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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 23-Dec-2023 03:12:55 JST Paul Cantrell

   in reply to

   • Chris Petrilli
   • kaoudis

   @petrillic @kaoudis This is only half true.

   A third party candidate did win the presidency once! It can work! The year was 1860, the candidate was Abraham Lincoln, and the party was the Republicans. Yup, the GOP is what a successful third party movement looks like! Yay?

   (Note that post-Lincoln the Whigs disintegrated and the system rapidly collapsed back to two parties, because Plurality Voting is a booby trap that •always• leads back to 2 parties. True then. True now.)

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Petrilli (petrillic@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 23-Dec-2023 03:12:56 JST Chris Petrilli

     Everytime someone says "I voted 3rd party" at the national level in the US, I know they're delusional and either completely ignorant of how the system is structured, or malicious in a way that's really only possible with enormous privilege.

     No third-party candidate will ever win at the national level. Ever. Yes, the system sucks, so work on fixing the system, and practice harm minimization until then.