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The not-quite-impossibility of a third party win
As America once again slogs our way toward an election in which the two major party candidates are wretched in their own ways, many of us on the left are debating with ourselves — and with the Democrats — regarding for whom we will vote. A third party candidate — someone from the Green or Democratic Socialist Parties, for example — appeals to those of us whose priorities are policies like Medicare for All or the Green New Deal — the latter in its full form, not as watered down by Biden, called the “Green New Deal, minus the crazy” by those who do not want to see their comfortable carbon footprint shrink. But the constant riposte of the Democrats is that we live in a binary system in which their candidate or the other guy are the inevitable winners, and you wouldn’t want to vote for the other guy, now would you. I am told over and over that a third party candidate cannot win, and therefore, if I vote for one, my vote is thrown away.
This is a false dichotomy, since anyone whose name is on the ballot is in a legally easy position to win. The fact that large blocs of voters feel themselves compelled to vote for either of the major parties makes a third party win improbable, but not impossible. What can happen is not restricted by what some people calculate as what is likely to happen. A couple of key facts need to be taken into account here to support the argument…
