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That sounds too much like work and not enough like bitching.
Makes me wish we had some serious third parties in this country, and not two grifting perennial presidential-election also-rans
The lack of viable ones is less a result of effort on their part or desire for them among the electorate, and more to do with the nature of our voting system. Its hard to develop a viable third party when the system one is operating in mathematically guarantees that only two parties can be seriously competitive with eachother in nationally significant elections, and those parties are already established. They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into, but the only times theyve ever gotten to the presidency have been the couple times when one of the two major parties basically collapses and gets replaced with a different one.
They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into,
That's my point, though. The two biggest third parties in this country aren't competitive in local elections, because they put even less effort in local elections as the two major parties do. They make a performative shot at the presidency every four years, and that's about fucking it. The Libertarians are slightly better (god, what a sentence to gag on) on this than the Greens, but not by much.
There are more than just two third-parties if that's how you want to refer to them. There were three others you didn't mention in my state, all different on policy. Third-party doesn't by default mean green or libertarian.
They said "biggest", not "only".
Which I will admit is only partially accurate, the AIP (a paleoconservative party, far right) is the largest after the Libertarian Party (which is not even remotely libertarian in policy). Then Green (which doesn't actually do anything on any of the ideologies they claim to support), followed by another christian nationalist party, and then parties so small they are a margin of error on the national stage at best, combined.
Single-state parties have no relevance nationally.
Isn't the AIP just part of the Constitution Party, which itself is, as a whole, smaller than the Greens?
Not really, there was a split in the AIP where some stayed with the Constitution Party (specifically in CA, not in UT), and others stayed purely AIP, then they went with a splinter name for those who didn't stay with Constitution called America's Party. Which is bonus funny, because a few decades before that there was another split with some becoming the American Party (northern conservatives).
In terms of membership though, the AIP still keeps all of them, making them the largest by membership IIRC. Its... weird. So AIP is technically larger, but its really split into a lot of factions. UT is still where the bulk of the membership is though I believe. Numbers wise though, if you shoved them all in one place, they still wouldn't even make the top ten list of cities by population in the US. The Green Party membership numbers wouldn't hit the top 100.
I'm going to double check though, its been a while since I looked in on those loonies....
EDIT:
Wikipedia numbers for quick checks, the LP actually has less members than I thought. As of 2022, 727k. Green has 211k, AIP has 919k members, and Constitution has 154k members.
In terms of votes in the 2020 presidential election, the LP got 1.8 million votes, green got 400k, an much to my surprise, the Working Families Party got 386k! Letitia James, btw, ran in the WFP ticket ~20 years ago or so. They still have some folks in office in Philly, and had previously won some state seats in CT. They make use of electoral fusion to support Democrats where they don't have a chance to win or there is a risk from pulling from Democrats to a loss against republicans, and are, as far as I know, one of the better 3rd parties out there. Membership is still low though, looks like only 65k. I know they are in my state, though it looks like they don't have ballot access yet. Hmm. Maybe worth seeing if they are trying for anything locally by me to see if I can support them.
EDIT 2: THEY DO! This is exciting, they have someone up for my district! I'm disappointed with myself for not seeing that, running under the Democrat ticket but a WFP party member - that is fantastic news.
Folks, this is the sort of third party you get behind. They work together against the far right, and have a defined focus on social democracy and progressive policy.
Still, a lot of people are seemingly treating all third parties the same as they do the Green party, which then affects all of them in public opinion.
At the national level, yes. The only thing they are is a spoiler party in federal elections. Hopefully that changes in the future, but to do that we need to get away from FPTP, and those 3rd parties need to go local first to get recognition.
Local level is an entirely different territory, and there are quite a few third parties in offices.
But in a federal election? Yeah, they are only a spoiler, nothing else.
But see you are doing exactly what I said, applying criticism of the Green party to all third parties. Its the green party that doesn't participate in local elections. I don't mind third parties trying different strategies. For better or for worse, whatever the green party is doing at least gets it talked about a ton, which has to be worth something.
No, I'm applying it to all third parties at the federal level, with zero/minimal representation at the local/state level.
That makes them spoiler candidates.
And its specifically for the worse in a presidential, because they are spoiler candidates.
If Jill Stein wanted better for the US, she would have dropped out, said she wants better for the country, and put her support behind a candidate who can win and isn't running on a platform of christian hate.
But she didn't. Like she didn't in the two previous presidential elections.
Want to know why?
Tap for spoiler
SHE IS A SPOILER CANDIDATE
There isnt only one valid perspective that is "better for the US". The only ones we know are wrong are the current one, because clearly bad shit happens as a result.
While you think she's a spoiler, I don't think she thinks that. I think she thinks she is helping America, truly. Its one thing to disagree with her methods or policies, but quite another to throw shit on her for sitting at a table with Putin once. I don't think she is selling herself out.
I am sure she won't win, but I think that it helps broaden the discussion on what politics can be in the future, even if its just a bunch of people from different corners arguing about it.
I would agree if, and only if:
- She didn't only show up for elections
- At her own events her supporters didn't say the quiet parts out loud. For example, at a Jill Stein Event, Kshama Sawant said:
We are not in a position to win the White House, but we do have a real opportunity to win something historic, we could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.
- She wasn't hiring Republican consulting firms
- She didn't hire Trumps former personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, and Michael Dean, who was part of the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
- She didn't use long standing republican firms to collect signatures, like she did with Synapse Group in NH.
- She wasn't targeting specifically the battleground states to appear on their ballot while ignoring others
At best, she's working to republican advantage. But with everything else....
She's not broadening jack, she's there to get Trump elected. There are far too many items that show as much.
So no. I'm not going to sit here while someone "hurr durr good conversation". Bullshit. Complete bullshit, she has one purpose, and one only, or she wouldn't be doing the things shes doing.
You can lie to yourself and others, but I won't.