[tbrownaw]

I wonder how many people really felt strong enough about politics to claim both sides are equally bad and then decided not to vote on that basis alone.

Since both sides are astonishingly bad, I usually end up voting third party in races where there is one.

[CalChris]

The third parties are even worse than the two parties. The Libertarians ran Bob Barr, a Clinton House prosecutor and Gary Johnson who happily sent people to prison for drug crimes. Jill Stein supports Putin.

[memmcgee]

Jill Stein is also pretty anti-science as she supports the anti-vaxxer community and supports GMO hysteria.

[chimeracoder]

> and Gary Johnson who happily sent people to prison for drug crimes.

...what? Gary Johnson is himself a marijuana user who has long been am advocate of drug policy reform (not just for marijuana, but for other drugs as well).

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/qa-former-nm-gov-gary-jo...

[CalChris]

As Republican Governor of New Mexico.

[chimeracoder]

> As Republican Governor of New Mexico.

When running for governor, Johnson campaigned on a platform of marijuana decriminalization and harm reduction for all other drugs. This was during the height of the Clinton-era anti-drug hysteria - you'd be hard pressed to find many other politicians who supported harm reduction at that point.

There are things to dislike about Johnson, but criticizing him on drug policy is really bizarre. He's been one of the strongest (if not the strongest) political advocate for abolishing the War on Drugs for over two decades - much more vocally so and for far longer than any other politician I can name offhand.

[CalChris]

What did he actually do when he was twice elected as the Republican governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003. I give credit for what people do rather than what they say.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson#Governor_of_New_M...

Also, he didn't campaign on legalization. He gave a speech about it in his second term. Did he parole any non-violent drug offenders? Did he use the powers of his office?

[TillE]

> Jill Stein supports Putin

No she doesn't, this is an absurd smear based on her attending a single event in Moscow.

[CalChris]

http://www.jill2016.com/stein_in_russia_calls_for_principled...

[tremon]

How do you turn Putin saying "I agree with [Stein], on many issues." into "Stein supports Putin"?

[ekianjo]

what you wrote does not make them sound worse than the two main parties in power.

[ignu]

and that's why bills like this pass.

[tbrownaw]

Right. The only way to stop Kang from ruining everything is to vote for Kodos instead.

[Analemma_]

You can keep using clever witticisms like that if it makes you feel better, and meanwhile bills like this will keep passing along party lines.

[misnome]

So it's the fault of people who vote third party that you have a two-party state?

[matt_morgan]

It's sensible to ask whether a specific 3rd-party vote had a chance of affecting the outcome in a positive way. E.g., one of the more effective arguments against the current Green party in the US is they don't seem to try very hard in local elections, where they might stand a chance; but they always run someone for president who stands no chance. If we have a hope of getting out of this, it's going to start on school boards and city councils. Prop up your 3rd parties there, but vote the lesser of two evils when it's the most effective thing to do.

[Chathamization]

Very much this. There are many de facto one party districts in the U.S. where a third party wouldn't run into the issue of being a spoiler. The Vermont Progressive Party only runs candidates like this. The result is that thought they're only active in Vermont, they have 11 seats in the Vermont state legislature. In contrast, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are across in the entire U.S., and out of all 50 state legislatures they have a combined total of 2 seats (2 for the Libertarians, 0 for the Greens).

[nebabyte]

And it's this kind of impetus that creates voter apathy. If you insist on trying to shove square pegs into a round or triangular hole, you're just going to end up with vote tallies similar to the one you just saw with the national election.

As someone who didn't vote, no, I would not have changed my decision given the outcome, and this "lesser of two evils" justification crap is exactly why. Enjoy your shitty country.

[lazyasciiart]

No, it would be a two-party state whether or not they voted third party.

[pnathan]

third party voters can wind up choosing which of the two parties win. in 2016, they gave Trump the win, because they equated him and the Republicans with Hillary in terms of deleterious effects.

[chimeracoder]

> third party voters can wind up choosing which of the two parties win. in 2016, they gave Trump the win, because they equated him and the Republicans with Hillary in terms of deleterious effects.

This is a common line used by leftists who are angry that Trump won and are looking for someone to blame. Third party voters make an easy target, and the left has long felt entitled to the support of third-party voters.

But this entitlement assumes that third party voters would otherwise have voted for Clinton, which is a pretty strong assumption that also doesn't really hold up against the polling data from late in the election. Johnson took more than half of the third-party vote, and had he not been running, most Johnson voters would either have voted Trump or not voted at all.

Trump didn't win because of the few voters who voted third party. He won because of the 63 million people who voted for him. If you want to blame someone for Trump's victory, blame them, not the 7 million who chose not to vote for Trump.

[imsofuture]

That's an absurd assertion.

[eli_gottlieb]

Two-party? The American federal government is, de facto, a one-party state.

[defined]

Yeah. The Janus party.

[splitrocket]

Look up Duverger's law.

Effectively, in a first past the post electoral system, any vote that isn't for the major party that most closely aligns with your views is a vote that supports the views least aligned with your preference.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law

[tbrownaw]

I just re-read that article again, and don't really see your claims in in anywhere. I can kinda see how you might draw that conclusion, but I think it's an oversimplification and not really that accurate.

I do see some listed counterexamples to the "law", and also a note about occasional upsets where the parties get completely rearranged.

If both major parties suck, how do I ask for an upset? Is it by fuming quietly and voting for the lesser of the two evils, or by saying "no, fuck you both"? Or does the fact that any upset probably won't happen this election mean that it's part of "the long run" where per Keynes we're all dead, and so it doesn't actually matter?

Do the major parties just ignore any non-major-party vote, or do they analyze it to tweak their platforms for next time? (And, is this consistent over time and space? I'm hearing that it seems to be the case in the US now, but in the same breath I'm hearing that that's a recent localized disaster.)

[splitrocket]

I am in my phone, traveling.

The Wikipedia page is a tremendously short summary, and yes, doesn't go into depth about the implications of duverger's law.

I strongly suggest digging into the literature around it, which does bear out the thesis I states above.

If both parties suck equally and no party is more closely aligned to your preferences than another, I suggest you enter politics yourself. It's just made up of people not too different from yourself.

[tbrownaw]

If both parties suck equally and no party is more closely aligned to your preferences than another, I suggest you enter politics yourself. It's just made up of people not too different from yourself.

I've actually thought about that a bit, and don't think I'd enjoy it enough to consistently put in the time needed to ever really get good at it.

[danblick]

Fairvote.org works on electoral reform issues that are meant to help with issues like this. I think that "the marketplace of ideas" in the US is too much of an oligopoly. Ideas like single transferable vote seem like realistic options for improving the situation. (I'm excited to see how thing go in Maine now that they've​ adopted some of these measures.)

[TheRealDunkirk]

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

I vote 3rd-party in every contest I can. At this point, I'd vote for a puppy dog, if it wasn't a D or an R. It makes my wife, family, and friends mad, but I will not waste my vote on the status quo. I'm voting to send a signal that I want other options.

I believe that if we can get to the point of just having a 3rd party on the platform for a presidential debate, we can open the door to other parties having a non-negligible effect on the election process. Of course, that's the Election Commision's fear as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09...

[imsodrunklol]

The turnout dropped by a huge amount. It's like people assumed that Obama's policies were not worth continuing their voting turnout.

Or that this election was so crazy that they decided not to vote in spite.