Is it time for a legitimate third party?

[LibertyKid]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

 

[LeftofLeft]

I would love at least three parties if not four parties.

 

[Mac1958]

PLEASE.

 

[pknopp]

All people have to do is vote for an alternative party and it's a legitimate party. There are always more than two choices.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

far past time for one, but it will never happen thanks to the power the Duopoly has over their faithful.

 

[DStar777]

Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%

• Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%

This facinates me. Almost 2/3rds of those polled support a 3rd party and yet....

far past time for one, but it will never happen thanks to the power the Duopoly has over their faithful.

... or people just choose not to vote 3rd party even though they could. Why is that?

 

[1srelluc]

I would have liked to have seen Rand Paul start his own party.....Maybe the Commonsense Party.

There is simply nobody viable to start one.....You would need name recognition right off the bat.

 

[Billiejeens]

All people have to do is vote for an alternative party and it's a legitimate party. There are always more than two choices.

12 year-old thinking.

 

[Curried Goats]

far past time for one, but it will never happen thanks to the power the Duopoly has over their faithful.

Or maybe just an inability for you third party supporters to.... well gain any support...

Don't blame others for your failures.

 

[Auld Phart]

This facinates me. Almost 2/3rds of those polled support a 3rd party and yet....

... or people just choose not to vote 3rd party even though they could. Why is that?

too many 3rd party options

dilutes the field, no way to get a majority

 

[forkup]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

There are plenty of Western Democracies that have a bunch of political parties and in my view it's much preferred to a 2 party system. It deludes the relative power of any single party and this creates a natural limit on extreme positions. Since most of the time a single party can't govern by itself.

Having said that, it will be hard if not impossible to implement in the US. This for temperamental, historical, and political reasons.

For one thing the office of the president can only go to one person. This means that no matter what happens, the executive branch, the likely most powerful branch doesn't allow for power sharing. So one thirds of the government will always belong to one person/party. This complicates the idea of coalition government. Not to mention the fact that it'll be hard to gain a mandate for governing from the elected if the ruling party represents a minority of the votes.

Second, Americans are temperamentally weary of government spending. Most of these countries don't just have multiple parties. They have government funded elections to go with those. This prevents (to a point) special interests exerting influence on the elections. It takes a lot of money to run an election American style. This favors the parties with a well stuffed rolodex of rich donors.

 

[LibertyKid]

BUT but.. maybe it's not an actual Party. Maybe it's a dynamic man or a woman that stands up, gets a voice, presents to the people that middle ground. Washington warned of parties. So how do we get rid of the party platform that is crushing this country. AND keep in mind, it is the duty and responsibility of the people to run the gov't. If we see the need for change, We the people, implement the change. To many of you point out the power of the gov't, which is exactly what the parties and D.C. want you to believe.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

This facinates me. Almost 2/3rds of those polled support a 3rd party and yet....

... or people just choose not to vote 3rd party even though they could. Why is that?

The duopoly has spent the last 30 years convincing their followers that the other side is so evil that a vote for anyone but them means the end of the world.

You see it on this forum 1000 times a day.

 

[rampart]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

are you assuming a "centrist " rhird party?

i'd expect we really need a party to the left of democrats , maybe a bull moose style progressive party?:

 

[Mac1958]

What I'd like to see is a party that's priority is communication, collaboration and innovation. Not partisan slant.

Wipe the slates clean and start with new ideas from across the spectrum so that everyone has skin in the game. The way the Consitution was created.

 

[JoeB131]

More childlike Political Musing from Liberty "Kid".

The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?

Pretty much. The problem isn't the two parties, the problem is that very few of us engage in primaries, and then when it gets to the general election, we say, "How did we get these two dopes?"

The problem is that the electoral college locks us into a two-party system. The best a third party can do is to toss the election into Congress. And we still end up with one of the two parties.

Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%

That's wonderful. The problem with third parties is that they are even more extreme than the two main ones.

Third parties' best showing in a while was in 2016 when they got 6% of the vote. So you had the Libertarians, who ran a guy who promised he wouldn't smoke dope in the White House, and the Greens, who had a candidate who was funded entirely as a spoiler by Russia to help Trump.

And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.

Well, if you were more mature, you'd realize that at one time, we had conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. Then the goo-goos (what the late Mayor Daley called "Do-gooders") got involved, and limited how much money could go to candidates directly. That meant that the national parties became the gatekeepers on who got support.

Here in Chicago, we had one of the last few "Conservative" Democrats, Congressman Dan Lipinski (I went to grammar school with his sister; our families were in the same parish growing up). Danny Boy got the job because his Dad had it, and Dad withdrew after winning the primary, and the party bosses put his son in. He was anti-choice, which was a deal killer for a lot of Democrats, but he still did kind of okay with the working-class white Catholics in Chicago. Until the 2020 primary, when a Bernie-Bot beat him. She served one term before the party bosses effectively eliminated her district.

The thing is that money is the mother's milk of politics, and as long as it goes through Parties and PACs, you are not going to see a lot of ideological variances.

A third party won't change that because the big money won't go to them

Has the country outgrown our political party system?

Nope, we're stuck with it.

 

[LibertyKid]

are you assuming a "centrist " rhird party?

i'd expect we really need a party to the left of democrats , maybe a bull moose style progressive party?:

No, the further left we get the further away from the constitution. The Constitution should frame EVERYTHING. But the left, from my perspective, is moving to dismantle the constitution.

 

[JohnDB]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

This is NOT a good idea.
Because the outcome is always a candidate the majority of Americans do not want.

CIP was when Ross Perot became a spoiler for Bush Sr. Two thirds of Americans voted for a conservative focused candidate and a little over a third voted for a liberal candidate. So the liberal won the election. In a 35/25/40 split....the 40 won even though the 35 and 25 were both extremely conservative. Much more so than the candidate winning 40% of the vote.

 

[Papageorgio]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

Unless people vote differently there will not be a third party, 63% say they want a third party but in reality third party candidates get less than 5% of the vote. So I don’t see it happening unless people wake up but we Americans don’t seem to be smart, we keep electing people like Harris, Trump, Biden, Clinton and on and on, really bad candidates getting 80 million votes, seriously this is a problem. Political parties will still be here, The Republican and Democratic Party have too much money and power to go away, so there will always be at least a two party system.

I would like a third and fourth party, that would be fine but I don’t vote for the two party system during elections, I am part of the 5% that goes third party.

 

[evenflow1969]

Is it time for a legitimate third party?

• Too much political divide on issues that could have a common middle ground?
• Our 2 current parties drive their own agenda, while the a unheard majorities voice is left unheard, seen, or advised.
• In today's political climate, how would a third party get a voice? We are not asking for a seat at the table, but rather, a voice that can be heard. Then let the dominoes fall.
• George Washington warned of political parties subverting the people and leading to despotism. This board that example where many on here, express desire to remove the other in totality.
• From Washington - "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
  
  All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
  
  However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion".
  
  Farewell Address (1796) | Constitution Center

  National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Farewell Address (1796)

  constitutioncenter.org
• The above is where we are today. Do you disagree?
• Recent Gallup Poll (take it for what it's worth says that support of a third viable party is up 63%
  • Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
• And, maybe there is another option; no parties, purely a stance and position.
• Has the country outgrown our political party system?

Lol, long past it. Knowing it is needed and getting it accomplished is two very different things