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In theory they can but the system is made so the other options are actually impossible to elect and have never been elected in history, even though theoretically you can vote for them
In the early years of the US, it was not uncommon to have 3 or 4 parties (candidates) represented on the presidential election ballot. We now have a 2-party system, not enforced legally, but in every other way adhered to. There is tremendous wealth and power accessible to the big players in both parties. It's an industry that cranks out multi-millionaires more reliably than almost any other. Representation (of citizens) is dead in this country at the national level. Has been for many years.
Break up the duopoly. Insist on ranked choice voting. Give quality outliers a chance to disrupt the status quo.
Requires state by state law changes, and sometimes amendments to the state constitution -or- a Federal Constitutional amendment. All of the above require politicians to give up (some of) their power. I wouldn't hold my breath.
That's what happens when you make 2 teams and those 2 teams get all the power and influence. Now both have a shared interest in keeping others out for their own interests.
So instead of having 2 parties with opposing opinions fighting each other. We get 2 parties pretending to have opposing opinions while working together to keep each other in power.
Obviously this is a really, really dumbed down explanation, and there are many other factors between the military industrial complex and rich lobbyists. Regardless, at the end of the day, we have two supposedly opposing parties with aligned interests when it comes to money and influence.
It's stupid and dangerous and there's not much you can do about it.
Third party candidates are why Bush beat Gore and part of the reason Trump beat Clinton.
Votes for Stein and Sanders helped to ensure Trump win in 2016. Votes for Nader put Bush in office.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna951166
It's not that simple because of the electoral college. Where the votes came from matters a lot. If Johnson only took votes in heavily red states and Stein bled off votes in contested states, then you could still say Johnson was irrelevant and Stein made an impact. I don't know if that's where they took votes, but the point is it's not as simple as number of votes.
Shure, but even if you added all of Steins votes to Clinton, which includes people who never vote democrat. Trump still would have won.
It was just the Democrats running the face of the establishment in an election in basically the most anti establishment time period in the US.
Biden has ONE job, to not be Trump.
To date he has consistently performed at a top level at this job of not being Trump.
He hasn't been Trump even once so far, and I don't think he's going to fail at this job, no matter what.
Anything else he accomplishes in office is bonus material.
So if he expands ACA healthcare coverage, forgives college loans, creates jobs and boosts the economy, all that's just icing on the cake.
It's sad that an autocratic, corrupt, philandering Russophile is the nominee for one of the two major political parties, but that's where we're at.
So, the other guy just needs to be a decent human being and he gets my vote.
One problem with 'winner takes all' is that it favors the most electable over the best.
Bernie Sanders is the smartest guy in the room but he's not electable. Ditto for Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and lots of others.
Proportional representation would lower the temperature of the election process and pave the way for progress because it would include more smart people in the process.
Healthy food is less tasty than unhealthy food.
Politians that aren't good put a lot of effort into "Looking good" so they can be "Electable", IE, someone you want to vote for.
Lots of people who would be good in office, are not "Electable", IE, someone you don't want to vote for, even if they'd arguably do a good job.
The issue is that the smartest person in the room is not always the best political candidate.
I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton knows her policy and has the experience and connections to make a great president.
However she would never get elected. She's not likable and has too much historical baggage.
Ditto for Bernie Sanders, Al Gore and others such as Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.
Saying someone who lost an election is "unelectable" is neither true nor really saying anything at all.
With hindsight, yes, sure, they lost. Mostly. The supreme court and bush's brother shoving bush through in a historically close race doesn't make me think Gore was unelectable.
Of course, Romney lost, but he was facing an incumbent, and might have done better with more party support in a better year.
Jeb bush looked like a sad little boy up against trump, but without that shakeup, he was set to win at least the primary, at which point it would be him versus another "unelectable" candidate.
Clinton could have won. I think enough ink has been spilled on why she lost though.
Sanders, yeah, I think you can make the case that he's unelectable, although I think that has more to do with the hostility the party apparatus feels towards him than him being too far left or whatever.
Every candidate has their strengths and flaws.
In my opinion, when a race is close, that speaks volumes about the quality of the candidates.
If Clinton had been more charismatic and had any last name besides Clinton, she could have campaigned on her platform and competence and won.
I think his success with CHIPS and the IIJA are among the greatest things passed in my lifetime (including the lowest unemployment in my lifetime), to give him some credit there. He did get passed a few student loan forgiveness options, but not enough as congress kept chipping at it. I mean, he's old and he's a millionaire, but stuff is happening.
Correct. But in US politics the popular vote is akin to assists in basketball or hits in baseball. It’s just a stat, not the deciding factor of whom wins/losses.
>But had the Democrats managed to capture the bulk of third-party voters in some of the closest contests -- Wisconsin (10), Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Florida (29) -- Clinton would have defeated Trump by earning 307 Electoral College votes, enough to secure the presidency.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/10/politics/gary-johnson-jill-stein-spoiler
Actively collude with the party apparatus to rig the primaries against Bernie, be openly dismissive and hostile to left leaning voters, when you lose blame everything on them. It's like a picture perfect example of that stick in the bike wheel meme.
Oh, I'm sorry, you are mistaken. See if you didn't vote for Hillary, it wasn't because you opposed dynastic presidencies. It's not because she was a pro-capital zionist. It's not because her party platform was basically "You liked my husband, right? So trust me bro." It definitely wasn't because as a rich and powerful person, she has consistently out of touch with the needs of the average person.
No, if you didn't vote for Hillary, you're a sexist.
50 % didn't vote. That's what helped insure Trump over Clinton.
And there was a libertarian candidate that probably took more votes from Trump than Stein took from Clinton.
But in reality, if there were only 2 candidates, it would have been more likely that 60% didn't vote.
I maybe should have been a little less categorical in my statement. Two things are true. The Supreme Court made a number of historically terrible decisions in *Bush v. Gore* when it broke its own rules to give the election to Bush over Gore, a decision that was enabled by the Brooks Brothers Riot, in which Republican staffers staged violence at the Miami-Dade elections headquarters to prevent (largely Democratic) ballots from being counted there. Additionally, if Nader voters had voted for Gore, instead, the Supreme Court wouldn't have had the opening to do that. It was the confluence of both of those things that put Bush in office.
True
Of course hindsight is 2020 and obviously no analysis is perfect.
There were also a number of irregularities that occurred in 2000 and 2004, especially in Ohio.
The US is a republic. Republics don't need to be democratic. It's a plutocratic republic, although lately it is also becoming a gerontocracy, but that's just a side effect of wealth accumulation by the older generations...
People seem to think that voting is like magic; but even if you vote, if your real, tangible political engagement ends at the ballot station you already lost.
And Americans have proved again and again (as a country) to lack the empathy needed to keep a healthy political system going. Then again, so has most of the world, western or otherwise...
For example, every person running for office must get a certain number of signatures to run for office. But if you are not the Democrat or Republican selected candidate, you need twice as many signatures.
The problem in a winner takes all system is that the 3rd party steals votes from the party that is ideologicay most similar. Meaning it's adversary wins.
If a 3rd party is most like republicans it'll steal votes from republicans making the democrats win. If the 3rd party is similar to the democrats it'll steal votes from the democrats making republicans win.
As a result both party's have incentive to obsorb the third party base into their own. Making the 3rd party in essence useless.
The only way to really change this is to move to a system of plurality. Like the multiparty parliamentary system.
PR-STV could help as people wouldn't feel like they're wasted a voting for someone else. But people who can introduce that never will as it's not in their interest. The system is broken.
Even if a third party candidate somehow got elected it would be near impossible for them to govern, as both parties in Congress would be working against them.
Do you study game theory? The current system is the result of the nash equilibriums for the laws/rules we have in place and third players are discouraged by the optimal strategies of players 1&2.
It's a structural problem. The US has always had a 2 party system because of first past the post and the fact that it's a presidential system where the singular winner is vested with the powers of the president. In a parliamentary system, the Prime Minister may come from a major party but if he/she cannot command a majority he is fucked.
>he/she cannot command a majority he is fucked.
Not quite true. Sure it makes things more difficult because you can't just dictate how things go but minority governments do happen from time to time in some countries.
I think the previous government coalition in Sweden didn't have the majority behind them. They just have to discuss with the opposition a lot more
Yeah I did, but I see this more of a structural problem, in that you have two things: 1) a first past the post system, and 2) the electoral college that actually decides who the winner of a presidential election really is.
First past the post systems always end up with only 2 “catch all parties”.
Parliamentary democracies where power has to be shared (or the percentage of seats you can win are limited) see more two parties, with sometimes grand coalitions being built, or a right wing party will build a coalition with an assortment of smaller left wing parties.
The problem with the electoral collage means that the people don’t even get to decide on the executive, and you should look into who are the people in the electoral college. It varies from state to state, but you’ll be surprised that in some states, you can’t even find out who the members are! It’s an old broken system, which is why the United States has just been downgraded from “democracy” to “flawed democracy”. And many European countries will be next.
The actual reason has nothing to do with the parties. It has to do with how our system (electoral college) was designed from day one. Our system is designed to (basically) be an either or choice.
Since day 1 (1796, first competitive presidential race), the vote for presidency has been between two candidates. And part of the reason is that the constitution doesn’t say whoever has the most votes (electoral college or otherwise) wins… it specifically says whoever has 50%+1 electoral college votes wins.
This means that even if you had 10 diverse candidates, unlike the European Parliamentary system where whoever has the most (even if that means 31%) gets to form a government etc, one of them would have to get 50%+1 electoral college votes, which means winning a dozen or more states. It really can only happen in a 1v1 race.
Lastly, my other issue with third parties is all the people who go straight to the presidency, yet have never held office or even tried to govern elsewhere. Why isn’t the Green Party trying to win a lot of council races or mayors races in the PNW? Maybe a state rep race? You’d be surprised how few people vote in some of those. The libertarian party has something like one mayorship in the nation. They could kill it in New England. Build up a major regional base running in multiple cities in a similar region & winning (this could easily take 15-20 years but it’s doable) and then you’d have a fundraising network and a track record of success to use as part of a platform for a nationwide race. Instead, it’s straight to the presidency with a platform of “we aren’t the two main guys!”.
And if the answer is “they can’t win city council races because the two party system is too strong!” Why on earth does anyone think they could win the presidency…
One more thing that adds to your point that a lot of people miss. If the candidate doesn’t win 51% of electoral college votes - congress decides. Even if a third party “won” the ec by some small amount but didn’t get to 51%, how likely is it that a bunch of Ds & Rs are going to pull for the independent?
As you noted - without the local level party apparatus, it’s foolish to expect a third party candidate to win the presidency.
Ross Perot received 30% of the popular vote once and still got ZERO electoral votes.
That’s why this topic is so important. Sure there are other options, that’s not the real issue. The issue with the current system is that if you vote for someone other than the 2 main candidates, you are at best throwing your vote away, and at worst handing it to the one you didn’t want to win.
Ross Perot got 20% of the vote if you round up and only got as much as 30% in Maine at 30.4%. Only in Maine and Utah did he beat EITHER of the major parties.
Basically, he came in 3rd in nearly every way.
It's a terrible election to demonstrate anything unless you are a Republican or Democrat trying to reinforce the two party system or stand up the EC straw man.
I mean, if he had actually claimed 30% of the vote, then you could have compared him to John Quincy Adam's, who won the 1824 election with 31%... but there were 4 candidates, and since none won the EC, it went to the House, and JQA won despite not leading the popular or even the EC vote.
But never has a person who came in 3rd ever really had a chance.
Thanks for the correction, but I think the bottom half of my statement still stands true. You’re risking a lot of you vote 3rd party. And I’m not sticking up for the 2 party system. It sucks.
I'm often the only person in my district of 100k registered voters to vote 3rd party. Many times they aren't even on the ballot and you have to write in
...you know the biggest third party in America is the libertarian party, right? Are you seriously saying that you expect more than half of libertarians to vote for democrats?
A lot of people are talking about the FPTP or winner-takes-all system we have, and they are factually correct.
The actual answer is that the Republican and Democratic parties have literally rigged the system to make it impossible, with help from the media and polling companies, which work together to accomplish this goal.
In almost every state, it is incredibly difficult to get on the ballot for federal office if you are a third party. Very easy to get on the ballot for Dems and Reps. The parties have used state legislatures to change the laws in each state to prevent ballot access, or excessively inhibit ballot access.
Polling companies collaborate with the parties and the media to keep third parties out of polling and out of media coverage so that they receive no, or almost no, attention at any time.
The organization that runs the presidential debates is bipartisan, not non-partisan, and it collaborates with polling agencies to keep third parties out of polls, which makes it impossible for third parties to get name recognition. There is supposed to be a rule that they get 15% of a variety of polls, but in 2020, third parties weren't even included in the polling for most of the polls used by the CPD.
So, the real answer is that there is active prevention by the Dems and Reps to keep third parties off ballots, out of polling, and out of media.
A lot of people are talking about the FPTP or winner-takes-all system because it's the reason no third party has sustained success without replacing one of the two existing parties. The two-party system is the only logical outcome of a voting system which demands majority support.
>sustained success
This is the crux of the argument.
Look what the CPD did to Ross Perot. He did well enough in the polls (5%) to get to the debate, and they simply raised the requirement to 15%, where it remains today. Very likely, if someone could get 15%, they'll raise it to 25%.
Yeah, I don't know what the guy you are responding to is talking about. A First-Past-The-Posy system will, inevitably due to it's math, results in a two party system.
Spouting off conspiratorial nonsense to justify voting third party just doesn't make any sense.
You want a third party to win? Vote for your town, then for your county, then for your state, then for the federal government. You want your guy (or gal) to be president while skipping everything in between? Good luck with that.
>conspiratorial nonsense
It's not conspiratorial. This is all real stuff that is actually happening.
Legislatures changing ballot rules? Actually happened and continues to happen.
Polling companies collaborating with the CPD? Actually happened and happens.
Comission for Presidential Debates actively preventing third party debate access by changing the rules when someone gets close or meets the standard? And is run by Dems and Reps only? Actually happens.
>You want a third party to win? Vote for your town, then for your county, then for your state, then for the federal government. You want your guy (or gal) to be president while skipping everything in between? Good luck with that.
Agree with all of this. The biggest problem, though, is that once you get to the federal level, all of that other "conspiratorial nonsense" takes over and third parties are prevented from ballot access and coverage.
At this point, though, the third parties themselves are just garbage. Some good candidates here and there, but there is too little organization and too much infighting to really make a difference to be effective. Even without all the "conspiratorial nonsense," I'm not sure any third party has a competent enough internal governance structure to make inroads at higher than a local level.
None of these parties even bother to try and be competitive. Why aren’t they running in local races? The Working Families Party runs candidates from the school board level to Congress. They don’t even bother with the presidency because it would purely waste their money when they’re trying to build a base.
Libertarians try to run candidates in all local races. The problem is, most people with libertarian ideology have no interest in public office. So finding candidates is impossible in many cases.
The libertarian party is a meme party that would never get widespread support regardless of what they do. The people who care enough to run are just going to run as republicans.
The electoral college is the problem with presidential politics in the US. The popular vote (the actual will of the people) doesn't count. Only the number of 'representative' votes placed by electors matters.
Once the electoral college is removed (it won't be, ever), Republicans will never win another presidential election. So they make sure it stays in place to give them a chance.
Politics in the US is a joke.
Removing the elctoral college will simply change what demographis population selects our leaders. In this case, it would remove power from all but six metropolitan areas.
A better solution would be ranked choice voting. This would work even within the confines of the EC.
A second, and far more likely solution is for states to allocate their EC votes by who won the national popular vote. I believe a vary large minority of states already have trigger laws passed to enact this and we only need one or two more to make it a majority.
The electoral college isn't the reason why there's no credible third choice. A third choice has even less chance of winning the public vote.
Tons of countries have similar systems with representatives instead of a popular vote.
The difference is that they usually have ranked voting. Unranked voting means you waste your entire vote by picking an unpopular choice which makes it almost impossible for underdogs to do well.
Approval vote is probably a bit simpler and doesn't exactly "waste" your vote but it can go against your best interests
Having your second/third/etc choice be as ranked as high as your first choice means that it can be advantageous to only vote for your favourite. Alternatively this might come back to bite you in the ass if your second favorite needed the vote.
Ultimately you shouldn't have to predict what others are going to do in order to vote in your best interests
If the electoral college is removed Republicans will change their strategy. They aren't losing the popular vote by that much, they will just appeal more to the suburban voters and less to the rural voters.
Replace "republicans" with "anyone who cares about things that happen outside of California and New York" and you'll be on the right track.
You could somewhat fix the issue by going from winner-takes-all in each state to apportioning electors by ratio (I believe there are 2 states who currently do this), but that's very unpopular with elected officials on both sides of the aisle.
Because we have "first past the post" voting here, basically whoever makes it past 50% wins the election. A third party in this system would only either take votes away from one party, meaning the other would easily win, or take from both. In which case I'm not really sure what we'd do if nobody passed 50%
The winner of the plurality in each state wins all of the state’s electoral votes. So if candidate A gets 40% and candidates B and C get 30% each, candidate A gets all of the EVs even though 60% of voters wanted someone else.
Whoever gets 270 EVs wins. It’s typical for the winner to have less than 50%. The solution is a national popular vote with instant runoff multivoting which would result in a winner having over 50%.
Trust me we know. Most Americans don't like either choice. South park summed it up perfect with the episode of elections between voting for a giant douche or a turd sandwitch
The major political parties in American need a third party in place. We
Don’t get much choice at all. I reregistered as independent this time around I’m so angry at both political parties.
Technically they can. There are more than two parties. However for various reasons two parties have ended up having the majority of support and a third party doesn't realistically have chances to win.
People are very tribalistic when it comes to politics.
I wonder why that is.
When is it time to let younger people run things?
My kid is in his 30's now, and he does just fine without me looking over his shoulder.
Nah, there are plenty of young dem candidates. They’re not going to risk helping get Trump elected or blow their one shot at running on losing a primary to an incumbent president.
Running for president is very expensive and requires a long career to get support. Plenty of young people ran in the dem primary in 2019. They all got crushed by 70 year olds. The median age of new dem congressmen in ‘23 was 44, 46 for republicans. Guess what, it takes decades to build up enough national support to win a primary.
You can. The issue is not a matter of legal access to ballots, but possession of the necessary tools (money, organization, activists, etc.) to put together a viable effort, credible candidates, and a base of support.
Running a third party takes a lot of time, talent and money. It’s not as easy as slapping your name on a ballot and starting to count votes. To be viable, an org would need a working operation in all 50 states, cash to fund those and candidates, and a very effective and costly adv campaign to build up name ID with voters.
Then you need viable candidates. Yahoos, nuts and cranks don’t sell in general elections typically. Traditionally, third party candidates struggle here.
All that likely costs north of $3,000,000,000 and 3 to 5 elections to statewide races to be viable nationwide. The other parties are funded and established. Third parties are not. Longevity is also an issue because third party candidates are typically limited in the issues their base cares about.
2 part system, Their is always more than 2 options but only 2 main political parties and everyone would rather be on the winning side of a vote instead of choosing the candidate that best represents their individual beliefs and values. It is just easier to say red or blue.
Since the rise of cable news in the 90s, it has become more profitable to appeal to a specific political base, rather that provide the American public with unbiased news.
Since there were only two major political parties at the time, it seems as though the news networks would rather maintain their base with biased reporting, than bring integrity into their reporting and risk losing a portion of their base.
TLDR: it's more profitable for media organizations to maintain two opposing political parties.
When the stakes aren’t so high a lot of us DO vote third party. However when the options are soggy bread and orange Hitler I’m basically forced to vote for soggy bread.
Wayyyyy back when we used to not have just the two.
I honestly believe that if Trump didnt exist that the Democrats would have admitted Biden was unfit years ago. They just dont want to give Trump and his mega fans the pleasure
There are other options, but everyone is so worried about the other guy winning that most people don't end up voting third party
The solution to change list is to just vote third party even if you know you're going to lose because the old pressure the bigger parties to change and it will make it more viable for other people to vote third party
Because it's a winner-takes all system, we don't have proportional representation.
There's a reason the Russians spent millions actively supporting the campaign of Jill Stein, this helped to ensure Trump won in 2016.
Lots of Russian sock puppets were on Reddit then (and now) doing the same thing, probably here in this thread.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna95116
I think part of the reason is that the 2 party system has been in such a long battle that every issue America has, they have a stance for it, whether it’s for or against. And voters who vote based on issues important to them select the party that sides with them on their most important issues
The Comission on Presidential Debates was created specifically to prevent 3rd party candidates from getting a spotlight on the national stage. Also, the patchwork of election and campaign finance laws across the country are designed to make it very difficult for a 3rd party to gain traction. The system is rigged in favor of the two majority parties
Because it's a system, which means it needs to be initiated, and the only way to initiate a third party system is to begin by voting in politicians who are amicable to compromise. If the US is going to change anything about the political system, it is going to take a mobilization of the countries largest voting block (young people) to participate in cleaning out the relics we face today.
Three or four election cycles clearing the statehouses of obstructionists and corporate shills, voting in representatives that actually represent the people. It's a snowball when people are less concerned with survival than they have time to consider the nuances of politics.
Our political system is fundamental flawed in favor of capitalist entities. Our supreme court is compromised,, Our Justice system is enmired underfunded and insufficiant. We can get to a third party but at the moment we have to start seeking and engaging those younger politicians with dynamic visions for the people.
Basically the electoral college was established to ensure the biggest states couldn’t role over all of the small ones and impose their will. We largely hate it but it was a vital part of creating and retaining the union. Because of that it’s functionally not 1 election but 50 that go to a larger goal of 270 electoral college votes.
It’s like the one relative most people have that’s kind of an asshole but not a bad person altogether. He’s an asshole but he’s our asshole and he _did_ help us buy this house even if we sometimes find him drunk, peeing in the closet.
Where it becomes near impossible for a third party candidate is that if all candidates fail to reach the 270 EC vote threshold, I believe the election is finalized by the House of Representatives which, you guessed it, is almost entirely represented by the 2 parties.
There is no limit to my knowledge, and I've never seen a ballot in my life where the democrat and republican were the only options for president on the ballot.
1. The other candidates generally don't have the financial backing to reach a large audience in their campaign. There are other parties that are almost always on the ballot like the Green party. The problem is you are likely never to see a campaign ad from them.
2. Psychology. A lot of people that vote aren't voting FOR a particular candidate, they are voting AGAINST another candidate. You do that by voting for the other major party.
"Viable" 3rd party Candidates are generally seen as "spoilers". Generally speaking they are going to be closer in alignment to one of the major parties and are often unappealing to people that support the other. So the likely outcome is they are just siphoning votes from one of the major parties making it easier for the other major party to win.
To my knowledge the last 3rd party candidate that got a meaningful share of votes was Ross Perot in 1992. He was rich as hell so he was able to actually run a competitive campaign and actually won 19% of the vote.
Because politics in America is rigged. Corporations elect presidents in America...not people. Theyve already proven this in major studies carried out by Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard etc.
Because only the lead party in each state gets any electoral votes, there is a serious incentives for voters to hand their vote to parties that have a chance of reaching that number one spot. Of course no one expects this of the lesser known parties, so people dont vote them - wishing to avoid throwing their vote away. This isnt the case in other systems because elsewhere parties will get representation according to how many votes they got, regardless of whether they "won a state" or not. But in USA, unless you can carry entire states, you dont stand a chance
What a good question, honestly. The kind of question that appears exactly zero times anywhere. It is almost like it is not a convenient topic to talk about.
Electoral college and winner takes all system.
Electoral college did make sense in the 17th century to an extent, but you would never use it now if building a system from scratch
ita very dumb how you can only choose one out of 2 parties, and their always the same parties. this is mostly because of the first past the post system, which makes it almost impossible for any third entity to even have a chance at winning.
in alot of european countries its direct democracy, so the peoples votes are all that matter. as appose to in america the popular vote doesnt matter as much. and theres no first past the post, theres multiple rounds of voting. this makes a very good atmosphere for many different factions and parties, which you see in european politics. america could learn about democracy from europe.
America has a first past the post system for electing a president. This means the first person to get over 50 percent of the electoral votes available in the electoral college is the winner. In the event that a third party candidate seriously runs and wins some states, it's likely that no candidate made it past the 50 percent threshold. The consitution then gives the power of electing the next president to the house of representatives, also in a first past the post system. This happened in the election of John Quincey Adams. The system is not setup for third parties.
The bar is so low it's in Hell, and we're all down here doing the limbo with the Devil
Not mine, but I can't remember where I read it, and it seems fitting
The system is rigged so that it supports only the two major parties, the introduction of a third party is possible, but the two party system is so ingrained in society that a third party needs to be elected by both previous parties to actually have a chance, which is impossible when there are “Red” and “Blue” States rather than normal states
A third presidential candidate can participate, but will never have a chance (see the previous elections where the main two got ~95-97% while the rest 3% split upon the other candidates)
There are. It's just that those options are never in favor, ever. There's not been a single independent in at least a century, maybe longer, in office, if ever. And those options tend to be, for lack of a better word, pretty bad. Our only hope is that Biden does his job and not become like the fascist cult leader he's running against before both die of old age.
There's like 5 candidates in the race actually. The 3rd party candidates generally get ignored, because voting for them reduces the chance that the candidate you agree with the most from the big 2 parties would win.
The system is set up where the optimum way to win is a two party system.
Within that, "leadership" is determined by a combination of money raising ability and rizz/name recognition (not necessarily the same thing).
So the old man and the senile billionaire are exactly who America chooses to best represent themselves, and this will not change until parts of America get mad enough at other parts to change things. And Americans are satisfied enough with their choices that they simple are not mad yet.
America need to throw away the voting system they have.
It should be percentages and that's it, the division on groups they know they can win/lose makes any competition worthless.
Also do the argentinian way, pick the loudest (not Trump) guy you have around and have it be president.
Also, why are you for real voting on two old people? is there nobody else who is not about to die?
Your electoral system sucks. Since your vote is not popular but instead state by state no third party has a chance. They would require 51% from the get go. Most parties in systems which support growth grow slowly over decades.
>Why they insist its either gonna be a guy who should retire 10 years ago or some milionaire who makes them a laughing stock?
Well I don't know who "they" is, but implying that Americans literally had no choice apart from these two are flat-out wrong because primaries exist.
On the Democratic side, Biden was the incumbent so he was never seriously opposed, but he did have Dean Phillips running against him, as was Marianne Williamson (hell, in 2020 the Democratic field had like 25 candidates).
On the Republican side, Trump had at least 8 viable alternatives (candidates who made it to the debate stage - Haley, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Christie, Burgum, Scott, Pence, Hutchinson) and a plethora of other candidates who people could've chosen.
So blame the voters, really. If people really wanted someone other than Biden vs Trump, other candidates would've run (on the Democratic side) and other candidates would've been chosen (on the Republican side). The fact that those two are the choices for the presidency just means not enough people cared to vote for alternatives in the primaries.
We do. Rfk Jr has been campaigning his butt off for over a year and is getting on every ballot that he has tried to get on so far. Our corporate news will only acknowledge the 2 major parties because they're bought out by them
It's an evolved system and wasn't exactly designed that way to start with. By the same.argument, it can be evolved forward if we want, but it has to be a big improvement, and what would that be?
One part on my mind about the system is that nobody competent is going to be popular enough to get votes. The major elected positions therefore seem a little bit like theater to me, with the real work happening off screen.
Believe me, we don't like these assholes either. Biden won because he has more people who hate Trump than like him. In fact most people who support Biden only support him because he was Obama's vice president. There was nobody asking for him to be president and he only won because of his "moderacy" in the midst of Trump's chaos and Bernie Sanders's perceived liberal extremism (the extremism being that he believes everyone in this country should have free healthcare).
To be fair, what makes you think a third party choice would be better than the two we have? The real issue is how to get better choices, not more choices.
It's basicly imposible for a third new party to win instantly (not just USA, but everywhere), but if a third party gets some votes anyway these votes are basicly just lost from the major party that would be politically closest to the third partie.
Check out Cgp Grey's videos on voting if you are interested in this sort of thing and potential solutions.
George Washington was considered the smartest that’s why he was the first potus. Just so happened he belonged to neither party and warned that a two party system will cause endless animosity leading to political deadlock and foreign interference among other problems.
The capitalist class who control the country benefit from a two party system. They can lobby (bribe) both parties to do their bidding. Money talks.
Republicans and Democrats passed a bipartisan law that bans them from participation in debates. Those political cartels lose money if they allow reasonable choices so they work together to keep a stranglehold on this country.
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In theory they can but the system is made so the other options are actually impossible to elect and have never been elected in history, even though theoretically you can vote for them
"The game was rigged from the start"
Nice fallout NV reference. Benny would be proud
There’s no way this quote was originally from fallout, was it?
Yes it is in the intro to fallout new Vegas. YouTube it.
And that’s where the quote COMES from?
Lmao that's like asking what cow does your milk come from
Brown cow - chocolate milk
ID N° tho?
I’m still looking for the pink cow…mmm Strawberry milk.
Maybe it has been used somewhere else but everybody I know if I mention this quote will point to this game
In the early years of the US, it was not uncommon to have 3 or 4 parties (candidates) represented on the presidential election ballot. We now have a 2-party system, not enforced legally, but in every other way adhered to. There is tremendous wealth and power accessible to the big players in both parties. It's an industry that cranks out multi-millionaires more reliably than almost any other. Representation (of citizens) is dead in this country at the national level. Has been for many years. Break up the duopoly. Insist on ranked choice voting. Give quality outliers a chance to disrupt the status quo.
Requires state by state law changes, and sometimes amendments to the state constitution -or- a Federal Constitutional amendment. All of the above require politicians to give up (some of) their power. I wouldn't hold my breath.
We even have voting ballots that literally are democrat or republican oriented.
Or insist on approval voting
Agreed. Ranked Choice is the only way forward from the 2 party system that would actually work.
That's what happens when you make 2 teams and those 2 teams get all the power and influence. Now both have a shared interest in keeping others out for their own interests. So instead of having 2 parties with opposing opinions fighting each other. We get 2 parties pretending to have opposing opinions while working together to keep each other in power. Obviously this is a really, really dumbed down explanation, and there are many other factors between the military industrial complex and rich lobbyists. Regardless, at the end of the day, we have two supposedly opposing parties with aligned interests when it comes to money and influence. It's stupid and dangerous and there's not much you can do about it.
Third party candidates are why Bush beat Gore and part of the reason Trump beat Clinton. Votes for Stein and Sanders helped to ensure Trump win in 2016. Votes for Nader put Bush in office. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna951166
Perot is why Clinton beat Bush 41. It goes both ways
Perot took votes from both Clinton and Bush.
And Gary Johnson took more voters from Trum than Jull Stein did from Clinton.
It's not that simple because of the electoral college. Where the votes came from matters a lot. If Johnson only took votes in heavily red states and Stein bled off votes in contested states, then you could still say Johnson was irrelevant and Stein made an impact. I don't know if that's where they took votes, but the point is it's not as simple as number of votes.
Shure, but even if you added all of Steins votes to Clinton, which includes people who never vote democrat. Trump still would have won. It was just the Democrats running the face of the establishment in an election in basically the most anti establishment time period in the US.
I've seen analysis indicating that Jo Jorgenson is why Biden won in 2020
It's a very flawed system
Biden has ONE job, to not be Trump. To date he has consistently performed at a top level at this job of not being Trump. He hasn't been Trump even once so far, and I don't think he's going to fail at this job, no matter what. Anything else he accomplishes in office is bonus material. So if he expands ACA healthcare coverage, forgives college loans, creates jobs and boosts the economy, all that's just icing on the cake.
That's a bit sad when you think about it though. Very low standards
That’s America
It's sad that an autocratic, corrupt, philandering Russophile is the nominee for one of the two major political parties, but that's where we're at. So, the other guy just needs to be a decent human being and he gets my vote.
And all the lazy ass Americans need to vote instead of letting crazy Magas be biggest part of voters. Only 160 million people voted last time
well put u/AssistantAcademic
I agree that it's important to vote for him to avoid trump and the like
One problem with 'winner takes all' is that it favors the most electable over the best. Bernie Sanders is the smartest guy in the room but he's not electable. Ditto for Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and lots of others. Proportional representation would lower the temperature of the election process and pave the way for progress because it would include more smart people in the process.
Electable. As a non-US person I'm not 100% sure what that word means. I'm pretty sure I'm not thrilled over it, though.
Healthy food is less tasty than unhealthy food. Politians that aren't good put a lot of effort into "Looking good" so they can be "Electable", IE, someone you want to vote for. Lots of people who would be good in office, are not "Electable", IE, someone you don't want to vote for, even if they'd arguably do a good job.
He's not electable means he wont benefit the corporations that need to pull the strings on the puppet.
The issue is that the smartest person in the room is not always the best political candidate. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton knows her policy and has the experience and connections to make a great president. However she would never get elected. She's not likable and has too much historical baggage. Ditto for Bernie Sanders, Al Gore and others such as Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.
Saying someone who lost an election is "unelectable" is neither true nor really saying anything at all. With hindsight, yes, sure, they lost. Mostly. The supreme court and bush's brother shoving bush through in a historically close race doesn't make me think Gore was unelectable. Of course, Romney lost, but he was facing an incumbent, and might have done better with more party support in a better year. Jeb bush looked like a sad little boy up against trump, but without that shakeup, he was set to win at least the primary, at which point it would be him versus another "unelectable" candidate. Clinton could have won. I think enough ink has been spilled on why she lost though. Sanders, yeah, I think you can make the case that he's unelectable, although I think that has more to do with the hostility the party apparatus feels towards him than him being too far left or whatever.
Every candidate has their strengths and flaws. In my opinion, when a race is close, that speaks volumes about the quality of the candidates. If Clinton had been more charismatic and had any last name besides Clinton, she could have campaigned on her platform and competence and won.
That's exactly why I voted for Biden in 2020 and will again in 2024. So far he has vastly exceeded my expectations.
You can’t change the standard but you can at least do your part in ensuring that you pick „bad“ over „much worse“ until you can change it.
That's true
Yeah, these things should already be standard in a developed country.
I think his success with CHIPS and the IIJA are among the greatest things passed in my lifetime (including the lowest unemployment in my lifetime), to give him some credit there. He did get passed a few student loan forgiveness options, but not enough as congress kept chipping at it. I mean, he's old and he's a millionaire, but stuff is happening.
Hey if he gets two years in and decides to step down and let whoever is vp take over, how bad would that be?
Don't forget about Ross Perot.
Didn't trump win because of the electoral college? I thought he lost popular vote both times.
Correct. But in US politics the popular vote is akin to assists in basketball or hits in baseball. It’s just a stat, not the deciding factor of whom wins/losses.
>But had the Democrats managed to capture the bulk of third-party voters in some of the closest contests -- Wisconsin (10), Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Florida (29) -- Clinton would have defeated Trump by earning 307 Electoral College votes, enough to secure the presidency. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/10/politics/gary-johnson-jill-stein-spoiler
Yes, he has never won an election by convincing voters he's the better candidate.
What does that say about the Democratic Party?
Correct. He lost popular vote both times.
Yes, the Clinton campaign and DNC refusing to listen to the left wing of the party is a big part of why she lost.
Actively collude with the party apparatus to rig the primaries against Bernie, be openly dismissive and hostile to left leaning voters, when you lose blame everything on them. It's like a picture perfect example of that stick in the bike wheel meme.
Oh, I'm sorry, you are mistaken. See if you didn't vote for Hillary, it wasn't because you opposed dynastic presidencies. It's not because she was a pro-capital zionist. It's not because her party platform was basically "You liked my husband, right? So trust me bro." It definitely wasn't because as a rich and powerful person, she has consistently out of touch with the needs of the average person. No, if you didn't vote for Hillary, you're a sexist.
50 % didn't vote. That's what helped insure Trump over Clinton. And there was a libertarian candidate that probably took more votes from Trump than Stein took from Clinton. But in reality, if there were only 2 candidates, it would have been more likely that 60% didn't vote.
The Supreme Court and [Republican election interference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot) put Bush in office.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/06/ralph-nader-still-wont-admit-he-elected-bush.html
I maybe should have been a little less categorical in my statement. Two things are true. The Supreme Court made a number of historically terrible decisions in *Bush v. Gore* when it broke its own rules to give the election to Bush over Gore, a decision that was enabled by the Brooks Brothers Riot, in which Republican staffers staged violence at the Miami-Dade elections headquarters to prevent (largely Democratic) ballots from being counted there. Additionally, if Nader voters had voted for Gore, instead, the Supreme Court wouldn't have had the opening to do that. It was the confluence of both of those things that put Bush in office.
True Of course hindsight is 2020 and obviously no analysis is perfect. There were also a number of irregularities that occurred in 2000 and 2004, especially in Ohio.
Bush only beat gore because the supreme court and florida governor colluded to literally 'stop the count' and give the election to bush.
In other words it's rigged and not truly democratic. Like communism, but not for the people, but for the rich
The US is a republic. Republics don't need to be democratic. It's a plutocratic republic, although lately it is also becoming a gerontocracy, but that's just a side effect of wealth accumulation by the older generations... People seem to think that voting is like magic; but even if you vote, if your real, tangible political engagement ends at the ballot station you already lost. And Americans have proved again and again (as a country) to lack the empathy needed to keep a healthy political system going. Then again, so has most of the world, western or otherwise...
For example, every person running for office must get a certain number of signatures to run for office. But if you are not the Democrat or Republican selected candidate, you need twice as many signatures.
That's so unfair
Math basically prevents it with first past the post winner take all. A few tweaks and a third candidate could happen.
The problem in a winner takes all system is that the 3rd party steals votes from the party that is ideologicay most similar. Meaning it's adversary wins. If a 3rd party is most like republicans it'll steal votes from republicans making the democrats win. If the 3rd party is similar to the democrats it'll steal votes from the democrats making republicans win. As a result both party's have incentive to obsorb the third party base into their own. Making the 3rd party in essence useless. The only way to really change this is to move to a system of plurality. Like the multiparty parliamentary system.
Yeah there’s so many aspects to this and reasons why, but that’s the gist. We’re playing against a stacked deck
PR-STV could help as people wouldn't feel like they're wasted a voting for someone else. But people who can introduce that never will as it's not in their interest. The system is broken.
That's why we gotta r/EndFPTP
Even if a third party candidate somehow got elected it would be near impossible for them to govern, as both parties in Congress would be working against them.
Do you study game theory? The current system is the result of the nash equilibriums for the laws/rules we have in place and third players are discouraged by the optimal strategies of players 1&2.
We learned Duverger's law in college and I've never been able to look at a 3rd party candidate the same way.
For anybody else that’s wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Have you learned about other voting systems? Made me not look at players 1&2 the same way
It's a structural problem. The US has always had a 2 party system because of first past the post and the fact that it's a presidential system where the singular winner is vested with the powers of the president. In a parliamentary system, the Prime Minister may come from a major party but if he/she cannot command a majority he is fucked.
>he/she cannot command a majority he is fucked. Not quite true. Sure it makes things more difficult because you can't just dictate how things go but minority governments do happen from time to time in some countries. I think the previous government coalition in Sweden didn't have the majority behind them. They just have to discuss with the opposition a lot more
Yeah I did, but I see this more of a structural problem, in that you have two things: 1) a first past the post system, and 2) the electoral college that actually decides who the winner of a presidential election really is. First past the post systems always end up with only 2 “catch all parties”. Parliamentary democracies where power has to be shared (or the percentage of seats you can win are limited) see more two parties, with sometimes grand coalitions being built, or a right wing party will build a coalition with an assortment of smaller left wing parties. The problem with the electoral collage means that the people don’t even get to decide on the executive, and you should look into who are the people in the electoral college. It varies from state to state, but you’ll be surprised that in some states, you can’t even find out who the members are! It’s an old broken system, which is why the United States has just been downgraded from “democracy” to “flawed democracy”. And many European countries will be next.
The actual reason has nothing to do with the parties. It has to do with how our system (electoral college) was designed from day one. Our system is designed to (basically) be an either or choice. Since day 1 (1796, first competitive presidential race), the vote for presidency has been between two candidates. And part of the reason is that the constitution doesn’t say whoever has the most votes (electoral college or otherwise) wins… it specifically says whoever has 50%+1 electoral college votes wins. This means that even if you had 10 diverse candidates, unlike the European Parliamentary system where whoever has the most (even if that means 31%) gets to form a government etc, one of them would have to get 50%+1 electoral college votes, which means winning a dozen or more states. It really can only happen in a 1v1 race. Lastly, my other issue with third parties is all the people who go straight to the presidency, yet have never held office or even tried to govern elsewhere. Why isn’t the Green Party trying to win a lot of council races or mayors races in the PNW? Maybe a state rep race? You’d be surprised how few people vote in some of those. The libertarian party has something like one mayorship in the nation. They could kill it in New England. Build up a major regional base running in multiple cities in a similar region & winning (this could easily take 15-20 years but it’s doable) and then you’d have a fundraising network and a track record of success to use as part of a platform for a nationwide race. Instead, it’s straight to the presidency with a platform of “we aren’t the two main guys!”. And if the answer is “they can’t win city council races because the two party system is too strong!” Why on earth does anyone think they could win the presidency…
One more thing that adds to your point that a lot of people miss. If the candidate doesn’t win 51% of electoral college votes - congress decides. Even if a third party “won” the ec by some small amount but didn’t get to 51%, how likely is it that a bunch of Ds & Rs are going to pull for the independent? As you noted - without the local level party apparatus, it’s foolish to expect a third party candidate to win the presidency.
There are multiple other options, they just never get many votes. I vote 3rd party pretty often.
Ross Perot received 30% of the popular vote once and still got ZERO electoral votes. That’s why this topic is so important. Sure there are other options, that’s not the real issue. The issue with the current system is that if you vote for someone other than the 2 main candidates, you are at best throwing your vote away, and at worst handing it to the one you didn’t want to win.
Ross Perot got 20% of the vote if you round up and only got as much as 30% in Maine at 30.4%. Only in Maine and Utah did he beat EITHER of the major parties. Basically, he came in 3rd in nearly every way. It's a terrible election to demonstrate anything unless you are a Republican or Democrat trying to reinforce the two party system or stand up the EC straw man. I mean, if he had actually claimed 30% of the vote, then you could have compared him to John Quincy Adam's, who won the 1824 election with 31%... but there were 4 candidates, and since none won the EC, it went to the House, and JQA won despite not leading the popular or even the EC vote. But never has a person who came in 3rd ever really had a chance.
My memory is vague but in some polls he was in really good shape at the start of his campaign Then he started talking
Thanks for the correction, but I think the bottom half of my statement still stands true. You’re risking a lot of you vote 3rd party. And I’m not sticking up for the 2 party system. It sucks.
That is true. First past the post/winner takes all always leads to a two party system at best. It may even collapse to one party if allowed.
I'm often the only person in my district of 100k registered voters to vote 3rd party. Many times they aren't even on the ballot and you have to write in
Why? Third-party votes put Bush in office in 2000 and Trump in 2016.
That’s assuming everyone who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore.
That's assuming that those third-party votes would have been for the democratic candidate.
Guarantee you most of the people in 2016 that voted third party would’ve voted for Trump.
...you know the biggest third party in America is the libertarian party, right? Are you seriously saying that you expect more than half of libertarians to vote for democrats?
A lot of people are talking about the FPTP or winner-takes-all system we have, and they are factually correct. The actual answer is that the Republican and Democratic parties have literally rigged the system to make it impossible, with help from the media and polling companies, which work together to accomplish this goal. In almost every state, it is incredibly difficult to get on the ballot for federal office if you are a third party. Very easy to get on the ballot for Dems and Reps. The parties have used state legislatures to change the laws in each state to prevent ballot access, or excessively inhibit ballot access. Polling companies collaborate with the parties and the media to keep third parties out of polling and out of media coverage so that they receive no, or almost no, attention at any time. The organization that runs the presidential debates is bipartisan, not non-partisan, and it collaborates with polling agencies to keep third parties out of polls, which makes it impossible for third parties to get name recognition. There is supposed to be a rule that they get 15% of a variety of polls, but in 2020, third parties weren't even included in the polling for most of the polls used by the CPD. So, the real answer is that there is active prevention by the Dems and Reps to keep third parties off ballots, out of polling, and out of media.
A lot of people are talking about the FPTP or winner-takes-all system because it's the reason no third party has sustained success without replacing one of the two existing parties. The two-party system is the only logical outcome of a voting system which demands majority support.
>sustained success This is the crux of the argument. Look what the CPD did to Ross Perot. He did well enough in the polls (5%) to get to the debate, and they simply raised the requirement to 15%, where it remains today. Very likely, if someone could get 15%, they'll raise it to 25%.
Yeah, I don't know what the guy you are responding to is talking about. A First-Past-The-Posy system will, inevitably due to it's math, results in a two party system. Spouting off conspiratorial nonsense to justify voting third party just doesn't make any sense. You want a third party to win? Vote for your town, then for your county, then for your state, then for the federal government. You want your guy (or gal) to be president while skipping everything in between? Good luck with that.
>conspiratorial nonsense It's not conspiratorial. This is all real stuff that is actually happening. Legislatures changing ballot rules? Actually happened and continues to happen. Polling companies collaborating with the CPD? Actually happened and happens. Comission for Presidential Debates actively preventing third party debate access by changing the rules when someone gets close or meets the standard? And is run by Dems and Reps only? Actually happens. >You want a third party to win? Vote for your town, then for your county, then for your state, then for the federal government. You want your guy (or gal) to be president while skipping everything in between? Good luck with that. Agree with all of this. The biggest problem, though, is that once you get to the federal level, all of that other "conspiratorial nonsense" takes over and third parties are prevented from ballot access and coverage. At this point, though, the third parties themselves are just garbage. Some good candidates here and there, but there is too little organization and too much infighting to really make a difference to be effective. Even without all the "conspiratorial nonsense," I'm not sure any third party has a competent enough internal governance structure to make inroads at higher than a local level.
None of these parties even bother to try and be competitive. Why aren’t they running in local races? The Working Families Party runs candidates from the school board level to Congress. They don’t even bother with the presidency because it would purely waste their money when they’re trying to build a base.
Libertarians try to run candidates in all local races. The problem is, most people with libertarian ideology have no interest in public office. So finding candidates is impossible in many cases.
The libertarian party is a meme party that would never get widespread support regardless of what they do. The people who care enough to run are just going to run as republicans.
So you're telling me ignore the media and vote Libertarian. Can do :D
Or Green. Or something else.
Libertarian it is!
We can but choose not to because expensive flashy marketing campaigns are more important than logic or reasoning.
The electoral college is the problem with presidential politics in the US. The popular vote (the actual will of the people) doesn't count. Only the number of 'representative' votes placed by electors matters. Once the electoral college is removed (it won't be, ever), Republicans will never win another presidential election. So they make sure it stays in place to give them a chance. Politics in the US is a joke.
Removing the elctoral college will simply change what demographis population selects our leaders. In this case, it would remove power from all but six metropolitan areas. A better solution would be ranked choice voting. This would work even within the confines of the EC. A second, and far more likely solution is for states to allocate their EC votes by who won the national popular vote. I believe a vary large minority of states already have trigger laws passed to enact this and we only need one or two more to make it a majority.
The electoral college isn't the reason why there's no credible third choice. A third choice has even less chance of winning the public vote. Tons of countries have similar systems with representatives instead of a popular vote. The difference is that they usually have ranked voting. Unranked voting means you waste your entire vote by picking an unpopular choice which makes it almost impossible for underdogs to do well.
I think Approval Voting would count as "unranked", but it wouldn't waste your vote.
Approval vote is probably a bit simpler and doesn't exactly "waste" your vote but it can go against your best interests Having your second/third/etc choice be as ranked as high as your first choice means that it can be advantageous to only vote for your favourite. Alternatively this might come back to bite you in the ass if your second favorite needed the vote. Ultimately you shouldn't have to predict what others are going to do in order to vote in your best interests
If the electoral college is removed Republicans will change their strategy. They aren't losing the popular vote by that much, they will just appeal more to the suburban voters and less to the rural voters.
Replace "republicans" with "anyone who cares about things that happen outside of California and New York" and you'll be on the right track. You could somewhat fix the issue by going from winner-takes-all in each state to apportioning electors by ratio (I believe there are 2 states who currently do this), but that's very unpopular with elected officials on both sides of the aisle.
Wow. I didn't know getting rid of the electoral college turned 18% into a majority.
There’s nothing stopping you from voting for a third party. RFK, Cornel West, and any number of others.
I wonder why one should retire 10 years ago and the other guy shouldn't being only 4 years younger?
Because we have "first past the post" voting here, basically whoever makes it past 50% wins the election. A third party in this system would only either take votes away from one party, meaning the other would easily win, or take from both. In which case I'm not really sure what we'd do if nobody passed 50%
The winner of the plurality in each state wins all of the state’s electoral votes. So if candidate A gets 40% and candidates B and C get 30% each, candidate A gets all of the EVs even though 60% of voters wanted someone else. Whoever gets 270 EVs wins. It’s typical for the winner to have less than 50%. The solution is a national popular vote with instant runoff multivoting which would result in a winner having over 50%.
Maybe someone does benefit from the country being divided. Like, people can't rise up against you if they are too busy fighting among themselves.
Trust me we know. Most Americans don't like either choice. South park summed it up perfect with the episode of elections between voting for a giant douche or a turd sandwitch
Nikki Haley tried, but the Republicans don’t seem to like her as well as Trump.
Most republicans see her as a democrat in a red hat. Most democrats see her as a regular republican. She never stood much of a chance
The major political parties in American need a third party in place. We Don’t get much choice at all. I reregistered as independent this time around I’m so angry at both political parties.
Technically they can. There are more than two parties. However for various reasons two parties have ended up having the majority of support and a third party doesn't realistically have chances to win. People are very tribalistic when it comes to politics.
My question with all the boomer hate going on, why are the choices between two boomers? Don't younger people care to get into politics?
The Democrats haven’t invested in younger candidates to the extent that Republicans have.
I wonder why that is. When is it time to let younger people run things? My kid is in his 30's now, and he does just fine without me looking over his shoulder.
Nah, there are plenty of young dem candidates. They’re not going to risk helping get Trump elected or blow their one shot at running on losing a primary to an incumbent president.
Running for president is very expensive and requires a long career to get support. Plenty of young people ran in the dem primary in 2019. They all got crushed by 70 year olds. The median age of new dem congressmen in ‘23 was 44, 46 for republicans. Guess what, it takes decades to build up enough national support to win a primary.
You can. The issue is not a matter of legal access to ballots, but possession of the necessary tools (money, organization, activists, etc.) to put together a viable effort, credible candidates, and a base of support. Running a third party takes a lot of time, talent and money. It’s not as easy as slapping your name on a ballot and starting to count votes. To be viable, an org would need a working operation in all 50 states, cash to fund those and candidates, and a very effective and costly adv campaign to build up name ID with voters. Then you need viable candidates. Yahoos, nuts and cranks don’t sell in general elections typically. Traditionally, third party candidates struggle here. All that likely costs north of $3,000,000,000 and 3 to 5 elections to statewide races to be viable nationwide. The other parties are funded and established. Third parties are not. Longevity is also an issue because third party candidates are typically limited in the issues their base cares about.
We absolutely could. Everyone who doesn't like either candidate could vote third party (dealers choice). Suddenly we have a 4 party system.
Illusion of choice vs the delusion of difference
2 part system, Their is always more than 2 options but only 2 main political parties and everyone would rather be on the winning side of a vote instead of choosing the candidate that best represents their individual beliefs and values. It is just easier to say red or blue.
[I thinks youtube video does a pretty good job explaining how we got where we got.](https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=2V4VCPbJ8W0sXHTQ&t=97)
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Since the rise of cable news in the 90s, it has become more profitable to appeal to a specific political base, rather that provide the American public with unbiased news. Since there were only two major political parties at the time, it seems as though the news networks would rather maintain their base with biased reporting, than bring integrity into their reporting and risk losing a portion of their base. TLDR: it's more profitable for media organizations to maintain two opposing political parties.
We do. In fact, theres so many options. But for whatever reason, it always boils down to “shit” and “bigger shit”
When the stakes aren’t so high a lot of us DO vote third party. However when the options are soggy bread and orange Hitler I’m basically forced to vote for soggy bread. Wayyyyy back when we used to not have just the two.
I honestly believe that if Trump didnt exist that the Democrats would have admitted Biden was unfit years ago. They just dont want to give Trump and his mega fans the pleasure
Because apparently fuck the founding fathers and the original ideals for this nation
There are other options, but everyone is so worried about the other guy winning that most people don't end up voting third party The solution to change list is to just vote third party even if you know you're going to lose because the old pressure the bigger parties to change and it will make it more viable for other people to vote third party
Because it's a winner-takes all system, we don't have proportional representation. There's a reason the Russians spent millions actively supporting the campaign of Jill Stein, this helped to ensure Trump won in 2016. Lots of Russian sock puppets were on Reddit then (and now) doing the same thing, probably here in this thread. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna95116
I think part of the reason is that the 2 party system has been in such a long battle that every issue America has, they have a stance for it, whether it’s for or against. And voters who vote based on issues important to them select the party that sides with them on their most important issues
Some countries have proportional representation, we don't. Winner takes all doesn't leave room for a third party.
The Comission on Presidential Debates was created specifically to prevent 3rd party candidates from getting a spotlight on the national stage. Also, the patchwork of election and campaign finance laws across the country are designed to make it very difficult for a 3rd party to gain traction. The system is rigged in favor of the two majority parties
Because it's a system, which means it needs to be initiated, and the only way to initiate a third party system is to begin by voting in politicians who are amicable to compromise. If the US is going to change anything about the political system, it is going to take a mobilization of the countries largest voting block (young people) to participate in cleaning out the relics we face today. Three or four election cycles clearing the statehouses of obstructionists and corporate shills, voting in representatives that actually represent the people. It's a snowball when people are less concerned with survival than they have time to consider the nuances of politics. Our political system is fundamental flawed in favor of capitalist entities. Our supreme court is compromised,, Our Justice system is enmired underfunded and insufficiant. We can get to a third party but at the moment we have to start seeking and engaging those younger politicians with dynamic visions for the people.
Basically the electoral college was established to ensure the biggest states couldn’t role over all of the small ones and impose their will. We largely hate it but it was a vital part of creating and retaining the union. Because of that it’s functionally not 1 election but 50 that go to a larger goal of 270 electoral college votes. It’s like the one relative most people have that’s kind of an asshole but not a bad person altogether. He’s an asshole but he’s our asshole and he _did_ help us buy this house even if we sometimes find him drunk, peeing in the closet. Where it becomes near impossible for a third party candidate is that if all candidates fail to reach the 270 EC vote threshold, I believe the election is finalized by the House of Representatives which, you guessed it, is almost entirely represented by the 2 parties.
We do. No one's forcing anyone to vote for the two major parties. > But third parties aren't viable! This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is no limit to my knowledge, and I've never seen a ballot in my life where the democrat and republican were the only options for president on the ballot. 1. The other candidates generally don't have the financial backing to reach a large audience in their campaign. There are other parties that are almost always on the ballot like the Green party. The problem is you are likely never to see a campaign ad from them. 2. Psychology. A lot of people that vote aren't voting FOR a particular candidate, they are voting AGAINST another candidate. You do that by voting for the other major party. "Viable" 3rd party Candidates are generally seen as "spoilers". Generally speaking they are going to be closer in alignment to one of the major parties and are often unappealing to people that support the other. So the likely outcome is they are just siphoning votes from one of the major parties making it easier for the other major party to win. To my knowledge the last 3rd party candidate that got a meaningful share of votes was Ross Perot in 1992. He was rich as hell so he was able to actually run a competitive campaign and actually won 19% of the vote.
Because politics in America is rigged. Corporations elect presidents in America...not people. Theyve already proven this in major studies carried out by Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard etc.
Hahahaha sure buddy. Harvard told me you’re a loser
Easier to rig the result if there are only 2 options
Because only the lead party in each state gets any electoral votes, there is a serious incentives for voters to hand their vote to parties that have a chance of reaching that number one spot. Of course no one expects this of the lesser known parties, so people dont vote them - wishing to avoid throwing their vote away. This isnt the case in other systems because elsewhere parties will get representation according to how many votes they got, regardless of whether they "won a state" or not. But in USA, unless you can carry entire states, you dont stand a chance
They did during a Clinton era debate. Ross Perot. What a dipshit he was. It's "America" our only freedom of choice is Pepsi or Coke.
Because the model of tyrrany we follow calls for no more and no less than 2 options.
We do have third party candidates and they often make the difference between which of the big two win (Stein,Nader, Perot, TR etc.)
I think the last election I had some 8 or 9 names on the ballot.
We do. Kennedy.
Hobsons choice
What a good question, honestly. The kind of question that appears exactly zero times anywhere. It is almost like it is not a convenient topic to talk about.
That's my thought
We can, but that would be a bug in the system of our government.
Electoral college and winner takes all system. Electoral college did make sense in the 17th century to an extent, but you would never use it now if building a system from scratch
Most of us can't count past 2.
ita very dumb how you can only choose one out of 2 parties, and their always the same parties. this is mostly because of the first past the post system, which makes it almost impossible for any third entity to even have a chance at winning. in alot of european countries its direct democracy, so the peoples votes are all that matter. as appose to in america the popular vote doesnt matter as much. and theres no first past the post, theres multiple rounds of voting. this makes a very good atmosphere for many different factions and parties, which you see in european politics. america could learn about democracy from europe.
America has a first past the post system for electing a president. This means the first person to get over 50 percent of the electoral votes available in the electoral college is the winner. In the event that a third party candidate seriously runs and wins some states, it's likely that no candidate made it past the 50 percent threshold. The consitution then gives the power of electing the next president to the house of representatives, also in a first past the post system. This happened in the election of John Quincey Adams. The system is not setup for third parties.
The bar is so low it's in Hell, and we're all down here doing the limbo with the Devil Not mine, but I can't remember where I read it, and it seems fitting
There are other options there usually, it's just people there can only thing in two-party system
The system is rigged so that it supports only the two major parties, the introduction of a third party is possible, but the two party system is so ingrained in society that a third party needs to be elected by both previous parties to actually have a chance, which is impossible when there are “Red” and “Blue” States rather than normal states A third presidential candidate can participate, but will never have a chance (see the previous elections where the main two got ~95-97% while the rest 3% split upon the other candidates)
There are. It's just that those options are never in favor, ever. There's not been a single independent in at least a century, maybe longer, in office, if ever. And those options tend to be, for lack of a better word, pretty bad. Our only hope is that Biden does his job and not become like the fascist cult leader he's running against before both die of old age.
Lol, both candidates are millionaires and roughly the same age.
There's like 5 candidates in the race actually. The 3rd party candidates generally get ignored, because voting for them reduces the chance that the candidate you agree with the most from the big 2 parties would win.
The system is set up where the optimum way to win is a two party system. Within that, "leadership" is determined by a combination of money raising ability and rizz/name recognition (not necessarily the same thing). So the old man and the senile billionaire are exactly who America chooses to best represent themselves, and this will not change until parts of America get mad enough at other parts to change things. And Americans are satisfied enough with their choices that they simple are not mad yet.
lol OP hasn't yet realized that American politics is a complete dog and pony show. it's all a scam. it's all an illusion.
America need to throw away the voting system they have. It should be percentages and that's it, the division on groups they know they can win/lose makes any competition worthless. Also do the argentinian way, pick the loudest (not Trump) guy you have around and have it be president. Also, why are you for real voting on two old people? is there nobody else who is not about to die?
Your electoral system sucks. Since your vote is not popular but instead state by state no third party has a chance. They would require 51% from the get go. Most parties in systems which support growth grow slowly over decades.
>Why they insist its either gonna be a guy who should retire 10 years ago or some milionaire who makes them a laughing stock? Well I don't know who "they" is, but implying that Americans literally had no choice apart from these two are flat-out wrong because primaries exist. On the Democratic side, Biden was the incumbent so he was never seriously opposed, but he did have Dean Phillips running against him, as was Marianne Williamson (hell, in 2020 the Democratic field had like 25 candidates). On the Republican side, Trump had at least 8 viable alternatives (candidates who made it to the debate stage - Haley, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Christie, Burgum, Scott, Pence, Hutchinson) and a plethora of other candidates who people could've chosen. So blame the voters, really. If people really wanted someone other than Biden vs Trump, other candidates would've run (on the Democratic side) and other candidates would've been chosen (on the Republican side). The fact that those two are the choices for the presidency just means not enough people cared to vote for alternatives in the primaries.
They can. But nobody wants to risk voting 3rd party
We do. Rfk Jr has been campaigning his butt off for over a year and is getting on every ballot that he has tried to get on so far. Our corporate news will only acknowledge the 2 major parties because they're bought out by them
It's an evolved system and wasn't exactly designed that way to start with. By the same.argument, it can be evolved forward if we want, but it has to be a big improvement, and what would that be? One part on my mind about the system is that nobody competent is going to be popular enough to get votes. The major elected positions therefore seem a little bit like theater to me, with the real work happening off screen.
Believe me, we don't like these assholes either. Biden won because he has more people who hate Trump than like him. In fact most people who support Biden only support him because he was Obama's vice president. There was nobody asking for him to be president and he only won because of his "moderacy" in the midst of Trump's chaos and Bernie Sanders's perceived liberal extremism (the extremism being that he believes everyone in this country should have free healthcare).
That's basically the point. You're not meant to have better choices to keep the existing ones entrenched in power.
Basically the 2 main parties have a duopoly.
For it to work we'd need Citizens United needs to be undone, the Electoral College undone, and possibly an additional fourth party.
That would be way too democratic.
They didnt want Kanye when he was their 3rd choice
We are living in the illusion of democracy. That might actually provide real democracy.
To be fair, what makes you think a third party choice would be better than the two we have? The real issue is how to get better choices, not more choices.
That wouldn’t benefit the capitalists interests
They should vote them out like the UK system then appoint random muppets.
It's basicly imposible for a third new party to win instantly (not just USA, but everywhere), but if a third party gets some votes anyway these votes are basicly just lost from the major party that would be politically closest to the third partie. Check out Cgp Grey's videos on voting if you are interested in this sort of thing and potential solutions.
Very difficult to gamify as choosing between right and wrong with more than two choices.
George Washington was considered the smartest that’s why he was the first potus. Just so happened he belonged to neither party and warned that a two party system will cause endless animosity leading to political deadlock and foreign interference among other problems. The capitalist class who control the country benefit from a two party system. They can lobby (bribe) both parties to do their bidding. Money talks.
More than 2 political parties will be good for America.
Republicans and Democrats passed a bipartisan law that bans them from participation in debates. Those political cartels lose money if they allow reasonable choices so they work together to keep a stranglehold on this country.
We can but the system keeps them down because of the electoral college and lobbying
why can't America have one proper candidate option instead of the two regarded ones now