• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Them: “If people considered a third party candidate, this wouldn’t be happening!”

      Me: “Name the candidate that has a reasonable chance of beating both Trump and Biden.”

      Them: “…”

      Except once. I had one person argue with me, seriously argue with me, that Cornel West could win the presidency because all kinds of strange things happen in the universe and you can’t prove he won’t!

      • osarusan@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        It’s almost like… there’s a reason these 3rd party candidates aren’t making it onto the big party tickets.

          • osarusan@kbin.social
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            5 months ago

            Well, no. The Electoral College has its own list of problems, but keeping 3rd parties out of power is not one of them.

            There’s two main reasons we don’t have any serious third party candidates:

            1. We have a first-past-the-post system, which mathematically results in a two-party system, and

            2. no serious politician runs as a third party candidate, because any serious politician understands how our election system works.