What do you think about this interview regarding third party candidates in US politics?

I think he’s a fucking idiot. “A high level of polarization between these two top parties.”

There’s almost no polarization between the two parties. Both are pro-business, pro-austerity, anti-worker, anti-union, pro-Israel, anti-progressive taxation, anti-education, anti-universal healthcare, anti-environment, pro-war, pro-surveillance, anti-consumer, pro-insider trading for congress,

They really disagree though about which toilet the trans kids can crap in though (all 75 of them).

There’s one point I don’t agree on. And I don’t think he’s quite a “fucking idiot” for getting this wrong.

The parties are only more polarised rhetorically. In practice, there’s not much difference.

The main driver of policy and “moderation” isn’t the role of third-parties or having a multi-party system, but of political lobbying, which is done overwhelmingly by capitalist interests, usually representing entire sectors like finance, different industrial sectors, military manufacturing, agriculture, food, etc.

Politicians in power are there to represent those interest (who will finance and lobby both parties).

I’d never heard of this Bernard Tamas before, but on this point in political science, Thomas Ferguson is a much better source in my opinion.

With the current Constitutional structure of State based winner take all Electoral College voting a viable third party that can win the Presidency is a not really in the cards. In order for a third party like the Socialsts or Libertarians to have any power whatsoever they either need to win the “hearts and minds” of people in one of the two parties and take over the policy, or there needs to be Consitutional amendment.

If the Electoral College is abolished and the President is elected based upon a direct popular vote then I see a path where this could be possible.

There are a number of things that this interview got wrong, or at least didn’t get right. He talks about the job of third parties as if they aren’t actual contenders for elected positions, but rather to push the Dems and/or Repubs into a different direction.

To start with that doesn’t work. Why it doesn’t work is fairly simple: the media. Our media is not fair and impartial, it is highly polarized. The media is completely incapable of hearing points of view and evaluating or reporting on them without bias. They all hear the talking points and try to figure out how to spin it in favor of “their party” or against “the other guys”. The third parties are generally left out of discussion in the media or treated as whackos that are going to rob votes from one party or the other. The media gives no credibility to any third party candidate.

A third party candidate can impact elections quite significantly. If that candidate has a good presentation, good policies that tend to make sense, and identify the two parties and the complicit media as a huge part of the problem they can get a lot of support. There was a point when Trump was considering running as an Independent before the 2016 election. He put his name in the Republican hat and they ended up accepting him, though not every one in the Republican party wanted him.

And that brings us to the last piece of the puzzle about third party candidates. The two parties don’t want to give up their power. So when someone comes in from left field to win an election we have already seen what happens. Trump winning the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 2016 showed us that. The RINOs (the Repubs that wanted to keep the same old status quo of American politics going) voted against him and actively sought to block his agenda. The Dems made shit up about him to try getting him impeached and thrown out of office. Nobody wants to put the country first…they are all trying to jockey for power and position and if that means spending millions and billions of US dollars to try undermining the dark horse, they are okay with that.