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Voted Libertarian, because Democrats will win in California by a landslide. If we want to build a chance for a party other than Dems and Reps to be a competitor down the road it seems the libertarian party may have the best chance. This could take 20 years for them to get to 30% vote, but its been Dems and Rep for my lifetime. Dominant 2 party revenue machine needs some competition.
I support the diversification of US political parties but fuck libertarianism just as much as the current corporate duopoly, what a dumb fucking ideology lol.
I have questions about the need for a vibrant third party in our current system. In a parliamentary system where a coalition would need to be formed in order to represent the popular vote threshold, I see the point and need for a vibrant makeup of political parties. However in our current system, a strong third party would mean that the eventual winner would represent an even smaller percentage of voters than the current “one or the other” system. I’m far from thinking the current system is perfect, but I’m have reservations that a third party would be some great salve, particularly a libertarian party bc their beliefs can never work in actual practice bc it’s the political equivalent of taking one semester of college, not hacking it, then pretending you left on your own bc street smarts are more important than book smarts
In canada we have 4 Major parties(NDP - far left, Liberal - Left, BLOC - Quebec shit idk, Conservative - Right), 1 minor party with representation (Green - Environmental focused left) and some independents all elected into parliament (note: Maxime Bernier tried to start a far right wing party this last election and got completely embarrassed, winning 0 seats). This kinda works because the country as a whole is very left leaning, and the popular right wing views are moderate compared to the US. So there is very little "my team" attitude when it comes to politics, votes land where ever the pendulum is currently swinging, or whoever makes a quality and substantive campaign, rarely do people fall into the cult of personality trap here, which is just cultural differences between Canada and the US (im always blown away at the celeb worship that casually goes on when I visit the states).
We also have 300+ seats that all influence policy so people are driven sometimes to vote for a candidate that is outside their normal party but will best represent their community. It is not perfect but it works fairly well, and keeps that militant political allegiance out of the picture. But it also only works due to the parliamentary system''s processes. The way the US system works I feel a third party would just be lobbied by the Dems or Reps to align with them, defeating the whole purpose of getting a third party involved. As an outsider looking at the US system it seems too corrupted and bastardized from its original intent that without major reform, the removal of the electoral college, and a roll back on all the fuckery gerrymandering and voter surpression that has gone on forever. The US feels stuck in a two party, my team vs your team, toxic political environment. Trump did so much damage to this that it will take a long time to right the ship. Idk why im writing all this and now that im done it prob adds nothing, Im just procrastinating studying calculus
Trump also contributed to killing my journalism career with his war on journalists (even in canada it fucked everything up), so fuck that joke of a human. Vote that fucker out.