Paradoxically, people somehow think that voting for a third party will make the Dems change their platform n
Not sure how that’s supposed to work. The more people that vote for a third party, the less people vote for the main party. That could make the result 48-47-5 with Trump still winning, and the Dems have no way to move the needle, because now they have no office. Or it could make it 28 third party, 30 Biden, and 42 Trump. Either way Trump wins.
Third party votes take votes away from the most aligned primary party and ultimately makes the outcome less desirable. The only way they can be effective is when the aligned party already has a very comfortable lead, and even then its risky.
I also think it’s incredibly arrogant to think that a third party could come completely out of left field and score the highest office in the land while holding few (if any) state and local offices.
You don’t understand how FPTP works. It is designed to penalize people for voting for a third party (because it will always devolve to two parties. They may occasionally change, but it starts at the bottom, not at the oval office).
This “lesser of two evils” is a consequence of that. No one candidate is going to be best aligned with the majority of people. When there are two candidates, one will be more aligned than the other.
When a third candidate enters, they have to be closer to one of the two, and attracts voters that were more closely aligned with the primary party candidate.
So if you’ve got a close FPTP race, you could easily take a race that would otherwise be 51/49, make it 47/49/4, and even though the majority of people were more closely aligned with Candidate A, because some of them went for C, candidate B won instead.
Therefore, it’s foolish to abstain because you disagree with all candidates, because somebody is going to win no matter what. And it is foolish to vote for a third party, because they will not win, they will only detract from the closely aligned party, which in turn favors the less-aligned party.
Paradoxically, people somehow think that voting for a third party will make the Dems change their platform n
Not sure how that’s supposed to work. The more people that vote for a third party, the less people vote for the main party. That could make the result 48-47-5 with Trump still winning, and the Dems have no way to move the needle, because now they have no office. Or it could make it 28 third party, 30 Biden, and 42 Trump. Either way Trump wins.
Third party votes take votes away from the most aligned primary party and ultimately makes the outcome less desirable. The only way they can be effective is when the aligned party already has a very comfortable lead, and even then its risky.
I also think it’s incredibly arrogant to think that a third party could come completely out of left field and score the highest office in the land while holding few (if any) state and local offices.
so-called primary parties don’t own the votes, so voting for a so-called third party doesn’t take them away. it’s up to politicians to earn votes.
You don’t understand how FPTP works. It is designed to penalize people for voting for a third party (because it will always devolve to two parties. They may occasionally change, but it starts at the bottom, not at the oval office).
This “lesser of two evils” is a consequence of that. No one candidate is going to be best aligned with the majority of people. When there are two candidates, one will be more aligned than the other.
When a third candidate enters, they have to be closer to one of the two, and attracts voters that were more closely aligned with the primary party candidate.
So if you’ve got a close FPTP race, you could easily take a race that would otherwise be 51/49, make it 47/49/4, and even though the majority of people were more closely aligned with Candidate A, because some of them went for C, candidate B won instead.
Therefore, it’s foolish to abstain because you disagree with all candidates, because somebody is going to win no matter what. And it is foolish to vote for a third party, because they will not win, they will only detract from the closely aligned party, which in turn favors the less-aligned party.
you don’t have proof of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger’s_law
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2018/09/13/game-theory-in-voting-duvergers-law/
divergers law is a useless tautology, not a natural law