The "idiots" who voted third party went 3:1 for the Libertarian party. The Greens got 1% of the vote, and I'll bet a good portion of those would have picked Trump if forced to pick one or the other.
It's not third party voters, it's voters who stay home. If you think you can berate people into showing up for a shitty candidate, then you are delusional.
Bullshit. It was apathy tangential to despair. Infighting happens in the tiny percentage of voters who are actually engaged in and educated about the political system. They don't stay home on election day. It's the average apolitical Americans who looked at Hillary and saw no point in dragging themselves to the polls. The whole "infighting" thing was just a way for the establishment to shift the blame.
Fuck anyone who drags out the word "purity" in this conversation.
My primary care doctor of 20+ years just quit the practice. He confided in me that it just wasn't worth it for him to keep dealing with the crazy demands and dwindling rewards. He is one of about 150k doctors who left the profession in the last couple years.
Malpractice insurance accounts for about 2.4% of overall healthcare costs in the US. Meanwhile, healthcare costs are going up at around 4% a year. So, let's assume malpractice never really happens (ha) and we can entirely eliminate that cost by outlawing malpractice suits completely. Great, we just solved half a year of healthcare inflation.
I know it's not the actual definition but, to me, capitalism is literally "rule by capital". Every move we can make that reduces the leverage of the wealthy is progress away from capitalism. Universal single payer healthcare and a significant UBI would be powerful in that regard.
Disenfranchised people don't value the current system. People in general tend to be extremely myopic. Trump was a molotov cocktail thrown at the current system. The Democrats foisting Biden on the country was a clear response of "we don't hear you".
What exactly do you think populism is? Are you aware that you are specifically promoting oligarchy?
Third parties are not a new concept. Just like the two parties, they have a track record we can look at. This has never happened. Bernie Sanders has pushed the Democrats further left than anyone since FDR, and he only started to make substantive gains when he ran as a Democrat.
If you want to claim that third parties can achieve anything at all, it's on you to explain what changed. The track record is abysmal.
I share your objective, but how. The third party approach has been a complete and total failure, and the spoiler effect makes it dangerous. Pushing the Democrats left has achieved at least some minor wins. Third parties have had none.
"But if people just voted third party...". Great, you found a political strategy that can win, provided that the majority of voters do as their told. If we had that kind of unified engagement, any strategy would win.
It's crazy how obviously racist their justification for the NC move is too. Black people are apparently interchangeable, and a black person in NC is just like a black person in NY, Detroit, LA, Chicago, or Texas. They couldn't possibly have different perspectives or interests, after all, they are black.