There is zero historical evidence voting third party does anything more than get the worse of two evils in office
no such evidence is possible: you can't prove a counterfactual. you can't know who the worse evil would be. further it's not clear that so-called "third party" voters actually impact elections at all unless their candidate wins.
No, we can. 3rd parties have been around for decades and won nothing and only exacerbated the goals of said parties by undermining the only party that has tangible results.
3rd parties have been around for decades and won nothing and only exacerbated the goals of said parties by undermining the only party that has tangible results.
this simply isn't true and reflects a myopic view of history. so-called third parties have been with us almost since the inception of the us, and have accomplished things inconceivable to modern politicians.
nethier the civil rights act nor the legalization of same sex marriage is as concrete as a constitutional amendment, which is itself part of the constitution, and determines whether other laws are constitutional.
the civil rights act was not the work of the democrats or the republicans. it was the work of dedicated activists and, yes, other parties such as the black panther party. they exerted pressure onto the parties in government, and the parties in government acquiesced.
Yes, it was the Democrats who both supported and are primarily responsible for its passage.
... in congress. but they would have never proposed it if the writing weren't on the wall, if the people in the streets had not made it a matter of import. giving the democrats credit is like giving bank tellers credit for financing bank robbers' lifestyles.
you will see that the issue is the provability of whether so-called third parties can achieve anything, and whether it's provable that voting for them has supported a "greater evil". i have demonstrated the success of so-called third parties, and its prima facie impossible to prove a counterfactual.
I have proved both of these things. Both With Nader and Perot, as well as showing the difference in actual progressive advancements between third-parties in Democrats is so great that there is little point in supporting a third-party — especially when the FPTP system mathematically goes against them.
But any time you want to make a bet a 3rd-party candidate winning versus one of the two primary parties, I'll happily take that bet on money.
Any amount of research will, in fact, show that Perot did not win and 3rd-party groups routinely spoil elections without remotely advancing their own agenda they claim to care about.
perot's campaign had a significant impact on the politics of the 90s, transforming the democrats from a party (accused of) supporting welfare to a party of ... well... the fucking clintons.
no, they don't. i reject the entire narrative of "spoiling" elections, as it presupposes that one party or another is owed (or owns outright) the votes. they do not. they must earn the votes, and if i so-called third party candidate earns the votes, tehy are not spoiling anything. they are doing what politicians are supposed to do: earn votes.
Historians, scholars, political-scientists all disagree. I won't argue with the proverbial-equivalent of flat-earthers, for that's just a denialism too far gone.
this is pigeonholing. you are trying to group me in with a (n unrelated) group of people and dismiss my valid assertions. it's yet another mark of intellectual dishonesty