Third-party presidential candidates can only spoil the party in 2024

They have NEVER won in modern-time elections

Photo Credit: FairVote.org

Issue #412 OpEd Monday, November 13, 2023

I honestly don’t know what it will take for some people to understand that these aren’t normal times we are living through. For the umpteenth time, Donald Trump is not a normal Republican presidential candidate but the most corrupt former president in all of American history by a margin that places whoever is in second place out of the field of vision.

Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the entire country - and a large part of the world - and has loudly said as much in public where he freely admits he wants to destroy any aspect of government that doesn’t let him do whatever the hell he wants to do.

It’s not complicated: if Trump wins a second term in office, only those attached to his rear end like a suckerfish - and of course Trump himself - will win. Everybody else loses. Everybody. It’s difficult to imagine just how bad things will become in T2 because as bad as things were getting to be during his first term, that was only a preview.

He still had constraints on his insanity during those four years, which is what pissed him off. A second term is Trump unleashed, devouring democracy like a starving demon as he is led around by his worst instincts like an S&M devotee scurrying behind his black leather madam.

Which is to say, maybe this isn’t the best time to be running as a third-party candidate. Maybe it’s just not that smart - or considerate of others. Maybe now is the time to consider sucking in the ego and doing whatever it takes to make sure we all have a country that is alive and breathing the morning after the election.

Or is that too much to ask?

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Because I do get it. I understand that third-party candidates are always told that today isn’t the day. That they don’t stand a chance of winning, that the issues are too important, that maybe they should come back another time when it’s safe and we can afford to be bothered with their alternative views.

We always say we want a diversity of viewpoints and choices, but we always seem to find a way to stifle all but the most well-funded options at will. So the right time never seems to arrive, does it?

I get it. And I know it’s not fair the way third parties are shoved aside at the debates, oftentimes scoffed at, not given decent news coverage, etc. All of that. It sucks. I know.

But - and I know a lot of you won’t want to hear this - you shouldn’t play politics if you don’t know how to win. Because in the end, politics is all about winning. And none of the three third-party candidates - not Jill Stein, not Cornel West, and God knows not Robert F. Kennedy Jr - have even the remotest chance of winning.

Nor are any of them even remotely equipped to do the job. And I’m certain that two of those three are very well aware of this fact because Dr. Cornel West and Jill Stein are actually very intelligent people. Junior Kennedy is nuts, so enough said about that. But West and Stein are smart enough to know that they don’t have the political infrastructure to win because a viable political infrastructure for a national campaign costs hundreds of millions of dollars which they ain’t got and will never be able to raise. They don’t have the political relationships where it matters to get anything done or make anything happen even if by some miracle they did manage to stumble into the Oval Office. That’s because they have no relevant experience, at least none that is measurable.

Know this; next to money, politics is all about relationships - and experience. And just like you wouldn’t want some kid who read a few medical books over spring break to perform open heart surgery on your mother, you shouldn’t want someone who has no political experience and no worthwhile political connections running the most powerful nation on Earth.

The simple fact is that none of those three third-party candidates have the ability to deliver on any of what they promise their devoted followers. All they can do is pontificate, raise some sand, and make nice speeches. But when it gets to the Big Stage, they are incapable of anything else because they are flat-out unqualified. The problem is that too many of those devoted - and oftentimes ill-informed - followers don’t know just how unqualified their heroes really are. They get so wrapped up in how angry they are with President Biden - or whoever else - that they don’t take the time to do at least a little bit of homework to discover that their champions don’t even have enough clout to influence the debate or to affect policy because essentially nobody is listening to them or taking them seriously. And many of them -possibly most - have no idea how much Biden has actually accomplished.

I’m not saying this to be mean; I’m saying this because it’s true.

So then why would someone choose to run a race they knew they couldn’t possibly win, knowing that the best possible result of their far-fetched candidacy might be to contribute to the destruction of democracy if they manage to pull enough votes away from President Biden?

Because that’s the raw truth of the matter; neither West nor Stein nor Junior Kennedy will get lasting points for their impassioned speeches - which practically no one will hear. The best they can hope for is to collectively (because none of them will have any measurable impact individually) rally enough disenchanted voters around the sound of their angry voices to throw votes away in their direction so that Trump can win.

In other words, the best any of the third-party candidates can hope for in 2024 is to lose big together - and wreck the country in the process.

There’s only one person deranged enough to consider that a victory.

Guess who.

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