Third party

Do you think we’d be better off if we had a stronger third party? I think we would end up with better results when there are at least three equal parties. We’re so polarised, everyone just sticks to the talking points or the party line. We need a strong third party to keep the powers that be in check and on topic. Anybody know how we can finance a Common Sense Party? A party where the candidate can just be reasonable and honest about the problems we face and what it’s going to take to fix them. It’d be nice if a party had a vision for the future- 100 years, 50 years, even 25 years in the future would be better than the two year election cycle. Real solutions are going to take time. And I’ve never heard either party refer to a 100 year vision of the future America that their party wants to build. They just react to current events so they sound good on tv. I want to see a party with a plan. Does anybody have any ideas on how we can make that happen? Serious question

mississippiboy said:

Do you think we’d be better off if we had a stronger third party? I think we would end up with better results when there are at least three equal parties. We’re so polarised, everyone just sticks to the talking points or the party line. We need a strong third party to keep the powers that be in check and on topic. Anybody know how we can finance a Common Sense Party? A party where the candidate can just be reasonable and honest about the problems we face and what it’s going to take to fix them. It’d be nice if a party had a vision for the future- 100 years, 50 years, even 25 years in the future would be better than the two year election cycle. Real solutions are going to take time. And I’ve never heard either party refer to a 100 year vision of the future America that their party wants to build. They just react to current events so they sound good on tv. I want to see a party with a plan. Does anybody have any ideas on how we can make that happen? Serious question

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Can a coalition work in the American system? That's how a multi-party system works in a Parliamentary government.

Bok Tuklo said:

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Bo knows hockey?

Grand Mal said:

Can a coalition work in the American system? That's how a multi-party system works in a Parliamentary government.

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That would be an improvement. The longest plan I remember hearing is for the first 100 days. Some presidents have plans for what they want to do then. But after the first hundred days, or before, the plans go out the window and you won’t hear another plan until it’s someone else’s first 100 days

I’d like to see the elected representatives of each party sit down and establish a coalition for the next five years. Lay out what they’d like to accomplish, and then work together to get it done. Maybe a committee, or maybe potus, vpotus, and the speaker. Whatever. Put some people in a room together, agree on a short and long term plan, and then get to work. A plan of any kind would be an improvement. I used to be so proud to be an American. And now I’m embarrassed of how we are allowing our elected representatives to behave without consequence.

The two major parties would never allow a third party. You need to follow Big Money to understand why. Big Money already finds it more difficult to control two parties and would like one of them eliminated. The future will be one party, in tight collusion with the biggest and most powerful corporations, owned by Big Money. If you think this is not possible, it already exists in China and has propelled China from a starving agrarian society into a modern superpower, in less than 30 years. Note that in those 30 years the west has been relatively stagnant, because they have political systems that are no where near as streamlined. Sooner or later, the west will have to abandon liberalism and adopt global corporatism just to remain competitive. One of America's two parties is already on board with this. The other will most likely be eliminated, one way or another.

TearItAllDown said:

Sooner or later, the west will have to abandon liberalism and adopt global corporatism just to remain competitive.

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Also: someday the Titanic may sink.

mississippiboy said:

Do you think we’d be better off if we had a stronger third party? I think we would end up with better results when there are at least three equal parties. We’re so polarised, everyone just sticks to the talking points or the party line. We need a strong third party to keep the powers that be in check and on topic. Anybody know how we can finance a Common Sense Party? A party where the candidate can just be reasonable and honest about the problems we face and what it’s going to take to fix them. It’d be nice if a party had a vision for the future- 100 years, 50 years, even 25 years in the future would be better than the two year election cycle. Real solutions are going to take time. And I’ve never heard either party refer to a 100 year vision of the future America that their party wants to build. They just react to current events so they sound good on tv. I want to see a party with a plan. Does anybody have any ideas on how we can make that happen? Serious question

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The American system with FPTP for Congress and an Electoral College when choosing President doesn't really leave political space for a third party, and also makes voters unlikely to vote for one. So you need to get rid of FPTP and the Electoral College, and both the Dems and Reps would implode, because suddenly all the subfactions can be their own parties.

Grand Mal said:

Can a coalition work in the American system? That's how a multi-party system works in a Parliamentary government.

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Under our system election to the Presidency, Vice Presidency, and both Houses of Congress would remain the same. What likely would evolve, I believe, is the importance of House and Senate caucuses. For example, Senators Bernie Sanders, Kyrsten Sinema, Angus King and Joe Manchin are declared Independents who caucus with the Democratic party. Third (or fourth or fifth) party electees would be compelled to form coalitions to achieve common legislative objectives. Would be most interesting to see how a multi party Congress might elect the Speaker of the House.

joluoto said:

The American system with FPTP for Congress and an Electoral College when choosing President doesn't really leave political space for a third party, and also makes voters unlikely to vote for one. So you need to get rid of FPTP and the Electoral College, and both the Dems and Reps would implode, because suddenly all the subfactions can be their own parties.

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Well idk about that. We’ve got independents that sometimes produce a candidate, but only when they’re rich enough to stand alone. I think if we could agree on principles we could establish something. But I think we’d have to find a way to finance it so our candidates don’t have to be millionaires and billionaires. I don’t think a person that rich can really represent the interests of people that they can’t relate to. So the only options I see are having rich people back the party, which probably wouldn’t help the situation, or crowd source it. You think that could work? Crowd source a party? Or in today’s technology, do you think it’s possible to really get a message out that doesn’t cost millions of dollars? Social media the whole campaign?

mississippiboy said:

Well idk about that. We’ve got independents that sometimes produce a candidate, but only when they’re rich enough to stand alone. I think if we could agree on principles we could establish something. But I think we’d have to find a way to finance it so our candidates don’t have to be millionaires and billionaires. I don’t think a person that rich can really represent the interests of people that they can’t relate to. So the only options I see are having rich people back the party, which probably wouldn’t help the situation, or crowd source it. You think that could work? Crowd source a party? Or in today’s technology, do you think it’s possible to really get a message out that doesn’t cost millions of dollars? Social media the whole campaign?

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First, you do have some Independents in Congress, both in the House and in the Senate. What do they do? They caucus with either the Dems or the GOP, and usually are endorsed by said party when they run for reelection. Basically becoming an unofficial part of one of the Big Two.

Voters want to vote for someone they believe can win a seat and have political influence. This is the key to why the two party system is so persistent. Voters don't want to vote for someone who will lose, or vote for someone who has no influence if elected. Thus they gravitate to the two main parties. Let's for example look at the most succeful Independent candidate for President in modern times: Ross Perot, he got over 19 million votes which was roughly 19% of the total vote. How many EC votes did that give him: none. Basically voting for Perot was wasting your vote.

But let's look at some earlier examples of third party -ish successes in American history. The Progressive Party was set up in 1912 as a platform for Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to return to the Presidency. And while Roosevelt came second (losing to Woodrow Wilson), he beat the Republicans under Taft. However they only got 9 members elected to the House, but had some minor successes at the State and local levels. And then the party started to fall apart, with Roosevelt not being the unifying force they returned to the Republican party they had broken off from. Robert M. La Follette, one of Roosevelt's allies that had fallen out with him ealrier and who was the Republican governor of Wisconsin revived the party for the 1924 election and his thrid party presidential run, but it did not really survived past that. Let's instead look at another third party ish phenomena: the Southern Democrats ca. the late 1940s to the late 1960s. While they never broke officially with the Democrats they tended to some times run their own Presidential candidates such as Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. And they even tended to win a State or two. However they never broke off from the Democrats, despite being unsatisfied with the policies of the rest of the party. But this does say something: a regionalist party could possibly work. A party that runs on the interests of a specific region and come to dominate it politically, think of Bloc in Canada or SNP in Britain. Say a Texan Party is formed, and it comes to dominate Texas, sending Senators and Congressmen to Washington, and controlling the Governor's masnsion and the State Congress. That's probably possible.

mississippiboy said:

Well idk about that. We’ve got independents that sometimes produce a candidate, but only when they’re rich enough to stand alone. I think if we could agree on principles we could establish something. But I think we’d have to find a way to finance it so our candidates don’t have to be millionaires and billionaires. I don’t think a person that rich can really represent the interests of people that they can’t relate to. So the only options I see are having rich people back the party, which probably wouldn’t help the situation, or crowd source it. You think that could work? Crowd source a party? Or in today’s technology, do you think it’s possible to really get a message out that doesn’t cost millions of dollars? Social media the whole campaign?

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People think politicians go to work everyday excited to make life better for all the poor, the working class, the middle class, and even the upper middle class. You know, the bottom 90% of the country. But if you look at the distribution of wealth over time you will see that is definitely not the case. It is naive to think that the bottom 90% of the country can do anything to change a system that is so entrenched at this point that any threat to the system can't be immediately crushed. I'll wager that even if an independent party was able to get politicians into every seat of congress and the WH, absolutely nothing would change for the bottom 90% of the country. Think about it.