History UsefulNotes / AmericanPoliticalSystem

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_(United_States) Reform Party]]''' was a centrist populist third party established after Texas billionaire Ross Perot's 1992 independent presidential run, in which he won 19% of the popular vote and became the first presidential campaign since 1912 that was seen as having been capable of winning the election. Perot first ran under the Reform Party banner for president in 1996 and won 8% of the vote. The Reform Party had its greatest success in 1998 when Wrestling/JesseVentura was elected governor of Minnesota. The party was founded on Perot's signature campaign issues of reducing the federal deficit and national debt, but soon fell prey to infighting between three groups: the "old guard" Perot faction, the libertarian Ventura faction, and the Christian conservative wing led by conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, a former Republican who had worked for the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. The party collapsed after it nominated Buchanan for president in 2000 and he won only 0.4% of the vote. While there is still a national organization, the party no longer meaningfully exists as a national entity.

No third party candidate has ever been elected president. Even when the Republican Party won its first presidential election with Abraham Lincoln in 1860, it was already one of the top two parties going into the election year, having essentially replaced the Whigs. However, there have been several third party candidacies with a sizable impact on the two-party race -- which is to say, backlash on the third-party voters' second choice. This is known as the "spoiler" effect, most recently observed when Ross Perot ran as an independent candidate in 1992, received 19% of the popular vote and split conservatives, and in 2000, where Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's showing of 2% was considered one of the factors that tipped the scales in UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush's favor in UsefulNotes/{{Florida}}. Also, UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, U.S. president from 1901 to 1909 under the Republican Party, became disillusioned with the less progressive political standing of his successor, Taft, who was also from the GOP. Thus, TR formed the Bull Moose Party and ran for re-election in 1912, where he won 88 electoral votes, which was far from a majority but the most a third party has won since the ubiquity of the Democratic and Republican Parties.\\

While the modern third parties have not been very successful at winning elections on the federal level, they're often very effective at being 'protest' votes: if a usually-Democratic voter feels that their Democratic Party's candidate for, let's say state house, is too conservative on issues such as environmental protection or health care, that voter can vote for the Green Party in protest of that candidate. This weakens the candidate's base and increases the possibility that the Republican opponent can win the seat. The next time around, the Democratic Party or the Democratic candidate are likelier to heed the whims of their constituents and will adjust their stance on those above issues accordingly. It sounds like a roundabout method, but it can be pretty effective ''if'' one isn't afraid of the other party taking control for a bit.\\

Most elections in America use a first-past-the-post voting system -- each voter casts one vote and the candidate/option with the most votes is the winner, even if a majority did not vote for it. Quick example: In an election between A, B, and C, A gets 45%, B gets 35%, and C gets 20%. A wins, even though 55% of the electorate voted against them. If it seems to you that the B and C supporters should have teamed up and pooled their votes rather than splitting them, congratulations -- you've just discovered why America has only two major political parties. Using political science, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law it can be shown]] that plurality elections tend to lead to two-party systems, which is exactly what happened in America.[[note]]Ironically, the Electoral College actually ''does'' require a majority vote when they vote for the president, though the fact their votes are decided by state-level plurality elections means this doesn't come up; even when Ross Perot won one-fifth of the popular vote in 1992 on a third party platform, he didn't win even a single state. The one time it ''did'' happen was in 1824, when four Democratic-Republicans all ran against each other, the subsequent vote went to the House, and the scenario presented above essentially happened; one candidate threw in with another, and the candidate who won the plurality lost out.[[/note]] "Jungle primaries" (see below) mitigate the effect of such spoiler candidates by reducing the options to two for the final round, so the winner has to get a majority over ''somebody'' at least. Elections in Maine go a step further with ranked-choice voting (specifically instant-runoff voting), also found in a number of cities (such as UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco) and, in slight variation, statewide races in Alaska. Calls for the implementation of that alternative voting system are present elsewhere, so Maine and Alaska may not be the last to make the reform.\\

Since the United States is a republic, you will occasionally find people trying to tell you that the United States "is not a democracy". This is ''debatably'' true, since a republic and a democracy are technically two different forms of government, but a republic can still use democratic processes. So ask the person saying this what they mean before nodding sagely. The essential issue here is that the founders thought direct democracy (à la, say, [[UsefulNotes/AncientGreece ancient Athens]]) [[DemocracyIsBad was a generally bad idea]]. For example, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson claimed ''"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."'' More colloquially: "Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on dinner." That said, direct democracy does in fact exist on smaller levels in the United States, namely the "town meeting" form of government often practiced in the New England states, in which citizens may show up to vote directly on town laws and ordinances, as well as poll-style voting utilized in some states to vote on specific laws (signs reading "Vote YES/NO on Prop. 47" or something similar will often be ubiquitous in such states come election season). The debate over to what extent the government should engage in majority-ruled democracy or function as a democratic republic, or whether ultimate authority should rest with a strong centralized government (federalism) or with the individual state (anti-federalism/confederacy) predates the existence of the country itself, and is still debated today, with citizens, politicians, and pundits alike jumping from one side to the other (depending on which would result in their side of an issue winning).\\

As of 2023, there are only three federal officeholders who are not Democrats or Republicans, all of whom are senators. The first and most famous is UsefulNotes/BernieSanders, a senator from Vermont who identifies himself as a socialist (he's really more a European-style social democrat stuck in the more right-wing U.S.), campaigns as an independent but for all intents and purposes caucuses ("hangs out") with the Democrats.[[note]]He is the longest-serving federal officeholder in American history who has served continuously as an independent, being Vermont's congressman from 1991 to 2007, then winning its 2006 Senate election and two more since.[[/note]] He registered as a Democrat in 2015 to run in their 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries. The second is Angus King of Maine, who was twice elected governor of Maine as an independent and subsequently was elected to the Senate in a three-way race in 2012 where he defeated the Republican and Democratic candidates; he also caucuses with the Democrats. The third is Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was elected as a Democrat but left the party in 2022 and became an independent, but aligns with Democrats on most party-line votes. Some moderate officeholders, like Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have run third-party campaigns after losing their primary elections, won their seats, and rejoined their original party. Some recent legislators like former Michigan representative Justin Amash have defected from their parties and registered as independent (or, in his case, Libertarian) for the rest of their term, but this is typically [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere the last action of a disillusioned idealist]]; few have ever run for re-election after doing so.\\

Currently, there are only two federal officeholders elected on third-party tickets, both senators. The first and most famous is UsefulNotes/BernieSanders, a senator from Vermont who identifies himself as a socialist (he's really more a European-style social democrat stuck in the more right-wing U.S.), campaigns as an independent but for all intents and purposes caucuses ("hangs out") with the Democrats.[[note]]He is the longest-serving federal officeholder in American history who has served continuously as an independent, being Vermont's congressman from 1991 to 2007, then winning its 2006 Senate election and two more since.[[/note]] He officially registered as a Democrat in 2015 to run in their 2016 and 2020 presidential primary. The second is Angus King of Maine, who was twice elected governor of Maine as an independent and subsequently was elected to the Senate in a three-way race in 2012 where he defeated the Republican and Democratic candidates; he also caucuses with the Democrats. Some moderate officeholders, like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have run third-party campaigns after losing their primary elections, won their seats, and rejoined their original party. Some recent legislators like former Michigan representative Justin Amash have defected from their parties and registered as independent (or, in his case, Libertarian) for the rest of their term, but this is typically [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere the last action of a disillusioned idealist]]; few have ever run for re-election after doing so.\\

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Independent_Party American Independent Party]]''', another segregationist splinter from the Democrats, this time from 1968 and led by Alabama Governor George Wallace. The American Independents won 13.5% of the popular vote, 46 electoral votes and five Southern states. The success of Wallace's candidacy, combined with UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's "Southern strategy," marked the end of the once-Democratic "Solid South," which felt that the Democrats had betrayed the principles of white supremacy. To date, Wallace is the last third-party candidate to win any electoral votes by winning a plurality of any state's popular vote in a presidential election; however, the party's influence waned when Wallace rejoined the Democrats in 1972. While the AIP still exists, it does so solely as the California affiliate of the Constitution Party. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Party_(1969) American Party]] (full name American Party of the United States) is an offshoot of the American Independent Party; the AIP also nominated Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence in 2016.

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_(United_States) Reform Party]]''' was a centrist populist third party established after Texas billionaire Ross Perot's 1992 independent presidential run, in which he won 19% of the popular vote and became the first presidential campaign since 1912 that was seen as having been capable of winning the election. Perot first ran under the Reform Party banner for president in 1996 and won 8% of the vote. The Reform Party had its greatest success in 1998 when Wrestling/JesseVentura was elected governor of Minnesota. The party was founded on Perot's signature campaign issues of reducing the federal deficit and national debt, but soon fell prey to infighting between three groups: the "old guard" Perot faction, the libertarian Ventura faction, and the Christian conservative wing led by former Republican pundit Pat Buchanan, who had worked for the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. The party collapsed after it nominated Buchanan for president in 2000 and he won only 0.4% of the vote. While there is still a national organization, the party no longer meaningfully exists as a national entity.

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_(United_States) Reform Party]]''' was a populist third party established in the wake of Texas billionaire Ross Perot's 1992 independent presidential run, which won 19% of the popular vote and became the first presidential campaign since 1912 that was seen as having been capable of winning an election. The Reform Party had its greatest success in 1998 when Wrestling/JesseVentura was elected governor of Minnesota, but it soon fell prey to infighting between three groups: the "old guard" Perot faction, the libertarian Ventura faction, and a Christian conservative wing led by former Republican candidate, Nixon, Ford and Reagan administration member, and pundit Pat Buchanan. The party collapsed in the wake of the 2000 election, where Buchanan won its nomination, and while there is still a national organization, the party no longer meaningfully exists as a national entity.

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States) Libertarian Party]]''' aims to be the leading party for libertarianism (though some libertarians do not agree with some of the LP's stances). By [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28United_States%29#cite_note-1 several metrics]] it is America's third-largest political party, having come in third in every presidential election since 2012 and was the only third party to have ballot access in all 50 states and [=DC=] in 2016 and 2020. Libertarians tend to favor maximum individual liberty (pro-gun rights, pro-gay rights, pro-drug legalization, pro-legal abortion, anti-Patriot Act, anti-censorship), maximum economic liberty (loose environmental and labor laws, pro-free trade, anti-tax, anti-bailout), and very limited government involvement in social welfare. Libertarians do not identify themselves as 'left' or 'right' in the traditional sense -- most would argue for a biaxial system of political identification, with 'conservative' and 'liberal' on the economic axis and 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' on the social axis. The party had a seat in Congress for a year after Rep. Justin Amash changed his affiliation in 2020.

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_(United_States) Green Party]]''' is probably the most famous third party in the country, mainly thanks to the high-profile presidential run of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in 2000. By any measure, they are quite leftist, supporting fair trade, pacifism, an end to the War on Drugs, local government, internationalism, very liberal views on civil liberties and social issues, opposition to the Patriot Act, and a strong welfare state -- in other words, not too far from other Green Parties worldwide and European-style social democrats. Their main focus, however, is environmentalism, as their name suggests. Supporters are often stereotyped as tree-hugging hippies and socialists. If you see a character in fiction who supports the Green Party, then he or she is probably a NewAgeRetroHippie or a GranolaGirl. From the late 2010s on, Green Party ideology has started to be adapted by Democrats and Democratic Party-adjacent people like Bernie Sanders.

* The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States) Libertarian Party]]''' aims to be the leading party for libertarianism (though some libertarians do not agree with some of the LP's stances). It is America's third-largest political party according to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28United_States%29#cite_note-1 these sources]] as of 2011. Libertarians tend to favor maximum individual liberty (pro-gun rights, pro-gay rights, pro-drug legalization, pro-legal abortion, anti-Patriot Act, anti-censorship), maximum economic liberty (loose environmental and labor laws, pro-free trade, anti-tax, anti-bailout), and very limited government involvement in social welfare. Libertarians do not identify themselves as 'left' or 'right' in the traditional sense -- most would argue for a biaxial system of political identification, with 'conservative' and 'liberal' on the economic axis and 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' on the social axis.