In the past few years I've heard a lot from lefties disappointed with Obama. In the past few months I've heard a lot from Tea Partiers and libertarians frustrated with the GOP.
But, what else ya gonna do? Throw your vote away on a third party?
The problem is that America's single-member-district winner-take-all plurality system for electing legislatures marginalizes third parties, just by mechanical operation. See Duverger's Law. Or, as that respected polysci publication TVTropes puts it:
Or put another way: Suppose, in your state's next legislative election, 20% of the voters decide to vote Green (or substitute your favorite) this year. And suppose they actually manage to get a Green candidate on the ballot in every district. (Not likely, but third-party ballot access is a different problem.) How many Greens get into the state legislature? Almost certainly none -- because there are not enough Green voters in any one district to form a majority or plurality there.
And that's why, no matter who you are or what your politics, you will find yourself making such strange and unpleasant bedfellows, if you are active in either major party. It has to be a "big tent" to win.
The same mechanics don't apply in race where there is only one office to be won, like the presidency or a governorship or mayorship.* But the parties created for legislative races are the real ones, a necessary foundation for anything else. Ross Perot tried creating a third party for presidential elections only -- when's the last you heard of it?
If you're frustrated with all that, change the rules of the game! Start (or join) a movement to change to proportional representation! There are many forms of it; the point of all of them is that if the Greens, or sub your fave, get 20% of the votes, they get very roughly 20% of the seats.
Let all the various discontented non-dominant political factions who can't stand each other agree to work side by side on just this one cause. Then, once we have PR, you can participate in a smaller, more ideologically homogeneous party, which will actually get representation in your state legislature and Congress; and then the indispensable compromises of policy-making can be made in Congress, where everyone can (better) watch, instead of being made within major-party caucuses. Better.
* Different anti-third-party mechanics operate in a single-office election. Those can be remedied by instant-runoff voting and electoral fusion.
But, what else ya gonna do? Throw your vote away on a third party?
The problem is that America's single-member-district winner-take-all plurality system for electing legislatures marginalizes third parties, just by mechanical operation. See Duverger's Law. Or, as that respected polysci publication TVTropes puts it:
Or put another way: Suppose, in your state's next legislative election, 20% of the voters decide to vote Green (or substitute your favorite) this year. And suppose they actually manage to get a Green candidate on the ballot in every district. (Not likely, but third-party ballot access is a different problem.) How many Greens get into the state legislature? Almost certainly none -- because there are not enough Green voters in any one district to form a majority or plurality there.
And that's why, no matter who you are or what your politics, you will find yourself making such strange and unpleasant bedfellows, if you are active in either major party. It has to be a "big tent" to win.
The same mechanics don't apply in race where there is only one office to be won, like the presidency or a governorship or mayorship.* But the parties created for legislative races are the real ones, a necessary foundation for anything else. Ross Perot tried creating a third party for presidential elections only -- when's the last you heard of it?
If you're frustrated with all that, change the rules of the game! Start (or join) a movement to change to proportional representation! There are many forms of it; the point of all of them is that if the Greens, or sub your fave, get 20% of the votes, they get very roughly 20% of the seats.
Let all the various discontented non-dominant political factions who can't stand each other agree to work side by side on just this one cause. Then, once we have PR, you can participate in a smaller, more ideologically homogeneous party, which will actually get representation in your state legislature and Congress; and then the indispensable compromises of policy-making can be made in Congress, where everyone can (better) watch, instead of being made within major-party caucuses. Better.
* Different anti-third-party mechanics operate in a single-office election. Those can be remedied by instant-runoff voting and electoral fusion.
