Sixty-three percent of Americans say a third U.S. political party is needed, up from 56% a year ago and by one percentage point the highest in Gallup's 20-year trend.
Story Highlights
Third time support has exceeded 60%, along with 2017 and 2021
Republicans primarily behind the increase, with 58% now in favor
Political independents remain group most likely to favor third party
… and unfortunately the reality of 3rd party candidates in the US - since there is hardly any “ranked choice” voting - means they only act as a spoiler for whatever candidate they either are actually aligned with, or whom they are being financed to siphon voters away from.
See Perot and Nader for the former, and RFK and Stein for the latter.
…And no - Bernie Sanders was never one of these as he dropped out and endorsed (in both his presidential runs) as to ensure as many of his supporters as possible would support the ultimate Democratic nominees.
In his recent presidential campaigns: Yes, Sanders was not a third party.
Historically? he was probably a lot worse than a "spoiler" since he would run as a Democrat in the primary and then change to an independent/third party for the general election so he could more or less screw over the Democrats while running unopposed on the Left. He did this from 1988 until 2018.
So yeah... I would suggest just not mentioning Sanders at all when this comes up because he somehow comes out worse than a Perot or Stein.
Historically? he was probably a lot worse than a “spoiler” since he would run as a Democrat in the primary and then change to an independent/third party for the general election so he could more or less screw over the Democrats while running unopposed on the Left. He did this from 1988 until 2018.
What?
He ran in Dem primaries so he wouldn't be a spoiler in the general...
That's a good thing.
And how does him running in the general "screwing over democrats"?
He's literally always congress with the Dems, the only difference is the letter by his name.
stein wasn't a spoiler. the whole narrative of spoiler candidates presumes that republicans or democrats own votes but they don't. voters own votes, and tehy get to decide who they want to give them to. it's not as though democrats don't know what it is that green party voters want, they just don't care if they get green party voters to switch.
Reality is, if you vote green you’re giving Republicans +1. You either know your candidate won’t win, or aren’t smart enough to understand probability. Regardless the outcome is the same no matter what excuse you give.
Roughly a third of eligible voters don't identify as either party.
Most of them rarely vote, a few vote third party. You could argue both groups aren't voting, but you can't pretend they'd all vote D instead. They'd probably just not vote.
Anyone who is undecided at this time is either extremely naive or doesn’t want to publicly admit their real position for some reason. These sides are basically authoritarian fascism only concerned with rich people getting richer and everyone else. We don’t debate policy anymore. The right has none. They fabricate a bunch of bullshit to keep people angry and then grift grift grift every chance they get.
If you’re not in the “everyone else” camp, stop here.
Otherwise, if you are, none of us are going to get everything we want. Let’s get that out there right now. If you are with a group of friends deciding on where to go to dinner, you compromise. You don’t sit there and refuse and just starve. That’s life. Make your case for the choice you want. If you don’t have the support, work to find your next best choice. Don’t sit there and do nothing.
Those are conflicting statements. There is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that they won’t win, or even come close to it. Believe it or not there are entire fields of study on predicting outcomes of things across every walk of life that are far better than assuming everything has an equal chance of happening.
63% of people say they want another option, not 63% of people want the same other option. At best you could have the Republican Party split, but they know that means losing everywhere so they won’t actually do it.
The Libertarian party splits the Republican party far more than the greens split the Dems. We need to promote more parties so they split the vote of both parties.
Source: Their lack of any realistic platform, lack of national strategy, lack of base or coalition building, lack of political strategy. I could go on and on.
Only Symbolically. In reality your splitting the vote among broadest like minded individuals which gives the advantage to the opposition. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the consequence.
if others were like-minded they'd be voting for my candidate. if they're concerned about vote splitting, they should vote with the people they know will not compromise and vote for someone THEY don't want to win.
Depends on the election. I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m telling you you’re helping accomplish the opposite of what you want versus something close to what you want.
pretending that Stein’s campaign didn’t effectively act the way a “spoiler” candidate’s campaign would - given that we don’t have something like “ranked choice” voting for the presidential eleciton - is demonstrably false.
it's definitively NOT demonstrably false: you can't prove a counterfactual, so you can't prove what would have happened if stein wasn't on the ballot.
I mean... I don't care what explanation there is. It's not like Putin suddenly became a bad guy in 2015 or something. I'm pretty sure it's fairly easy to say "no thanks" to sitting / meeting / going to a dinner with someone like that.
I mean, short of something like this... I'm pretty skeptical about just the fact that Stein was there... like at the event. Let alone why she agreed to be there, why she agreed to sit at the table, etc.
Calling RT a “major news outlet” is like calling the Harlem Globetrotters a major NBA team.
And pretending RT is a bastion of journalism that anyone should respect is as silly as saying “the BBC covers news related to British royalty with a fair perspective.”
You’re completely insufferable. I was just making a point, because I was curious to see what you would say in response to something that actually seemed like it was fulfilling one of your little argumentative demands.
You are someone who seems to just enjoys arguing and being kind of an ass to everyone. 🤣 I pity you.