I’m assuming just like how the stock market is surging because people expect Trump to be elected, the good job numbers are also due to Trump.
Everything is going well despite Biden doing his best to ruin America because he’s a radical woke Communist liberal.
Exactly. Glad to see someone gets it.
No Labels is no more (at least in terms of being a third party possibility this year).
tl;dr: They couldn’t find anyone willing to run a credible centrist campaign, and America’s hyper-polarized political culture doesn’t seem to have room for any such effort (at least in the opinion of the talking heads).
Same issue with thinking that president is ruler. Need senators and reps. Need state reps and senators to make meaningful change.
Maybe the No Labels Party and the Forward Party can consolidate and get to 0.1% in the average poll.
Eh a credible third party candidate can do better than 0.1%.
Sadly… probably not enough to win, but materially better than 0.1%. Four minor-party candidates did better than 0.1% in 2016, as an example. Libertarians & Greens pretty much always exceed 0.1%. If the No Labels could attract someone popular and smart to run they might be able to as well.
The problem is most 3rd party candidates will be closer to one party than the other so they are likely to pull a lot more votes from the party they are more like and thus most likely to hand the election to the party they are least like.
I’m not sure what the solution is for how you move away from a two party system.
I the past when a 3rd party has arisen I the US, it’s usually lead to the collapse of one of the two major parties over a 2 to 10 year period until we level off at two parties again. Our winner take all system just doesn’t lend itself to 3 major parties existing at the same time for any real length.
Ranked choice voting / instant runoff helps.
If you prefer the Green candidate to the Democrat and the Democrat to the Republican then you rank the Green candidate first and the Democrat second.
After the Green candidate comes in last in the first round your vote automatically transfers to the Democrat.
So you’re not “throwing your vote away” by voting for the Green candidate.
Libertarians pull from both sides… traditionally more from Republicans, but anymore I think it’s closer now as Trump has usurped the Republican Party. But either way… you’re not really hurting your preferred major party candidate by voting for your preferred minor party candidate first.
Yeah embracing ranked choice voting is probably the best chance at other parties gaining traction.
The last time we had any kind of 3rd party do anything was the segregation party which split from the Democrats and later got swallowed by the republicans.
Ranked choice voting gives third party supporters a chance to express an opinion. That might lead to the major parties moving in the direction of the third party, or it may lead to more people looking into the third party and making it their first choice.
I think a case can be made that the Greens and the Libertarians draw so few votes in major races in part because people don’t want the perception of “throwing away” their votes. Such voters either vote for the lesser of the two great evils, or they stay home because they can’t stand the idea of voting for either of the major parties.
With RCV, the possibility of voting for your wacky long-shot candidate, while indicating a second (or third, or…) choice of a major party candidate makes it clear that your vote isn’t being thrown away.
And if the Greens and Libertarians can actually gain votes and the appearance of semi-viability, perhaps they’ll start to attract credible entrants for those races.
And run candidates for more local elections and build a competent brand, maybe they’ll get somewhere in a decade or so. But, no one is that patient for power anymore.
Good grief.
Don’t start at the Presidential level. Build a base starting with mayors, congressman, and senators. Once you have enough political credibility and panache you can launch a presidential campaign.
I’ve been hearing that since I was a kid in the 70s. So obviously it’s working great.
Who tried it (with a serious platform)?
I have no idea what you’d consider a serious platform or what party has actually tried it but I’ve been hearing that argument or a version of it for nearly 50 years. If it was a winning argument I’m guessing it would have been successfully implemented by some 3rd party by now.
I have at times heard both the Libertarian Party and Green Party espousing similar sentiments at various times.
strong platform is debatable in this case, but MN tried to get a strong 3rd party after ventura won the gov race as independent.
his one term had a lot of pragmatic stuff in yrs 1-2, then when he had no legislative help (owing to not one in those roles from his party) he turned frustrated and lashed out and kind of imploded. then the rest of the I’s couldn’t capitalize.
the financial strength of the 2 main parties is a massive deterrent to a new 3rd getting enough headway to build up the ranks. if the old guard conservative/GOP types who openly dislike trump can’t find a way to start something then I don’t know what the next logical break would be.
