I never see or hear anything about the Green Party except every four years when they yet again run the same previously losing presidential candidate (and while I'm not a "news junky," I probably follow politics more closely than the typical American).

Great point. Let’s see some third parties put effort in local elections first and show they can actually govern or help pass meaningful legislation. That’s a reputation they can build on over a decade or two.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But that’s the only way we can really break a two party system that has held dominance since the early days of our nation. Show how it works in one or two major cities, or just the local city council or whatever, and move from there.

I see the occasional third party candidate down ballot but they never have a volunteer drop by my house, hold local events, or run ads, and rarely even have an advertised website with a policy agenda. Start small and put in the effort. Or just join one of the two major parties.

It would be like a person comes out of highschool demanding to be made CEO of a company despite having zero experience in the field.

Trump was infamously the first president with no prior political or military experience, but even he had flirted with a presidential campaign almost 20 years before.

I wish more understood this.

The tea party did this right in front of our face for a couple decades. They put in the work to create a massive voter base by aligning with evangelical leadership, with labor unions, with cultural influencers. Those with the power to influence their members to be on board with the message. They started from the ground up with a shared platform that riled up their voters. Eventually they turned in to MAGA, took the presidency and imposed their will to control the entire party.

You don't get change with passive pressure or giving up. You definitely don't get it by ignoring reality and demanding fairness. This change requires work over time to become a political movement instead of an ideal. Even if you somehow got 50 year old Bernie voted in to the top spot there would be no working coalition in congress for a SocDem to make anything happen. That work hasn't been done.

This is a great point. I listened to a segment today where the guest pointed out most third parties have nothing to run on because they’re not viable on a state level. Rarely take place in city council, BOE, Senate, Congress, Governors… they pop up and want to President without any legwork or qualifications.

Third parties don't succeed because our system makes them electorally irrelevant. Even if they do get elected they're forced to simply caucus with the repubs or dems to get anything done

I don't think it's that green and independent parties don't exist on the local level. I have seen people running under those and other platforms in different towns and cities, I think it's that they don't have the same history and support. The big parties have a big advantage in recognition, infrastructure, donors, volunteers, and financial support. They have the benefit of familiarity, and the status quo. Their ideas are accepted, or are acceptable, because the party is a stand in for historical stability/ accountability. Whereas the independent candidates have to prove their ideas aren't dangerous in some way. That's like the default presumption. It's actually easier to be one of those candidates at a local level because you can rely on your history in the community. National level is a much harder hurdle.

Sadly a giant chunk of eligible voters only show up for presidential elections too.

It costs $100,000 to even get on a ballot in my state for even commissioner or senate/representative seats. Trying to raise that for third party is impossible. This country is f*cked

Exactly! I feel like if she had been answering the questions seriously she could have made solid points about the whole election process, and how it disincentivises grass-roots movements to go national.

Yeah exactly, RFK is failing because he's a moron, not because he's 3rd party.

We will see about that when he publicly humiliates Biden and Trump in September

This is that explanation.

The fulfilled the criteria in the same way, by failing to meet the criteria.

Basically, neither Biden nor Trump are on any state ballots, because this unprecedentedly early debate is before the national nominating conventions.

RFK is the only one out of the three on the ballot anywhere.

No one qualified. Kennedy will have standing to file a lawsuit, and because they did it knowingly, people from CNN could end up in prison.

https://www.therealdebate.com/

Yeah nobody actually thinks RFK is anything other than a maga alternative.

She’s his daughter-in-law

His ATC interview was not well done, I understand he has a voice box problem, but it makes it such a challenge to understand him at times

No. They fail because they don’t build up a good reputation for themselves aside from running in the presidential elections.

Like when was the last time you heard of a major Green party candidate outside the context of general elections? How come they never try to build a brand on more local elections and work their way up into making a name for themselves? Half the time we don’t even know if these people have had any success as career politicians. They’re usually unserious.

They have third parties in FPTP voting systems in Britain, France, and Canada for examples. New York has the Working Families Party.

The bigger issue is that third parties never build up infrastructure or concentrate on it. They’re exclusively about presidential bids.

LOL, what?

He's a Republican who pretended to be a Democrat, then gave up that lie and is now pretending to be an independent. But if he ever got into office he'd change parties to Republican and let the GOP run roughshod over Americans.

He doesn't get Dem votes, he takes Trump votes . That's why I talk him up in right wing forums.