We Need a Third Party

[The Frankish Reich]

Latest evidence:

 

https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/governors/2022-primaries/maryland-goes-maga

 

Maryland was lucky to have a generally sensible Republican governor to balance a solidly Democratic (often of the “progressive” ilk) legislature. 
Well, no more. The Republicans just decided to go into the general election backing a fool. 
If I lived in Maryland I’m not sure what I’d do. Other than leave Maryland, that is. At least for a while it looked like former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez was going to win the Dem primary. The word “socialist” is thrown around a lot, but he pretty much fits the bill. Maybe now they’ll escape that fate as some other candidates did ok. 
Bigger picture: the parties are so extreme now that if I want some kind of brake on taxing and spending, I’ve gotta be willing to accept a heavy dose of election denialism too. 
Third parties don’t work in America, in that they don’t win elections. But sometimes they push the existing parties more toward the middle. I’m something of a radical centrist at this stage of my life. There is no party I would feel at home in. Is there any movement at all to recapture the voters in my part of the political spectrum? Because if you start looking at issue polling, that’s where most of us live. 

[T&C]

I think we all need to party more... so the party party works here.

[ChiGoose]

Almost impossible in a First Past the Post system like ours. We haven't had a successful third party in more than 170 years.

 

If we really want to break the stranglehold of the two party system and end both parties, we need to advocate for electoral changes that make a third party viable. Simplest of this would be something like ranked choice voting or approval voting.

[L Ron Burgundy]

I wish it were possible. 

 

Also wish there were a way to have an overall no confidence vote or something of that nature.   I know I'm talking crazy but I think if a way existed to oust everyone currently elected at a high level and start over with new people,  old a holes can't run, a good amount of people would go for it.   I may be wrong but I feel like confidence on both sides isn't high.

[frostbitmic]

The Democrats are a bunch of milquetoasts, the Republicans are a bunch of insane fascists who want to take us back to the 50's ... that would be the 1850's.

 

As a life long Independent  I'm too socially liberal to be a Republican and too fiscally conservative to be a member of either party.

 

This country needs a 3rd party, a moderate party, to reel us back in from the extremists and insanity on both sides.

[TH3]

2 minutes ago, frostbitmic said:

The Democrats are a bunch of milquetoasts, the Republicans are a bunch of insane fascists who want to take us back to the 50's ... that would be the 1850's.

 

As a life long Independent  I'm too socially liberal to be a Republican and too fiscally conservative to be a member of either party.

 

This country needs a 3rd party, a moderate party, to reel us back in from the extremists and insanity on both sides.

I am 58…old enough….The Dems are have been the same my whole life….genuinely interested in solving problems…but generally bad ideas on how to do it. The GOP went off the hook when a black guy got voted to be POTUS….and since then the only thing they have done legislatively is cut taxes….that and stock scotus to drop bad decisions most people don’t want…or really even asked for. They vote lock stock and barrel against anything and everything…just because.

 

We are not going to get a third party….a reasonable GOP would be welcome….we have a lot to improve on to give our kids and grandkids a better place and squabbling over transient social issues is a waste of time….

[L Ron Burgundy]

7 minutes ago, frostbitmic said:

The Democrats are a bunch of milquetoasts, the Republicans are a bunch of insane fascists who want to take us back to the 50's ... that would be the 1850's.

 

As a life long Independent  I'm too socially liberal to be a Republican and too fiscally conservative to be a member of either party.

 

This country needs a 3rd party, a moderate party, to reel us back in from the extremists and insanity on both sides.

I'm with you.  There's things I like about both sides but being socially liberal,  and an avid securalist, I can't stand the current state of the right. 

 

The left is a bit of a mess now and they won't close the gap the way they deal with trans and other newer social phenomena. 

[JaCrispy]

Absolutely! But I will take it one step further…

 

We need a 3rd and 4th party- one to compete with the establishment Republicans, and one to compete with the establishment Democrats…

 

Of course, it would only be a matter of time before corporations caught on and corrupted them too…

[ChiGoose]

6 minutes ago, JaCrispy said:

Absolutely! But I will take it one step further…

 

We need a 3rd and 4th party- one to compete with the establishment Republicans, and one to compete with the establishment Democrats…

 

Of course, it would only be a matter of time before corporations caught on and corrupted them too…

 

We should all be advocating for non-partisan electoral reforms like ranked choice voting. That would get rid of the spoiler effect that prevents third parties from succeeding and give a real chance for better options to emerge.

[The Frankish Reich]

5 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

 

We should all be advocating for non-partisan electoral reforms like ranked choice voting. That would get rid of the spoiler effect that prevents third parties from succeeding and give a real chance for better options to emerge.

I agree.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that we DID see a third party emerge -- the Trump Party. It's Patrick Buchanan's old fusion of nostalgia, nationalism, and Trumanesque economic/trade policy. The problem is it took over an existing party, the Republicans, within a period of just a couple years. What used to be the Republican Party vanished from the face of America, or retreated into places like Utah (Romney).

[Doc Brown]

The American people will determine when democrats sway too far to the left and when Republicans sway too far to the right.  The two party system has worked since the founding of the republic and will continue to do so.

[Tiberius]

7 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

The American people will determine when democrats sway too far to the left and when Republicans sway too far to the right.  The two party system has worked since the founding of the republic and will continue to do so.

BINGO 

[snafu]

 Effectively, there is already is a third large group of voters.  Independents.  They sway elections more so than far left or far right elements of the D or the R parties. They’re just not organized into a party with leadership or candidates, etc.

 

We don’t really need a third party.  We need term limits and lobbying reform. We need Congress to do its job and not leave every piece of legislation to the President to issue by fiat. We need politicians to start acting like public servants, not an elite political class which hovers above the peons who just happen to be their constituents.  We need to back off the excessive news coverage of every presidential fart. Maybe then we’d get candidates who might be qualified to be president, instead of what we’ve seen in the recent past. 

 

[Tiberius]

 

[The Frankish Reich]

10 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

The two party system has worked since the founding of the republic and will continue to do so.

My thinking is not that the 3rd party will win anything. It’s that the third party - if it’s a centrist party, and if it’s not bound by the weird coalitions that we now have in America (the “if I want lower taxes I have to accept restrictions on abortion rights as part of the deal” thing) - might be the nudge toward the center that both parties need. 
Ross Perot was a clown. But without the Perot threat, would Bill Clinton have governed as an old-fashioned Mondale style Democrat instead of the more centrist policies he adopted. 

[716er]

A contingent election every presidential election period would suck.

[SoCal Deek]

We already have alternative parties in America. They rarely, if ever, have gotten enough votes to gain office. 

[ChiGoose]

6 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

We already have alternative parties in America. They rarely, if ever, have gotten enough votes to gain office. 

We have a first past the post electoral system that suffers from the spoiler effect. It is nearly impossible for a third party to emerge in such a system because it tends to compete with the party that is more ideologically aligned to it and therefore benefits the party less ideologically aligned.

 

If we truly want to break the stranglehold of the two current parties, we need to reform how we do elections.

[Tenhigh]

17 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

 

We should all be advocating for non-partisan electoral reforms like ranked choice voting. That would get rid of the spoiler effect that prevents third parties from succeeding and give a real chance for better options to emerge.

The problem is in the primaries.  These people have to pander to the fringe to get the nod, then they are beholden to that pandering in the general election.

[SoCal Deek]

3 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

We have a first past the post electoral system that suffers from the spoiler effect. It is nearly impossible for a third party to emerge in such a system because it tends to compete with the party that is more ideologically aligned to it and therefore benefits the party less ideologically aligned.

 

If we truly want to break the stranglehold of the two current parties, we need to reform how we do elections.

Thanks. I’m game, but seriously doubt it would result in the improvements we clearly all want. It’s far more likely that over a short time the new party would simply be swallowed up by whichever existing party it most closely aligns with and whole lot of people will be conveniently, what’s the word….. disenfranchised.

[ChiGoose]

6 minutes ago, Tenhigh said:

The problem is in the primaries.  These people have to pander to the fringe to get the nod, then they are beholden to that pandering in the general election.

 

4 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Thanks. I’m game, but seriously doubt it would result in the improvements we clearly all want. It’s far more likely that over a short time the new party would simply be swallowed up by whichever existing party it most closely aligns with and whole lot of people will be conveniently, what’s the word….. disenfranchised.

 

It all depends on the kind of electoral reform that is enacted.

 

Personally, I think the simplest fix that has the biggest potential to make a difference is ranked choice voting (nothing will solve everything, there is no panacea, but we can make steps to a better system).

 

In ranked choice voting, voters rank the candidates according to their preference. If a single candidate gets 50%+1 of the vote, they win. If no candidate does, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the voters' second preference. This process repeats until either a candidate gets 50%+1 or there's just one candidate left.

 

This helps break the "us vs. them" mentality because Candidate A will want to try to convince Candidate B's supporters to select them as their #2 choice in case Candidate B is eliminated.

 

At first, it'll probably just be different flavors of Dems and Republicans running with multiple candidates from the same party in the race. But eventually, it should pave the way for viable third parties. You could have people pick the Libertarian candidate at #1 and the GOP as #2, or the Green Party as #1 and Dems as #2. Those third parties will no longer play the spoiler roll and will have an easier time getting supporters.

[Boatdrinks]

11 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

The American people will determine when democrats sway too far to the left and when Republicans sway too far to the right.  The two party system has worked since the founding of the republic and will continue to do so.

I agree. The problem- as others have pointed out- is in the primaries. The participation rate is just too low, and that favors candidates at the far end of the spectrum for each party. It’s exactly how an India Walton ends up as the endorsed candidate for Mayor. Most people probably don’t agree with the far left/ right but they vote for their perceived “ lesser of two evils”. Often this is due to an extreme stance on one or two fringe issues. Occasionally a good candidate such as Donald Trump can emerge but not often enough. 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

It is what it is, and it's not going to change any time soon.  The dems don't suck all the time, but they suck plenty.  The republicans don't suck all the time, but they suck plenty.  Things tend to even out. 

[SoCal Deek]

2 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

 

 

It all depends on the kind of electoral reform that is enacted.

 

Personally, I think the simplest fix that has the biggest potential to make a difference is ranked choice voting (nothing will solve everything, there is no panacea, but we can make steps to a better system).

 

In ranked choice voting, voters rank the candidates according to their preference. If a single candidate gets 50%+1 of the vote, they win. If no candidate does, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the voters' second preference. This process repeats until either a candidate gets 50%+1 or there's just one candidate left.

 

This helps break the "us vs. them" mentality because Candidate A will want to try to convince Candidate B's supporters to select them as their #2 choice in case Candidate B is eliminated.

 

At first, it'll probably just be different flavors of Dems and Republicans running with multiple candidates from the same party in the race. But eventually, it should pave the way for viable third parties. You could have people pick the Libertarian candidate at #1 and the GOP as #2, or the Green Party as #1 and Dems as #2. Those third parties will no longer play the spoiler roll and will have an easier time getting supporters.

Our current cabal of corrupt elected officials won't even vote to exclude themselves from profiting from their positions of power.....and you think they'll vote to make it so they have less of a chance from getting re-elected. Not going to happen.  But I definitely admire your optimism! 🙂

[ChiGoose]

3 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Our current cabal of corrupt elected officials won't even vote to exclude themselves from profiting from their positions of power.....and you think they'll vote to make it so they have less of a chance from getting re-elected. Not going to happen.  But I definitely admire your optimism! 🙂

 

We can get around it through voter referendums like Alaskans did in 2020 with Measure 2. I think NYC recently adopted it as well. I think people are so fed up with the status quo and the partisanship that if we can find a way to put the question to them and not the politicians, there's a chance to get something done.

 

You're right that if the politicians have a say, they will not willingly give up their power. So we need to work around that.

[dickleyjones]

In Canada we have first past the post and multiple parties, so it is definitely possible. Realistically only 3 parties (right, middle-left, left) hold any power and the third party has never held a majority, but right now the two left parties are working together as a majority. i like that they are forced to compromise to a point because they must work with each other or do nothing.

 

FPTP is crap, but at least we have more than one party which seems makes it less terrible.

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by dickleyjones

[Golden*Wheels]

21 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Almost impossible in a First Past the Post system like ours. We haven't had a successful third party in more than 170 years.

 

If we really want to break the stranglehold of the two party system and end both parties, we need to advocate for electoral changes that make a third party viable. Simplest of this would be something like ranked choice voting or approval voting.

What's successful though? I think getting elected outright is a real longshot for sure but goddamn can't a third party hold out their votes to at least get some concessions from the main party they align closest with?

 

Often, I get it, people just go "Nader! NADER" and everyone gets too scared to support any third party all the way (normally the leader, not the voters) . But it sure seems to me a stubborn third party leader with a stubborn base could get REAL concessions, not just lip service, by playing REAL hardball and threatening to withhold support, and for me at least,  I'd call that successful politics too.

 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

32 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

I think NYC recently adopted it as well. I think people are so fed up with the status quo and the partisanship that if we can find a way to put the question to them and not the politicians, there's a chance to get something done.

Was rank choice voting for NYC Mayor perfect? No. There were a lot of problems, not the least of which was what seemed like an eternity before the ultimate winner was announced. 
But in my opinion, it resulted in the election of a far more sensible, centrist candidate - Adams - who appeals to a larger (and yes, more diverse in the true sense of the word) segment on New Yorkers than what we got the last couple times around (DeBlasio x2) with traditional voting. Could Adams have made it with the old voting system? No. So anything that forces candidates to appeal to the great middle - where, after all, most of the voters live - is worth considering. 

Edited July 21, 2022 by The Frankish Reich

[ChiGoose]

27 minutes ago, Golden*Wheels said:

What's successful though? I think getting elected outright is a real longshot for sure but goddamn can't a third party hold out their votes to at least get some concessions from the main party they align closest with?

 

Often, I get it, people just go "Nader! NADER" and everyone gets too scared to support any third party all the way (normally the leader, not the voters) . But it sure seems to me a stubborn third party leader with a stubborn base could get REAL concessions, not just lip service, by playing REAL hardball and threatening to withhold support, and for me at least,  I'd call that successful politics too.

 

 

 

I think a scenario in which a third party candidate gets so powerful they can dictate to their voters to hold off on supporting another party until they get certain concessions and then, once they give the signal, all of their voters will support that major party in acknowledgement of the concessions seems... almost impossible.

 

Years ago, I stumbled upon CGP Grey's video on FPTP and it changed how I viewed elections and electoral systems. There is vast room for improvement, but even something as simple as a referendum to change to ranked choice would make a tremendous difference.

 

 

 

Personally, I would love us to move to multimember districts with STV for the House, but baby steps...

 

2 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Was rank choice voting for NYC Mayor perfect? No. There were a lot of problems, not the least of which was what seemed like an eternity before the ultimate winner was announced. 
But in my opinion, it resulted in the election of a far more sensible, centrist candidate - Adams - who appeals to a larger (and yes, more diverse in the true sense of the word) segment on New Yorkers than what we got the last couple times around (DeBlasio x2) with traditional voting. Could Adams have made it with the old voting system? No. So anything that forces candidates to appeal to the great middle - where, after all, most of the voters live - is worth considering. 

 

Bonus points: Twitter HATES him. Twitter ain't real life, people.

Edited July 21, 2022 by ChiGoose

[GaryPinC]

21 hours ago, JaCrispy said:

Absolutely! But I will take it one step further…

 

We need a 3rd and 4th party- one to compete with the establishment Republicans, and one to compete with the establishment Democrats…

 

Of course, it would only be a matter of time before corporations caught on and corrupted them too…

Honestly, we need a multi-party, coalition system like Europe.  I know most don't want to hear that, but here's why I think that.

 

Back before electronic record-keeping and search engines, politicians could work a back room deal and stretch their party's platform to accomplish legislation and hide it deep in the Congressional Record.  Nowadays it's extremely difficult as your own party  will find that one instance and kill you with it in the primary. 

 

I feel part of Congress not getting anything done in recent years is because of the fear this visibility creates.  If you had more parties, with only one or two crucial platform issues, then that would create less accountability for non-crucial issues and the flexibility of coalitions to get more legislation passed.

 

I don't know how we could make this happen, especially because the reps and dems won't give up power easily at the state and local levels.

[Tenhigh]

11 minutes ago, Golden*Wheels said:

What's successful though? I think getting elected outright is a real longshot for sure but goddamn can't a third party hold out their votes to at least get some concessions from the main party they align closest with?

 

Often, I get it, people just go "Nader! NADER" and everyone gets too scared to support any third party all the way (normally the leader, not the voters) . But it sure seems to me a stubborn third party leader with a stubborn base could get REAL concessions, not just lip service, by playing REAL hardball and threatening to withhold support, and for me at least,  I'd call that successful politics too.

 

 

The problem with many 3rd parties today is that they tend to represent the fringes more than the center.  The poster earlier had it right when they said we need 2 more parties. 

We'd benefit from something like this kind of party structure:

• Socially Liberal/Fiscally Liberal
• Socially Liberal/Fiscally Conservative
• Socially Conservative/Fiscally Liberal 
• Socially Conservative/Fiscally Conservative. 

 

[Big Blitz]

It's ok to not vote.  If you disagree with both - don't vote.  That sends a message.  I have no idea what the hell is going on in California.  Ds should be staying home en masse in most parts of the country.  

 

Religiously voting for Ds in places like New York, California, DC, or Oregon is absolutely insane.  Why?  Your answer is probably Trump sucks.  

 

Congrats.  You're the problem. 

 

I didn’t vote in several elections here in Virginia because the GOP nominated losers and stiffs that inspired no one and seemed little different to the Democrat back about 10-12 years ago. 

 

 

Let's go back to that time for a second to understand why we're here:

 

The first Blue Wave of the 21st century - 2006--2008.  How did that work out for everyone?  How has the country been better off since this new generation of Ds has taken over their party? 

 

The evil GOP did all they could to stop Nationalized Health Care?  That means they hated all things Obama did?  Thats what we learned?  No sorry, he ran on absolutely nothing in 2008.  We told you he and his team were just a bunch of rebranded socialists that hate this country and we were told those were lies.  

 

He did not run on the kinds of health care plans that were floating around Congress in 2009.

 

You know what else he said?  Marriage was between a man and a woman. 

 

Now they can't tell you what a woman is.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Been saying it for months.  

 

Stay home.  Don't need you to vote R.  How you're still voting D at this point is astonishing to me.   

Edited July 21, 2022 by Big Blitz

[T master]

There is one it's known as running as a independent .

[Golden*Wheels]

15 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

 

I think a scenario in which a third party candidate gets so powerful they can dictate to their voters to hold off on supporting another party until they get certain concessions and then, once they give the signal, all of their voters will support that major party in acknowledgement of the concessions seems... almost impossible.

 

 

Could be--but I honestly think if Bernie wasn't such a sheepdog/wimp, he could have gotten real concessions from the Democrats at times--they need his progressive wing and the votes they bring along. And I think THAT is still far closer to reality than actual reform....not that actual reform wouldn't be better!

 

I'm trying to play in the world of the SEMI-possible, I guess!

14 hours ago, Tenhigh said:

The problem with many 3rd parties today is that they tend to represent the fringes more than the center.  The poster earlier had it right when they said we need 2 more parties. 

We'd benefit from something like this kind of party structure:

• Socially Liberal/Fiscally Liberal
• Socially Liberal/Fiscally Conservative
• Socially Conservative/Fiscally Liberal 
• Socially Conservative/Fiscally Conservative. 

 

Hey fringes need to be represented too Ten!

 

And again, I'd say if you can move the main agenda with your voting bloc, it is not necessary to win outright. You just help move the conversation and steer the other party. That's WAY closer to reality IMO (just one real leader with a following away, hard to stop as that can happen grassroots) than actual reform involving a Constitutional convention etc. In this way the main parties would have to stay more responsive and representative of the body of the people.

 

Or at least, MORE people.

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Golden*Wheels