The opposing argument to my view point is that third parties are harmful in American elections. This is because historically the third parties can’t win. American elections work by a first to the finish race. That means that the first candidate to get the majority wins the election. Thus when someone voted for a third party they take a vote from a major party and hinder them from beating out the opposition. The problem with this is that the party with the most similar ideas to the third party is hindered from being elected ultimately hurting the goals of the third party as well. I agree with the author in that third parties do take away votes from major parties. However this is the goal. Obviously a party doesn’t gain popularity in order to take over in one election. It takes slow growth. The third party should work to steadily take more votes from a party until it’s viewpoints become the mainstream platform and ideals of at least half the population. This source has given me an insight in that the success of a third party as a third party might not be possible. That is to say the american system does not allow for it. In which case the goal of third parties might not be to rise in equal strength as the other two major parties but instead to infiltrate one major party and become a mainstream major party while making either the republicans or democrats obsolete. This raises the question, for libertarians which party is best to be absorbed into. And would the American people really be benefitted from this. If the point is to have more options for the American people maybe the voting system itself should be reformed.

I am interested in the growth of third parties because I grew up in Kent county Delaware. There are only three counties in Delaware. This one is right in the middle. As such it has a very even amount of both liberal Democrats from northern Newark and conservative Republicans from southern Sussex. As such I, in my own political philosophy pulled ideas from both. I found I was neither liberal nor conservative, yet neither could I call myself a moderate or independent as I felt very strongly about the ideas I did have. As I grew older I learned there were other parties besides the major ones making up the two party system. There are the libertarians (that I align myself with) the green party for those who value the environment in all their ideologies, etc. I want to show people with this essay and these blogs that there are other options. If the major parties don’t really support your ideas the are not as undefeatable as you may think.

Welcome to Sites.udel.edu – WordPress for UD. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start creating your site.