We’ll Never Escape the Two-Party System
"First-past-the-post voting like America’s tends inevitably to yield two-party systems, which usually require awkward coalitions. What determines which interest groups coalesce? In 1929 Harold Hotelling, an economist, wrote that a rational voter would choose a candidate whose views showed most “proximity” to his own. In turn, a political party serious about winning should take the positions most likely to convince the voter in the electorate’s ideological middle."
Another reason why a Third Party vote is a wasted vote
Some people are voting for Third Parties because their state will be voting overwhelmingly Republican or Democrat and think they are safe in making their point with such a vote. What if a high percentage of people did the same thing? Why take the chance?
Now, after all I have said, if you still are voting Third Party, please answer these questions:
- Assuming your candidate DOES get elected to the Presidency of the USA, how will he/she get things done without Senate and House support? Even the best ideas require negotiating and compromising. Just who will even listen?
- If your party is so great, why haven't its leaders gone through what the present two major parties did many years ago: fought hard for their ideas at the local and state levels to establish a base for the election to the Senate and House?
- Through the effort of Bernie Sanders working within a major party, he obtained significant concessions in the Democratic platform. How are you going to match that as an outsider?
- Please explain, with evidence, how is your vote for a Third Party candidate for President of the USA NOT going to be a wasted vote? In other words, defend it as other than a vote that might as well have been made on a toilet without anyone around you.
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