Two-party dogma serves itself, fails America

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If Joe Biden and Donald Trump were commercial products, their unfavorable scores would have them looking up at the likes of Bud Light, MyPillow and X. As it is, voters are appalled and disgusted that in a nation of 350 million people, the two major political parties are giving America two deeply flawed and unpopular candidates for the world’s most important office.

It’s no wonder that support for third-party alternatives is generating significant interest and action. No Labels, among other organizations, is actively seeking access to ballots around the country while it recruits a credible candidate.

It’s also no wonder that Democrats and Republicans are doing what they typically do when their duopoly control of the political process is threatened. They circle the wagons. Democratic political activist William Cory Labovitch is among the latest to sound the pseudo alarm bells about the damage a third-party candidacy can do to the electoral system (“Phillips should know harm third-party politics can do,” Opinion Exchange, Jan. 25). In his article, Labovitch not only claims Minnesota third-party candidates “tilted elections to Republican candidates” but drove the GOP into the arms of extremists. The flawed argument is that Republican activists nominated more extreme conservative candidates in response to the challenge of third parties.

Nonsense. The divisive far right has been gaining control of the GOP for decades, at least since Pat Buchanan put race at the center of Richard Nixon’s southern strategy in the 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns. In Minnesota, long before Jesse Ventura and his reform movement, Minnesota Republicans had allowed their endorsement process to be hijacked by conservative activists with dismal results. A Republican state convention hasn’t endorsed a winning candidate for governor in more than half a century. Republicans have been successful only twice in the last three-plus decades in electing a candidate to the U.S. Senate, and neither was able to win a second term.

To be sure, the Democratic Party is not as dysfunctional as the GOP. But Democrats are complicit in protecting a political system that is broken, one that promotes the spoils of victory over good governance. They and their Republican counterparts are oblivious to voters’ anger over the prospect of a second Biden-Trump contest. The arrogance of the two major parties leads them to believe that all votes and voters are the property of Democrats and Republicans. Threaten the two-party turf and Democrats and Republicans join in attacking the very idea that their exclusive club should be breached by an interloper and the attacks begin — increasingly, even before a candidacy is announced.

Here’s a message for Democrats and Republicans: Members of the Independence Party, No Labels, Andrew Yang’s Forward Party or any other political party don’t need permission from the duopoly to run. If a Republican or Democrat falls short in a race that includes a third-party candidate, it doesn’t mean that third-party candidate “stole” the votes from one of the major party candidates. It just means that the Democrat or Republican wasn’t effective in making a compelling case to enough voters. That’s how competitive democracy works, a message that is lost on many apologists for the two major parties.

None of this is to argue that 2024 is the year for a third-party presidential campaign. Those most often mentioned as potential candidates have almost no hope of even gaining a hearing for their issues, much less winning the race. A presidential campaign is an almost insurmountable task for a minor-party candidate. Just getting the candidate’s name on the ballot in enough states to have at least a mathematical chance of winning the Electoral College is a barrier. Minnesota, for example, has one of the lowest thresholds and latest dates for a presidential candidate outside a major party to qualify for the general election ballot. A candidate needs to gather 2,000 qualified signatures by August. Doable? Sure. Now try to replicate that task up to 50 times over in states with much greater barriers and the mountain grows higher.

The barriers to a third-party candidate don’t exist to energize democracy, but to protect the exclusive domain of Democrats and Republicans. Sometimes the balance in this duopoly shifts to red or blue depending on which party is in power, but it never goes beyond those colors. After all, the vast majority of incumbents are Democrats or Republicans and they won their offices under the current rules. Why change? What incentive do current policymakers have to give citizens the authority to draw legislative districts? Why invest in more public funding for candidates when those in office already have their money sources? Ranked-choice voting, open primaries or other changes to make elections more competitive? Forget it.

The Democratic and Republican parties will keep third parties at bay for another cycle and probably longer. But they do so at the expense of democracy and an engaged — now, increasingly enraged — electorate. Voters are telling the political parties that there will come a time, sooner rather than later, when voters’ disgust will result in one of two terrible outcomes. Either more and more Americans will check out of politics, giving more space and control to extremists on the left and right, or voters will revolt. They will demand candidates for whom there is true enthusiasm, and if they aren’t coming from the two major parties, eventually voters will turn to alternatives.

Instead of attacking third parties and claiming ownership of votes and voters, the two major parties and their leaders should be promoting reforms to energize democracy, to make voters feel positive about their choices, to create a political system that produces what elections should produce — not just winners, but the foundation for good governance. Voters are telling the two major parties to do better, not just with their candidates, but with the entire political system.

Tragically for the country and for democracy, Democratic and Republican leaders are deaf to voters’ discontent. The voters’ voices are being drowned by the cacophony of Democratic and Republican demands for loyalty to a system and to parties that no longer deserve it.

Tom Horner is a public relations consultant and was the Independence Party of Minnesota’s 2010 candidate for governor (tomhorner.substack.com).