Re:What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?
by munk-a on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @07:24PM
(#27598659)
A third party candidate gave America one of the worst presidents ever - Woodrow Wilson was essentially elected on a fluke because Teddy split the vote with Taft - the two together had a strong majority of the overall vote while Wilson only took home 41%.
FPTP systems strongly encourage bipartisan politics but it's silly to say third parties have never won and it's also incorrect. Early American politics were much more diverse before things coalesced around the slavery question leading up to the civil war - after the war there was a brief re-emergence of multi-party politics but it quickly collapsed back down to two as campaigning became less policy driven and new media opened up the door for a lot more fear-based advertising.
I would agree that it's highly unlikely that a third party candidate would ever win in the current political atmosphere - though if the GOP continues to move toward Trump and the Dems shift way to the left we might see a third party fiscal conservative have a real shot at it.
FPTP systems strongly encourage bipartisan politics but it's silly to say third parties have never won and it's also incorrect. Early American politics were much more diverse before things coalesced around the slavery question leading up to the civil war - after the war there was a brief re-emergence of multi-party politics but it quickly collapsed back down to two as campaigning became less policy driven and new media opened up the door for a lot more fear-based advertising.
I would agree that it's highly unlikely that a third party candidate would ever win in the current political atmosphere - though if the GOP continues to move toward Trump and the Dems shift way to the left we might see a third party fiscal conservative have a real shot at it.