Pedo Epidemic in MAGA

[canpakes]

I usually go third party and that's what everyone should do in order to throw out the bums for real. Let's get out of the black and white thinking where you have to vote for one of the two party candidates the corporate world continually throw at us.

The third option was a scooter, and not allowed on highways.

[Dr Exiled]

What is your brilliant strategy with guaranteed quick results for using someone other than the Democratic Party as a tool against the MAGA Party?

I’m not sure what the Good Doctor’s strategy for voting is, but to liken the activity to something else: when I needed some kind of vehicle a few years back, I couldn’t have what I ‘wanted’, but I did still pick something, and it was based on how that particular choice met practical needs while also having a lesser chance than the other choice of stranding me on the side of the road.

The answer is to have more choices. Dilute the two parties until the people get more control. The economic principle behind monopolies works well with political parties too. More means less control from the top and more control by the population.

[Dr Exiled]

I usually go third party and that's what everyone should do in order to throw out the bums for real. Let's get out of the black and white thinking where you have to vote for one of the two party candidates the corporate world continually throw at us.

The third option was a scooter, and not allowed on highways.

I'm still waiting for the vote democrat no matter what because of [insert fear here].

[Kishkumen]

I’m not sure what the Good Doctor’s strategy for voting is, but to liken the activity to something else: when I needed some kind of vehicle a few years back, I couldn’t have what I ‘wanted’, but I did still pick something, and it was based on how that particular choice met practical needs while also having a lesser chance than the other choice of stranding me on the side of the road.

I don't see a third-party option that will effectively check the threat MAGA poses to constitutional government. When it comes to elections on the federal level, I can't see voting for another party than the Democrats right now. If you want to impeach and remove Trump from office, the only legal way of doing that is taking both houses of Congress with a sufficient majority to do that. Voting third party on the federal level is self-defeating. I wish that were not the case, but it is the case at present and will be until we are out of the MAGA wasteland.

[Kishkumen]

The answer is to have more choices. Dilute the two parties until the people get more control. The economic principle behind monopolies works well with political parties too. More means less control from the top and more control by the population.

Yeah, have more choices is great. Get a third party building up steam on the local and state level. Then, when it has enough juice, stage a challenge to one of the major parties, whichever is in fact weakest. I admit I do not know which party is weakest now. Both of them are pretty poorly off, but they are in different ways.

[Dr Exiled]

The answer is to have more choices. Dilute the two parties until the people get more control. The economic principle behind monopolies works well with political parties too. More means less control from the top and more control by the population.

Yeah, have more choices is great. Get a third party building up steam on the local and state level. Then, when it has enough juice, stage a challenge to one of the major parties, whichever is in fact weakest. I admit I do not know which party is weakest now. Both of them are pretty poorly off, but they are in different ways.

Yes. I think there are enough undecided voters out there to stage this and the disaffected from both parties could join. Sanders struck a chord and Trump claimed to be an outsider to trick his MAGA supporters. Why Sanders, an independent, didn't form a third-party is beyond me. It will probably need a popular figure like Sanders, or how Perot was in the 90's or Nader later on to establish a third party. The problem with them is that they didn't build a grassroots party that could win local elections and then congressional elections and then Senate, etc.

[Kishkumen]

Yes. I think there are enough undecided voters out there to stage this and the disaffected from both parties could join. Sanders struck a chord and Trump claimed to be an outsider to trick his MAGA supporters. Why Sanders, an independent, didn't form a third-party is beyond me. It will probably need a popular figure like Sanders, or how Perot was in the 90's or Nader later on to establish a third party. The problem with them is that they didn't build a grassroots party that could win local elections and then congressional elections and then Senate, etc.

The history of third parties is not filled with recent successes. A third party usually just lends strength to one of the two major parties because it steals from the constituency of the other. If I were a younger, more energetic person, I would throw my efforts into organizing a third party at the grassroots level that aims at getting the major parties out of local and state politics.

[Physics Guy]

I’m not sure the American system really allows more than two parties in practice. Even parliamentary systems usually end up with only two major parties. If you want to do anything in a democracy, you need a majority, so it makes sense to unite with other people in a compromise big enough to command a majority. That means getting half the voters into one party, and that leaves room for two.

It’s not clear that having only two parties prevents anything in particular from getting done. If there’s a new idea that a majority of the electorate would support if only it were presented to them, then surely it can start by convincing a majority of half the electorate, and becoming part of the platform of one of the two parties.

Additional smaller parties survive in parliamentary systems because they can sometimes exert disproportionate influence by supporting minority or coalition governments, in exchange for getting some policy of the small party enacted. When the coalition in a single dominant legislative chamber also forms the executive branch of government, as it does in most democracies, that’s enough power that even a small piece of it is worth having. It’s enough power that it’s worthwhile, for people who don’t like the main parties, to unite into a smaller party in order to get that slice of power sometimes, rather than just staying independent.

I’m not sure that being able to play kingmaker in a closely divided House or Senate or Electoral College, once in a decade or so, would be worthwhile like that. You’d probably never get more than one of the three at once, so somebody from a main party would always block anything you wanted to do.

[Kishkumen]

I’m not sure the American system really allows more than two parties in practice. Even parliamentary systems usually end up with only two major parties. If you want to do anything in a democracy, you need a majority, so it makes sense to unite with other people in a compromise big enough to command a majority. That means getting half the voters into one party, and that leaves room for two.

It’s not clear that having only two parties prevents anything in particular from getting done. If there’s a new idea that a majority of the electorate would support if only it were presented to them, then surely it can start by convincing a majority of half the electorate, and becoming part of the platform of one of the two parties.

Additional smaller parties survive in parliamentary systems because they can sometimes exert disproportionate influence by supporting minority or coalition governments, in exchange for getting some policy of the small party enacted. When the coalition in a single dominant legislative chamber also forms the executive branch of government, as it does in most democracies, that’s enough power that even a small piece of it is worth having. It’s enough power that it’s worthwhile, for people who don’t like the main parties, to unite into a smaller party in order to get that slice of power sometimes, rather than just staying independent.

I’m not sure that being able to play kingmaker in a closely divided House or Senate or Electoral College, once in a decade or so, would be worthwhile like that. You’d probably never get more than one of the three at once, so somebody from a main party would always block anything you wanted to do.

Increasing competition by not letting the duopoly remain confident in its ability to play off of one opponent would not be a bad thing, even if it did not "take" in the long run.