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Don’t Fall for the Third-Party Trick
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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politics
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In a winner-take-all system, the marginal votes on the winning and losing side don't matter. Third parties are an extrapolation of this principle. But when you're voting in a state that is 60/40 for a given party, any individual vote for a given party is equally meaningful.
The only real benefit to valuing a Big Two party over a Third Party is if you're in a swing state, where the odds of your vote being the tipping point are reasonably high. And even then, the powers invested in the partisan state secretary and county election's commissioner offices render that decision relatively meaningless.
People losing their shit at Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan in 2000 seem to have completely overlooked the impact of the mass voter disenfranchisement under Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, the Butterfly Ballot design that confused voters into voting Buchanan over Gore, as well as the transformative impact of the Brooks Brother's Riot and the subsequent SCOTUS decision to halt the vote count in Dem leaning districts.
At some level, Americans must stop treating their elections process as free and fair, and then deflecting blame of defeat onto anyone who doesn't vote for your favorite candidate.
Tbf, it very much appears similar to battered partner syndrome. It's going to be painful either way, but if I stay blah blah blah.