Stop the Third Party Insanity

Townhall.com ^ | January 28, 2021 | Kurt Schlichter

[Wonder Warthog]

Your post is dishonest...........at one time, both the Democrat and Republican parties were precisely “third parties”. And today’s political situation is far more like those that existed when THOSE SUCCESSFUL THIRD PARTIES displace a dominant existing party than at any other time period in MY life of 73 years.

[discostu]

It’s not insanity, it’s necessity. We have to break up the duopoly. The fact that we just keep switching control between 2 parties that don’t actually stand for anything is a big part of the reason for this mess. We were never supposed to be a 2 party system. They made it that way by cutting off competitors.

[depressed in 06]

The Democratic Party left me. They are the Bolshekratic Party. I campaigned for Johnson, my first vote was for Nixon. Nixon was still a better President than Jimma. Reagan was, probably, the best President. I think, I was voting Libertarian then. (Libertarians have adopted a policy I cannot accept now.) For the most part, I am a TEA Party type. I am Cruz man, unless, there is a more conservative person that can win. I hate Bolshekrats.

[JayAr36]

Right on! Also, I don’t believe we have two parties today. What we have is is a pretense of two parties.

So what is really need is a REAL second party that will represent Americans.

[hank ernade]

“Unless a candidate has an endorsement from President Trump, they’ll not have my vote.”

INDEED

I am going to WRITE IN TRUMP for every office on every ballot UNLESS a candidate publicly announces STRONG public support for President Trump and HAS NOT taken part in the bs congressional whitewash of the steal or the great Jan 6 Panjandrum.

[deport]

We have to break up the duopoly.
************

Based on the system a duopoly is the best chance of winning. A party/candidate needs to get 270 EC
votes to win. If the Dems hold together then it will take the GOP and some help from others to win.

What are your suggestions as to breaking up the duopoly? What changes do you see as workable
and acceptable? Nationwide popular vote won't work, imo.

Presidents of the U.S. listed in a timeline graph of elections with results of the popular vote color coded for political parties. A gray arrow points to the name of a person who became president without having been elected as president (9 total). The double arrow indicates becoming president without having been elected as vice president as well (Ford). 5 other former vice presidents are underlined (14 total). The top line indicates the Presidency number (e.g. Reagan: 40th) with Roman numerals indicating election (and term) number.

[discostu]

You’re aiming at the wrong place. Government is made at lower levels. The place we need to break the duopoly first is the state legislatures. Get a 3rd and even 4th voice there and you can end gerrymandering. End that and you can get these other voices in Congress. Then you’ll make ALL the parties actually stand for something other than power. And the presidency can actually matter.

[Reily]

We are not a parliamentary system !
Like it or not we are a two party executive system. The Founding Fathers abhorred factions. However human nature being what it is creates them. They designed a system that winnows that down to a minimum - Two !

Two factions that fight over the one contending issue - more central government control or less. No matter how many parties you create they will always eventually reduce to two that fight over that one issue. Its been that way since the federalists & the anti-federalists, Democrats & Whigs now Democrats and Republicans. The names are unimportant. In fact the Republicans and Democrats have switched sides on the powerful central government vs not powerful central government issue.

Dividing our strength now in the face of monolithic Rat solidarity would mean conservative electoral extinction.

Trump has 90+% support, that needs to leveraged for a hostile takeover of the GOP. The old RINO bulls need to be primaried, retired or told to go from precinct captain, to county executive committee to state executive committee to governor\congresscritter\senator. The good news is most of the old RINO bulls are old. (Yes there are exceptions!). It will not happen instantly. It will take work. What the GOP needs to be is as disciplined as the Rats !

[discostu]

Says who? The only reason we’re a 2 party system is because the 2 parties that took over (both starting as minor parties) have worked together to close the door behind them. The Founders did NOT design a 2 party system. They wanted to ban parties entirely but couldn’t without castrating the 1st Amendment.

[deport]

Here be the lower levels to be aimed at.

The chart below is a breakdown of the political party landscape of the United States' 13 distinct state executives offices.

Office	Democratic	Republican	Independent	Nonpartisan	Total seats
Governor	23	27	0	0	50
Lt. Governor	21	24	0	0	45
Attorney General	24	26	0	1	50
Secretary of State	20	25	1	0	47
Treasurer	15	21	0	12	48
Controller	6	4	0	9	19
Auditor	10	13	0	8	33
Superintendent of Schools	0	8	0	42	50
Insurance Commissioner	3	8	0	35	50
Agriculture Commissioner	1	10	0	38	50
Natural Resources Commissioner	1	2	0	46	52
Labor Commissioner	0	3	0	50	54
Public Service Commissioner	12	36	0	146	201
Total	136 (18.2%)	196 (26.2%)	1 (0.1%)	295 (39.4%)	749
Current as of January 2021

[Reily]

ok whatever
History says otherwise.

[discostu]

Actually it doesn’t. History says what I’m saying. The fact is we had numerous parties. Frequently 2 were dominant, but it wasn’t until the Dem-GOP restructuring of the rules of Congress that other parties became completely neutered.

[discostu]

The focus should be state legislatures. Because they control congressional districts and use gerrymandering to keep others out. The 2 parties like to talk a lot about how they screw each other over with that, but really that’s just a distraction. The true point is making sure all districts belong to one or the other.

[Blennos]

By your Logic the GOP shouldn’t exist—and their would still be Whigs on the Ballot. Once the Republicans were a Third Party that Hated Slavery and Mormons. Or are you one of those fools who believe “History has stopped” and borders can never change (well Russia doesn’t buy that and expanded at Ukraine expense and Georgia’s and China—They did it to Tibet and they are doing it to Hong Kong as we speak. No, history has not stopped. The nation needs Third Parties and some have made profound impacts when one of the two faltered (Like the Whigs on the Slavery Question). The GOP is faltering now—Our slavery issue is immigration and Religion, Abortion and Crime. The Patriot Party can not be a one person (Trump) party but one based on simple platforms—five or six things. Like the Peronistas of Argentina —that outlasted Juan and Evita Peron—The Patriot Party must be ready to go beyond Trump—To become the Second Party and let the GOP fall into the waste bin of history. The elephant must die so the Lion can rule. A new Century needs a new Party.

I agree with you. I was arguing for a third party headed by Trump. The GOP is worthless.

[Alberta's Child]

There's nothing in your post that contradicts what I said.

Prudent U.S. Senators who have highly respect the U.S. Constitution (Tom Cotton and Rand Paul come to mind) had one simple request. To paraphrase: "I am willing to contest the electoral votes from Pennsylvania (for example) if a person or governing body with the legal authority to represent the state government of Pennsylvania notifies me that they are contesting the state's electoral votes, I'll vote to reject the electoral votes that were certified in December."

Without this formal notification, Cotton correctly pointed out that any Senator who rejected a state's CERTIFIED electoral votes would basically be turning the U.S. government into a parliamentary government where the President is elected by the legislature instead of elected as a separate branch of government. Giving a Senator or House member from one state the authority to reject the electoral votes from another state in the absence of a competing slate of electors sent by that state would be an absolute disaster.

If you think I'm kidding, just look ahead to 2024 and see how this would play out. With the Democrats in control of the House and Senate (if this remains the case), you'd have Chuck Schumer leading a bunch of assholes in the Senate to reject the electoral votes even from states like Wyoming and the Dakotas that vote for the Republican candidate by wide margins.

[Does so]

Your tune would change if 300 million new Illegal foreigners were voting here. Or we’d be forced to learn Chinese...

[Does so]

A third party could flock unlucky Americans (and Illegals) to the new “SERF PARTY”.

[Does so]

See my above comment...

[Wuli]

I will just say Amen; having already warned of what I consider 3rd party insanity many times these past few weeks.

[NobleFree]

The condensed version - 100% correct, IMO:

Trump himself seems to understand, walking back the “Patriot Party” stuff in order to settle in as a GOP kingmaker. He knows he loses in 2024 running as a third party candidate – 50 percent of people already hate him and some percentage of the GOP will stay GOP out of habit if nothing else. You can’t expect to win if you start off, best case, losing 50 percent + 1. [...]

The third party talk also ignores the practical reality of the GOP’s irreplaceable infrastructure. [...] no one is going to build another national structure (not to mention a structure in each of the 50 states) in the next four years. It is appealing to leave the jerks in the GOP behind, but if you do, you are choosing irrelevance.

But hey, you’re angry so you gotta cater to those feelz.

That’s stupid and weak. Tighten up. Yeah, the GOP establishment sucks – and no, you’re not the only one who has noticed. We are always going to have people near the center who frustrate us. That’s the reality, and being angry about it is like yelling at clouds. But what we can do – and have done – is slowly force the party to conform more closely to our vision. It’s like turning the Titanic, an apt metaphor if there ever was one, but it is happening already.

[...] The GOP has shifted our way – on wars, on culture, on tech, on playing to win. We have earned the support of Americans of all races in unprecedented numbers because we have focused on people who – remember this? – work hard and play by the rules. That’s progress. Not enough, not nearly, but to deny the progress because you are angry only empowers the people you are angry at. We can’t throw out what we have already achieved simply because we have much more work to do. Take the W, people.

We need to do more. We need to infiltrate the infrastructure and remake the Republican Party from the inside [...]

But Kurt, we do vote and sometimes we lose!

Yes. You will lose much of the time. This is called reality. People who compete often lose. The ones who don’t compete never lose, but they never win either.