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As Trump Attacks the Republic, the Cowardly Democratic Party Still Won't Fight to Win | Common Dreams
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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Third parties haven't grown, though. Only 3 were on the ballot in more than 10 states in 2024, and none were all 51 states. Over 99% of state and federal legislative seats are held be either Democratic or Republican nominee. Zero current governors, with only 4 in total in the last 25 years. Not a single electoral college vote since 1968, and Perot received 18.9% of the national popular vote in 1992. Current third party candidates and voters should generally be trying to shift the Democratic party via the primaries instead, due to the stacked ballot access in most states.
Primaries aren't even required to be fair elections. The party can pull whatever shenanigans it wants, and there's nothing any of us can do about it so long as third parties are ruled out.
If the democrats decided to straight up go back to the days of deciding nominees in smoke-filled rooms with no primary process at all, then would you still say we need to vote for them unconditionally as the lesser evil? Is there any breaking point at all where you'll reject that approach?
Because if so, then I am simply already past that point. And if not, then you seem utterly hopeless to me. They can keep moving further and further right, removing any possibility for you to do anything about it, and you'll keep supporting them unconditionally. I consider that a ridiculous position and it's even more ridiculous to think the general public would accept that.
If they do away with primaries we can discuss what to do at that time, but they haven't at this time and they've actually reduced the power of super delegates since 2016 (before the 2018 primaries they made it so super delegates don't even get a vote at the convention unless the pledged delegates can't elect a nominee in the initial round).
I never said to unconditionally vote for the Democratic candidates to begin with so the rest of your response to this imagined position is moot.
I'm advocating for maximizing the power of your vote in the system we currently have. If you're living in a district in a state with any kind of ranked choice voting, absolutely vote third party if that's where your alignment falls. Otherwise you need to accept that the winner will be either the Democratic or Republican nominee so your chance to influence that is in either of those primaries and not voting for one of them in the general means the one with whom you least align has one fewer votes to overcome to win. For your one vote against them, they need two votes to get the lead.
Third parties just aren't viable in districts without ranked choice, so to get ranked choice we the voters need to put candidates who support election reform in power thru the major party primaries. Which is exactly what I'm advocating for.
So your idea is that we will vote in Democrat politicians who will... Legislate themselves out of power by instituting ranked choice voting?
This part of your plan seems absurd on its face. I want ranked choice voting as much as you, but we need a realistic plan, and what you're proposing is a pipe dream.
Voting third party is more realistic than expecting Dems to institute ranked choice.