Is it the only point in time where they’re able to be visible, or is it the only point in time that they choose to be visible? I’m of the opinion that it’s the latter, and it’s because of a terribly flawed philosophy.

Third parties have been trying to gain visibility through presidential elections for decades, and it’s been completely unsuccessful. They’re arguably in a worse place than before, since Perot was able to get at least >5% with Reform. It speaks volumes that the third largest candidate behind Trump and Biden is RFK Jr, without any contest at all.

Let that sink in. A party that RFK Jr established at the beginning of this year is polling significantly better than the Greens, Libertarians, and anyone else. I wager the others combined aren’t even more than RFK Jr. It’s very clear that whatever they’re doing isn’t working. It doesn’t matter how engaged their supporters are if they’re pursuing an objective that has demonstrably been a failure.

Here’s a brutal truth for you then. Being a raging, unapologetic jerk won’t progress your political goals. It’ll only make them harder to achieve.

Also, you’re a fucking asshole.

Until Stein vehemently recants her remarks about WiFi causing cancer, vaccine skepticism, and nuclear fear mongering – or the Green party completely disavows her and those remarks – it would be a total waste of time.

It isn’t my job as an engineer to tell “the only voice in politics that supports the science of climate change” to stop endorsing completely anti science positions. Nor is it on me to try and correct a willfully anti science party. They need to show good faith, and they’ve done nothing whatsoever to suggest any of that to me.

Nuclear reactors are quite expensive, but they provide some benefits we can’t get from other renewables. They can be used to provide a consistent base load of power to the grid, and if we pick a good base load, we’ll minimize time periods where we have extra or insufficient energy from solar and wind. And like I said, we can use nuclear reactors to burn nuclear waste. Being able to destroy waste is a big boon.

It’s not on the general population to replace Stein. It’s on the Green Party to appeal to the general population. In that regard it may actually be best that they don’t field a presidential candidate. Hear me out. Right now you have just a small group of people who are voting on who should be the Green nominee. That person is going to be reflective of the small group, but will lack general appeal. It’ll be someone who the Greens want, but not someone who the people in general want.

Democrats and Republicans are able to do this because they’re large enough that their nominee has to be approved of by a substantial part of the population. That’s something third parties don’t have, and their candidates will be alienating. Libertarians are a good example where the small group wants to get rid of drivers licenses for instance, but the general population is absolutely against it.

Instead of asking about challenging Stein, we should be asking if any candidate chosen by the current Green party would actually be desired by the general population. And I don’t think that is currently possible with how small and niche the party is. This is why they need to focus on local and state and congressional races.

This is something I think about a lot. The best way to defeat fascism is within the process with democracy – because if we start playing by their rules to stop fascism, we prove them right in a sense. It’s preferable to actually letting fascism happen, but it would severely weaken our democracy.

If voting is not enough, then the next best option would be for Biden to pull his own Jan 6 and refuse to certify the results and call in Seal Team 6. And then after doing so, order his own arrest for violating our laws and norms. The only way to preserve democracy after taking steps outside of democracy is to fall on your own sword.

It’s like an alternate universe within the DC universe – the Joker goes too far and Batman snaps his neck. When he arrives at the police, he carries the Joker’s body and tells them to arrest him. Batman knew it was necessary to kill Joker, but he also knew he had to be held accountable for doing that. Any group which uses violence to end the fascist threat needs to turn themselves in afterwards to preserve peaceful democracy. It would be incredibly unfair to them, but it’s necessary to prevent a new normal of violent anarchy.

This isn’t a bad 4D chess move. Trick Republicans in Congress to heavily limit the power of the president to neuter this decision.

She dined with Russian oligarchs at an RT party, so I don’t think she’d really balk at it.

She should focus solely on the environment and climate change then instead of “WiFi causes cancer” and promoting vaccine hesitancy. She should also develop a facts based viewpoint on nuclear energy instead of fear mongering.

We have modern reaction designs that can consume existing nuclear waste. We literally have more nuclear waste around than we would if we were doing more nuclear projects.

Some third parties have a thesis that their message is inherently superior to the other parties and would win simply by the virtue of being morally right. Gerrymandered districts are the perfect opportunity for them to prove that.

Not to mention, a third party did get 5%+ with Perot and the Reform Party. But I don’t think Reform even exists anymore, and if they do, they’ve done a terrible job of making themselves known.

They’ve been trying their strategy of “get our name out during presidential elections and hit 5%” for a long time now, and it’s clearly a losing strategy.

Oh I think about them a lot more often, especially when I look at my midterm ballots and see the occasional third party candidate for a local race, and there’s been absolutely no campaigning nor advertising effort. Or, when I see a race that a Republican is running unopposed, and third parties have wasted a perfectly good opportunity in running a candidate there.

If third parties want to win, they cannot rely on people doing personal research beforehand. I like to do so, but I’m certainly in the minority.

You’re spot on. There’s far more I’d like to say about third parties (and have been in the comments). Memes don’t lend themselves well to longform opinions, and most discussions need to be longform.

They’re better as a starting point for conversation instead of actual conversation.

Just like the two main parties are not owed votes, neither are third parties owed votes. If a Democrat has to earn my vote, then so too do third party candidates. And they’ve done an incredibly poor job of doing so.

Don’t get me wrong, you have a good point. I just find the third parties to be completely unserious and not at all focused on actually making a difference. I would prefer for them to be more effective and to actually try to earn my vote instead of just running on “I’m not the other two!”.

It’s my opinion that the FPTP system not only disadvantages third parties with game theory, but it also leads to batshit insane third parties that really aren’t serious.

I don’t disagree, but the hard part is how you become a serious political contender. The fact that they’re unwilling to do so speaks volumes.

Third parties should be running House candidates and putting ads on airtime for them. You aren’t going to win an election if it’s based on people doing research instead of you doing heavy advertisement.

Third parties should try doing anything noteworthy to get attention. The parties and their candidates don’t deserve anything intrinsically.

There was just an article I saw today about Republicans helping Cornel West’s campaign in Arizona

Those are perfect races for third parties to get into

Pretty much the entire operating philosophy and goal of third parties is wrong.

Like you’ve said “Getting your name out there” has been a complete failure. I think it’s safe to say at this point that it doesn’t work. If Democrats or Republicans had used it as a strategy, they’d be rightfully dragged.

The “do well enough to get national funding” goal hasn’t worked either. Ross Perot got 8% with the Reform party, but no ones even heard of that party.

This is why I consider third parties to just be grifts and scams. Either that, or they’re truly stupid.

You’ve inadvertently highlighted the problem. There’s a third party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, that certainly isn’t liberal. But you’ve never even heard of them from the sounds of it. They’d do much better if instead of running an expensive presidential campaign, they put up candidates in your districts and ran ads for them.

This is my point though. It should be a higher priority for running a candidate in every congressional district and running local ads for them.