So...I've been thinking about this, especially as I've been thinking of the states of the democrats and them hating on third partiers so much. part of this is coming up again because there's rumors of Kamala Harris being the nominee again and people being like OH GOD WHY. I mean, I've been listening to her book recently and she is insular AF and doesn't get it. She said, for example, in response to the free palestine protesters, she was just thinking "it's me or trump, do they want trump to win?" And I see that entitlement as part of the problem.
Of course, when third parties come up, this is the dems' attitude. Shut up, vote for us, do you want republicans to win and say that third party runs never accomplish anything. Except, the left tends to misunderstand what third party runs are intended to accomplish. Most of them arent geared toward winning, sure. But they are geared toward bringing up grievances with the two options available. Most are centered around issues the mainstream parties are ignoring, as a way to bring awareness of those issues, and pressure the parties into acting on them. The ideal goal of them is actually to pressure the party closer to you into supporting your platform. Sure, they might not win, but if the issue goes on to be addressed by the two parties, the candidate in question can drop out and endorse them. As for whether the parties in question listen is up to them. The democrats have a mentality of generally being hostile to third parties, trying to ignore them, and attacking their supporters for not supporting them. But this is the wrong approach. Democracy is beholden to the voters, the politicians are supposed to make the voters happy, and when democrats refuse to budge on those issues, people shouldn't be surprised when those voters dont support them. Which is what happens, and why they keep losing. Harris in 2024 lost specifically because she lost around 6 million voters that Joe Biden had in 2020. While some of these guys may have gone over to Trump, Trump only gained 3 million over his 2020 vote count. Many of these voters stayed home or voted third party, because they didn't like the options.
But...third parties aren't a threat only to the democrats, they can threaten republicans too. Libertarians are a constant thorn in the republican party's side, and RFK Jr.'s run took votes from both parties in theory. RFK Jr ran as a centrist populist who had some left views, some right views, but what really seemed to unite his audience were the fact that many of them were kinda cray cray. They didnt seem to have a coherent policy platform, but they did have some unique views. Like being anti vax, and kinda anti modern medicine in general. They bought into his cringey autism narratives, and yeah, he was a lightning rod for those kinds of people. And what did Trump do? Well, he probably offered him a cabinet position as secretary of health, and basically give him whatever he wanted to get him on his side. And now, Trump has that kind of crazy in his administration.
I'm not saying this is a good thing mind you, but politically, it was a smart move by Trump. He was able to give RFK and his supporters what they wanted, integrating him into his own campaign, and integrating his supporters into his coalition. And yeah, that's how we got the guy who sounds like a ghoul and doesn't know what he's doing as secretary of health.
The point of me bringing this up is to point out that, yes, third party runs can be effective. The whole point is to pressure one of the two parties into caring about your issues. The democrats treat these guys with open hostility and have lost 2 of the previous 3 elections in part because of this (and won't shut the heck up about it despite doing F all to address the problem). The republicans saw RFK as a threat to their 2024 run so worked to bring him on board and win over his supporters. And arguably, this could be a factor that swung the election in his direction. It's hard to say. RFK kinda had both left and right wing supporters, both progressives and conservatives. But...either way, the republicans moved to remove the threat by giving it what it wanted, and the democrats are just like "but you BETTER vote for me", then act surprised when they lose.
Why am I dunking on dems again even though I admit that progressives probably should have bit the bullet on this one? Again, it's because I'm listening to harris's book, and honestly, she is NOT coming off well to me here. She literally had the same entitlement attitude that's often a problem, and I really do think that the contrast with trump kind of showed how the two approaches to third parties can shift elections. Trump worked to bring RFK on board, and Harris and the dems just screamed that voters should support them, even when they clearly hate them.
And I really cant help but believe, even in this moment, with democracy literally under threat, that us being here is the dems' own fault. They played chicken with the voters too many times, pushing cringey unlikable candidates on people and acting entitled to their votes. Biden was insular himself. He genuinely believed he was doing a good job and refused to believe the american people hated him. And Harris, while she at least seemed somewhat aware of the problem, she did very little to address it. Part of it was the pressures of her own position, she couldnt run as an outsider AT ALL, and the people wanted an outsider. But part of it seemed to be that, yeah, because she was an insider, her position was molded by being on the inside, and her political instincts genuinely suck.
Anyway, this is also relevant in the face of graham platner's popularity since a lot of centrist democrats seem genuinely horrified their attacks against him arent working, and that people aren't turned off because he used language that's unacceptable now but was acceptable 20 years ago, or that he had that nasty tattoo, or called himself a communist. If anything, some of those things seem to actually be endearing him to the voters. They dont WANT an insider. They dont WANT a corporate cookie cutter "safe" politician. They want an outsider who talks crude and has a perspective more in line with them. This whole experiment the dems have had over the past decade of shoving wokeism and this brand of bland corporate centrism down peoples' throats has backfired immensely. And we're kind of starting to see the facade of corporate centrism fade, as progressives are rising up and gaining power. The narratives that once dominated no longer do, and the peoples' expectations are shifting significantly. I'm not sure if democracy will survive to 2028, but if it does, that could be the earthquake realigning election we've been wanting, if the right candidate appears, with the right platform, and is capable not just of challenging trump, but the corporate establishment. We'll see what happens, but yeah. Either way, the democrats need to change if they wanna be relevant going forward.
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