A 3rd major party

[Frankeneinstein]

Just looking for opinions here. With America so bitterly divided along partisan lines, the emergence of a 3rd major political party seems likely. A 3rd party would take ideas from both Conservative and Liberal platforms. Any thoughts as to what a 3rd party would be like??

It would most likely work like a parlor trick...I am not against a third party in theory, but it would further splinter our fairly successful system already in place, a third party would almost certainly guarantee that the winner of each election would not be the pick of the majority of voters, once that happens it becomes slower and harder and to achieve concensus and once you start adding parties the sky becomes the limit as to how many there are or should be...the idea itself may be the best thing about a third party...the rest just doesn't seem to play as well

Check out the history of political parties in this country in the 19th century. We had third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties.....

Was it better than today? We were a backwater nation then, how many of those 3rd 4th and 5th parties actually won anything? or even taken seriously then?...I'm not dead set against it, but unless it is to stir the political winds of the stagnant right-left parties we have now I just don't see any real benefit to it, but I could just be missing it, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, heck I voted like it was the 19th century and went third party this past election [for a candidate I knew almost nothing about]

 

[Pogo]

Just looking for opinions here. With America so bitterly divided along partisan lines, the emergence of a 3rd major political party seems likely. A 3rd party would take ideas from both Conservative and Liberal platforms. Any thoughts as to what a 3rd party would be like??

It would most likely work like a parlor trick...I am not against a third party in theory, but it would further splinter our fairly successful system already in place, a third party would almost certainly guarantee that the winner of each election would not be the pick of the majority of voters, once that happens it becomes slower and harder and to achieve concensus and once you start adding parties the sky becomes the limit as to how many there are or should be...the idea itself may be the best thing about a third party...the rest just doesn't seem to play as well

Check out the history of political parties in this country in the 19th century. We had third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties.....

Was it better than today? We were a backwater nation then, how many of those 3rd 4th and 5th parties actually won anything? or even taken seriously then?...I'm not dead set against it, but unless it is to stir the political winds of the stagnant right-left parties we have now I just don't see any real benefit to it, but I could just be missing it, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, heck I voted like it was the 19th century and went third party this past election [for a candidate I knew almost nothing about]

Depends on how we define "win". Yes, some of them like the Know Nothings won local, state and Congressional offices. Others like the Free Soilers "won" in the sense that they influenced an ideology, in that case Abolition.

Ultimately the purpose of a political party is to consolidate power. When it first starts up it supposedly consolidates an ideology, but as soon as it gets comfortable the goal shifts to self-perpetuation, and you have the morass we're in now -- two parties that aren't really good at anything except keeping out other parties.

Personally I think a political party should be granted a charter for 20 years. After that term, it's automatically dissolved. Kaputski. Go start over. By then your issues will have evolved anyway.

 

[Frankeneinstein]

Just looking for opinions here. With America so bitterly divided along partisan lines, the emergence of a 3rd major political party seems likely. A 3rd party would take ideas from both Conservative and Liberal platforms. Any thoughts as to what a 3rd party would be like??

It would most likely work like a parlor trick...I am not against a third party in theory, but it would further splinter our fairly successful system already in place, a third party would almost certainly guarantee that the winner of each election would not be the pick of the majority of voters, once that happens it becomes slower and harder and to achieve concensus and once you start adding parties the sky becomes the limit as to how many there are or should be...the idea itself may be the best thing about a third party...the rest just doesn't seem to play as well

Check out the history of political parties in this country in the 19th century. We had third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties.....

Was it better than today? We were a backwater nation then, how many of those 3rd 4th and 5th parties actually won anything? or even taken seriously then?...I'm not dead set against it, but unless it is to stir the political winds of the stagnant right-left parties we have now I just don't see any real benefit to it, but I could just be missing it, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, heck I voted like it was the 19th century and went third party this past election [for a candidate I knew almost nothing about]

Depends on how we define "win". Yes, some of them like the Know Nothings won local, state and Congressional offices. Others like the Free Soilers "won" in the sense that they influenced an ideology, in that case Abolition.

Ultimately the purpose of a political party is to consolidate power. When it first starts up it supposedly consolidates an ideology, but as soon as it gets comfortable the goal shifts to self-perpetuation, and you have the morass we're in now -- two parties that aren't really good at anything except keeping out other parties.

Personally I think a political party should be granted a charter for 20 years. After that term, it's automatically dissolved. Kaputski. Go start over. By then your issues will have evolved anyway.

By win I meant the white house [what were the two major parties of the time of the know nothings? I always assume they were one of the two, and wasn't T head of the "bull moose" movement?] but OK...I need to be assured that a more than two party system will not create drag on the country in terms of getting things done, when some countries with several parties have elections, the party that won sometimes spends it's entire term just trying to unite a majority coalition government so it can more easily govern, it seems our two party system has that built in...but again, I will especially consider it after this last debacle of an election...I'm hoping this is just a phase we are going through.

 

[Pogo]

Just looking for opinions here. With America so bitterly divided along partisan lines, the emergence of a 3rd major political party seems likely. A 3rd party would take ideas from both Conservative and Liberal platforms. Any thoughts as to what a 3rd party would be like??

It would most likely work like a parlor trick...I am not against a third party in theory, but it would further splinter our fairly successful system already in place, a third party would almost certainly guarantee that the winner of each election would not be the pick of the majority of voters, once that happens it becomes slower and harder and to achieve concensus and once you start adding parties the sky becomes the limit as to how many there are or should be...the idea itself may be the best thing about a third party...the rest just doesn't seem to play as well

Check out the history of political parties in this country in the 19th century. We had third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties.....

Was it better than today? We were a backwater nation then, how many of those 3rd 4th and 5th parties actually won anything? or even taken seriously then?...I'm not dead set against it, but unless it is to stir the political winds of the stagnant right-left parties we have now I just don't see any real benefit to it, but I could just be missing it, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, heck I voted like it was the 19th century and went third party this past election [for a candidate I knew almost nothing about]

Depends on how we define "win". Yes, some of them like the Know Nothings won local, state and Congressional offices. Others like the Free Soilers "won" in the sense that they influenced an ideology, in that case Abolition.

Ultimately the purpose of a political party is to consolidate power. When it first starts up it supposedly consolidates an ideology, but as soon as it gets comfortable the goal shifts to self-perpetuation, and you have the morass we're in now -- two parties that aren't really good at anything except keeping out other parties.

Personally I think a political party should be granted a charter for 20 years. After that term, it's automatically dissolved. Kaputski. Go start over. By then your issues will have evolved anyway.

By win I meant the white house [what were the two major parties of the time of the know nothings? I always assume they were one of the two, and wasn't T head of the "bull moose" movement?] but OK...I need to be assured that a more than two party system will not create drag on the country in terms of getting things done, when some countries with several parties have elections, the party that won sometimes spends it's entire term just trying to unite a majority coalition government so it can more easily govern, it seems our two party system has that built in...but again, I will especially consider it after this last debacle of an election...I'm hoping this is just a phase we are going through.

There are many, many, many offices that can be run for and won besides the White House. That's only one person. The Presidency has been won by Federalists, Whigs, Democrats, Republicans and of course George Washington who had no party at all. Moreover there have been elections where a single candidate represented more than one party and those who won with one party, then ran with another. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig, then a Republican, then a National Union Party AND a Republican. Martin van Buren organized Jackson's followers into the Democratic Party, then ran again with the Free Soilers. Millard Fillmore was nominated by the Know Nothings after he had already been President as a Whig.

The Know Nothings weren't a "major" party in the sense of winning the White House but were certainly a force in state and local levels. They were a bad bunch, in effect a precursor of the Ku Klux Klan in terms of nativism. Fortunately they were short-lived but they did exercise influence. By the dawn of the Civil War they had withered. But to your question, when they were around the two "major" parties were the Democrats and the Whigs.

A few years later in 1860 there were four candidates that got electoral votes for President. One of them lasted only about five years and another didn't even organize or name itself as a party. And that one came in second out of four.

"Bull Moose" was 20th century --- that was the nickname of what its founder called the Progressive Party which brings us to 1912, a fascinating history. A boisterous candidate from New York, put down by his critics as an egomaniac, swept most of the primary elections and came to the convention expecting to get nominated. The Republican Party snubbed him despite the primaries and went with the establishment guy from Ohio. (And by way of more parallels to the present, in the same election there was a Socialist, and a guy with wild hair.)

So that guy with all the primary votes and no nomination went literally down the street with his supporters and formed the Progressive Party; that was Teddy Roosevelt. It took on the nickname "Bull Moose" (Know Nothing was also a nickname; it started as the National Republicans and rebranded into the American Party). Whelp, when the 1912 election came around Teddy pulled in a strong second, sending Taft the Republican to a distant third, and that's how Woodrow Wilson got elected with less than 42% of the popular vote.

And I do believe that's the last time a third party had anywhere near that strong a showing. There were the insurgencies of Thurmond (1948) and Wallace (1968); while they won electoral votes they didn't swing the end results.

But none of that can be construed as a pitfall of "too many parties"; the Civil War certainly didn't start because there were four parties and the 1912 election still elected a major party.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Just looking for opinions here. With America so bitterly divided along partisan lines, the emergence of a 3rd major political party seems likely. A 3rd party would take ideas from both Conservative and Liberal platforms. Any thoughts as to what a 3rd party would be like??

What should happen is a third party that runs on changing the way people vote in the Presidential election to one person, one vote no matter the state you are in, something similar in Congress, personally I like the German system with two votes, one for PR and one for FPTP. The German system has about 10% of the population voting for a major party in FPTP but for a lesser party in PR, which means more parties get a say, more voices are heard, compromise becomes key rather the nonsense at the moment where both parties try and stop the other doing anything.

Basically though a third party will more likely run on a single issue, like UKIP in the UK, in order to gain enough support to go national.

 

[pwjohn]

There's absolutely no comparison between vicious, evil repubs and democrats. None whatsoever

What do you think are the most evil things about Repubs?

In a nutshell! A complete lack of compassion and their willingness to rule by fear and oppression.

 

[yiostheoy]

Neither will happen, as gipper knows.

JakeStarkey you must be the one they talk about being from Utah ??

Is that right ??

If so then you are lucky because the Raiders are moving to Vegas.

It was announced today on the evening news.

 

[WinterBorn]

I thought Gary Johnson had a solid chance, considering the opposition was Hillary & Trump. He had experience in gov't, was tight with a budget and wanted us out of the wars we have no business fighting.

The two power parties preach "Voting 3rd party is wasting your vote". And too many idiots listen.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Neither will happen, as gipper knows.

JakeStarkey you must be the one they talk about being from Utah ??

Is that right ??

If so then you are lucky because the Raiders are moving to Vegas.

It was announced today on the evening news.

Utah is one of several states in which we keep homes. SLC is our favorite city, yes. And, yes, we are thrilled that LV gets the raiders. We will have season tickets and spend those weekends in our St George condo about two hours from the stadium. Lots of fun.