If you’ll dig a bit deeper into your own argument, you’ll see that it’s not a problem, precisely because the underlying mechanics of the American political system channel politics into two major parties. For instance, if the Republican Party implodes completely, the Democrats will fracture into “progressive” and “Third Way” factions within a couple of election cycles (the latter picking up most of the former Republicans who are still able to show their faces in public), producing a new version of the same system (albeit a much-improved version, with an reasonable “party in power” versus “loyal opposition” dynamic in place of the present “sane” versus “crazy” clusterfuck).
Something like it with somebody else might happen. But the point IMO is that people on the left are largely kidding themselves about more centrist GOP-ish alternatives that are going to skim large numbers of ‘sane’ Republicans from the GOP. The same people thought the same thing in the 2016 cycle as it related to Johnson/Weld. Those were two Republicans, albeit advertising themselves as Libertarians, which is a strain within the GOP though not dominant. But a lot of real L’s saw J/W as a moderate GOP takeover of their party. Anyway GOP voters broadly saw Trump, with all his apparent negatives, and saw Clinton, and knew that a bunch of them flocking to a pair of moderate Republicans (or a very conservative anti-Trump Republican, McMullin) would give the election to the Democrats. And they didn’t take the bait in large numbers.
Ceterus paribus they won’t next time either. A lot of today’s polarization is people who predominantly want to stop the GOP or the Democrats not promote one or the other. Unless Trump really proves himself worse than anti-Democratic Party voters thought, which isn’t provably the case now IMO (low approval, but he won with low approval, he’s a hard guy to approve of), they are going to see just like many people here do from a left leaning POV that voting for a ‘moderate’ GOP-ish minor party alternative will help the Democrats…so they won’t.
Trump IMO will lose in 2020 if the Democrat has broader appeal. And it will be easy for them to nominate somebody more personally appealing, the problem being if it’s somebody more extreme ideologically so it’s not a sure thing. And if Trump doesn’t motivating as many people generally favorable to him to come out and vote, and maybe even some people, probably not a lot, actually changing their vote from Trump to the Democrat. I doubt minor party candidates will have much to do with it.
I think Johnson really shot his campaign in the foot when he said “What’s Aleppo?” at a time when Aleppo was all over the news. I don’t know if that one gaffe really did him in or other things happened, but I know that some earlier polls had him cracking the double digits, and after that blunder he had a hard time attracting even basic media attention anymore.
True but third parties often fade in the stretch as people face the reality that voting for the GOP/Democrats is the only way to advance their key wish that the Democrats/GOP don’t win. And again IMO a major element of polarization in the US now is how ‘good’ a ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ you are has come to be judged not on your own positive views but how much you can’t stand conservatives/Republicans or liberals/Democrats.
And second and as important people on the left are looking for candidacies to siphon a lot more votes from the GOP than the Democrats. But Johnson seemed to pull roughly as many votes from both, pre and post ‘what’s Aleppo?’ IMO some kind of ‘centrist fusion’ of a squishy Democrat and squishy Republican teaming up would likewise tend to draw about equally from both sides. Left leaning people tend to look at what really bugs them about the Republicans and imagine ‘reasonable’ Republicans abandoning that in great numbers, but it doesn’t tend to pan out that way. Most GOP votes are cast against the Democrats, not for love of the GOP (as Trump clearly showed by winning the primaries bashing the GOP) or love of Trump himself. And if they change their minds to not care as much if the Democrats win, they can just stay home rather than go to the trouble of wasting their vote on a minor party.
Getting a bit off-topic, but The more I think about it, the more credible Hickenlooper as a possible2020 candidate seems. Without a unity ticket I mean, I could see him making a move for the centrist wing of the Dems, he does come off as smart, reasonable, and I’m not aware of any skeletons in his closet.
This is the answer. Why would any Democrat tie themselves to a Republican? The easiest route to the presidency is through a major party. If Hickenlooper wants to run, he’ll run as a Democrat.
The problem for Libertarians with attracting media attention is that it means people see their actual candidates and proposals. It’s easy to sell people on ‘we need smaller government, lets cut out stuff we don’t need’ since almost everyone will agree with that statement (they will disagree heavy about what qualifies as needed, but not the idea of cutting what isn’t). But when you have someone running for the office that sets foreign policy for the US who doesn’t even recognize the most common place name in foreign policy news and can’t name a single foreign leader that he likes or admires, it’s hard for anyone to feel like you even belong in the race.
I think the deeper “problem” is that anyone with true political skill takes their positions to one of the main parties because that’s where the $$$ is, and that’s the way to get a seat at the table (E.g. the Pauls for libertarians, or progressive democrats who position-wise could have been Greens). So the ones trying to run from the outside all have a strong dose of “doesn’t compromise or play well with others” which correlates with offering extreme versions of their proposals.