I agree that the idea of a two-party oligopoly is mostly to blame. They’ll inevitably gravitate to straddle the median on every question, which leaves most voters without any representation on most issues no matter which party they’d vote for.

There is a weird and unstable situtation in the UK right now, which is going to end with one of the three parties vanishing. Right now, the vanishing party could be Labor or the Tories; I am pretty sure the LibDems are on the rise.

I very much doubt that anyone is vanishing any time soon. There has been no real erosion of either party base. A serious play to the left by either Labour (no chance) or the Lib Dems (never their base, even though they hand-waved during the general election) could possible cause a split down the centre which would concentrate the left’s vote, but it’s unlikely to happen. The Tories certainly can’t go anywhere on policy but they’re the only sane party on the right so their base is shored up; Cameron has stopped people from jumping due to leadership failures. There’s a possibility both Labour and the Lib Dems implode at some point in Scotland, but it’s not imminent.

– Chris

Kos is assuming that a third party could not in short order become the second party. I think both parties are that deeply screwed that a sane centrist third party could quickly become a dominant force and kill/marginalize one of the other two parties.

I don’t think this is an accurate characterisation. Kos simply picked his “third party” as “the good Democrats” rather than a nonexistent third party. In the UK and the US almost any time a new political party has obtained dominance it has done so by devouring an existing party from within. It maybe isn’t the cleanest way of doing it, but it is historically the only practical way.

– Chris

No, all that is needed is proportional representation. Without it, third parties are hopeless: the best you can do is to take over or displace one of the major parties. (There is a weird and unstable situtation in the UK right now, which is going to end with one of the three parties vanishing. Right now, the vanishing party could be Labor or the Tories; I am pretty sure the LibDems are on the rise.)

When the current Constitutional crisis is over — meaning when Democrats control Congress and have repealed the fascism enabling laws — start lobbying your state legislature to abolish districts, and switch to some form of proportional representation for Congressional seats.

As for third parties — yes we need them. But supporting one *now* is incompetent idealism. We have what’s called a “first past the post” system, and under such a system, you *always* end up with a two-party system: it’s impossible to maintain a three-party or more balance (except for regional parties). This has been studied for decades.

If you want to have viable national third parties, forget actually organizing third parties.
Instead, campaign for some form of *proportional representation* with *multi-member districts*, rather than single-member districts. The idea is that if NY has 40 members of Congress, and 1/4 of the voters vote for each of four parties, then 1/4 of the seats (10) go to each party. It has the added advantage of eliminating gerrymandering completely.

For the Presidency or other single-member districts, campaign for *approval voting* (I’ll let you look it up).

These are the systems which allow third parties to be viable and long-lasting.

And frankly, Democrats, with their interest in “fairness”, are way more likely to actually pass proportional representation or approval voting than Republicans are.

So if you want to have effective third parties, vote Democratic. That’s what I concluded.

Kos is asking Libertarians to accept the lesser evil.

I don’t believe there are very many people who would value financial liberty above civil liberty on an absolute scale. It’s a pity that this isn’t presented in such simple terms more often.

– Chris

Anyway, Kos openly admits to his support of those less than virtuous parts of the Democratic Party until such point as they have a majority with which to exert some leverage. I would hardly depict him as turning a blind eye towards them, insofar as he co-wrote a book which explicitly advocates bouncing them out of the party as soon as their services are no longer required to deliver said majority. And everyone knows Dailykos is only partisan until the results are announced anyway: I rather expect an editorial tearing Sherrod Brown’s heart out for his torture vote the second after Ohio is called.

– Chris