Well, in real terms, voting for a party that isn't democrat or republican in the US is a waste of time. The idea that eventually there'd be enough of a groundswell of support that another party would even become competitive? It just isn't going to happen with the way the US electoral system works. The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote.

And in any case of all the reasons to vote for a party that is going to govern everything, intellectual property law is not at the top of the list. It's certainly not going to be the issue to bring voters out in enough numbers to make the major parties sweat.

> The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote.

FWIW: They were in the previous coalition government, so they got very good representation for their votes. Unfortunately their voters hated what they did, so their vote collapsed at the next election (and the party they were in government with grew in votes).

"What they did" was strike a bargain to try and fix the voting system to make it more representative in future. The two major parties combined forces to campaign against more representative voting, because they were happy when it was just the two of them. The flip side of the bargain was that they'd vote alongside whichever party took them up. Because of that bargain, they didn't really get to vote in a representative manner. Who knows when would be the next time they'd hold the balance of power to try and effect voting reform?

And no, they didn't get 'good representation' anyway. They got 9% of the seats on 23% of the vote when they went into coalition, and in the last election, got 1% of the seats on 8% of the vote. Even as a junior party holding the balance of power in a coalition, they didn't have the clout they should have, from a percentage-of-votes-cast perspective.

But regardless of how you slice it, it's still a clear example of how a FPTP voting system ends up in a two-party political system.

> they didn't get 'good representation' anyway

They formed the government. Your original comment said they had 'little to no representation' - for a party with cabinet seets and the deputy prime minister, that's a bizarre claim.

Feel free to nuance it and segue into a discussion of FPTP, sure. I'm a Green Party member, so I need no persuasion there. But if you're a LibDem, then telling yourself you imploded because of 'striking a bargain to try and fix the voting system' is pretty self-delusional. The LibDems imploded because of their government record. They voted against the policy interests of the people who voted for them. If that's because of a bargain and sense of duty, then more fool them for getting played like a tool. No proportional representation will help with that. If they can't be trusted to stand for what they offered the electorate.

Which is all a side show from your original comment that I was responding to.

I'm Australian, so not a Lib Dem. But our last government was a minority government that was a major party in coalition with both a minor party and a couple of independents. Those independents got to have a slightly louder voice than their one seat would usually allow, but it's not like they were dictating general government policy simply because they held the balance of power.

> If they can't be trusted to stand for what they offered the electorate.

They were playing the long game. My guess is that they knew very well they'd be taking a body blow (since everyone was shocked by the coalition in the first place) but that in years to come, the system would be more representative.

And if it were, one of the two political parties would appropriate the cause as its own anyway, absorbing the minority party into itself.