That’s why I never believed in the rhetoric of “it’s too late to consider 3rd party!” before the elections. Here it is just 6 months later and “we don’t have time for that”. Is it disingenuous then to just say there will never be time for that, like it is being implied here?
It takes years to get a new party off the ground and in a meaningful position to take federal offices at any significant rate. During that time, you are mostly helping your farthest opposition of the main parties win by splitting the vote.
This is literally why the Tea Party operated by internal change of the GOP and not by starting a third party. And love them or hate them, they were effective at shifting the GOP.
It takes years to get a new party off the ground and in a meaningful position to take federal offices at any significant rate.
Excuse me, but how the fuck do you know that? You say that like 3rd parties being created and taking federal offices happens all the time. We haven’t had a serious 3rd party, let alone one that takes federal office, for well over 100 years. Don’t pretend you know what it takes, because we haven’t even fucking tried. It’s uncharted water!
You say that like 3rd parties being created and taking federal offices happens all the time.
They aren’t, and that’s kinda the point. People grossly underestimate how hard it is to do this (pretending it’s some great unknown and not something that’s been tried and failed literally dozens of times), and what game theory regarding FPTP elections means for the rise of one.
We haven’t had a serious 3rd party, let alone one that takes federal office, for well over 100 years.
We had a few elected to Congress in the last hundred years, even if you don’t count ones who changed party at some point. Mostly Farmer-Labor Party between the late 20s and end of WW2. We also had a Conservative Party of New York candidate in Congress in the 70s. And a Libertarian if you do count people who convert while in office. Hell, Trump once tried to run for POTUS as a third party candidate in 2000 for the Reform Party, but failed miserably and didn’t win a single state during the primaries.
Don’t pretend you know what it takes, because we haven’t even fucking tried. It’s uncharted water!
How many parties do you think we have that are large enough they operate in multiple states and have ballot access right now? The answer is a dozen. All of which have hopes of eventually getting someone in federal office, you know aside from the Dems and GOP who already do that. Of those twelve, 9 ran a presidential candidate in 2024. You’ve probably only even heard of 4 of those at most (Harris, Trump, Stein and maybe Chase Oliver [Libertarian]).
What it takes at a minimum is getting a majority of a state or House district on board with you and willing to vote for you rather than a major party, knowing that if enough other people don’t buy in it’s going to let the candidate farthest from them win instead. If you’re pushing for POTUS, then it means getting about 78M people on board in the same way, distributed across most of the country.
Third parties running for federal office isn’t untested water, it’s just extremely difficult to succeed at. Again, that’s why the Tea Party operated as a reform movement within the GOP rather than being an actual third party - it let them hijack the political machinery of the party from within, instead of having to fight against it in a battle that would at most likely cause both to lose if it did anything at all. Literally, had the Tea Party been an actual third party then instead of gaining massive influence they would have at their most powerful caused Democrats to win by splitting the GOP vote.
My concern with this take is “what are we considering this effect to be?” If we are taking the average republican who wholly considers themselves to be “Conservative”, their party was overtaken by extremists who are the antithesis to what the goal of that meaning is.
I don’t want a “Blue Maga” which takes the party away from progressive policies in an attempt to drum up fanatical support “against the tyrannical reds” while in reality they continue destroying the democracy we have. An example is a new DNC who wishes to prosecute and deport those who are on the right (there are examples on this site of individuals who are “progressives” but think the “right” should all be rounded up).
When people say they want a “tea party” I think it’s way to vague. Talking about the “effectiveness” of how the GOP has been changed is just completely scary, since in reality it just became a mask off-authoritarian free for all. I don’t need a Corporatized DNC to decide they no longer need the decorum of piece-meal policy that helps citizens since they know everyone has no other choice (like what happened with the GOP).
Again, I really hope a “Left Tea Party” would cause the DNC to capitulate to progressive ideology, but that’s not what happened on the conservative side (as evident from the big beautiful bullshit-bill).
It takes years to get a new party off the ground and in a meaningful position to take federal offices at any significant rate. During that time, you are mostly helping your farthest opposition of the main parties win by splitting the vote.
This is literally why the Tea Party operated by internal change of the GOP and not by starting a third party. And love them or hate them, they were effective at shifting the GOP.
Excuse me, but how the fuck do you know that? You say that like 3rd parties being created and taking federal offices happens all the time. We haven’t had a serious 3rd party, let alone one that takes federal office, for well over 100 years. Don’t pretend you know what it takes, because we haven’t even fucking tried. It’s uncharted water!
They aren’t, and that’s kinda the point. People grossly underestimate how hard it is to do this (pretending it’s some great unknown and not something that’s been tried and failed literally dozens of times), and what game theory regarding FPTP elections means for the rise of one.
We had a few elected to Congress in the last hundred years, even if you don’t count ones who changed party at some point. Mostly Farmer-Labor Party between the late 20s and end of WW2. We also had a Conservative Party of New York candidate in Congress in the 70s. And a Libertarian if you do count people who convert while in office. Hell, Trump once tried to run for POTUS as a third party candidate in 2000 for the Reform Party, but failed miserably and didn’t win a single state during the primaries.
How many parties do you think we have that are large enough they operate in multiple states and have ballot access right now? The answer is a dozen. All of which have hopes of eventually getting someone in federal office, you know aside from the Dems and GOP who already do that. Of those twelve, 9 ran a presidential candidate in 2024. You’ve probably only even heard of 4 of those at most (Harris, Trump, Stein and maybe Chase Oliver [Libertarian]).
What it takes at a minimum is getting a majority of a state or House district on board with you and willing to vote for you rather than a major party, knowing that if enough other people don’t buy in it’s going to let the candidate farthest from them win instead. If you’re pushing for POTUS, then it means getting about 78M people on board in the same way, distributed across most of the country.
Third parties running for federal office isn’t untested water, it’s just extremely difficult to succeed at. Again, that’s why the Tea Party operated as a reform movement within the GOP rather than being an actual third party - it let them hijack the political machinery of the party from within, instead of having to fight against it in a battle that would at most likely cause both to lose if it did anything at all. Literally, had the Tea Party been an actual third party then instead of gaining massive influence they would have at their most powerful caused Democrats to win by splitting the GOP vote.
My concern with this take is “what are we considering this effect to be?” If we are taking the average republican who wholly considers themselves to be “Conservative”, their party was overtaken by extremists who are the antithesis to what the goal of that meaning is.
I don’t want a “Blue Maga” which takes the party away from progressive policies in an attempt to drum up fanatical support “against the tyrannical reds” while in reality they continue destroying the democracy we have. An example is a new DNC who wishes to prosecute and deport those who are on the right (there are examples on this site of individuals who are “progressives” but think the “right” should all be rounded up).
When people say they want a “tea party” I think it’s way to vague. Talking about the “effectiveness” of how the GOP has been changed is just completely scary, since in reality it just became a mask off-authoritarian free for all. I don’t need a Corporatized DNC to decide they no longer need the decorum of piece-meal policy that helps citizens since they know everyone has no other choice (like what happened with the GOP).
Again, I really hope a “Left Tea Party” would cause the DNC to capitulate to progressive ideology, but that’s not what happened on the conservative side (as evident from the big beautiful bullshit-bill).
edit: taking=talking, fixed a confusing sentence