What America Needs for a Third Party
Photo by Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
To most observers, the American political system seems hopelessly stuck. Corporate donations guide every action politicians take and soak up most of their time with fundraising. Congress has consistently terrible approval ratings with no real hope of improvement. Party leaders are old, out of touch, and unable to implement the reforms necessary to change the country for the better. While the Democratic Party is often seen as an impediment to change by reformers, Republicans are viewed as an authoritarian party more committed to culture war nonsense than anything that will help the lives of ordinary families.
To combat these challenges, there is the perennial discussion in the United States of starting a large-scale third party. This party would be more sizable than the Libertarian and Green parties already in existence in all 50 states. It would contain a number of representatives and senators. It would compete on a national level and siphon a considerable number of votes from the two main parties. There have been many proposed third parties over the past two decades from both the left and the right. While some have the goal of capturing power, more realistic boosters want the threat of a third party to change the behavior of the political party that fits their ideals.
As evidence of the wisdom of their proposals, they point to the presence of several successful third parties throughout American history. The Prohibition Party elevated the issue of alcohol prohibition from a reformer’s dream to the United States Constitution in a span of fifty years. The Populist Party helped usher in the era of reformist political parties in 1896. During that year’s presidential election, the Democratic Party adopted parts of the Populist platform and a Populist-friendly candidate, William Jennings Bryan, thus transforming its previously staid platform and beginning a new party system. No third party candidate has ever been elected president, but they have been able to threaten and force the political system to adapt to their wishes.
There is one main factor that separates the current situation from earlier periods where third parties could play a major role. Political polarization has created an incentive structure that would devastate the hopes of any serious third party challenge to today’s Democrats or Republicans.
In early periods of third party ascendance, there has been one common factor: near-equal hatred of both parties. Most third parties have known that, instead of winning outright, their presence could play as a spoiler in one area or another. The important fact was that they did not care. If they thought staying in and reforming one party would have worked, they would not have gone through the trouble of starting a new party.
Instead, the most successful third parties knew that the current party system was inadequate to their needs. At first, the Republican Party was a third party competing against the Democrats and soon-to-be-defunct Whigs. Both Democrats and Whigs were national parties that could not take a strong stance on slavery for fear of alienating one of their sectional wings. As a party that opposed slavery, Republicans did not care if their organizing helped either party since they knew the two major parties would not help them.
The same dynamic was at play in the 1890s. Populists had witnessed two decades of deceit and inaction from both the Democratic and Republican parties. They knew that both parties were beholden to special interests and were more interested in rehashing the Civil War than helping farmers. Once again, it did not matter to them which party won. This knowledge freed them to organize and fight throughout the country, hoping to follow the earlier example of the Republicans and one day become another major party. The Populist takeover of the Democrats in 1896 shows a success nearly as great as that of the Republicans in 1856 or the Prohibition Party in 1919, the Prohibition Party being somewhat unique as a single-issue party more interested in enacting its issue than seizing power.
These factors are not true today. Democrats and Republicans may be frustrated with their own parties, but they are furious with the other party. Republicans take open glee in angering and defeating Democrats and have resorted to extralegal and unethical means in order to win. Democrats, on the other hand, are convinced that the other party’s two guiding principles are racism and fascism. They cannot support a third party because they cannot give an inch to the opposing party by voting for a spoiler. The parties know this. They have no reason to fundamentally change their approaches to governance like the Democrats did in 1896.
The Democratic Party is currently the best vehicle for national reform. It is still different from the Republican party in the eyes of reformers. Joe Biden is no Donald Trump. The Republican Party has ignored the will of voters and has actively attempted to undermine their political opponents. It would be difficult for a third party to convince Democrats that they would be in the same position if either party won. These circumstances may change, especially if Democrats continue to underperform on the national level and are seen as feckless and irresponsible by enough liberals. But at this time, third parties will continue to be a political afterthought.
You are really trying hard for punditries greatest hits.
A two-party system is basically inevitable given the political set up of the government. Namely that we split voting for the executive and legislature combined with first past the post elections. Multiparty democracy works best in parliamentary systems where coalition governments are possible because you can negotiate cabinet positions. Think Prime Minister Biden and HUD Minister AOC. It will take a constitutional convention to make this happen and that is extremely unlikely.
Finally, there are a lot of delusional descriptions people give themselves about their politics that are not true but the media goes along for a buck. Independents are not heterodox free thinkers, they are often straight down voters. Third party “no labels” stuff fails for a reason yet Davos pundits love to bring it up again and again.Report
Down here Independents are really liberals who know that they can’t get elected by calling themselves Democrats.Report
Two aspects to this… first-past-the-post can and does create distortions in the popular vs. elected outcomes even in parliamentary systems. All it does differently is eliminate (to a certain extent) divided government.
If we’re after parliamentary systems that also navigate real political factions who have different levels of electoral clout, then you need to look at structural reform not to the regime but to the voting paradigm.Report
Seconding my brother, adding multiple parties will only increase the dysfunction of the federal government unless America really transforms the structure of it. What are you going to horse trade to get the parties to work together if cabinet positions tend not to go to career elected politicians, except in a few rare cases as a reward for service and when no longer elected, but party apparatchiks or career civil servants? Multiparty democracies definitely require horse trading. Otherwise you end up with two really big parties and a bunch of minor spoiler parties exchanging votes for literal bribes.Report
In early periods of third party ascendance, there has been one common factor: near-equal hatred of both parties.
Well put.
There do seem to be a lot of necessary (but not sufficient) precursors checking off boxes, aren’t there?Report
Are you familiar with the name Maurice Duverger?
There’s a reason why, if you socialize with or attend the meetings of a group of people whose political ideology lies largely or entirely outside the ideological distribution covered by the two political parties, you will inevitably hear a lot of (probably heated) discussion of voting methods.Report
Care to expand a bit on this?Report
The third party has two potential roles: the promotion of a certain issue and shaking the system up. But the first of those things can be done from within a party. The 99% and BLM movements shifted the Democratic Party to concentrate on their issues, as did the pro-life movement and the Tea Party. As for the second goal, getting rid of the old structures and people, let’s split those up. Moving on past the currently-powerful people takes time, probably the same amount of time with two parties or three. Getting rid of the power structure becomes a harder sell when (a) the people who commit to a third party never get ahead, (b) there are channels to move up within the two parties, even keeping your principles, making you less likely to want to topple things once you’re “in”, and (c) those whose primary concern is toppling the current two-party structure agree on very little else.Report
“They cannot support a third party because they cannot give an inch to the opposing party by voting for a spoiler.”
This is the only operative sentence when discussing party numbers greater than two in a first past the post system.
There’s a multi-party option if we change the voting parameters – which would have to be done state by state for congress. The Presidency is a little more complicated by the fact that the constitution itself lays out a process for states and electors. Which is to say while congress could live with proportional quirks, a single presidential entity cannot… so even if electors could ‘factionalize’ the result is still first past the post. The closest thing to our model would be the French Presidential system where you have two national votes – the first is open the second pits the two top vote getters. I suppose theoretically we could collectively (ha) decide that in lieu of primaries we have a giant open ‘Primary’ to select the two candidates – but even in this model, the temptation would be to avoid being the spoiler, so I’m not entirely sure it would work… but still, I’d back it if only to kill the current Party Primary system we have now.
Plurality Democracy is not without issues… it’s a matter of asking whether those issues are better or worse than the issues we have now. Personally, I’d vote for a new set of problems.Report
“The Democratic Party is currently the best vehicle for national reform. It is still different from the Republican party in the eyes of reformers.”
You had me until the last paragraph. The only way this statement is correct is if your definition of a “reformer” is synonymous with “progressive”.
“The Republican Party has ignored the will of voters and has actively attempted to undermine their political opponents.”
Team Good would never! Perish the thought!
“But at this time, third parties will continue to be a political afterthought.”
100% correct and in alignment with your first 8 graphs.Report
Duverger is known primarily for Duverger’s Law, which says that single-ballot plurality voting systems tend to lead to two party political systems, whereas proportional systems and plurality systems that aren’t single-ballot tend to lead to multi-party political systems. As a result, folks whose ideologies lie largely outside of the two party’s general ideological scope (which includes, e.g., actual libertarians and most socialists) tend to be interested in non-single-ballot plurality voting systems. This is making its way, increasingly, into actual local and state politics, as you see with the increased popularity of ranked-choice voting. There are, of course, other non-single-ballot systems, particularly plurality systems, but because the U.S. political system is someone constrained to single-ballot or run-off systems, and because run-off elections, particularly at the local level, tend to have very low participation, the nerds with, er, alternative political ideologies tend to focus on single-ballot methods that aren’t first-past-the-post.
In the U.S., we have additional barriers to entry for third parties, in that not only are the two parties effectively very wealthy big businesses, giving them a great deal of influence over smaller elections regardless of the voting method, but the two-party system is in fact to some extent enshrined in voting laws, making it very difficult for third parties to win much of anything beyond smaller elections. So voting methods are not the be-all, end-all of making a third party viable here, but it’s the one thing that smaller, less powerful ideological groups can have some influence on (ranked choice voting was even on a recent city-wide ballot measure here in Austin, thanks in no small part to some nerds to the left of the Democratic Party).Report
Sorry, this was in response to Philip’s “Care to expand” comment above. Argh.Report
How would multiple parties work in a Presidential election system? Parliamentary systems can be plagued by ideological paralysis in many situations but generally work with multiple parties because you can horse trade cabinet positions and other appointed positions to form coalition governments. In a Presidential system where the chief executive is independently elected and always comes from the two big parties, and generally appoints cabinet positions from either career civil servants or party loyalists, the only result I see is ideological paralysis in the legislature. I guess the President could appoint cabinet positions from members of the third parties who aren’t elected politicians but the entire system doesn’t seem to work.Report
I don’t know, though I think it’s the Senate, not the Presidency, that’s the main problem. In a legislature designed for proportional representation (so at the federal level, the House, especially without all the ridiculous gerrymandering of districts), I could see multiple parties, and a president dependent on the legislature for enacting their agenda, leading to effectively parliamentary-style coalitions. The Senate makes that unlikely, because of the way they’re elected, and because of their ridiculous rules. So, part of any attempt to get a viable third party at the federal level will be getting rid of the Senate, which of course is a Constitutional thing, and if actually have the political will to fix the Constitution, you might as well not stop there.
Edited to add: Worth noting that, while libertarians seem very interested in the presidency, leftists, with the exception of the Bernie movement, have, to the extent that they’re interested in elections at all, been more interested in local (and perhaps state legislature) elections, for a variety of reasons having to do with both realism and the ability to influence candidates once they’re in office (as you see with SA in Seattle) .Report
I still think having a parliamentary system where you can split the cabinet spoils helps. There is research that shows that in coalition governments, people feel positive thoughts about coalition partners as opposed to the current distrust now with seeing third parties as spoilers for the opposition. The end result would probably still be a coalition that contained Biden and AOC (and also Manchin/Sinema, ugh) but they would have different bases to appeal to at election time.
The big issue for the Democratic Party is that it is a coalition government acting as one big party. There is no clear majority base* but every side seems to think they are the majority base.
*The closest thing to a majority base is probably African-American women in their 30s-60s who attend church fairly regularly.Report
Every president in my lifetime, except for Trump and Biden, have had at least one cabinet member from the other party. (In Ford’s case, I’m counting Moynihan at the UN, which might not have been considered a cabinet-level position at the time, but he had the shortest time in office.)Report
Especially your second paragraph. Lots of states have lots of ongoing paperwork that parties have to submit to stay in good standing and be able to put people on the ballot. It has not been that long since Colorado was a safe red state. But today, the Republican Party here manages to screw up some aspect of the paperwork on an increasingly regular basis. For a third party to even begin to succeed on a national scale, they need a modest army of bookkeepers spread across the states. Heck, the Greens and Libertarians have been at it for decades and still have years where they don’t get their candidate for president on the ballot in all of the states.Report
The Greens and the Libertarians would do better to spend time working on getting elected to state houses.Report
Neither party especially the Greens particularly wants to get elected to State Houses. A lot of government work is very boring and very dry but stuff that needs to be done like waste management and snow removal budgets (assuming you live in an area with snow). People attracted to third parties generally seem very disinterested in that kind of stuff. Plus I think a lot of people attracted to “third parties” generally like the idea of being out of power. Power means needing to deal with things like limited time, resources, and political capital (those pesky voters!!) and this leads to compromise and/or prioritization. A good chunk of my experience with left types that prefer ragging on the Democrats than Republicans is that they hate the concepts of limited time, resources, prioritization, and potentially needing to compromise.Report
Much of this is true – but in our system if you are trying to break in you need to prove capability. Walk before you can run.Report
A lot of Anglophone left in general and the American left in particular seems to have a fear of achieving authority. Their dream political solution is to be able to force politicians to do what they out of fear but not have to do it themselves.Report
There is that. Its a weird imposter syndrome.Report
I think it’s more because the Anglophone left/American left has a well-cultivated anti-authoritarian streak to it. See all the talk about resisting the man. Political power is about authority though. You can’t be in office and not be in authority. So you get this weird fantasy where eternal activist pressure forces the authority to do what you want without having to win elections or holding office yourself.Report
what you’re describing is congenital passive aggression, tho. i mean, it sounds better as “cultivated anti-authoritarian streak” by a whole lot, so a+ on the branding.
i’d go another way – you don’t see a lot of libertoids or greenies or junior che berets in office because their ideas are not popular. and the sorts of people who are successful at politics like to be successful at politics, so hitching your wagon to these hosers is the opposite of making good on your dreams.Report
There is also a strain of American thought that prefers activism/community organizing to “electoral politics.”Report
The Greens may not be runningv for state house, but the rest of the electorally-oriented left certainly is, and they’ve been winning some too.Report
They have been. As Democrats.Report
See my comments above. Short of changing a great deal about how we elect people in this country, the choices are generally running in one of the two parties or losing.Report
Years ago Chip made this same claim, and then I linked to a list of hundreds of libertarians elected to state and local offices. I’m not going to dig it up again, but it’s out there.
That said, I do think it’s pointless. Third parties don’t work in the modern American electoral system. The best way for libertarians to influence policy is to work within the major parties. If you can’t win a primary, then you certainly can’t win a general election running as a third-party candidate in an election where the vast majority of voters just vote based on party.
Even if you can’t win a primary, you can still influence the platform if you get enough support. Look at how Bernie Sanders dragged the whole Democratic Party down closer to his level.Report
Actually, the best way to get a significant third party is to vote Republican (and in fact there’s a decent chance of this happening over the next few years).
The GOP has to execute its two-cycle two-step: crush the Demos in the House in 2022 and win +4 in the Senate (not completely baked into the cake but heading there), then win the Presidency in 2024 (probably DeSantis) and pile on a bunch more Senate seats.
When and if that happens, do you think Elie Mystal and David Roberts are going to be full of sweetness and light for Conor Lamb and Maggie Hassan (and vice-versa)? No, of course not, the only reason they can keep it together now is because there is enough credibility to think that they can beat the Republicans if they hold together. But if they can’t, I don’t see much motivation to play nice.
Ergo, the Demos will crack up and the we’ll see some third parties.Report
You are always on brand, I will give you that. It isn’t a great brand but it always on.Report
What can I say, it’s a better brand than “Everybody but me is a troll.”Report
Heightening the contradictions never works and telling people to vote for politicians whose policies they oppose because it might make third parties appear quicker is a pretty big troll.Report
It’s not about heightening the contradictions, in fact it’s just the opposite. It’s also not about policy, the intention is to operate on a deeper level than that.
Ie, instead of having to project this posture of hostility and animosity, that libs can dial it down a little bit and try to rebuild stores of solidarity with conservatives, Republicans, Americans in general.
It’s the right thing to do, #1, but it also has an element of pragmatism as well, where in a circumstance where you’re already getting rolled, you might as well get some goodwill out of it.
And as it relates to the OP, I’m obviously not a third party guy. But if I were. my scenario is by far the best road to get there. It’s obviously much more practical than things like abolishing the Senate and multi-member Congressional districts.Report
The two secret things people forget about is electoral votes and the size of constituencies. Part of the reason why the UK still has a strong third party, and frankly, had a variety of minor parties getting pretty decent percentage of the vote is, proportionality, if our House was the size of the House of Commons, there’d be 4,000-something members of the House.
For all the talk of money, even if we had public financing, we’d still have a R’s and D’s with obvious exceptions because you need to convince people in huge districts to vote for you. A member of the LibDems or UKIP or even the Greens can on a lower level, convince enough people in a 75k-ish size constituency to vote for them. It’s enormously harder with district sizes of nearly a million.Report
I’d also add on third parties – there are always polls saying some huge number of people want a third party, but the issue is What Third Party? A left wing one? A left wing one that’s not woke? A right wing one that likes unions (as long as they’re the unions for the right kind of workers)? A right wing one that’s actually socially conservativee? A classical liberal one? A crypto one? Etc. Etc. Etc.
Third Parties are successful when there’s an actual large group of people who feel shut out of the major parties. As pointed out above, while people in the other party may not like various people within that party – internally, people like Obama, Biden, Peolsi, etc. fine within the Democratic Party. As I’m fond of saying, the median Democratic voter like Obama, Biden, AOC, Warren, Pelosi, and Hillary, and is confused why you, as a fellow Democrat, wouldn’t.Report
Yeah, if Colorado had 75 seats in the House instead of eight, the Greens could win some of them.Report