"Voting for a third party accomplishes one thing. It takes votes away from one of the other major-party candidates. Given that the status quo favors the Republican candidate – think the Electoral College – voting for a third party is probably going to take votes away from Joe Biden. Whatever you think of him, he’s better than the alternative. (The alternative, by the way, likes making jokes about being a dictator.)
Actually, it accomplishes another thing. It enriches presidential candidates for third parties that do not work in cooperation with one of the major parties. (It’s called “fusion voting.”) For instance, the Green Party — these people know they can’t win. They know the status quo prevents them from winning. They don’t say that, though. In the space between what they know and what their supporters don’t know is a scam. In the absence of systemic change, third parties that don’t cooperate with one of the major parties are inherently exploitative."
Well yeah, there are only so many votes to go around. Unless you can suddenly get a bunch of non-voters to form a new party they have to come from one of the two. That’s kind of the idea, less influence for these two trash can fires of a party, more for something better. Everyone is just so afraid more will come from one party than the other and we’ll be stuck with one dominating, so it never happens. It’s quite the rock and a hard place.
No one party will equally draw from both Democrats and Republicans. Look at the implosion of “No Labels”.
What needs to happen is for the progressives to abandon the Democrats and make their own party, and for the rational Republicans who have been leaving the Republican party since 2010 to form their own conservative party.
So from left to right you’d have:
Progressives—Corporate Democrats-Former Republicans—MAGA Republicans
Yeah, that sounds great. /s