Especially if they’re willing to order the pizza with hamburger toppings. And there’s a whole lot of hamburger on the Democratic pizza this year.
What third parties can do in the USA is encourage the main two parties to move in one direction or the other. In some years, having candidates on the ballot can be useful in attempting to do this – though it’s a whole lot more likely to actually accomplish something in down-ballot races, especially those in which there’s some hope the third-party candidate could actually get elected. In other years, it makes a whole lot more sense to vote for the candidate who agreed to add hamburger to the pizza than for the one who added arsenic instead.
Perot is a great example - in 1996 (after his 1992 campaign which had been allowed to debate pulled in 19% of the popular vote and 0 electoral votes) the Commission on Presidential Debates (which is run by the Democrats and Republicans) arbitrarily decided not to allow Perot to debate with the major candidates.
Obviously the parties have every right to do this and it’s really just media exposure, but it shows how little FPTP works that this type of stuff needs to happen.
I have to admit that’s been a legit knock against the Democrats. But unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand throughout 2020 - not that I’d blame you - you’d realize that will and vision are storming down the track. Ousting the Republicans and changing the world are the party’s top priorities. That’s not true for the Greens or any other third party.
Perot 96 was a fucking joke and deserved to be left out. Gee, the guy who got zero electoral votes in 92 by spending massive amounts of his own money is now gonna try again except not self funding?? We gotta get his ass on the stage!!
…While Perot pulled down 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, he failed to carry any states then, and he has been lagging in the mid-single digits for most of the current campaign…
It’s very telling that they don’t have down ballot candidates.
Surely, if the people of Wisconsin were clamoring for Green representation - there would be Green candidates for Congress or for the State Legislative positions or something. There’s a noticeable absence.
I never claimed that third parties always hurt the Dems. What I claimed is that Green party votes do. And I will stick to that. Can you find a cite that Green party votes come from Republican voters?
It is quite probable that Ross Perot was responsible for Clinton winning in 1992. Virtually certain, I would guess. And I believe that most Libertarian votes come from the Republicans. But let me remind you that my question was specifically why the Green party is trying to re-elect Trump.
Do you have a cite that all Green party voters from from Democrats? From what I’ve read, when asked, Green voters would vote for Dems and some would vote for Repubs.
It doesn’t. Nowhere in that article does it say who the Green voters would have voted for if limited to choose between R and D. It has some results for just Libertarian voters and Libertarian+Green voters, but not just Greens. Note that Libertarians got over 3 times as many votes as Greens, so L+G is heavily weighted towards who L’s would vote for.
That’s going to be true of every voting bloc; they’re never monolithic. But considering the Republican environmental record, it’s going to be a really unusual Green voter who will choose an R over a D. Many more of them will just not vote.
^^You’re right, they included Stein and Johnson is that one study. But they did include so far as Nader and voters in Florida
Nader received 97,488 votes in Florida. And national exit polling showed Nader voters would have chosen Gore (47%) over Bush (21%) in a two-man race. A book by Burden estimated a similar breakdown.
And I never claimed that the Democrats aren’t hurt by Green candidates. I just don’t think that every single Green party voter would have voted Democratic.
They are definitely a thorn in the side of Democrats.
I think it’s worth reminding people that a lot of people who vote for third parties are “outliers”, people who have a really hard, emotional problem accepting the concept of a big tent party where they may have to break bread with people who have different political opinions from them. It’s an odd mindset, because in countries that use proportional representation, which tends to undercut a “two party” duopoly, the only way to form a governing bloc is to form a coalition of parties on the same “spectrum” of the political divide but who have some specific disagreements. It’s almost like…a big tent party.
But anyway, a large % of Libertarian and Green voters are people who probably would not have voted for either of the current candidates. Green voters probably frequently attract disaffected Democrats mad about the current candidate, but those same people who are so angry about the Democrat nominee probably wouldn’t have sucked it up and voted Dem just because you took away their option to vote Green, they’d just vote some nonsense write in candidate or leave their vote for President blank.
Same deal for Libertarians, a lot of Never Trumpers voted for them. These were Republicans who were making a statement against Trump. But they also were deeply opposed to the agenda of the Democrat party and thus, not willing in any real sense to have ever considered a vote for Hillary.
tldr: a lot of these third party votes are voters who have already decided they will not be voting for a major party nominee, and then look to how to cast their “protest vote.” It’s relatively rare they are people who actually feel so deeply about the ill defined and frequently unstable political platforms of the minor parties.
I do find it interesting the two “regular” minor parties (Libs and Greens) don’t seem to work very hard to build any sort of grass roots or local party organization.
I kind of think the approach of the Democratic Socialists of America is an interesting one, and probably a better vehicle for trying to promote views that don’t easily fit into the two party duopoly. The DSA is a “Political Organization” with something like 180 chapters and 70,000 members. Some of its members run for office, usually as Democrats–and something like 20 of them are currently elected officials, including 3 people in Congress and a number of State legislators. Versus 0 Green or Libertarian members of Congress and I don’t think the Greens or Libs even have a single state legislator.
The DSA frequently endorses a Democrat in a given race, and sometimes they endorse a Green Party candidate, but they don’t nominate or run their own candidates.
First off, about 1992. It should be remembered that that election saw an unusually high turnout so it may be that Perot didn’t “take” voters from anybody, but rather simply brought his own. There may have been dynamics operating in which the Perot candidacy helped Clinton (particularly Perot’s out-again, in-again antics) but in terms of raw votes on election day, not so much. This is particularly true when you drill down into the state-by-state numbers.
Now, as to the issue at hand. The Greens have the “accelerationist” mind-set. They think that the only way to get people to take their issues seriously is to make the problems bad enough that they will be universally acknowledged and that only then can actual improvements take place. There can be no other explanation for a party pushing environmental issues to functionally support folks who pollute for fun and profit. (Well, none that doesn’t involve skullduggery.)
At least in the past, a non-small fraction of 3rd Party voters have been of the mindset that the real/practical distinction between the parties is vanishing, so why try to decide between Tweedle or Dee when you might as well just throw a coin. As the Republicans have migrated from far-right into WTELF, this fraction has gotten smaller, but it is still there.
From my own point of view (which is not to say that I will vote 3rd-party), the choice is between the party that wants to break all the toys vs the party that will use bubble gum and twist-ties to keep the toys from completely disintegrating before our eyes, but only just. It is a pretty ugly situation, and I can imagine there may be some who feel that the system is so severely broken that Individual-ONE is likely to make it fall apart and then some actually repairs might happen.
Yes, but that talks about ALL Third parties. Like Ross Perot, and the Libertarian party, which is like 50/50. Here were are talking the Green party only, which is far left, and never would vote for a GOPer.
So yeah, overall, all minor parties hamper both sides. But the Green party only hurts the Dems.
And did what with it? Obamacare, a shitty copy of any true healthcare system?
Meanwhile Trump and Bush undid how much in their times in office? The Democrats are losers. Even when they win, the country just subsists in a standstill until the next Republican comes back, like clockwork, and does even more damage.
If the Democrats aren’t making progress, and they haven’t, they’re part of the problem. Why the hell would anyone keep voting for a party that, even in victory, does nothing?
Undoing damage is progress. And the ACA is progress. Not to mention the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act and many more laws we wouldnt have today.