Isn't it kinda weird that third parties only make an effort every 4 years?
You'd think midterms would be a great time to get your name out there and run high profile candidates to win House districts led by charlatans...
Isn't it weird that people only pay attention to third parties every 4 years? Maybe that's why we only have two shitty choices.
Volunteer. Get educated. Quit blaming others.
Aren't you literally blaming others in your comment?
Third parties should be running House candidates and putting ads on airtime for them. You aren't going to win an election if it's based on people doing research instead of you doing heavy advertisement.
Third parties should try doing anything noteworthy to get attention. The parties and their candidates don't deserve anything intrinsically.
There's plenty else they could be doing... outreach in off-years, for example. Start on campuses building awareness and building the kind of word-of-mouth and grassroots supporters you really need for a campaign. Having your name on the ballot isn't enough. Having rallies isn't enough. You can't ask the people to come to YOU, and the media certainly won't give you any coverage... you have to reach out to THEM.
Third-party candidates don't have much money. They typically don't have corporate donors and dark money funneling in, and individual contributions simply aren't enough.
Third parties should be running House grassroots candidates and developing a support system. That's how the teabaggers took control. Of course they had the financial backing of wealthy conservatives.
But then the argument would be "we lost this house seat because of the 3rd party"
Isn't blaming others what third party is all about?
A few might be more idealist, and likely more ideological.
Yeah but like this you can vote 3rd party every four years and then do nothing else and then you can go on Lemmy and claim you're both anti trump and anti genocide and have the moral high ground.
slightly higher ground.
State parties are focused on local elections consistently, but nobody notices.
I had to shut someone down saying the same thing as this post and it's ridiculous that someone thought repeating this idiocy was a good idea.
IIRC something happens if one manages to get 5% of the vote, which would enable them to more seriously compete the following election. So, the pitch is they aren't trying to win this time but for the election after - if they can get 5% this time. Didn't get 5%. Next election rolls around: rinse and repeat.
It's a pipe dream. In 2016 we had two of the most disliked candidates running in the big two, and an uncharacteristically decent looking candidate running for the LP. That was prime time for the LP to get that coveted 5% and start making wheels turn. They got 3% and remain on square one. We will not EVER see better conditions for a 3rd party success than Trump v Hillary v Johnson. Not with fptp.
If 3rds want to ever actually get their shit together, they need to work together for reform like ranked choice. Their differences in policy don't mean squat until then, so wake me up when that shit starts to happen. (it won't happen)
Ross Perot was the last time a 3rd party actually made some noise. He took 18.9% of the popular vote, founded the reform party, then withered on the vine.
In following elections, the Reform party would go on to nominate Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader as Presidential candidates. It also ran Jesse Ventura for governor, and even Trump had a brief turn in there.
Not so much withering on the vine as being completely incoherent.
(If you don't know about Pat Buchanan, since he's been out of the limelight for a while, he was basically all the worst impulses of racist GOP voters back in the 90s. Exactly the kind of people Trump uses as his base now.)
and IIUC caused a war-mongering President, and former CIA leader, whose popularity less than 18 months before the election at one point was above 90%, to lose.
Localist parties can probably win as well. I think there are some observations that can be made from UK elections, which also use first-past-the-post.
Not to mention, a third party did get 5%+ with Perot and the Reform Party. But I don't think Reform even exists anymore, and if they do, they've done a terrible job of making themselves known.
They've been trying their strategy of "get our name out during presidential elections and hit 5%" for a long time now, and it's clearly a losing strategy.
I mean tbf I've seen the libertarians and greens run those races too, it's just that being a third party under fptp bites those candidates just as hard as their presidential candidates.
Also having such a hopeless position means they're not actually accountable to their supporters, meaning refusing to actually try to build a movement doesn't actually hurt them.
chances are, they probably are, but corporate media is never going to give them any airtime so you never hear about it
In my state if a Democrat doesn't run for a seat. Chances are a Republican is running uncontested. I leave large parts of the state ballot blank because Republicans run uncontested ON EVERY BALLOT. Even presidential years. And while I rarely vote FOR anyone. I always vote AGAINST Republicans. Well them and Rand loving economic liberals pretending to be libertarians. Which is basically the same thing.
Those are perfect races for third parties to get into
Seriously. About half the races in my districts never have anyone running but one Republican. Hell there's been a few Statewide races where only one Republican ran.
Yeah, Libertarians and Republicans are so alike: both want drug legalization, massive military cuts, removal of a lot of tariffs and immigration restrictions, and having 38 year-old gay men running for President—2 peas in a pod.
If we had god-damn Approval Voting you could literally just vote for everyone but the evil candidate and that would actually help everyone else and hurt them. "Anybody but Dr. Evil" would be a legit PAC interest group.
Use that as a point: "We're too radical for the pro-2-party-state media."
If third parties were more effective then the screaming about them "stealing votes" that are supposedly owed to the two main parties would just be louder.
When third parties start winning races, you see states and other election institutions finding new ways to exclude them.
I'm reminded of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was created to freeze out the League of Women Voters (who had been running debates since '72) by transferring governance of the debates to the heads of the RNC and DNC. This effectively cartelized the debate process.
After 1996, when Republicans blamed the third party contender Ross Perot of throwing the election to Clinton one too many times, the CPD raised the criteria for participating in debates to each candidate needing 15% support in national polling, functionally excluding all non-major parties.
But this pushed the more radical elements into the primaries, as we witnessed in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024. Long-shot candidates could find a podium on the stage with as little as 2% national support in the Dem or Republican primaries. The primaries have become a de facto third party venue, as a result. And this has created a crisis of "elect-ability" that party leaders are attempting to tame in their own way, by freezing out challengers through their own arcane procedures and rules.
It feels increasingly like we're going back to the old Smoke Filled Room model of candidate selection.
Just like the two main parties are not owed votes, neither are third parties owed votes. If a Democrat has to earn my vote, then so too do third party candidates. And they've done an incredibly poor job of doing so.
Don't get me wrong, you have a good point. I just find the third parties to be completely unserious and not at all focused on actually making a difference. I would prefer for them to be more effective and to actually try to earn my vote instead of just running on "I'm not the other two!".
It's my opinion that the FPTP system not only disadvantages third parties with game theory, but it also leads to batshit insane third parties that really aren't serious.
If this lame post from OP was accurate it would say "Isn't it kinda weird that I only think about third parties every 4 years?"
Because they do exist during all of the other years, if you're paying attention
Oh I think about them a lot more often, especially when I look at my midterm ballots and see the occasional third party candidate for a local race, and there's been absolutely no campaigning nor advertising effort. Or, when I see a race that a Republican is running unopposed, and third parties have wasted a perfectly good opportunity in running a candidate there.
If third parties want to win, they cannot rely on people doing personal research beforehand. I like to do so, but I'm certainly in the minority.
That has been a big issue that led us here, that people started taking Memes at face value.
Also getting sued into the ground.
That's because they're not in it to actually win. A number of them are in it to act as spoiler specifically, why else do you think Jill Stein still around?
partially to keep the Democrats from straying too much from environmental concerns.
She should focus solely on the environment and climate change then instead of "WiFi causes cancer" and promoting vaccine hesitancy. She should also develop a facts based viewpoint on nuclear energy instead of fear mongering.
We have modern reaction designs that can consume existing nuclear waste. We literally have more nuclear waste around than we would if we were doing more nuclear projects.
And partially to collect more money from Putin for a third folk rock album.
Edit: For anyone else that wants in on or doubts that trainwreck here is her second album on bandcamp
The third party situation currently is inherently going to draw candidates that are not practically minded. Any one that might align with a third party platform but have any hint of practicality go participate with one of the two likely parties.
In some areas, it's not even two parties, it's just one of the two. In those areas, you'll see both left and right candidates in the primary for the practical choice, and the other mainstream party devolves into the same state as "third parties", with far out impractical people trying to run.
Election reform to make third party candidates viable would lead to more practical sensibilities in those third parties
See: Jill Stein, whoever the fuck the Libertarians are running now, Gary Johnson.
What's "far out' and "impractical" about Jill Stein's platform?
Jill is polling a lot higher this year, but instead of taking about her platform, the media goes "Uh-oh! This could benefit Trump!"
I would say that Jill Stein's platform is broadly impractical. It's largely a wishlist of "things that would be cool if they were the case" generally bereft of "how it will be acheived" and ill equipped to deal with harsh realities.
The most pervasive issue is her platform asserts that it will do things that are beyond the authority of a presidential administration. Much of what she promises are the responsibility of congress, not the executive branch. She promises ranked choice voting but that's not even the authority of the federal government, that's the states. She even goes so far as to declare that foreign nations would basically act the way she tells them to. Meanwhile the Green Party despite fielding a presidential candidate is utterly missing in enough down ballot elections making it a guarantee that such a hypothetical presidential win would be lame duck from inauguration.
There's also some inconsistencies. Like allowing the UN Security Council to hold Israel Accountable, but at the same time wanting to abolish the UN Security Council.
Then the flat-out bad ideas, like disbanding NATO. Her platform reads like she believes Russia would just be nice if NATO didn't exist, that the US and NATO is the cause of the invasion of Ukraine. Maybe there was an opportunity there in the 90s if the world had helped Russia differently in the wake of the USSR collapse, but that opportunity, for now, has passed. Fairly sure if she had her wish that we'd probably see Taiwan fall to China, South Korea fall to North Korea (with Chinese and Russian help), and Russia take much of eastern Europe.
Actually many of them do try that, it's just that they'll only ever relevant enough to reach a wide audience during presidential elections when more people are tuned in, disgruntled, and actively looking for alternatives before the cycle repeats itself.
I would not be surprised if a lot of money was funneled into third party campaigns during general elections by PACs of the two main parties as a spoiler strategy. I would be shocked if you tracked campaign contributions to the Green party and to Jill Stein in particular, and didn't find that most of it came from some Republican PAC. If Jill can siphon any votes from Biden, all the better for the Trump campaign.
The Democrats probably do it, too, except Republicans locked out dissent with the "Thou Shalt Not Defy Our (current) God, or we'll destroy your local race with vengeance next chance we get" tactic, and it works. Many Conservatives may disagree with Trump, but they're all terrified little bitches of standing up to him because they'll get dumped on an lose their jobs if they do. So there's fewer spoilers for Democrats to fund.
But I'd be real money that most of Stein's financing comes from conservative PACs, and that's why you only see her pop up out of here gopher hole once every 4 years.
I would be shocked if you tracked campaign contributions to the Green party and to Jill Stein in particular, and didn't find that most of it came from some Republican PAC.
A lot of Russian money, too.
There was just an article I saw today about Republicans helping Cornel West's campaign in Arizona
Jill can't siphon votes from Joe, because the votes dont belong to Joe: they belong to voters, and it is up to politicians to earn votes.
Well, by your post history, you're merely an antagonistic troll, but: you're wrong.
Stein and West from Biden, Oliver from Trump, and RFK Jr from both.
You can track green party campaign contributions via the federal election commission. You don't need to incorrectly speculate. Jill Stein isn't getting republican money; in fact she just qualified for federal matching funds from individual donors.
Are you aware of just how much money is hidden behind shell PACs? I'm speculating because I don't have the resources to track down who's behind who; who's behind who on every contribution.
Individual contributions are safe, and it's good for her that enough individual donors she qualified for matching funds. I mean, it's a pretty low bar; $5,000 in (each of) 20 states, but, yeah, it's good for her. It's enough to run how many national ads, do you think? It's nothing compared to the millions being spent by the other parties, and - you did make a good suggestion. I should go and see just where her contributions are coming from.
I'm not an investigative journalist, and my interest in this is so low even posting comments on Lemmy is taxing my patience. But I will say: better statisticians than myself have said that Ralph Nader had a significant spoiler effect on Al Gore; Ralph Nader gave the presidency to Bush. I contributed, because I was young, ignorant, and I hated Tipper Gore; and I voted for Nader.
Nader never had a chance; he didn't come remotely close to being elected. By voting for Nader, I was helping Bush.
Bernie helped sink Hillary; his lukewarm endorsement, and the vitriolic intrangency of his base, tipped the scales. If the Bernie Bros had all voted for Hillary, history would be much different. We wouldn't have an activist, right-wing supreme court - the single biggest damage Trump caused in his term.
As long as the US uses the Electoral College and First-Past-the-Post voting, this is the reality. Idealism will not fix it: voting for third parties won't fix it. No third party will win even a single state, much less the election. And while I try to have patience with idealists, I don't think the world can afford to faff about with people like Jill Stein. The world can't afford to have younger people learn the hard lesson I did. Votes count, but only votes for major parties. Other voters may as well stay home for all the harm they'll do.
They're not simply 'third parties'. They are political parties organizing around every kind of issue, local or not, without any support or exposure and against the two major parties. What happens is they typically have to caucus with one of two parties anyway to not be fighting both.
Third party candidates and their voters are some of the most engaged political operatives out there.
Presidential elections are the only times the vast majority of people even look or engage in politics whatsoever. That's actually the rare point in time every four years where there is enough visibility for any party, even the two major ones.
Is it the only point in time where they're able to be visible, or is it the only point in time that they choose to be visible? I'm of the opinion that it's the latter, and it's because of a terribly flawed philosophy.
Third parties have been trying to gain visibility through presidential elections for decades, and it's been completely unsuccessful. They're arguably in a worse place than before, since Perot was able to get at least >5% with Reform. It speaks volumes that the third largest candidate behind Trump and Biden is RFK Jr, without any contest at all.
Let that sink in. A party that RFK Jr established at the beginning of this year is polling significantly better than the Greens, Libertarians, and anyone else. I wager the others combined aren't even more than RFK Jr. It's very clear that whatever they're doing isn't working. It doesn't matter how engaged their supporters are if they're pursuing an objective that has demonstrably been a failure.
I don't think any third party has the power to choose their visibility, which is kind of my point. If they had the resources of influence (capital) to spend on media exposure they probably would.
Third parties have been trying to gain visibility through presidential elections for decades, and it's been completely unsuccessful.
My view is most third parties are not fielding presidential candidates specifically because you're not wrong: it is not a successful strategy to campaign for that office as a third party.
But moreso, I would refer back to what I said about how most end up as a caucus within the two major parties. In a sense third party politicians have to actively obscure any willingness they have to break from the status quo.
I wager a viable third party would absorb existing key caucuses from the existing two parties, rather than fully challenging and replacing everyone.
Third party doesn't have to be just for the presidency. It generally is anything but that.
Slaps Table THANK YOU!
Greens / libertarians are just slightly different flavors of liberalism. There's still only one ideology allowed.
You've inadvertently highlighted the problem. There's a third party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, that certainly isn't liberal. But you've never even heard of them from the sounds of it. They'd do much better if instead of running an expensive presidential campaign, they put up candidates in your districts and ran ads for them.
No they wouldn't. The local elections here are non-partisan.
wp:Category:Communist parties in the United States
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wp:Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (also known as RCP, The Revcoms, or Revcom) is a new communist party in the United States founded in 1975 and led by its chairman, Bob Avakian. The party organizes for a revolution to overthrow the system of capitalism and replace it with a socialist state, with the final aim of world communism.[1] The RCP is frequently described as a cult around Avakian.[2][3][4]
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wp:Party for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States. PSL was established in 2004, when its members split from the Workers World Party. The group believes that a socialist revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism.[7] The organization works toward this end by organizing and participating in local protests, running candidates in elections, and political education favoring a revolutionary socialist vanguard party.
Notable members include Gloria La Riva, Michael Prysner, Eugene Puryear, Jodi Dean and Claudia de la Cruz. In 2022, PSL said it had members in "over 100 cities".[9] PSL does not release membership numbers.[10]
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The Workers World Party (WWP) is a Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy.[3][better source needed] WWP members are sometimes called Marcyites. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them their support for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948, their view of People's Republic of China as a workers' state, and their defense of the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, some of which the SWP opposed.[4][5][6]
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wp:New Afrikan Black Panther Party
The New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) is a Black Power Marxist–Leninist–Maoist[1] organization in the United States, largely based out of the Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virginia[2] and referred to as the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC).
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wp:Category:Political parties in the United States
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The Working Families Party of New York was first organized in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions, community organizations, members of the now-inactive national New Party, and a variety of advocacy groups such as Citizen Action of New York and ACORN: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.[10] The party is primarily concerned with healthcare reform, raising the minimum wage, universal paid sick days, addressing student debt, progressive taxation, public education, and energy and environmental reform. It has usually cross-endorsed progressive Democratic and some Republican[11] candidates through fusion voting but occasionally runs its own candidates.
Is this meme format supposed to imply that water is bad for you? Because that's what I get out of it.
The format is supposed to have water being the better option after trying the other shittier alternative, but the op butchered the usage.
Have you ever participated in local politics?
It's full of uncontested republicans
I did not expect to see a Chaeyoung/Twice meme on Lemmy...
I'll guess it that people who like third parties fall into 2 categories: people who are really focused on one issue in particular (green party, free soil party, pirate party), and people who are really individualistic (Angus King, Bernie Sanders, Jesse Ventura, etc.). The former aren't really there to win, but rather to draw attention to the issue. And the latter don't wanna join someone else's party.
It’s no different than those that suggest voting for third party candidates. Every four years- predictable as the sunrise.
I know what you mean. Every four years I hear Democrats trying to get me to vote for a Democrat for president, and Republicans want me to vote for some Republican. Every four years this happens!
In fact, I can say, without exaggeration, this has been happening at least as long as I've been voting.
Cool. Keep doing nothing at all about it and then keep complaining that nothing has changed.
ranked choice voting (or similar)
proportional representation
If we could have both of these, it would be American democracy—only better!
I like Approval Voting for single-winner elections and Sequential Proportional Approval Voting. Approval is way easier than RCV in every sense (RCV is complex enough to disenfranchise minorities) and it gets more accurate results because it doesn't have spoilers (RCV actually does, they're just different than what you're used to).
Approval is great for third parties because their full support in the final results, which RCV doesn't always do. Those results are important because they influence voters in the next election, helping little parties build up legitimacy even when they lose.
It's currently in use in Fargo and St. Louis, and of course they're very happy with it.
Yeah, as long as we can get rid of lesser-of-two-evils voting, things would get a lot better.
Just gonna throw STAR voting into the rink for the hell of it. Any of these systems is better than FPTP and I would endorse any of them in a local push for better voting.
sortition
If I recall correctly, that’s how the president of the government in The Songs of Distant Earth was chosen.
Proportional Instant Runoff Voting is usually just called Single Transferable Vote (STV). But there are others, the best one being Comparison of Pairs of Outcomes by the Single Transferable Vote (CPO-STV) which is STV but implementing Condorcet's method instead of IRV.