This is a clip that everybody needs to see. People are not taking the No Labels third party threat seriously enough. The problem is not that they have a candidate that is going to topple the Republican or the Democrat. That’s not No Label’s plan. Their plan is to bleed off enough votes from Joe Biden, to influence the election the crucial one or two percent that it takes to make a difference in these modern times. These people are as dangerous as a hungry rattlesnake. No not dismiss them as fringe loonies. Yes, they are that. But they could still manipulate the election to where Donald Trump gets back in power.
No Labels have been awfully quiet since the Lincoln Democracy Institute dropped this banger 🫢pic.twitter.com/VldEbVSniG
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 29, 2023
Here’s a bit more elaboration.
While No Labels might sound great on paper as an alternative for those who are politically homeless, when you understand how our system works, and their true motives, you realize they are a scam. See @TaraSetmayer and @TheRickWilson discuss the issue of No Labels on #TheBreakdown pic.twitter.com/o5I5NBTigb
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 31, 2023
This is exactly right. There are people who might be duped by this. Let’s face it, if people were duped by Donald Trump, they can be duped by anything and anybody.
The scary part is that No Labels doesn’t need to do that much damage. It only needs to do enough damage to bleed away 1%, maybe a bit more. And that’s it. Biden could be gone and we get fascism in place of democracy. The democratic experiment is over in the blink of an eye.
That’s why these clowns are dangerous. Not because they can win. They can’t. But because their very existence on the ballot means that it won’t be a binary choice, It means that Biden will have two groups to oppose, the Republicans and their aides de camp, No Labels, who seek to restore Trump to power with the illusion that there is an alternative to the two party system.
Canadian here, three party system sucks. The left vote is split 2 ways (3 if you include the Green Party). That's how Conservatives win.
— Patsy Stone (Sue IRL) 🇨🇦 🌻 (@SueinDurham) July 31, 2023
Follow the money. RFK no labels they're all be funded by the right…
The right can't win head to head they need to suppress votes and introduce spoiler candidates to divvy up the dem vote.
— Tucker Carlson – Yellow Journalist (parody) (@Scotus_OPO_0) July 31, 2023
This is the only way that Trump can win. Do not take this likely. No Labels is bad news.
That’s why RFK is being courted. Like Nader in 2000 his would be for him a vanity candidacy with him tilting at windmills and being delusional enough to think he could win due to his name recognition. Too many younger people look at RFK and correctly judge him to be cray but they simply don’t get the power of his name. The nostalgia it will evoke with older voters who don’t live their lives online and remember the glory days of the Kennedy’s and are like me wistful of what might have been had RFK Jr.’s father not been gunned down. I, like others know the son is NOT the father and that in truth the father would be as ashamed of his namesake as Donald Trump is of his own firstborn.
However lots, and I mean LOTS of senior citizens don’t keep up with current affairs in their retirement. And will vote for a name they remember fondly instead of learning about the actual living person who now bears that name. Ole Joe Manchin must be beside himself, believing he was going to be the No Labels candidate. He will be lucky to get tabbed as VP. I can at least take some pleasure in that. However, like you I’m truly fearful of what RFK Jr. can mean if No Labels can get him on the ballot in the right states.
Third party candidates running, and losing, elections are not “stealing” elections and the sooner we lose that type of vocabulary the sooner we will rid ourselves of this two party system we have (and so desperately need to lose). I don’t care who is funding it for whatever reason just because votes are siphoned off, unless actual cheating occurs, the third party is not stealing anything. We can debate whether or not dark money funding is cheating but it is legal right now in the US.
Third parties are written off as spoilers and what have you and it needs to cease. PZ ought not participate in this nonsense. I’m not saying No Labels can win nor am I saying they won’t siphon off votes thereby causing problems for Biden (and if independents and republicans who might vote republican vote for NL instead of trump, that’s a problem for him BTW). Third parties are created because they don’t like the choices before them-this should be encouraged. Now, bitch about the dark money-that is what needs to be brought front and center in the debate but bitching about third parties is not productive when that is exactly what this country needs. If the lincoln project doesn’t like what is behind NL then that is the ad needing to be aired and that is ALL that needs to be aired. We need to rid ourselves of the third parties = bad notion. Hammer home the dark money funding to hell and back tho’–that needs doing and then some.
In theory your belief that a third (or even fourth, or even more) Party pulling a significant number of votes is a good argument for forcing the two major Parties we’ve have to work together more. In practice, due to our election provisions it’s incredibly dangerous and destructive. There are democratic countries set up with a Parliamentary system of government which is much more closely aligned to what you and others envision. The Party that gets the most seats can and almost always does work with other Parties to form a large enough bloc to vote on legislation and tend to other affairs, but that controlling Party chooses who will be the Prime Minister/Head of State. People in those countries know who that person will be for whatever Party they belong to.
A system like ours has a key difference which is the electoral college. Only three times, but twice within a twenty year span and only recently in our history someone has lost the popular vote but due to the quirks of the EC won the Presidency. It hasn’t worked out well a single time. People in this country have a belief that a candidate who gets the most votes is the winner and it just doesn’t go over well when someone who got whipped at the ballot box “wins.” However, if you think that’s bad consider what would happen if a third Party got enough clout to win some states and their electoral votes. It’s been a long time since there was one with money and broad popular appeal, but we are in a new era of unlimited money and celebrity worship.
A third Party candidate that could win even one state, if the right one could in a close election keep anyone from getting 270 electoral votes. OUR Constitution provides for that possibility but if you think people effing hate what has happened with the EC three times we’d tear ourselves apart over what would happen if no one got to 270 and the election were thrown to the House. It’s bad enough that states that don’t even have a million residents get two Senators while states with 20, 30 or even 40 million only get two. It’s part of what has gotten things so messed up. The Senate it way the hell out of balance with the overall citizenry of this country.
Bad as that is, imagine an election being thrown to the House, where each state gets ONE vote. And that same imbalance comes into play again, with a slew of sparsely pupulated red states each have the same vote as states with many time their number of residents. TAke a look at one of those rre/blue maps and the HUGE swath of the western midwest and mountain west. You could pick out a combination of ten states in that vast sea of red that have less people than CA, or NY, or for that matter TX. Texas, being red wouldn’t mind it on this one but imagine the rest of the courtry. Joe Biden got ten MILLION more votes than Trump but only what, thirty more in the EC. I for one don’t wnat to think about what would happen if the “winner” turned out to have 25-30 million (or more) votes but because of the DC and what would happen if the House got to determine the President that happened. And I don’t think for one second you don’t know goddam good and well GOPers would cream their jeans over getting to do it. The would LOVE ignoring the will of the people. Do the right thing? THESE a-holes?
So yes, it sometimes comes down to a lesser of evils choice for many voters. If each Party were to nominate a qualified and sane candidate we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Sadly, that’s not always what happens. Still, I find your way of thinking dangerous as hell. For decades a handful of very rich people have been plotting and working to take us back to Articles of Confederation times.
Think back to 2020, the election and the aftermath (which is ongoing btw) and ow close we came to the brink. Guardrails that it took over two hundred years to put in place held up. BARELY. I say barely because that handful of folks have for multiple generations been working to weaken them and we saw how much progress they had made. You think the stopped? Not only no but HELL NO! They want to be better prepared and have a more solid plan that includes not having to rely on a Trump to pull the trigger at just the right moment. And if they get their chance to pull that trigger it’s all over. No more experiement in American Democracy.
No Labels or some other third Party bid is I believe the new strategy moving forward. IF we are lucky they will try to do what third Party candidates have done in the past which is to compete everywhere, and damned near assure that thty won’t win (the EC Vote of any invidivual states) anywhere. My fear is that even if that’s how it works next year they will learn what to me is obvious – just win a few states with say 25-20 electoral votes combined which most of the time now would be enough to throw the election to the House. The GOP overall is making no secret anymore of the fact they intende to do away with democracy as we know it.
THAT my friend is how dangerous what you say is. On the surface it makes sense and is reasonable. But only in theory.
Lots of people thought “protest” votes would wake up the “corrupt duopoly” in 2016. What it got us, instead, was TFG. What I hope is that enough people remember that until our democracy is on much firmer footing, we can’t afford votes wasted on fringe third party candidates.
I believe No Labels is Trump’s backup plan in case somehow he fails to get the GQP nomination. It’s certain ran and funded by enough of Trump’s people.