am not an expert on US politics, so no doubt someone out there will put me right, but talking of the 'right' and 'centre' politically i can see that both are represented in the republican and democratic parties, but where is the 'left' represented? in britain the labour party, though more toward 'centre' now than 'left, historically represents the working classes of britain, with support from the unions, this means that social changes in favour of the ordinary working man and those underprivileged in society are more likely to take place under a labour government than under the 'conservatives' who represent the 'right', or the liberal democrats who represent the 'centre'. my question is that if america does not have a party representing the 'left', or recognised unions, how can it strictly speaking call itself a democracy? for surely in a true democracy all sections of society are represented by a political party. who stands up for the rights of the underprivileged and working classes in america - and by 'working classes' i mean specifically those on the lower rungs of the payscale. do they have representation?
The Third option is threatened by the first two options. No more third option. Plus Options one and two pay for all the TV stuff...there is the rub.
Traditionally, Democrats represent working classes and minorities, while Republicans represent upper class interests. This is seen by the fact that something like 85% of blacks vote Democrat. Also, in past years the Christian/religious vote usually was split fairly evenly in favor of Republicans, but the Bush administration in 2000 and 2004 was able to capture a HUGE portion of the evangelical Christian vote, which probably swayed the election in his favor. It used to be that Democrats supported social programs and increased spending, basically representing "liberal" values, that the government needed to support society and change it for the better through legislation. Republicans valued conservatism, lowered spending, and letting society fix its social ills on its own. In recent years however, both sides have adopted values similar to one another, and spending has grown astronomically as a result of both parties' actions. Third parties, in this current state of government, have no chance of gaining ground in the USA. There are a number of factors contributing to this, and whole books have been written on the topic. For one, government funds to help finance political parties can only be received if said party receives a certain amount of the popular vote in the previous election (5%?). Also, the way in which both major parties polarize themselves from one another means that any third party candidate will fall in line with one major candidate over another, and will typically split the votes between said candidate, letting the other major candidate win. There is also this defeatist attitude that "it's a wasted vote to vote for an independent", meaning that no one considers voting independent even if they like that candidate better, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The closest we came to having a third party candidate as President in recent years was in 1992 when Ross Perot ran. He was gaining a lot of ground, I think his polling numbers were into the 25-35% range, but he dropped out of the race for a number of months, and when he re-entered, his momentum was lost.
We've had third options. They are just not appealing to the masses. There are many Americans who are not into politics. They don't care about republican/democrat, liberal/conservative. They may watch debates, they may hear what others say and they vote based upon who they think represents their ideas best. I used to be this way. Until six months after 9/11, I had only heard the terms republican, democrat, liberal, conservative. I had no idea how offensive liberals could be in their views of America. I simply voted who I thought would do best. Today, that is a different story. I believe a lot of Americans are stepping up and learning, getting involved, but I still believe many simply are not bothered. I have a number of friends who don't know the difference between parties and don't care. They run their businesses, take care of their families and have no interest in politics.
Yeah, a good start would be getting a viable second party. Every so often you have a Ron Paul or Ross Perto to stir things up, but these people are marginalized and the establishment has all kinds of tricks to control the ballot and the media attention.
Honestly, I think the biggest chance for the rise of 3rd parties is the failure of the main two parties to address the needs of the people. I foresee as time goes on and America gets screwed over by both parties seeking their own interests, we will see more Ron Pauls, Ross Perots, and William Jennings Bryans.
they marginalize themselves. look at perot's reform party. the best thing that could possibly happen in american politics would be to remove the R / D / I (and the incumbent tag) from the ballots. This would force people to think about their choices instead of robotically punching the letter of their prefered party or selecting the incumbent. second best thing would be to impose term limits on everything in government. the junior senator from massachusetts shouldn't have 20 years under his belt. 2-3 terms at most for each branch, including supreme court.