I agree: starting a third party with our current electoral system seems both counterproductive (because vote-splitting hurts the interests of its supporters) and short-sighted.

This wouldn't be the case if we used a system like instant-runoff voting ( see https://fairvote.org/ ; https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-ab... ); I hope the people who are interested in parties like Forward will also get behind those kinds of reform.