Current Events > Is it time to start voting 3rd party?

(+) Yeah! (+)

People say it's just throwing your vote away, but at what point do we break from that and let the DNC know that we have no confidence in their ability to represent us?

As if the 3rd parties in the US are better. Jill Stein basically solely exists to take votes from Democrats and has ties to Russia. Libertarians are just a different flavor of Republicans.

Not that it matters, because the likelyhood that either of these 3rd parties gathers enough votes to win elections outside of local ones is practically zero. So all you would be doing is help Republicans win and I hope I don't need to explain how much worse Republicans are for this country.

It was like 30 years ago. Only problem the only 3rd party that would gain support is the libertarian party

Reform was your only chance and Nader's inability to create a serious political organization and quell the infighting doomed it to irrelevance.

It requires third parties to gain traction from the ground up (i.e., city, county, state levels). Anyone who thinks a third party candidate is going to be elected president when there are zero in Congress is delusional imo. The party needs to establish a track record of good stewardship, good policy and good results for constituents first.

Like if it were me I would probably start a small party out in the middle of nowhere where it would be easy to achieve positive results for local people through small action, to earn their goodwill. And then eventually work the way up the county. But it takes time and people are impatient. It would also require absolute strict adherence with the law so the government can't come down and try to do some funky bullshit with you though the current administration will do it anyway

Hexenherz posted...

It requires third parties to gain traction from the ground up (i.e., city, county, state levels). Anyone who thinks a third party candidate is going to be elected president when there are zero in Congress is delusional imo. The party needs to establish a track record of good stewardship, good policy and good results for constituents first.

I didn't say for president

Sure, if you don't wanna achieve anything.

HighSeraph posted...

Sure, if you don't wanna achieve anything.

That's unfair -- if there's enough of them, third party voters will achieve their goal of a Republican dictatorship.

GeraldDarko posted...

I didn't say for president

well you're lucky if you have any sort of third party representation on your lower government ballots then

Even if a 3rd party somehow won the popular vote, the EC will ensure that candidate doesn't win. That's the true reason for their existence.

Hexenherz posted...

It requires third parties to gain traction from the ground up (i.e., city, county, state levels). Anyone who thinks a third party candidate is going to be elected president when there are zero in Congress is delusional imo. The party needs to establish a track record of good stewardship, good policy and good results for constituents first.

Was going to say this. Third parties love their joke runs for the president but they don't want to put in the effort of winning local elections and building up a base.

The only way to save America is to tear it all down and start over. America has a rotten cancerous core. The current system is no good

If you only want Republicans to win and make everything even worse, then sure. We live in a two party country and until the worst party is made powerless, there's never going to be any chance to reform the second worst party. It seems a concept so simple that even a child could grasp this, yet here we are living in a nightmare hellscape that has been almost completely destroyed in less than a year.

Ok you vote enough 3rd party to get 30 senators and more in the house.

What then. That's still not enough to pass laws single handedly. They'd still have to work with Dems and Republicans

Can we stop blaming 3rd parties, as if fewer than a million people voting for Stein was the reason Harris got 7 MILLION fewer votes than Biden?

Harris would still have lost if every single 3rd party vote went to her instead.

HighSeraph posted...

Sure, if you don't wanna achieve anything.

Republicans are getting a twenty House seat/EC point swing after 2030, so it really doesn't for long.

Also, Castleton "stop telling us to vote harder!" Snob coming to the defense of useless 3rd parties, surprise.

The Republicans are too evil and have duped too many people. The Democrats are far from great, but theyre the only thing between sanity and things getting even worse.

CastletonSnob1 posted...

Can we stop blaming 3rd parties, as if fewer than a million people voting for Stein was the reason Harris got 7 MILLION fewer votes than Biden?

Harris would still have lost if every single 3rd party vote went to her instead.

So what. A single election is just an anecdote.

The reality is that Republican general election voters are far more reliable R votes than non-Republicans are for voting D.

That's why third party nonsense has a marked tendency to favor Republicans, and is often pushed by Republicans for precisely that reason.

One of the best example of this is Jill Stein, the eternal presidential candidate of the US Green Party, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia/Republicans.

Primaries exist. Taking over the existing party that we already have a (small) foothold in is more realistic than starting from scratch.

The problem with American democracy is that none of those in charge have any interest into changing the systems so that election results are actually reflective of the voters. Voting third party in the current system will do nothing to address or change that inherent flaw.

Only if you're okay with the GOP being guaranteed wins.

Spoiler alert, splintering is exactly what the GOP hopes that the Dems do.

Primary the fuckwads.

There's zero reason to vote third party until we implement something akin to ranked choice voting.

K181 posted...

Primary the fuckwads.

Problem is, young voters barely participate in primaries.

In the primary elections, vote for the WF endorsed candidate.

Garioshi posted...

Reform was your only chance and Nader's inability to create a serious political organization and quell the infighting doomed it to irrelevance.

imo he also messed up the momentum third parties started to have in the late 90s.

But no, not unless you're in a RCV area.

No, because there is no good 3rd party candidate that you can get enough voters to cast ballots for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

push for this. make the electoral college functional for once.

already way ahead of you TC

I'm reminded of a few years ago when the Democrats kicked out Sanders in favour of Hilary, and started to question what the outcome would have looked like had both names had been on the ballot instead of just hers. Obviously the same for the Republicans. If each major party had 2 options, since even within their own party the popularity was divided. I doubt it would change much, but I really liked Sanders, even if he was a bit older.

No. That just ensures republicans. What you need to do is kick out the old establishment dems and replace them with better ones in the primaries.

VRX3000 posted...

No. That just ensures republicans. What you need to do is kick out the old establishment dems and replace them with better ones in the primaries.

I'd suggest throwing in age limits, but after dealing with Justin Trudeau for god knows how many years, even that's not the right solution.

VRX3000 posted...

No. That just ensures republicans. What you need to do is kick out the old establishment dems and replace them with better ones in the primaries.

What about old Republicans like Trump? Guy's a fucking dinosaur, and you want to point fingers at Democrats?

GeraldDarko posted...

People say it's just throwing your vote away, but at what point do we break from that and let the DNC know that we have no confidence in their ability to represent us?

The time for that is after you demonstrate you even have the voting power to out-vote the republicans and after implementing ranked voting

The time to vote 3rd party is after we get rid of the GOP and the 3rd party is the new 2nd party.

The answer has always been:

-Vote locally! Don't just vote in major elections, vote in state elections and smaller ones too. The more local, the more your vote matters.

-Vote in primaries! This is where we can actually get good candidates. If you look at left leaning people their turnout rates in primaries are atrocious. This is why Bernie lost, and Trump won.

-Vote for the best VIABLE candidate. Yeah I know voting blue no matter who sucks but once we reach the general election it's too late. And we have reached the point where the worst Democrats (like Fetterman) are STILL better than the "best" Republicans (like Collins). Maybe someday if we get enough good people elected we can create a system that makes third party candidates more viable, but you need to be pragmatic and recognize that trying to change things by "sending a message" or something is futile.

Republicans have been doing the above three things for 50 years, and it's worked amazingly well for them. They have minority rule over all three branches of government. People on the left keep doing the opposite of what works in the system then blaming the system. Yeah, the system sucks, but ask yourself, how are you gonna change it?

action52 posted...

The answer has always been:

-Vote locally! Don't just vote in major elections, vote in state elections and smaller ones too. The more local, the more your vote matters.

-Vote in primaries! This is where we can actually get good candidates. If you look at left leaning people their turnout rates in primaries are atrocious. This is why Bernie lost, and Trump won.

-Vote for the best VIABLE candidate. Yeah I know voting blue no matter who sucks but once we reach the general election it's too late. And we have reached the point where the worst Democrats (like Fetterman) are STILL better than the "best" Republicans (like Collins). Maybe someday if we get enough good people elected we can create a system that makes third party candidates more viable, but you need to be pragmatic and recognize that trying to change things by "sending a message" or something is futile.

Republicans have been doing the above three things for 50 years, and it's worked amazingly well for them. They have minority rule over all three branches of government. People on the left keep doing the opposite of what works in the system then blaming the system. Yeah, the system sucks, but ask yourself, how are you gonna change it?

Republicans have rule because of gerrymandering, not because of good candidates, but they're openly shifting control to themselves. Look at Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, etc that are now openly gerrymandering.

voting 3rd party is not a good idea until the Republican party ends up in the 30% or less voting range. Cant afford to split up the votes for Democrats right now.

Unfortunately, it's not a good idea. Not with the way our voting system works.

Redefining one of the duopolies is really the only viable option for now, and the closest one you'll get to changing in the positive direction are the Democrats.

First

We need a third party.

Go ahead! Throw your vote away! *Laughs evily.*

If your goal is to just give up, sure.

No, but the Democratic party should be dissolved lol

Everyone proved in this topic how the two main parties consolidated power among themselves. Making third parties a threat to status quo

kawalimus posted...

No, but the Democratic party should be dissolved lol

Sure, that sounds good.

But, this raises a problem, who will people blame if that were to happen when Reps have even more unchecked power than they currently do?

Scardude posted...

Everyone proved in this topic how the two main parties consolidated power among themselves. Making third parties a threat to status quo

You're acting like this was some kind of a conspiracy where the two parties worked together to eliminate their competition. But the two party system just happened almost immediately after the country was founded. And it was a complete accident--the framers of the US constitution put all these provisions in for how the election would work if no candidate got a majority because they imagined it would be a regular occurrence. They expected that multiple candidates would be dividing the votes among them.

Instead they unintentionally created a system that heavily incentivized dividing into two groups, so that's what happened.

And you know what? I think it's a bad system. We should change that. But first we have to figure out how to work effectively within the system if we ever want to have any hope of changing it.

What does having a 3rd party actually entail at the end of the day. What changes in Congress

action52 posted...

But the two party system just happened almost immediately after the country was founded

There was a brief period from Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams where the USA was functionally a 1 party government.