#third parties

[relaxedstyles]

[afloweroutofstone]

A Review of Leftist Third Party and Independent Presidential Runs in the US, 1976-2024

I went a little overboard with this, so I guess I might as well post it. Here's some stuff from a dataset of left-wing third party and independent US Presidential campaigns that I made.

The US is doomed to a two-party system until we enact electoral reforms that move us away from first-past-the-post elections. But that doesn't mean that leftists haven't tried! A total of 11 million votes have been cast for the presidential campaign of left-wing third parties and independents over the last 50 years, averaging about 848,000 per election.

These leftist third party (LTP) efforts can be divided into six ideological tendencies:

Green Party (64% of LTP votes) - The progressive and eco-socialist Green Party is the largest leftist third party in the US.

Independents & Others (15% of LTP votes) - Leftist independent candidates and a handful of other parties that don't fit neatly into the other groups.

Other New Left & Ecosocialist (12% of LTP votes) - Other parties which are ideologically comparable to the Green Party, but which exist separately from it.

Marxist-Leninist (4% of LTP votes) - The two main electoral parties advocating for Marxism-Leninism in the US today.

Trotskyist (3% of LTP votes) - The two main electoral parties advocating for Trotskyism in the US today.

Old Left (2% of LTP votes) - Two leftist parties which played a major role in the early 20th century but have since experienced a major declined in significance.

Independents and Other New Left parties tend to pop up with a strong performance every few elections, but they fail to sustain their momentum. The Old Left has declined over time, and the Trotskyists have also struggled to make a mark in the 21st century. Marxist-Leninists suffered a complete collapse in support after the fall of the Soviet Union, but have been growing consistently over the last six elections and are now the second-largest bloc. The Green Party emerged after the Soviet collapse and quickly took over the role as the lead of the LTPs, although it's success peaked in the 2000 election with Ralph Nader.

The Green Party's dominance here is hard to ignore. Of the 8 elections they've participated in, they've received the majority of LTP votes in 6 of them. The only exceptions were 2004 and 2008, when the Green Party was frequently smeared as a spoiler by the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader was running as a third-party candidate on non-Green tickets.

Beyond the Green Party and the various independents, the most successful parties were:

The Peace and Freedom Party (8.9% of the LTP votes), effectively the leader of the "Other New Left" parties (though they haven't run a candidate since 2012).

The People's / Citizens Party (3.2%), progressives who had a strong run from 1976-1984.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (3.1%), who are the primary drivers of Marxist-Leninist votes after the collapse of the USSR.

The New Alliance Party (2.8%), an unusual socialist party sometimes accused of cult-like behavior that nonetheless had a strong run from 1984-1992.

The Communist Party USA (1.3%), a staple of the old left which had a consistent base of support for its candidacies from 1976-1984.

The fact that so many different leftist third parties have all tried and failed to even come close to a presidential victory suggests to me that US leftists involved in these efforts should 1) spend more time advocating for electoral reforms that break up the two-party duopoly and make it possible for third parties to run effectively, and 2) focus their electoral attention on lower offices, using Presidential elections only as an opportunity to attract national attention to their congressional, state, and local candidacies.

[uboat53]

Well, RFK Jr. is all but admitting his campaign was a ploy to help Trump win, Republican operatives are committing fraud to get Cornel West on the ballot in Arizona, Jill Stein is openly talking up her genuine love for Vladimir Putin, and the Libertarian Party is such a wreck that my most openly libertarian friend has stepped back from their organization.

Is it time to admit that there is no genuine third-party option in America anymore?

[originalleftist]

The thing about "protest votes" that makes them, in this of all elections, so mind-bogglingly intellectually and morally bankrupt, is that the potential consequences now are NOT A HYPOTHETICAL.

We don't need to speculate on what could happen if a bunch of people decide to stay home or vote third party, because they did that in 2016 against THIS EXACT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE, and we all enjoyed four years of hell culminating in an attempted coup as a consequence. And three years and counting of the aftermath since, including the destruction of abortion rights across much of the country. To say nothing of the ones who didn't make it through, like the migrants who died in detention, or the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of preventable Covid deaths.

And now fuckers are saying, "Well, we better do it again just to make sure we get every last bit of the world we haven't burned down yet".

How many real, actual, living people are you prepared to throw under the bus for your "protest vote"?

[goingtiny]

John Deere to Pay $99 Million in Monumental Right-to-Repair Settlement

The ag manufacturing giant will also make digital diagnostic, maintenance, and repair tools available to third parties for 10 years.

While the agricultural manufacturing giant pointed out in a statement that this is no admission of wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $99 million into a fund for farms and individuals who participated in a class action lawsuit. Specifically, that money is available to those involved who paid John Deere’s authorized dealers for large equipment repairs from January 2018. This means that plaintiffs will recover somewhere between 26% and 53% of overcharge damages, according to one of the court documents—far beyond the typical amount, which lands between 5% and 15%.

The settlement also includes an agreement by Deere to provide “the digital tools ​required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair” of tractors, combines, and other machinery for 10 years. That part is crucial, as farmers previously resorted to hacking their own equipment’s software just to get it up and running again. John Deere signed a memorandum of understanding in 2023 that partially addressed those concerns, providing third parties with the technology to diagnose and repair, as long as its intellectual property was safeguarded. Monday’s settlement seems to represent a much stronger (and legally binding) step forward.

[sagittariusmarz]

How they see you vs the third party (pac) *follower request

Pile 1

You- they feel like you’re letting them go and you’re trying to heal, they feel like you’re reserved with your feelings or they feel the need to be that way with you. They feel like they’re too emotional about the connection or that they’re smothering you and they feel like you don’t care enough about them. They feel like you’re focused on your goals or finances, for some of you they feel like you’re immature and spiteful.

Third party- they feel like the third party is fun to be around or that they bring out a carefree energy out of them, they feel like they have a lot in common with the third party and they both don’t take things too seriously. They feel like they have a weak spot for the third party and they feel insecure about the connection, they feel like the third party is patient or understanding.

Signs- Aries/taurus.Initials- H, E, A

Pile 2

You- (angel number 7/777) they feel like the connection is stagnant and they feel like they missed a opportunity with you, they feel like things didnt go the way it should’ve and they got some clarity about the connection when they took a step back. They feel like they can have a lot with you and be very abundant/happy, they feel like you need to take a break from the connection or they need to. They think about you often.

Third party- they feel like the third party is different from people they normally date, they’re not sure if the connection has room to grow or the connection is already over. They feel skeptical about the third party and what they have to offer, they feel like it’s nice to talk with them and they get along. They feel like there may be potential in the connection and they’re physically attracted to them, they may have known each other for a while or they have history.

Signs- Aquarius/pisces. Initials- K, P, O, T, V

Pile 3

You- they feel like you’re very supportive/helpful and you’re a good friend, they feel like you don’t really speak your mind even if you’re upset. They feel like you’re generous and you help them a lot, they think the connection they have with you is abundant and they feel really comfortable around you

Third party- they feel like trapped with the third party or they can’t trust them completely, they feel like their connection is risky and unpredictable. They feel like the connection isn’t abundant or stable but they feel like they met the third party for a reason, they feel like they can’t express how they really feel with the third party or the third party doesn’t express themselves.

Signs- Scorpio/aries. Initials- V, I, C

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When parties fail, movements step up

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Does anyone like the American two party system? The parties are opaque, private organizations, weak institutions that are prone to capture and corruption, and gerrymandering's "safe seats" means that the real election often takes place in the party's smoke-filled rooms, when a sure-thing candidate is selected:

https://doctorow.medium.com/weak-institutions-a26a20927b27

But there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it. For one thing, the two parties are in charge of any reform, and they're in no hurry to put themselves out of business. It's effectively impossible for a third party to gain any serious power in the USA, and that's by design. After the leftist Populists party came within a spitting distance of power in the 1890s, the Dems and Repubs got together and cooked the system, banning fusion voting and erecting other structural barriers.

The Nader and Perot campaigns were doomed from the outset, in other words. Either candidate could have been far more popular than the D and R on the ballot, and they still would have lost. It's how the deck is stacked, and to unstack it, reformers would need to take charge of at least one – and probably both – of the parties.

But that's not cause for surrender – it's a call to action. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, Thomas Frank (Listen, Liberal) sets out another locus of power, one with the potential to deliver control over the party to its base: social movements:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/ordinary-people-by-the-millions

It's been done before. The parties are routinely transformed by power-shifts within their internal coalitions: since 1970, corporate Dems have consistently pushed the party to the right, making it the power of white-collar professionals and relying on working people showing up and marking their ballots with a D because they have "nowhere else to go."

Bill Clinton was the most successful of these corporate raiders, delivering the parts of the Reagan Revolution that Reagan himself could never have managed: dismantling tariffs and bank regulations, passing the crime bill and welfare "reform." He came within a whisper of (partially) privatizing Social Security.

This set in motion the forces that made Trumpism possible: when Dems told deindustrialized workers to "learn to code" and blamed them for the destruction of their communities, it opened a space for Make America Great Again, the (empty) workerist rhetoric of the GOP. The Dems' plan of putting "really smart people" in charge and letting them run things was a (predictable) disaster. "Really smart" isn't the same as "infallible" and really smart people can be spooked or bulled into doing the wrong thing – like Obama "foaming the runways" for the banks with the houses of mortgage holders, and leaving the bankers responsible for the Great Financial Crisis unscathed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

"Really smart people" can't get us out of this mess. Instead, we need the kind of muscular political action – the "whirlwind" – that characterized FDR's New Deal: "complete reformation of the banking industry.. just about every other industry as well. Regulation. Social Security. Public works. Antitrust. Soil conservation."

FDR got there by alienating his former classmates and refusing the go-slow entreaties of his cronies. He got there because there was a mass social movement that made him do it ("I want to do it, now make me do it"):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/i-agree-with-you-i-want-to-do-it-now-make-me-do-it/

Every time in US history where one of the political party duopoly listened to its base, it was because of a mass social movement: the farmers' movement (1890s), labor (1930s), civil rights and antiwar (1960s). As Frank says:

Social movements succeed. They build and they change the intellectual climate and then, when the crisis comes, they make possible things like agrarian reform or the New Deal or the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.

Today, we see the seeds of those social movements: the new union movement. Black Lives Matter. Neobrandeisians with their "hipster antitrust." These are the movements that are creating "ideas lying around": ideas that, in time of crisis, can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink:

https://doctorow.medium.com/ideas-lying-around-33a28901a7ae

They are setting in motion another transformation of the Democratic Party, from its top-down, "really smart people" model to a bottom-up, people-powered one, kept in check by movements, not party bosses. As Frank says, "They require the mass participation of ordinary people. Without that, I am afraid that nothing is possible."

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/17/popular-front-of-judea/#speaking-frankly