Reading comprehension not your strong suit?
"GM- Its easy. You want to be principled in your decisions. Voting for a lesser of two evils is not.
Also this may mean something to you that the average AF dweeb doesn’t get- GJ is leading among active military, (http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/military-times-survey-july-donald-trump-hillary-clinton).I wonder why?"
Again, voting for a third party is your right but understand you are casting a ceremonial/protest vote at this point. A multi-party system or Third-Party does not work under the U.S. political structure. Please, for the benefit of your civics teacher, drop the pipe dream of a third party system.
This. Always vote for the lesser of two evils. As all the Ralph Nader tree huggers who voted for him in 2000 will tell you.
^ I’m sure the loyalists said similar things to the revolutionaries. I will cast my protest vote with a clear conscience. I think you will be surprised by how many people turn out and do the same. Change has to start somewhere.
Why couldn’t the “third party” surpass the second or first party again?
It seems like, based on this logic, voting for even a second party that doesn’t seem likely to win is a wasted vote as well.
It could, but only in really extreme cases. 95% chance is that they just take votes away from one party, and hand victory to the party that the fewest people like.
It’s unfortunate that many resign themselves to simply accepting the two party system as-is rather than consider the possibility of a significant shift. In the first 100 years or so of the US, the political party system started with Federalists, then a Democrat-Republican Party, then Democrats and Whigs, then Republicans (not until the time of Lincoln - the 16th president).
Unless it drew votes from both parties equally…
Also, taking a multi-cycle view opens up the possibility of enacting change on the party losing the most votes. I’d argue the Republican party could benefit from such a change.
Internet man with delusions of grandeur. Cool.
You could go with this though:
In 2 1/2 weeks, the nation will have the chance to join 3rd party supporters in saying that we are tired of business as usual in Washington. We are hungry for change and we are ready to believe again.
We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington. It’s a status quo that extends beyond any particular party and right now that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got, with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face, whether those problems are health care that folks can’t afford or a mortgage they cannot pay.
So this will not be easy. Make no mistake about what we’re up against. We’re up against the belief that it’s all right for lobbyists to dominate our government, that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem and this election is our chance to say that we are not going to let them stand in our way anymore.
We’re up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor and judgment and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.
We’re up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner. We’re up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics. This is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.
This election is about the past vs. the future. It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
There are those who will continue to tell us that we can’t do this, that we can’t have what we’re looking for, that we can’t have what we want, that we’re peddling false hopes. Where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words – yes, we can.
For the record, I plagiarized this.
Exactly equally? What are the chances that this will happen? Anyway, the best “test” is that there is no legitimate third party choice in the US. Theory is great, but it has to have some empirical grounds.
That’s what scares hardcore liberals. An exodus of fiscally conservative, socially moderate members of the republican party to a 3rd party free of the far right Tea Party contingent would be very appealing to independents and moderate democrats.
Wow. Higgs has gone all bchad in his post size.
Edit: oh, his big post was plagiarized.
Higgamond, the ultimate goal is for a country to govern in the middle and not on the extremes (Trump and Sanders) of the political spectrum. As the country evolves you will see instances of the government skewing left or right but we should always aim to vote candidates that can appeal to both sides with checks and balances in the Senate and House.
The status quo and change you demand will never happen by supporting extreme candidates since they only appeal to their base. We are in a situation where extreme candidates are getting elected (Tea Party, Democratic Socialist) and refusing to negotiate and we must aim as a country to elect individuals who sit in the middle with a left or right tilt. Moderatism is under attack in this country and I feel for my fellow moderate Republicans being labeled as Trump supporters even though his policies are far-right from the ideals I value.
It doesn’t have to be “exact” to succeed, but it highlights the fact that “factual” conclusions that a third party can’t be successful or play a role are largely BS. For instance, say Democrats have 51% of the vote, Republicans 45% (remainder evenly split undecided / third party / may not vote fringe voters) and then a third party pulls 23% from democrats and 20% from Republicans. The new landscape is 38% Democrats, 25% Republicans and 43% New party. “Exact” is only necessary if both parties have “exactly” the same amount of votes initially.
Parties have evolved from third parties in the past, so there’s that for empirical evidence. People may not be implying that we need a third party system “all of the time”, but they may be saying that at times where a regime shift is needed, third parties may serve an effective role in reshaping the party landscape as they did in the transition from Whig to Republican. We may be in the midst of similar transition now.
Alternately, in the posited scenario above, if instead you pulled 10% from the Democrats and 20% from the Republicans, you wind up with 41% democrats, 35% republicans and 30% new party. Nothing changes, it doesn’t negatively impact the initial outcome (gap is undecided), BUT it does massively impact the approach of the second party as it seeks to reengage a lost voter base and shape future elections.
Alternately, a third party can capture voters from the large non-voting eligible voter base which is extremely important as it isn’t truly zero sum.
someone has to have done a theoretical construct of voter behavior and the equilibrium number of parties. S2K get on it. Hotelling’s Law with some dynamic game theory, go.
That shift can happen without a third party, you can just vote for candidates that support these policies during the primary season so that they’re actually going to be in play for the election. These parties aren’t monolithic to begin with and are composed of plenty of different factions who are jockeying for influence early on. Socialists and young people did it by heavily backing Bernie. Traditional conservatives did it by backing Ted Cruz. White nationalists saw the potential in Trump early on and helped him win. If these mythical socially moderate fiscal conservatives were prominent enough and popular enough, they could have done the same.
Post primary, when people finally start looking at third parties, it’s already over.
Imagine for a second, Bernie actually had the voter delegates count by a hundred elected delegates and the super delegates shut him out. How would it have happened again? The party controls the party, there is no guarantee either party will even accept a nominee into the primary. A third party, can also add a measurable candidate or have the advantage of deviating from the broader party platform to engage a better middle ground.
That would probably never happen for the precise reason that Bernie would break off and take his supporters with him. It could have happened when O was running against HRC, however superdelegates followed pledged delegates.
In the case of republicans, it’s even less likely as they don’t have that setup.
Don’t most candidates have to agree to not run third party at the onset? Also, I’m not nearly as confident in “probably never happen” and let’s not forget how the party worked to tilt the propaganda in favor of Hillary as shown by those leaked emails.
The point is, the party (particularly Democratic primary) can easily railroad the popular vote.
Alternately, lets go back to assuming zero sum full voter engagement (which is an fallacy given the existence of disengaged voters) and assume you have two parties, both 50% initial vote. Both vote in their own primaries. In the republican side ®, 30% vote for fuckboys (technical term) that mostly worry about gay marriage and the border while the other 20% are socially liberal but are really into conservative spending. The other 20% is perennially outvoted and gets stuck with the fuckboys. On the other side (D), 30% vote for socialist policies and welfare expansions while the other 20% like the social equality stances but hate the fiscal policies. The 30% perennially railroads them. The disengaged 20% from either side move to a third party that can posit a fiscally conservative, socially liberal business tycoon like Mark Cuban and together they have 40% of the vote vs 30% for either other major party. This is how primaries may not work to represent the broader population, but how a third party could prove a structural solution.