All elections are ultimately about choosing the lesser of evils, because there is evil in every candidate, as there is in every human being. The differences are how much evil and in what ways, but the evil is ALWAYS there, and always has been.
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Agreed, all elections are about selecting the lesser of all the evils presented, those evils being : Republican (extremely evil), democrat (extremely evil), Libertarian (a little bit evil), Green party (a tiny bit evil), third party (varies).
So remember, if you care about picking the lesser evil, make sure you never vote democrat or republican, pick any of the many lesser evils on the table, but not those two greater evils.
I will happily grab for any rope, as I point out the rope is the lesser evil over the quicksand and I agree, you should always pick the lesser evil.
Now if I get thrown 3 ropes and one is laced with poison (democrats) I will grab one of the other two ropes, because again, I will pick the lesser evil.
@freemo @WhiteCatTamer @lauren If democrats are represented by a rope covered in poison, then Republicans are a rope that's actively on fire and third parties are rope made out of single-ply toilet paper.
Yeah, I think I'll take the poison one; that seems like the easiest problem to fix after I get out of the quicksand.
In this scenario republicans are the quicksand, democrats are the wrote with poison, all other parties are various ropes of varying quality (but not poisoned).
@freemo @WhiteCatTamer @lauren In our first-past-the-post system, though, any rope other than the main two won't have enough tensile strength to support your weight. You can grab them if you want, but then you still sink in quicksand *and* look foolish doing so.
A common, and untrue conspiracy theory.
While there is a small hint of truth, that the voting numbers will not reflect actual support in a FPTP system the idea that that is reflective of the chance of a third party actually winning or that it favors the **same** two parties every time is absolutely incorrect.
FPTP only gives the illusion of a two party system because the parties that are in the lead tend to take a larger portion of the vote than the **real** support (due to effects from FPTP, namely coalition building effects). This however in no way suggests the same two parties will be locked in election after election. In fact quite the opposite.
FPTP actually will show a pattern where every time a third-party option wins it will go from very low support in the previous election (ie 1%) to majority support int he next, in a single step (51%+). Essentially FPTP only ensures every election 2 parties will take the bulk of the votes, it in no way suggests those 2 parties are more likely to remain in control.
It helps when you look at real support and how it translates. If you have real support such as Party A:21% B: 20% C: 19% D: 15% E: 15% F: 10% Then the actual voting results will be something like A: 60% B: 39%. So all C really needs is 2% more support to change things next election in all reality and if they do then youd have A and C getting the lead.
@freemo Totally agree with all of that, but usually those shifts you're talking about come as the result of war or revolution. And most (all?) such shifts in our country's history were basically just reformations of the previous two powers.
I agree that it won't necessarily be the *same* two powers vying for control, but FPPT does significantly incentivize a field being reduced to two options through coalition building.
But most importantly, a third party would need some kind of serious momentum (usually kicked off by major events) to take the lead, and I just don't see it happening this year.