The lack of viable ones is less a result of effort on their part or desire for them among the electorate, and more to do with the nature of our voting system. Its hard to develop a viable third party when the system one is operating in mathematically guarantees that only two parties can be seriously competitive with eachother in nationally significant elections, and those parties are already established. They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into, but the only times theyve ever gotten to the presidency have been the couple times when one of the two major parties basically collapses and gets replaced with a different one.
They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into,
That’s my point, though. The two biggest third parties in this country aren’t competitive in local elections, because they put even less effort in local elections as the two major parties do. They make a performative shot at the presidency every four years, and that’s about fucking it. The Libertarians are slightly better (god, what a sentence to gag on) on this than the Greens, but not by much.
The lack of viable ones is less a result of effort on their part or desire for them among the electorate, and more to do with the nature of our voting system. Its hard to develop a viable third party when the system one is operating in mathematically guarantees that only two parties can be seriously competitive with eachother in nationally significant elections, and those parties are already established. They can be competitive in local elections that the larger ones dont put as much effort into, but the only times theyve ever gotten to the presidency have been the couple times when one of the two major parties basically collapses and gets replaced with a different one.
That’s my point, though. The two biggest third parties in this country aren’t competitive in local elections, because they put even less effort in local elections as the two major parties do. They make a performative shot at the presidency every four years, and that’s about fucking it. The Libertarians are slightly better (god, what a sentence to gag on) on this than the Greens, but not by much.