This Huffington Post article by Carl Nettleton suggests that the two major parties might break up in the near future.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
This Huffington Post article by Carl Nettleton suggests that the two major parties might break up in the near future.
The analysis in the article was overly simplistic. There are some people who are voting for Trump or Hillary not because they support what that candidate espouses but because they so dislike the other candidate. With multiple viable parties many more voters would no longer feel constrained by the “wasted” vote dilemma. Therefore, assuming the Libertarians and the Greens would remain at 9% and 2% respectively seems unrealistic. Also, why wouldn’t there be a melding of the Sanders supporters and the Greens on the left?
This is a fascinating subject Richard as I think the Republican Party will disintegrate shortly after the election if they lose. The Repubs have lost their financial base. The Democrats nave beaten the Repubs soundly in the money race in 2008 and 2012. And this year the drubbing is brutal. The last FEC report I saw had the Democrats up on the Repubs by a staggering 225%. It all adds up to one thing Wall Street and Madison Avenue have given the Republicans the heave-ho.
The Democrat Situation may need a little while for the situation to fester before it is sorted out. Specifically what will have to happen is for President Clinton to commit this country to war. She clearly has shown us she possesses those proclivities when she was Secretary of State. And when she does look out. The American People are in no mood war after what has transpired in the Middle East over the last 15 years. How quickly and to what extent an Antiwar Movement develops will determine what fate meets the Democrats.
Regarding Bernie Sanders Nettleton is all wet. The support for Sanders is a mile wide and an inch deep. The only reason he received 13 Million Votes in the Primary was because the Apparatchiks in the Democrat Party gave the lumpens permission to stray off the plantation. The Apparatchiks did that because they had a pledge with his life from Sanders that he would whistle his crew back home when the time comes. Sanders is not a Socialist although he allows people and some in the media to call him that. Sanders has a very bad record on war and Imperialism so he will have little credibility in the streets if a genuine Antiwar Movement errupts. In this respect respect Sanders is more like Hubert Humphrey than Gene McCarthy.
Things aren’t looking very good for the larger Third Parties. The Polling numbers of both the Libertarians and the Greens are fading like a tan. I expect the Libertarians to pull in 4% or 5 Million Votes. The Greens will chock up another train wreck. Anywhere from 600,000 Votes to 1.2 million votes with the smart money on the bottom end of that range. I don’t exactly how many pot initiatives are on the ballot this year but if a bunch go through the Greens will lose a sizable part of their base. It’s hard enough getting the Stoners to the polls as it is, win a few initiatives and they will never remember to vote.
Where the surprises could come is in the Socialist Parties. They are tiny and their numbers are microscopic but there is numerous polling data out that shows young people don’t view Socialism with the stigma that afflicted their parents. It would be interesting to see if any of the Socialist Parties can pull down 100,000 votes. I think there are 5 Socialist Parties that have qualified in various states.
Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)
Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
Workers World Party (WWP)
Socialist Equality Party (SEP)
Alternatively, some of the Utah electors vote for Pence for VP, keeping the VP election out of the Senate.
Or there are enough Republican electors who vote for other presidential candidates such that McMullin does not finish third.
Or what if it is discovered that California has no statutes regarding the election of presidential electors?
The Republican party would only split if Trump either wins the election or he and his supporters stick around for a few years after the election to fight for control of the Republican party. If that happens, the Republicans will lose the mid-term election big. When early polls show they are way behind in the early 2020 Presidential polls, they will realize that the Republican brand has become toxic beyond repair. Then it splits 4 ways.
The social conservatives will end up in the Constitution party.
The libertarian-ish Republicans and fiscal conservatives will go to the Libertarian party.
The deficit spending, pro-war neocons will need a new home.
The anti-immigrant, trade protectionist Trump supporters will retain control of the Republican party.
The Democratic party would only split after the Republican party and would break like this:
The Liberals (supports civil liberties and social safety nets, skeptical of war and cautious of government attempts at social engineering because of a fear of a police state) would join the Green party.
The more traditional union Democrats (anti-immigrant, trade protectionists) would join the new Republican party.
The newer union Democrats, like SEIU (supports open immigration), would follow the Progressives.
The Progressives (supports social safety nets, willing to use big government to sacrifice individual liberty in pursuit of equality) would retain control of the Democratic party and would likely be infiltrated by/absorb many socialists.
Under that scenario, the Democratic and Republican parties would still be the largest parties, but would be considerably worse than they are now, having lost all moderating influence.
It seems to be that a Trump victory would fracture both major parties. He’s already fractured the Republicans by winning the nomination. The Democrats will be badly fractured trying to come to terms with how or why they lost an election that seemed so winnable to them.
Bob M. typed: “Things aren’t looking very good for the larger Third Parties.” Do not agree at all. I am only going to speak to the Libertarians. By most objective standards things are looking very good for them. Numbers are up on such stats as voter registration numbers (with little to no effort by the party), membership, donations, media appearances, newspaper endorsements, endorsements by individuals, groups and other political parties, sitting politicians crossing the isle and joining the party, PAC money and poll numbers. To that last one, even if your prediction that the Libertarian Presidential ticket support fades and they only get four percent nationwide on election day, that is still almost four times their previous best showing. I do not see that things are not looking good at present.
Bob, if Jill Stein ended up getting only 600,000 votes, I think an investigation into election fraud would be needed at that point. She’s got over 600,000 Facebook Likes alone, and in the 2012 election she ended up receiving over double the number of votes as compared to her FB likes. And there’s the fact that Trump and Clinton are simply not well liked, and that Jill Stein is still polling 4-5% in some big states like CA and NY. Throw in the fact that she has the most ballot access of any Green Party Presidential candidate (even more than Nader), and I suspect the lower end of her vote total will end up being 2%, with 3-4% being more likely, and 5% not out of the question, but not as likely.
The Libertarians are likely to get somewhere between 5-7%. Have you not seen some of the numbers Johnson is pulling in the Southwest and a few other states? Consistent double digits? He might even win New Mexico if he plays his cards right, as he’s polled in the mid 20’s twice there.
I’m believing there will be some major party changes during the next four years regardless of who wins. Along the lines of what Jim says. Extra bonus guess–Donald or Hillary will face impeachment charges as soon as the returns are announced.
[Democratic] Communist Party vs. [Republican] Fascist Party ??? Duh.
See Spain 1936 — Civil WAR in 1936-1939 — weapons testing ground for WW II.
ALL the FATAL defects in the late DARK AGE ROTTED 1787 U.S.A. Constitution with its many EVIL compromises are being exposed every day.
i.e. going back and back to the DARK AGE or even the STONE AGE of force.
—
Political SCIENCE has advanced since 1787 — quite like many other sciences — chemistry, physics, etc.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Dream on folks. As much as we might hope for it to happen, we are nowhere near a situation where a fracture of today’s GOP would occur like what happened in 1854. The HuffPoo article is non-sensical – no party with more than 28% of House members and 5 parties with 9% or more in 2018? Give me a break.
An economic collapse would split the party’s maybe .George Noory For President 2020.That would be cool a talk show host running for president.
Demo Rep ” [Democratic] Communist Party” Seen the list of High Finance Banking that Clinton is talking to ? Clinton even admits to them she holds two positions, one public and one private. The emails are emerging daily.
The Democrat Party is as close to a Capitalist Party as one can get.
The Communist party backs and supports Democrats .Read their publications .Travis Morales of the Revolutionary Communist party is a real Communist . Revolutionary Communist party is a Maoist party that supports armed rebellion.I enjoy reading there paper though.
To Eric L. and Joshua H. Here is my response that can be applied to both the Greens and the Libertarians. I refer you to the article that was posted here a week ago about the study done at Fairleigh Dickinson University. The one that featured a 4 Way Race poll of voters. The 3rd Party Candidates were listed without party affiliation. When Johnson and Stein were replaced Hedges and Moorehead the numbers were little changed. What this showed is that people are in large party voting for 3rd out of a sense of Antipathy for the Dominant Parties. They were not actually voting FOR the 3rd Parties. The Libertarians genuinely have 3 to 4 Percent genuine support. Stein and the Greens have nothing. The 3 percent figure reported in the polls for the Greens could could easily vanish if the Democrats go into attack mode. For that matter if a very nasty fight breaks out between the Democrats and the Republicans the excitement generated by such a spectacle could easily siphon off the 3rd Party Vote as people choose-up sides. The Libertarians have a bona-fide base of 3 to 4 percent, the Greens have nothing measurable. http://ballot-access.org/2016/10/10/four-way-presidential-poll-released-monday-october-10/
To Eric L. There is an outright civil war going right now in the Republican Party. This should make for easy pickins for the Libertarians. As I see it they should be able to land at least 10% of the vote. Did you see the piece published here a couple of days ago about the Poll done in Utah ? It showed that Evan McMullin, the CIA Agent running as an independent, was out polling the Libertarian 22% to 14%. The fact that he is able to amass that number without any Party Support shows the break-out potential that exists.
Yes the Libertarians will nail down 4 percent of the vote in 3 weeks. And it will be their highest vote total ever. No doubt it will keep them around for 4 more years. But the Libertarians are living on borrowed time. If they don’t make the most of every opportunity they risk marginalizing themselves to the point where a No-name Candidate like McMullin can beat them. http://ballot-access.org/2016/10/10/four-way-presidential-poll-released-monday-october-10/
Both Democratic and Republican Parties are capitalist parties . In most counties you have more than two , so the Libertarian Party if successful I can see becoming more of a mainstream capitalist party . Individuals like Evan McMullin represent the wing of the Republican Party that is anti-Trump and would like to take back the party . If they win then they will continue as Republicans if the Trumpites win then they will split and form another party. But the Trumpites if they find themselves out ,they could form another party as well. When capitalism is in crisis splits among capitalists develop and that could very well result in more political parties.
Andy probably would agree the Democratic and Republican party’s was involved in bloody foreign policy since the 60s in Central America and Africa.Also Bolivia to when Che was killed in 67 by the Cia.Some say the Bolivia Communist party was giving out information that lead to Che death .I want to see a less aggressive bloody foreign policy based on peace and prosperity like The honorable Ron Paul.
Read the central American facts book by Tom berry and Deb pruesch.written back in the 1980s.well written .
Joshua H. The Green Party is its own worst enemy. It’s talks about Inclusiveness but choose to make stands on issue of Identity Politics that divide people. Case in point In 1996 Ralph Nader ran with Green Party Support in the only three states that had ballot status at the time Alaska, Hawaii and California. Before the campaign got under way when asked about the issue of “Gay Rights” Nader replied This campaign is going to be about attacking corporate power, I’m not going to get into ‘Gonad Politics’ “. This set off all sorts of Gay Rights Groups and a couple of prominent Democrats. Including State Assembly Woman Carol Migdon. As it turned out Migdon would show patterns of unstable behavior and when she was involved in a car crash on Interstate 80 it was revealed that she had psychological problems and was under a consider regimen drugs to straighten her head out. Anyway in 2000 The Greens demanded as a precondition for their ballot line that Nader Campaign on gay rights which he did. Similarly the Greens also demanded that Nader Campaign on a Green Party Platform Plank calling for the Legalization of Industrial Hemp. Nader campaigned pretty late in the cycle and a week or two after that he gave orders to his staffers to drop The Green Party paraphernalia at his Super Rallies and replace it with his own pastel Red, White and Blue trimmings. That was the end of Nader’s involvement with the Greens. In 2004 Nader gave the Greens the option of endorsing him and placing him on the Green Party Ballot Line.But the Greens had other ideas. They decided to run the Carpet Bagging Dope David Cobb. When the vote totals came in Nader received 460,000 votes almost 4 times the 120,000 votes Cobb received. But that margin doesn’t tell the whole story. Nader’s campaign came under numerous viscous legal attacks in order to drain its coffers. The Greens didn’t have to deal with such matters. After receiving 2.88 Million Votes in 2000 the 120,000 votes they received in 2004 ranks as an unmitigated train wreck. The only thing that mattered to Cobb was how fast he could get into Ohio to prove the Green Party’s loyalty to the Party of the Jackass. What the Greens should have done is run the engineers of that mess Medea Benjamin and Lynn Serpe along with Cobb and Pat LaMarche out of the Party on a rail. The Greens then floundered about for the next 8 Years with their best showing in 2012 of 470,000. They didn’t even break half a million votes. Now if you want a sense of perspective. Nader got on the ballot in 33 states in 1996 and garnered 685,000 votes. AND HE DID IT RUNNING A GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN. NADER’S CAMPAIGN DIDN’T SPEND 5000 BUCKS THAT YEAR. THE GREENS HAVEN’T MATCHED THAT VOTE TOTAL IN 3, COUNT’EM 3 ATTEMPTS !
You say that Stein is on the Ballot in 44 States that tops Nader’s Total in 2000. Well Nader was on the Ballot in 45 States in 2008 when he received 740,000 Votes. Stein raised 2.7 million dollars a substantial part of which went in to the petitioning campaign to get her ballot status. Popular support has little to do with it. The 8 additional States Stein is on the ballot this year are all rural, all conservative, are not enamored with her style of politics and probably will not see her campaign in those states. Now they are supposed to provide a ground swell of new votes ?
Now getting to this year’s campaign. Right after the end of the Nominating Conventions Stein starts off her campaign by sending out a couple of tweets pandering to the Anti Vaxxer Crowd. Kooks and Crackpots her we come. Then Stein goes into a shameless spate of of begging and pleading and groveling for Bernie Sanders to take her place on the ticket. Never mind that Bernie Sanders has never had any interest in the Greens and clearly stated at the outset of this charade that he was supporting what ever bum the Democrats put up. I couldn’t think of a better way for Stein and the Greens to tell the public they are unworthy of their votes. Did they actually think this stuff through ? I ask that question rhetorically because I know the answer from first hand experience.
Finally you talk about FB likes. FB likes ? please PLEASE ! Let’s get something straight in 2000 Nader held over a half dozen Super Rallys where he put well over 10,000 people in Major Arenas in each. From what I have seen Stein hasn’t held an event in any venue that holds more than 500 people. The most she has spoken to is 400 and the attendance at some is outright dreadful. I’m think of the event at Penn State where the lecture hall that held 384. The press reported the attendance of around 100. The more I see the more I get the impression Stein’s vote count on November 9 will be 600,000 plus or minus 100,000.
Andy Gonzalez – Both the Democratic and Republican Parties are corporatist parties. They both support socialized losses, privatized profits, subsidies of one sort or another, and protectionist regulations. The difference between them is only which corporations get preferential treatment.
With exceptions for individual members, they are not capitalist parties.
To straighten out Jim’s misinformation first some definitions.
Capitalism is the Private Ownership of the means of production with the goal to maximize profit
Socialism is the Social Ownership of the means of production with whatever goals the employees or state set.
Corporation is a legal construct. It is a supposed legally binding document granted by a state or municipality setting out goals for a business. Unfortunately in the environment where contempt for government is championed Corporate Charters are not worth the paper they are written on.
Socializing business losses is not Socialism. The power to make decisions of the business still rest in the hands of the Share Holders, Owners and Operating Office. The employees and public receive nothing in the way of power. What “Socializing Losses” is is a means to rip off the public’s tax dollars. IT IS STATE SUBSIDIZED CAPITALISM !
Both the Democrats and Republicans do everything in their power to maintain the current economic order to maintain the means of production in Private Hands. THAT MAKES THEM CAPITALIST.
Obama’s Bank bail out is the prime example of this. The US Public did not receive one share of common stock or one Put for the 350 Billion Dollars of TARP Money spent. It was a pure rip-off and the banks remained in private hands.
Again STATE SUBSIDIZED CAPITALISM
Jim and Bob – while Jim is somewhat correct in his description of socialized losses and privatized profits, you both mislabel our economic system. The correct phrase is economic fascism which is the system whereby the government allows private ownership of the means of production, but maintains absolute control over all economic activities, including deployment of capital and the actions of corporations, while prohibiting a real free market. What we have today is far more destructive of economic freedom than just basic regulation. Market sectors that the government controls include the entire green energy market, the entire banking sector, a significant portion of the farming sector, aerospace, medicine, mining, utilities and education. A few smaller industries and corporations have avoided being taken over, but those outliers will be mostly gone in a few years.
Don Willis
Don Willis You are wrong…from Oxfords
Fascism 1.1(in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practices.
‘this is yet another example of health fascism in action’
Fascism has nothing to do with economics its about state authoritarianism. Fascism can possess trappings of State Production as in Hitler’s Third Reich. But if you look through history carefully you will notice that Hitler never messed with the economic order of things in Germany. The Capitalist Sector was free to go about it’s business
That’s according
BTW The State Production Arm set up by the Third Reich did not last for very long.
Wasn’t Ron Daniels who ran in 92 backed and supported by the Green party.Any one voted for Ron Daniels for president in 92 answer that .
American on the right and left should be focusing on destroying American foreign policy .
There was a contingent within the Greens that wanted to run Daniels but the Feminists within the Greens nixxed the idea so Stroking Eddie Hillary Clinton’s Husband could get elected.
In California Daniels ran on the Peace & Freedom Party Ticket with Asiba Tupahache in 92
Bob M – It’s Wills not Willis. And it’s “economic fascism”, not the all-encompassing noun fascism. Mussolini invented it, Hitler perfected it. “Schindler’s List” is an example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
Bob M – From 2009 to 2014, as a result of the TARP bailouts, GM and GMAC operated as a subsidiary of the US Treasury Department. The government did take shares in GM, supposedly on behalf of the public. The government has also had partial direct operating control in other so-called private businesses. For example, the FCC had control over AT&T’s pricing and policies for decades in exchange for granting it monopoly status. Health insurers and utilities typically have to get approval from the government to set prices and the government regulates what they are required to offer. In my state, there are 358 liquor stores operated directly by the state. In other states I’ve seen liquor stores owned by towns.
But you read more into what I wrote than is actually there, when I mentioned “socialized losses.” I did not claim it was socialism, the political system. “Social” has more meanings than political socialism. It could mean “to place under government or group ownership,” or “to associate with others.” Placing losses under government ownership fits with what I said, as does associating losses with others. All I meant was, as you said, society is forced to pay the losses. That is a subsidy. That is not capitalism. There is no such thing as “state subsidized capitalism” because the state has nothing that it does first take from someone else. A subsidy is a redistribution of wealth. One benefits, the other loses. The loser is the capitalist.
You also have it backwards that corporations have contempt for government. They, in fact, champion government. Because it is government that gives them the subsidies and passes protectionist laws, such as protecting taxis from Uber in various cities, or GM from Tesla in Michigan.
“Bob, if Jill Stein ended up getting only 600,000 votes, I think an investigation into election fraud would be needed at that point. She’s got over 600,000 Facebook Likes alone, and in the 2012 election she ended up receiving over double the number of votes as compared to her FB likes.”
There are people out there that consider this a real metric?