Politics, Society

Majority of Americans Still Want Third Major Party

A Gallop poll shows that fifty-two percent of Americans want a third party — a continuing majority from earlier polls showing as much as 58% who oppose the monopoly of power by the two leading parties. The question is how we can call ourselves a democracy when the two parties are able, through ballot barriers and other means, to prevent a major third party from emerging in the United States. I previously wrote about these barriers and the need for a third party.

For civil libertarians and others, this coming election is a painful example of the crushing monopoly exercised by the Democrats and Republicans. It is impossible for many civil libertarians to vote for Obama given his horrendous record in blocking the torture investigations, continuing military tribunals, re-asserting the right to assassinate American citizens and other policies. The White House, however, is continuing the same cynical calculus used previously by Democratic candidates that civil libertarians and liberals have no where to go. Currently the leading voice against torture, foreign wars and secret prisons is Ron Paul on the Republican side, not Barack Obama.

This poll is an embarrassment in showing that, despite widespread and long-standing unhappiness with both parties, citizens will again be forced to chose between what they view as the lesser of two evils.

Even in the Democratic primary, voters will have no choice as engineered by the Democratic National Committee under the control of the White House. The result is no choice for many voters. We are living through a political crisis in this country and we need fundamental political reform. We have become a nation of lemmings who continue to follow the formula blue state/red state politics imposed by two controlling party machines. Worse yet, we have become a nation of chumps who insist on dozens of different types of bleach to chose from (despite the fact that bleach is chemically identical) but accept that their government will only practically be chosen from one of two parties.

Jonathan Turley

124 thoughts on “Majority of Americans Still Want Third Major Party”

  1. OS,

    This is for you…not bad for a group that used to be known as the Kingsman…until Louie….they closely associated the style with the Blackwood Brothers…but only 2 are brothers…

  2. I love the way Matt Taibbi skewers politicians!

    *****

    Newt Gingrich Running For President: Welcome to the Freak Show!
    by Matt Taibbi
    May 10, 2011
    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/newt-gingrich-running-for-president-welcome-to-the-freak-show-20110511

    Excerpt:
    Was pleased to learn this afternoon that Newt Gingrich is formally announcing his run for the White House. I literally cannot wait to get back to covering the insane reality show that is the presidential race, especially since the Republicans seem determined to run the most entertaining collection of mutants seen on earth since Tod Browning’s classic Freaks.

    Purely from a political-theater standpoint, Gingrich brings several really outstanding qualities to this race. For one thing, he’s a legit threat to win the nomination. He wouldn’t be in any normal year, but when the field is Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum, anyone who can successfully lick a postage stamp without an instruction booklet is going to be a contender. With Gingrich in the race, Republican voters will now be faced with a terrible, Sophie’s Choice-choice: they can either go the safe/uncontroversial route and pick a Tim Pawlenty or a human advertorial like Mitt Romney, or else they can gamble on a candidate with the “charisma” and “wow factor” to match up with Barack Obama.

    The only problem with the latter strategy is that that the leading “charisma” candidate is Gingrich, a relentless mirror-gazer and attention-seeker with a wandering pee-pee and a talent for pseudo-intellectualism. Gingrich, hilariously, is the right’s idea of a “thinker,” which is to say he’s a pompous mispronouncer and Thesaurus-raider who lards up same-old/same-old right-wing rhetoric with quotations from obscure academic texts and inane historical references, so that friendly pundits can later describe the resultant utterances as “fresh new ideas.”

  4. I doubt a third party would offer anything different. People often desire what they would not like if it came to fruition.

    What Americans need to do is learn about the Constitution (something lawyers, educators, and government officials don’t want them to do). That can happen long before a powerful third party comes into being, but there is no will to have it happen especially by the elite and powerful. They eschew the Constitution, liberty, and our Federal system.

    The third party business is just a dead-end bunny trail to hop down.

    The states need to start nullifying obsessively. Put the federal government (and the courts) on the run and the defensive. Drag these power-hungry monsters into court continually. Hey it keeps the lawyers off the streets and out of a life of crime! So it’s a good thing.

    This will make our LEGISLATORS (both federal and state) more careful about the laws they craft which now ruin our lives.

    Only nullification and the threat of secession will bring our leaders to their senses. A third party will not because the people in general are still ignorant about how their government is supposed to work.

    The media could be teaching Americans each day how their government works (Federalism) but they will not do it. After all, the mainstream media doesn’t want our form of government to work. If it did the media wouldn’t have so much to report.

    Glenn Beck started out doing this on Fox News but went off the deep end and hasn’t been seen from since.

    America’s only hope is the Tenth Amendment Center. If you don’t know how our government is supposed to work having more parties is not going to help. It is only going to give a lesser number of people more power to decide our fate.

    We cannot function without the 10th Amendment in full operation. And because it is not we now have so many serious problems.

    http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/

  5. Re: Trump/Palin: Unlikely but not impossible; they are looking for different things in the run.

    First I think both are shameless sociopaths that would say anything to get what they want; and have no actual principles and that means there cannot be any policy friction between them. Neither really cares, so their only consideration is how it might play.

    I think Palin would do anything for enough money; and PACs and campaign finances are so loosely regulated and incompetently audited (on purpose) that she could siphon millions out of a run as a candidate. So Palin’s decision comes down to balancing her future Fox income, which may be waning with ratings, and her future income if she foregoes that for a year to make a run. The fact that she isn’t in the race right now may simply be because she wants to prolong the reliable Fox News paycheck for as long as possible before taking a leave of absence to start the gamble of the run.

    But Palin doesn’t want the job, she wants the money. She already showed us she wants a job where she gets paid for doing nothing but showing up pretty and reading her script. So if Trump were winning, the VP slot on his ticket would be golden.

    Trump’s goal probably isn’t the money, I think it is megalomaniacal ego. So he won’t take the VP slot (Palin has already proven she would). The same ego means he wouldn’t want Palin to do a damn thing except dress up, show up and read her script. So they are sociopathically simpatico on that point.

    Trump is all about images. So (like McCain) he would put Palin on the ticket if he thought that would help him win.

    I don’t think a Trump/Palin ticket is impossible; Trump wants Power and Palin wants Cash.

    Like most tickets they would start out independent, and it just comes down to whether Trump’s ego will let him pay Palin enough to feed her greed and keep her in line. I think so, Trump is used to paying for pretty women. For Palin, the publicity bump would make her a superstar once she was a civilian again; and increase her net worth an order of magnitude.

  7. Interesting, but I cannot see Trump and Palin doing anything collaboratively. They would only last a short time before one of them, maybe both, did something that could earn a felony conviction. Clash of two giant egos with zero real maturity. That ticket paring could equal the “Thrilla at Manila.” If Palin and Trump were on the same ticket, the upcoming battle would be a crowed draw.

  8. the religious won’t back romney and the money people don’t trust huckabee (he thinks there’s a power higher than money). maybe it will be the republicans looking at a third party.

    i’d like to see trump get the nomination, just for laughs

    trump/palin 2012 maybe the mayans were right

  10. mespo,

    I suppose Diogenes of Sinope…..was truly the real Illuminated One…..

    How difficult is it for one to ask the obvious ……have it be shown to them …..and indifference is offered as a solution……

  13. Wow…..See what I miss when I am playing Words…

    raff…OS….is very patient…..I am afraid to inquire what meh! means….but thats….just me….

  17. Mr. Scribe,

    Thank you for trying and answering. But since you have stated that you do not know and suggested that one research that matter, I would suggest that you take the time and read your own post(s). Unless, you are having memory issues, then it does not really matter, you won’t remember this. Tomorrow is truly a new day.

  18. BIL, Yep.

    Glad you weighed in, because I was getting tired of playing with him.

  20. I know exactly who IO is. And he’s a baaaaad boy. 😉

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