Currently Online 
Aside from the winner takes all, first past the post, zero-sum aspects of the political system in this country, Jill Stein illustrates a secondary reason why third parties don’t do well in the U.S.
They’re novelty candidates. At best they can start off sounding reasonable and then veer completely off the rails. They think that by virtue of being alternatives to the main parties that they’re entitled to make Hail Mary runs at the White House. They never demonstrate their actual policies on the ground trying to win local elections. They think that they’re the candidates for the people who are too “smart” for the main parties.
The only third party candidate who had any measure of success in the past hundred years was George Wallace, who ran on a platform fueled entirely by Southern hate and anger. Kind of like what Trump is running on now. The Wallace-LeMay ticket actually won 46 electoral votes in 1968. It didn’t make a difference in the election itself - Nixon won 301 votes, more than Humphrey and Wallace combined - but it did contribute to the Southernization of the Republican Party.
Existing User Log In
New User Registration
Register for a free account to gain full access to the VGChartz Network and join our thriving community.
