Says Who - All of them. (Likelihood of Successful Third Party)

[Johnny_Ace]

@asahi

…The real reason people want third parties now is due in large part to the fact that you have aggressive, well-organized, well-financed minority factions within the larger apparatus of the party and they are extremely effective at obstructionism. And they exist because the voters who vote progressive in major elections take a break and allow the activists to take over in mid-terms, and they also allow activists to take over the state and local elections.

We may whine all night long about the misery that conservatives are inflicting upon the country but the reality is, they understand their political system better than idealistic liberals and centrists do. And that’s because if you are selling the kinds of snake oil bullshit that republicans have over the last 40 years, you kinda have to know everything there is to know about the political system in order to hack democracy - every possible exploit, every security hole, every trick in the book. And that they do, and they do it well.

And the result is that the activists who are selling the snake oil show up to defend their system at the polls. They do a good job of encouraging other right wing voters to vote against their own interests. But more importantly they take advantage of left wing and centrist (independent) ignorance and their unrealistic expectations when they don’t get the magic unicorns they were waiting for when they voted two years prior.

The result is that they leave progressive democrats as a lame-duck party, trying desperately to function as a ruling minority. Progressive and independent voters seem to know that conservatives are wrong on economics and national security, but their apathy leave progressives with no clear mandate and without any ability to achieve anything, the perception of political incompetence begins to fester. “Well shoot man, I voted for Obama and he ain’t done nothin, man! Tired of this crap - we need a third party.”

No, we don’t. We really don’t. We need voters to start being informed and start voting consistently so that we hold a party with terrible ideas accountable and give the other party a chance to actually make good on its promises to voters. California’s already kinda doing that with Jerry Brown and the Democratic super majority. The rest of the country needs to follow suit, like now.

And yes, I am absolutely a partisan on this issue – I am 100 percent anti-republican.

There are certain systemic issues that inherently favor conservatives, like voter ID and gerrymandering, that liberals can’t take advantage of, or at least not as fully. I can’t think of anything that works like that in the opposite direction, other than continuing to try to educate all voters, which has less immediately concrete results. Also, a large portion of the population just doesn’t care; they’re too busy dealing with their everyday lives and not thinking about how they could improve things, in part because of the immobility of government. Human psychology comes into it as well; pandering to monkey fear has pretty much always been the best way to get votes. Fear of the Other, of the unknown, of losing whatever they have to lose.

And I’m not sure that a less ethical approach indicates a better understanding of the system, just more of an ability to rationalize the end justifying the means.

That’s not to say that people shouldn’t get involved in off-year activism, or that Dems are completely above using similar tactics, but there are a slew of speed bumps working in conservatives’ direction.

[Deeg]

@septimus

Isn’t this an accurate description of the Democratic Party? Under Bill Clinton, for example, U.S. economic policy was far to the right of every other developed Western democracy.

The current opposition to the TPP is one area I don’t agree with the left. I’m mildly against MW laws. I generally feel like the government is too large (e.g. I didn’t mind the sequestration from a few years ago). I am not keen on Elizabeth Warren having a major say on financial policy.

That said, I am currently in favor of higher taxes to reduce the deficit, among other things.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@BigT

Historically third parties don’t really become viable. When the parties change, what happens is that one of the two parties crashes, and then a third party becomes a replacement second party. Or a previous coalition splits into two parties.

This.

It is conceivable though not probable that the Republican Party will break apart within the next 8 years. The Trumpists and the current GOP establishment are at odds with one another.

But Donald Trump isn’t really interested in politics. So when he loses, he’s likely to try his hand at media, which after all has been his primary occupation for the last 15 years or so. Trump is as much of a businessman as David Duchovny is an investigator. Well not quite, but still. At any rate, smart funders of any conservative television property associated with Trump better negotiate carefully. Because Trump will stiff them and sell them out at the first opportunity.

While I’d like to see the modern conservative movement collapse under the weight of its own hate and nonsense, it’s difficult seeing that happening with the current players. Even after an electoral whomping, which may or may not happen.

[Corry_El]

@septimus

No. Note that Gary Johnson’s policies appeal neither to Bernie’s supporters nor to Trump’s supporters.

The result of the election will be that both parties drift slightly toward more populist America-First positions on trade, foreign policy and (at least for GOP) immigration.

True. Core Sanders’ supporters tend to be solidly left on bigger government as the answer, and Johnson’s smaller govt message is antithetical to them. Core Trump supporters tend to be very focused on illegal immigration and Johnson’s ‘open borders’ (certainly as they’d see it) position is antithetical to them. Both tend to be protectionist, again opposite of Johnson. The Libertarians as now positioned hold little appeal to the grassroots base of either party.

In theory the Libs could be attractive to a lot of voters outside the major party bases, but by definition these are less active and involved people. A minor party needs to grow its own base of highly activated voters to much larger size. Just appealing to ‘fed up’, relatively apathetic non-aligned voters will never go anywhere.

The second paragraph I also agree with but is more about a possible re-alignment of the major parties. Aside from spin that everyone who supports Trump is a racist, etc, the most interesting thing about Trumpism is both the active support of protectionism from the GOP (so creating a bipartisan protectionist consensus, opposite of the bipartisan free trade consensus of past decades) and relative low level of any real interest in smaller govt, lower taxes and social conservatism by Trump, and by extension by his plurality in the GOP primary electorate.

Now that it’s the general, anti-Trump turnout might be boosted by painting Trump as a relatively conventional GOP’er for voters who hate conventional GOP policies. And Trump has paid lip service to those policies while Clinton claims to oppose them so it’s a fair line of argument. But the more revealing thing for the possible future GOP is the lack of effectiveness of other GOP primary candidates attacking Trump for his obviously weak attachment to traditional GOP ideas. The only things Trump has been at all consistent about (up to very recently at least) is opposition to free trade and illegal immigration, with implied support of the generally anti-immigration feeling more common now in the GOP base.

Trump suggests the possibility of evolution toward two main parties which agree more than the Dem/GOP recently have on economic populism and big government, and whose basic difference is on immigration policy, and the related identity politics.

[callander]

Moderating - thanks for the clarity on the title, my bad.

After reading the thread I come away with most people would not get behind a 3rd party.

I note a few weeks ago when he was sliding in the polls that some news outlets thought he might get out, not so sure that is going to happen. What I didn’t know is that he has had this idea of being POTUS for some 30 odd years. I was watching the making of Trump and he made mention of it several times (when he was, what appears to be his 30’s).