We HAVE/HAD 3rd parties. How did they do?
Glad Reagan didn’t give up, even though he lost before winning the big prize. Ronald Reagan wasn’t afraid to fight the GOPe.
Oh but he most certainly did give up. Perhaps you forgot he used to be a Democrat. how did he switch to the GOP without giving up? When the dems presented him with the reality of the day just as the GOP has presented us with their reality of today, he wisely saw a losing proposition in remaining a Democrat and...wait for it...
Gave up.
Then hammered them through a wall in a new party.
For one thing, right now, no matter what words one uses to misrepresent the reality, we have ONE party that goes by two names, Republican and Democrat. For all intents and purposes. Yes, there are exceptions like Cruz and Palin and Lee, but the Romneys, Barbours, McConnels, McCains, Boehners, and Cochrans have been the rule for so long that the Cruzes, Palins, and Lees are handicapped at the start AND SO ARE WE.
For another thing, Perot's Third Party AIDED conservatism in the big picture and in the long term. Liberalism LOST when Perot's third party split the vote and made Clinton WEAK enough to be steamrolled by the Republican Revolution in his first term, and IMPEACHED the second.
As surely as water is wet and fire is hot, it is ALWAYS, GUARANTEED, a bad choice to vote for pro-government representatives. That natural law holds true whether the representative is a Republican or a Democrat.
IGNORING that natural law is guaranteed to result in disaster, and it HAS.
Technically, yes we're talking about a "third" party. But in reality, we are talking about a SECOND party. We will ONLY start to meet our goals when we start dealing with reality. And the reality is that at present, Republicans and Democrats represent ONE party philosophy.