CoggyMcFee , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Here is the nuance that is missing:

First-past-the-post voting systems inevitably trend to two-party systems over time. We see it play out in election models and we see it play out in real life.

One reason this happens is because, in this sort of system, voting for a third party candidate that aligns more closely with your views rather than the best choice of the major party candidates statistically increases the likelihood that the candidate furthest from your views will win. A significant, sustained third party that is more to your liking than the Democratic Party would ensure easy GOP victories for as long as all three parties ran their own candidates, even if the GOP never won an actual majority of votes. (We saw Bill Clinton win both elections in the 90s with much less than 50% and no candidate getting 50% due to a major third party candidate).

Another reason is that even if societal circumstances lead to a third party doing well enough to win it all, what you would end up with is having one of the existing major parties collapse, you’d be back to two parties, and the new third party would become watered down into ultimately the same thing it replaced. We’ve also seen this in American history.

In summary, there is tremendous systemic pressure that causes the two-party system. It’s not that our politicians are tricking us and politicians in Europe under different election systems can’t or won’t do the same. If we changed our voting system to e.g. Ranked Choice, not only would third parties be possible, they would be inevitable. But if we don’t change the system, then voting third party is like forcing two strong magnets together that are trying to repel. Even if you’re able to do it briefly, it’s completely unstable and will correct itself as soon as possible.

The oversimplified version of all this is “voting third party is voting for Trump”. I can see why it’s frustrating because it’s not literally true — however, anyone who is interested in maximizing their best interests, i.e. by having the winner be someone as good as possible, is statistically increasing the chances of the worst candidate winning by voting third party over preferred major party, while our voting system remains in place.

So ultimately, a slight rephrase to “voting third party instead of Democrat helps Trump win” is true.