Cornel West is heading to Detroit to prop up the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike. West, who’s running as a third-party presidential candidate, told The Hill exclusively on Wednesday that he intend…
I just don’t see that happening without a move away from fptp systems, whether RCV, STAR, or some other system. And even in Maine where RCV is used there’s still a seemingly disproportionate lack of third party candidates, so it doesn’t feel like they’re doing the work to build a bench of viable candidates at the local and state level.
Can you show one example of this over the last century?
the Socialist Party of America is basically the only party that’s done anything of this sort at the federal level and they got nuked by a combo of being anti-war in 1917 and losing a lot of their big tent to CPUSA after 1919. you can probably point to the Nonpartisan League in ND and Farmer-Labor in MN as state-level examples, but past that it’s pretty sparse. not really a lot of groundswell for CPUSA, and historically the other significant “third party” bids have just been Dixiecrats getting mad at the Democratic Party before returning (or becoming Republicans).
Looking at the long term, 3rd parties will help bring in new sets of people that are not the status quo.
Local and state level grassroots movements is the overall goal.
I just don’t see that happening without a move away from fptp systems, whether RCV, STAR, or some other system. And even in Maine where RCV is used there’s still a seemingly disproportionate lack of third party candidates, so it doesn’t feel like they’re doing the work to build a bench of viable candidates at the local and state level.
Can you show one example of this over the last century?
the Socialist Party of America is basically the only party that’s done anything of this sort at the federal level and they got nuked by a combo of being anti-war in 1917 and losing a lot of their big tent to CPUSA after 1919. you can probably point to the Nonpartisan League in ND and Farmer-Labor in MN as state-level examples, but past that it’s pretty sparse. not really a lot of groundswell for CPUSA, and historically the other significant “third party” bids have just been Dixiecrats getting mad at the Democratic Party before returning (or becoming Republicans).
These are good goals, and i like what dr. West is promoting.
But if he draws votes away from Biden, do you think any of West’s proposals will have a chance under a Trump administration?