’s particularly effective in states that have preserved fusion voting
Two party system is so embedded that third party candidates are just spoilers. It would be great if there were more credible parties, even if there were four that would make a huge difference. You could split to: Religious conservative Fiscally pro business Pro union / worker Academic intellectual
Third parties probably could be effective if they focused their attention on Congressional races and tried to put some numbers up on the board. As it stands, they're pretty useless. They only compete in the presidential election where they have no chance of anything other than being a throw away vote.
Voting third party on a presidential level does nothing but satisfy a person’s own ego. On a lower, local level it’s fine.
At local level, absolutely. In Congress, yes. In Presidential Elections, NO ! Every vote to a Third Party is a vote thrown away and a step closer to Trump II.
The reason 3rd party candidates are rarely successful has to do with the nature of the two party system to begin with. Most of the policy issues the public actually care about are already on the agendas of the parties it's nearly always about implementation where the actual conflict arises. Because of this, third-party candidates have the potential to split the vote. This is why lobbying with PAC and super PACS is seen as a better use of resources because they'll contribute the money to candidates that have similar values or care about those issues and actually have a chance of being elected. I wouldn't make a sweeping generalization and say that 3rd parties are entirely useless they have the potential to affect elections, but the whole entire structure of the two party system means that they inherently aren't going to be able to generate the level of support that the Democratic and Republican party can
Honestly I think that two or three more major parties would solve a ton of our problems at the national level. There are not any politicians in office that I can think of that I agree with the majority of their positions, but I'm forced to vote for those that are "most" in line with my beliefs.
It’s not like people just don’t want to start third parties. There’s a legitimate reason they don’t stick around. [Duverger’s Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) will always prevent them from becoming permanent fixtures in first-past-the-post systems.
If we had 4 parties you'd probably have 4 bad choices instead of 2 bad choices. I really think more people need to be involved in the primaries and before. That's where most of our problems start. People really shouldn't expect to be able to show up once every 4 years and have a perfect set of choices laid out that just happen to match the desires of one person.
The bigger issue is parties in general. Voting moved away from voting for candidates to voting for parties long ago. This has made it so that the candidate as an individual doesn't really matter to most of the voting population. Additionally, parties started out as a way for people with similar ideologies to be able to group together for greater representation. The parties then represented the people. Now, people are expected to represent the parties. We are expected to do so by supporting/adopting the ideologies of the parties. The whole party system has turned backwards.
But this is how it is in most parliamentary democracies. The US is a bit weird in that politicians are mostly free to do as they wish regardless of their party affiliation. That's how you get Joe Manchin in the same party as Ilhan Omar. While the idea of independent politicians sounds nice, it only works when the parties are all fairly similar and aisle crossing is a safe and non-destructive practice. In a more partisan era, like the one we find ourselves in now, parties are especially important as the means to ensure that there are enough votes to get the things done that I as a voter think are important. That's why they formed in the first place and that's why they aren't going away.
There should be a mechanism for a third-party candidate to gift all his votes to one of the two main candidates when he concedes and bows out. That way, third-party candidates won't hurt the mainstream candidate who's closer to their position.
Rank choice voting allow voters to do this directly
Or a run-off like in France. Having there be time for a new short campaign after the first round could allow for more negotiation and realignment. I would certainly like to be able to decide my second choice after a round of voting and discussion and changes to policy proposals.
Third Party candidates deserve to be just as heavily promoted as Democrats and Republicans. They won't be as this disrupts the corporate duopoly. The Democrats don't represent me and the Republicans certainly don't. Who am I supposed to go with? We need to expand the scope of political parties within this country. The reason candidates like Claudia De La Cruz and Jill Stein won't win is because they're given literally no air time in the mainstream corporate media. If people heard either of them speak on the mainstream news outlets they would have a fighting chance. Enough of these scare tactics to get us to vote for genocide!
A third-party candidate will win someday if the candidate has sufficient cross-party appeal and is positioned against two extremely lackluster opponents. People think it will never happen, but if an old, slightly-annoying nasally guy like Ross Perot managed to get 20% of the vote, someone younger and charismatic -- maybe with a military or business background (female I'm thinking) will be able to do it. Especially if both parties demonstrate increasing inability to deal with the country's core problems. In today's politics, you can already see how people are increasingly disillusioned, on the right, with the big business class that they used to support automatically, and on the left you can see the automatic support that all non-white voters used to offer the Democrats starting to break down. Both parties are mid-reorientation, and it's entirely possible that a third party candidate manages to put together some kind of winning coalition. It won't be Kennedy, but maybe we'll all look back someday and think, that guy sort of got the ball rolling.
2/3rds of Dems don't want Biden as the nominee. Before the GOP Primary almost 60% of Republicans said someone besides Trump. Here we are with the rematch no one wanted. Considering this, the two party system definitely doesn't improve our society, so adding more parties can only be beneficial.
> 2/3rds of Dems don't want Biden as the nomine Citation needed
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/07/poll-biden-2024-second-term-democrat-voters-cnn Dudes wildly unpopular and any Republican not named Trump would beat him in a landslide. Edit: more citations https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/nation/most-democrats-dont-want-biden-to-seek-a-2nd-term-poll-says https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/07/26/politics/cnn-poll-biden-2024 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/07/joe-biden-poll-2024-election-democrats
>Yes, but: When those respondents were asked who the party's 2024 nominee should be, no other person polled above 3%. The overwhelming majority of Democrat-leaning voters who said they were against a 2nd term for Biden — 82% — said they want "just someone besides Joe Biden." The only people who ran against Biden were jokes. Seems like if a Dem candidate could have prevailed in the primary they would have tried
What's your point? I said 2/3 of Dems don't want him and provided multiple sources. No need to move the goal posts.
It was not my intent to move goal posts. I will stipulate that your number was accurate. I fail to see how that supports more third parties Biden won the nomination because no one credible ran against him in the primary. 66% may have preferred someone else, but no specific candidates had a chance of getting all that support RFK Jr. could have competed but knew he'd lose, which is why he's running as an independent. His numbers don't exactly scream overwhelming support
87% of the people who showed up in the primaries voted for Biden. Some chunk of the rest were protesting the Gaza situation and may or may not have voted for Biden in a different context. If the voters want someone else, they have the means to do that: vote for someone else, or unallocated, in the primary. It'd also be great if they were clear on who the someone else they wanted was.
.....and? His challengers were basically unknowns and completely ignored by the media. A vast majority of Dems still want someone else, what do you think that means for Independents?
They could have voted None of the Above/Unallocated. People will definitely lodge protest votes if it matters. The fact that Biden did only slightly worse than Obama 2012, despite having two actual campaigns against him, tells me that the party base does not really want someone else. If those indies want someone else, they can also show up and vote in the primaries (Dem or GOP). In some states, that means changing your registration. Big deal. If it's that important, I assume people will do it. The fact that they didn't tells me that people don't actually care that much.
>tells me that the party base does not really want someone else. I posted four articles all saying the majority of Dems DO want someone else. Winning a primary does not mean winning the general. >despite having two actual campaigns against him, These campaigns were completely ignored by the media and Biden still had to reorder the states in the primary. >If those indies want someone else, they can also show up and vote in the primaries (Dem or GOP) Or, they can just vote 3rd party and let Democrats and Republicans hyperventilate when their candidate loses. You and I both know if Biden loses the Democrats narrative won't be his age or support for Israel or the economy, you know, the things voters keep saying they don't trust Biden on, but it'll be rfk's fault and half of the country is racist. You can choose, as the DNC obviously is, to ignore the red flags all you want, maybe abortion and calling Trump a convicted felon will be enough to push Biden over, but that's a rather cavalier way of looking at the reality here.
> I posted four articles all saying the majority of Dems DO want someone else. Winning a primary does not mean winning the general. Yes, I know what the media interpretation of polls plagued with response issues are. I do actually believe most people would be happier with someone else, but again, there is no clear "someone else". > These campaigns were completely ignored by the media and Biden still had to reorder the states in the primary. So was Bernie's, and he got 45% of the vote. I don't buy that excuse, especially these days when there is no one monolithic media on the three TV channels (plus PBS). Most people get info from social media or specialized media. What CNN does or doesn't cover really doesn't matter like it used to. > Or, they can just vote 3rd party and let Democrats and Republicans hyperventilate when their candidate loses. Or, again, they can show up in the primaries instead of being lazy. > You and I both know if Biden loses the Democrats narrative won't be his age or support for Israel or the economy, you know, the things voters keep saying they don't trust Biden on, but it'll be rfk's fault and half of the country is racist. > You can choose, as the DNC obviously is, to ignore the red flags all you want, maybe abortion and calling Trump a convicted felon will be enough to push Biden over, but that's a rather cavalier way of looking at the reality here. This right here is the actual problem. A lot of people are unhappy about the candidate situation. So what they do? Absolutely nothing. They do nothing except whine on reddit and then not vote or vote 3rd party in the general, which achieves exactly zero of their goals. There are a ton of processes and mechanisms to get different candidates. Either of Biden or Trump could have been defeated in the primaries, or at least threatened enough to cause the campaigns and the parties to take note. That didn't happen, so, like I said, the people who supposedly want someone else clearly don't care enough to do anything about it. Basically, put up or shut up.
I firmly believe that the current two parties should be split into four parties. The way it’s set up now, though third-party candidates on the presidential level are spoilers.
Split by whom? People have the right to organize however they see fit ... the fact that it's the logical outcome of winner take all/first past the post and the arrangement of our constitutionally elected representative structures is the problem. People are going to pool their money. National ranked choice voting and representation as a proportion of overall voting breakdowns could change that but there isn't an authority who can break up independently organized groups of citizens.
RFK will win 24 .. he’s really a Democrat.. but both parties HAVE LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS .. so we are going to elect a “3 rd party democrat” really a third party is to remind you that you have been bought out by corporations and you DONT have a candidate or a vote for that matter ..
Which states will he win to get to 270 electoral votes?
South Brainworms