Change the voting system

Then

Change the representation system

The problem is first-past-the-post always leads to strategic voting, which leads to eliminating 3rd parties. And, once you have only 2 viable parties, they benefit immensely from FPTP, so they're unlikely to ever get rid of it.

Unfortunately, game theory was invented in the 1940s, and the USA was invented in the 1770s, so the founding fathers couldn't make use of game theory to work out a good electoral system. Oh, and having to compromise with the slave-holding states and devising an electoral system that gave them power turns out to have had bad effects down the line. Who knew!?

I keep saying it but it is one big Prisoner's Dilemma. The best next steps that can realistically happen are

We vote in grandpa Joe.

All these folks that are single issue Democrats FIGHT AND CHANGE THE SYSTEM. If you are an actual leftist, or just a Democrat, set the field for a fight you can actually win, instead of handing it to trump then fighting uphill with cement shoes. If it is a narrow miss, you have something to point at and go "look how bad we need third party options and a system that enables them!"

(funfact, part 2 can not happen under he other guy) Losing the whole fight because you want everything to be perfect overnight is pathetic. Causes move slow nomatter how much the spastic activist brain wants everything perfect and right now. You also don't bring anyone to your cause by being toxic about it.

Agree. But I don't see anyone disrupting the status quo (let's face it, Bernie is mint but old, AOC is mint but young, I'd get behind Newsom or Whitmer but I feel like they are grand because of my own bias) . I'll take that pest over that cholera in the meantime.

Note that "third party" isn't automatically better, given these third parties. I wager a Green Party minded person would be incensed if libertarians won, for example.

I'll also say that the current crop of third party candidates are impractically minded, so they wouldn't be the sorts of folks I'd want in charge anyway.

However, if they became a viable path to office (ranked choice voting), I bet they'd get better quality candidates running with them instead of compromising and running as D or R.

The impact of third parties on American politics extends far beyond their capacity to attract votes. Minor parties, historically, have been a source of important policy innovations. Women’s suffrage, the graduated income tax, and the direct election of senators, to name a few, were all issues that third parties espoused first.

• Rosenstone, Behr and Lazarus