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The Dual/Dueling Electorates and the (Short Term?) Future of American Democracy
enlightenedbum
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Registered User regular
So since Tuesday I've been thinking about a thing. A couple other places have written about it, but Jamelle Bouie wrote a long thing that essentially gets at what I'm thinking about.
The short version of the argument is that there are fundamentally two different electorates in America right now. There's a midterm electorate, which is older, whiter, and wealthier. This electorate favors Republicans. Meanwhile, the presidential year electorate is larger, more diverse, younger, and less wealthy. That electorate favors Democrats. This has become particularly pronounced over the last few years as the New Deal Democrats who came of age during FDR's Presidency have died off and the new oldest and most likely to vote in midterms generation is people who grew up voting for Eisenhower, like my grandparents. Bouie goes further into the generational argument and how the current partisan divide between the oldest and youngest generation is as large as it's been in recent memory which is a major driver of the presidential/midterm split.
Furthermore, I think the Presidential map simply favors Democrats to begin with.
http://www.270towin.com/2016_election_predictions.php?mapid=bIqR
I think that's an essentially fair map. And on top of that, I would say that in presidential years, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Nevada can be characterized as "lean Democrat" and possibly Virginia as well, though we'll have to see how that goes without Obama on the ticket to drive up black turnout. Missouri and North Carolina would be lean Republican, leaving Ohio and Florida (and potentially Virginia) as the true swing states. The "lean Democrat" states plus the states I give to the Dems as default are enough to win the Presidency though, even without Virginia.
http://www.270towin.com/2016_election_predictions.php?mapid=bIqS
So I think it's fair to say Democrats are at least 2:1 favorites to win the Presidency for the near future. Meanwhile, because of the way Congress is districted at the moment, there is almost zero chance of Democratic control of the House. The Senate will swing back and forth most likely, with the Democrats having a favorable map in presidential years in 2016 and 2020, and the GOP having a favorable map in the off year in 2018 (and 2022, if 2016 goes as I project it to).
In previous eras of American history, the parties weren't ideologically coherent, so grand compromises were possible and things could get done. That is no longer the case, especially on the Republican side, but for the most part on the Democratic side as well. Moreover, the current incentive structure for Republicans under a Democratic President is to obstruct as much as possible and get rewarded with the legislature. Meanwhile, there's no incentive for Democrats to change, because they're the default party in the White House currently.
All this combined means that for the next probably decade, the federal government of the United States will be effectively crippled from enacting meaningful legislation. Change can happen, but it's going to have to take the form of executive orders and the executive branch cleverly interpreting existing legislation to add regulation. For example, the President's rumored action on immigration or the EPA's regulations on carbon that were announced earlier in the year. While those moves are backed by the law, they're violating the spirit of the whole deal where the Congress should be weighing in.
This is a problem. It's relatively clear that as the population ages and the oldest generation become the early boomers (voting attitudes formed in the 60s) the problem should probably fade away, but that still leaves a very strange decade that could create some serious constitutional crises. Obvious example would be the Senate just flat refusing to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court.
So peoples of D&D: am I projecting too far into the future? Are we doomed? Are there solutions? Besides the obvious of young voters showing up in midterms which they really haven't before. Sen. Sanders has a bill to make Election Day a federal holiday, which could certainly help Democrats. Or from the Republican side I know @spool32 has hopes of the GOP actually deciding to govern and has been posting quotes to that effect. I personally am skeptical and don't think the incentives are there to make that happen, but maybe?
The short version of the argument is that there are fundamentally two different electorates in America right now. There's a midterm electorate, which is older, whiter, and wealthier. This electorate favors Republicans. Meanwhile, the presidential year electorate is larger, more diverse, younger, and less wealthy. That electorate favors Democrats. This has become particularly pronounced over the last few years as the New Deal Democrats who came of age during FDR's Presidency have died off and the new oldest and most likely to vote in midterms generation is people who grew up voting for Eisenhower, like my grandparents. Bouie goes further into the generational argument and how the current partisan divide between the oldest and youngest generation is as large as it's been in recent memory which is a major driver of the presidential/midterm split.
Furthermore, I think the Presidential map simply favors Democrats to begin with.
http://www.270towin.com/2016_election_predictions.php?mapid=bIqR
I think that's an essentially fair map. And on top of that, I would say that in presidential years, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Nevada can be characterized as "lean Democrat" and possibly Virginia as well, though we'll have to see how that goes without Obama on the ticket to drive up black turnout. Missouri and North Carolina would be lean Republican, leaving Ohio and Florida (and potentially Virginia) as the true swing states. The "lean Democrat" states plus the states I give to the Dems as default are enough to win the Presidency though, even without Virginia.
http://www.270towin.com/2016_election_predictions.php?mapid=bIqS
So I think it's fair to say Democrats are at least 2:1 favorites to win the Presidency for the near future. Meanwhile, because of the way Congress is districted at the moment, there is almost zero chance of Democratic control of the House. The Senate will swing back and forth most likely, with the Democrats having a favorable map in presidential years in 2016 and 2020, and the GOP having a favorable map in the off year in 2018 (and 2022, if 2016 goes as I project it to).
In previous eras of American history, the parties weren't ideologically coherent, so grand compromises were possible and things could get done. That is no longer the case, especially on the Republican side, but for the most part on the Democratic side as well. Moreover, the current incentive structure for Republicans under a Democratic President is to obstruct as much as possible and get rewarded with the legislature. Meanwhile, there's no incentive for Democrats to change, because they're the default party in the White House currently.
All this combined means that for the next probably decade, the federal government of the United States will be effectively crippled from enacting meaningful legislation. Change can happen, but it's going to have to take the form of executive orders and the executive branch cleverly interpreting existing legislation to add regulation. For example, the President's rumored action on immigration or the EPA's regulations on carbon that were announced earlier in the year. While those moves are backed by the law, they're violating the spirit of the whole deal where the Congress should be weighing in.
This is a problem. It's relatively clear that as the population ages and the oldest generation become the early boomers (voting attitudes formed in the 60s) the problem should probably fade away, but that still leaves a very strange decade that could create some serious constitutional crises. Obvious example would be the Senate just flat refusing to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court.
So peoples of D&D: am I projecting too far into the future? Are we doomed? Are there solutions? Besides the obvious of young voters showing up in midterms which they really haven't before. Sen. Sanders has a bill to make Election Day a federal holiday, which could certainly help Democrats. Or from the Republican side I know @spool32 has hopes of the GOP actually deciding to govern and has been posting quotes to that effect. I personally am skeptical and don't think the incentives are there to make that happen, but maybe?
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
enlightenedbum on
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Ron Paul gazes down into a crowd that is screaming like an abattoir full of retarded children.
All the whores and politicians look up and scream "SAVE US!"
And he whispers
"No."
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
They've won the popular vote in 5/6 and the electoral vote in 4 or 5 of 6, give or take Anthony Kennedy.
Your governmental system is too good at stopping anything from getting done. I suspect we'll just see a continuation of power moving to the executive (who can actually act unilaterally) combined with last minute saves to achieve minimal basic operation and general governing by crisis.
Nah, we survived the Civil War/postbellum years so we'll be good.
Making it a federal holiday is a silly idea; it would be much better to enshrine early voting into law, re-pass the Voting Rights Act, and ensure that there are plenty of voting machines and volunteers. Retail and service employees usually don't get paid extra for federal holidays, much less the day off.
The GOP unfortunately has a pretty big problem right now- electing candidates ignorant of how government works (the budget, the departments, what the President is allowed to do, etc.) and actively hostile to government (a combination of loyalty/purity tests and far-right Tea Party candidates bankrolled by corporations hoping for low taxes). I'd be fine with the GOP governing as long as its policies change from "less taxes for the rich" and "let's do all we can to ruin government".
Like the democrats could probably start winning midterms if the base would start being so fucking fickle. Yeah, the party needs to get that those are base elections that rely on getting their base out, but we have a real issue where a fair chunk of the democratic base only bothers to show up for one election, every four years. Granted the dems could help themselves quite a bit by getting that no one on either side wants radical centrists, they want people that get stuff done. Granted it's got to be stuff the people like (aka they will kick people to the curb if they get a bunch of toxic shit done).
Another option where the democrats could possible help themselves in midterms, is figuring out how to be efficient with TV ads. Right now they are horribly inefficient at it. This year they spend 111 million on TV ads, for Congressional districts and about 80 million of it went to areas outside the districts of the candidate. So either they need to forgo TV ads or they need to actually coordinate and find some central things to run on. AKA make it so that when something ends up outside of their district, it still helps the party win and makes the money spend seem to more productively spent than it currently is. Also means to stop conceding certain turf to the GOP aka they need to make use of radio advertising.
I suppose if we get the major scandal involving the shit show that is CU, that could turn everything on it's head. I fucking guarantee that will destroy people's career and it will sour most of the public on giving any sort of help to rich people like the Koch Brothers. It will damage any political party involved. I think the money is on the GOP, but this could easily burn the democratic party as well.
Small chance that when nothing gets done this session, which I think is likely. I say small because sadly most of the public does a piss poor job at paying attention to politics or remembering who is fucking them over in that arena. Hell, people are just bad at thinking period because Keystone should have been a death kiss for anyone pushing it. Say what you will about certain issues, but we shouldn't have to have a debate on it's a fucking stupid ass idea to run a pipeline through a major aquifer, that is important for potable water and keeps farmland watered. Like every fucking outfit that pushed for that should have eaten major fines for advocating a project that is a public safety hazard and is a threat the the US's economic well being (there won't a be chance for leaks, they'll happen because the people that run those things don't give a shit with their whole "fuck you, got mine" attitude and inability to do proper long term thinking about how some things can royally fuck them over in the end).
Yep. I mean, I don't really disagree with your maps in general, but elections aren't run as generalities. Illinois is capable of voting for a Republican for President, as is Iowa and/or New Hampshire. Which would likely be the case in your worst possible win map. Now, the candidate who could turn those States around would have a hard time surviving the current Republican primary season. However, I don't see the GOP having any problems with rewriting the rules or calendar however they need to in order to make that stop being the case. Combine that with the fact that eventually people simply want to vote for the other guy out of a sense of fair play and it isn't as though the Democrats have a true lock on the Presidency for a generation.
It will likely be the inverse of the post war period where Democrats were the party of Government/Congress and Republicans were the party of Presidents. Admittedly this was due to Dixiecrats and isn't really a 1:1 comparison, but still. Republicans had the run of the White House from Nixon to Obama, with the brief interlude of Carter and then Clinton who claimed to reorient the party to be more Republican in spirit. There is a reasonable argument to make that it will just be that, but flipped; and with a much more bouncy Senate majority. Barring exogenous shocks the economy should be improved enough by 2016 to help elect a Democratic equivalent to Bush the Greater vis Obama as liberal Reagan. 2020 will have people tired of a Democratic Presidency and the GOP will probably run their version of Clinton only he'll have a unified Congress to help pass whatever, and 2024/2028 will probably turn on gay robot marriage as a wedge issue. The only really frightening prospect throughout all of this, though, is that when Democrats where the party of the Congress they were actually interested in governing the country. So far the House hasn't made that impression and it's hard to believe it is going to change substantially in the future. Maybe if chairmanships get handed out to more Western Republicans instead of Southern, but who knows.
Yes, but then we typically are in one way or another. Democracy!
Basically I'm saying it's really hard to win an increasingly black and brown country when you're getting 10-30% of their vote. But that country only exists in presidential years, while in midterm years it's a very, very white country, which the GOP gets 60% of. Unless something very strange happens with the GOP, I don't see that trend stopping anytime soon. I'll flat out guarantee the base rejects any compromise on immigration, for example. Partly because the President would get the credit anyway and partly because they're just really, really opposed to it.
BTW at least half (specifically the more cynical half, Digby leading the charge) of the liberal blogosphere predicted the Tea Party because they're the same god damn conservative movement as they always were.
The Tea Party isn't something new. It's the same slice of the electorate as the 'values voters' and 'moral majority' of the past, they just decided to stop with the alliteration. This iteration of a name will die down in the next 4-8 years, but another one will rise representing the same people but with a different name the next time we elect a Democrat to the Presidency after a Republican.
On the whole I definitely agree with your broader point.
Yup.
The thing is, we seem to be getting exactly the trend everyone predicted. Old people dying and young/minotiry people being more liberal.
The catch is that no one really seems to have considered that those young/minority people would keep not voting during midterms.
So you get basically exactly the predicted outcome every 4 years and then wackiness on the off-years when the voting public suddenly becomes ridiculously old and white again.
Well, actually you for the most part did predict that, because it's always been true. Older you are the more likely you are to vote. Extra true in the midterms.
I think that no one considered what that would actually mean though for how the US government functions.
This is quite right, but the issue goes deeper than "messaging." You need an idea before you have a message. The Democrats lack a vision of society other than capitalism slightly less red in tooth and claw.
May I suggest Al Franken, who cruised to re-election with some coherent messaging (that happens to agree with my stances) that indicates he has a vision for society (fairness is the one word version)?
EDIT: Or Senator Professor Warren, obviously.
I would actually disagree with that at the Federal level. This election was a muddle of messages, but mostly because of the map. It's hard to get a consistent message when you're competing in Louisiana and Minnesota, but the legislative agenda that a majority Democratic legislature strikes me as relatively straightforward. Whether you agree/disagree with it in part, in whole, or worry about the fiddly bits. The Republican agenda strikes me as incoherent and all over the place aside from the perennial cutting of rates that help the wealthiest, and maybe poorer people too if its required to cover the top level tax cuts. Beyond that? Stop Democrats from doing whatever. I read their WSJ article and it seemed like a constant search for something consequential or that actually addresses the problems of today. Instead it was mostly shibboleths masquerading as broader principles. Authorizing a pipeline was considered significant enough to merit H1 and lead the list of important initiatives a unified Congress will address. (Which, seriously, if they just move it around the bloody aquifer then I simply don't care. Don't think it's a wonderful idea, but meh)
Now, at the State level I'd agree that I have no idea what a lot of Democrats want to do beyond the general ribbon cutting and probably charter schools. However, I also have no idea what Republicans will actually do, because disincorporating municipalities came out of nowhere for the party of 'small government' and government closer to the people being better at solving problems.
1: Radical shift in the republican party. The simple fact is that the republicans have isolated themselves from most demographics by playing to a handful of demographics: christian fundamentalists, White males and the wealthy. While this was fine 40 years ago, the problem is that demographics are pushing back hard against them and forcing them to engage in all manner of technialy legal shenanigans (voter id laws, Citizens united and gerrymandering) to cling to power; I seriously doubt they would have been able to signifigantly flip the house if they hadn't.
To do so, the republicans need to be willing to effect real and meaningful change to the way they do things and not just token "hey we got a black guy!" bit's. Things like acknowledging that the first amendment should protect muslims to the same degree that it protects christians or jews or budhists or pastafarians. It means coming down like the wrath of god on idiots like Sheriff joe for rampant abuse of power and incompetence in government. It means getting corporations to open factories in the US in order to create jobs and thus prove that reaganomics actually works.
2. Democrats giving a shit. If democrats (or people who vote democrat) want to actually get shit done they need to vote every fucking chance they get, since republicans are more interested in using government to consolidate power then they are in good governance.
To this end, they need to be less passive/defensive and more ballsy; don't apologize for the actions of your party or try to be republican-lite since that gets basically nothing done as seen in this past election, but instead grow a pair and flat out call your opposition on their BS. If you believe gun control means people shouldn't have an arsenal then fucking say it. If you support immigration then do so and tell people that a kid that walks from nicaraugua has done more to earn his citizenship then most people born in the US. And for the love of christ, call out the tea party for what it is, a conservative astroturf frankenstien monster that is oblivious to the concept of nuance.
Yeah, I think it would be better to say that the GOP has more coherent messaging. They have a style and a rhetoric that they know and that they stick to. Policy wise, though, they just have a miss-mash of boogeyman issues that rile up old people. The only thing they are consistent and coherent on is tax cuts for whatever reason they can pull from their ass.
The Democrats are generally kinda all over the place messaging wise but I think at least the non-centrist democrats have a fairly coherent idea of the kind of America they want.
I mean whats the most extreme thing the absolute extreme of the extreme's of the really super duper liberal democrats want?
Single Payer?
Republicans (at least, the congressional level) have clear policy goals that have been consistent for a decade plus: laissez faire economic policy with low taxes on established wealth, a minimal social safety net and conservative christian social policy. It's their messaging that's the mismash of bogeymen.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
In a lot of ways I think the Clinton-era 'triangulation' mindset still dominates; democrats look at elections much less as an opportunity to win the policy argument than republicans do.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
At this point there is a fundamental disconnect between people in politics, which I wouldn't mind, except that when Republicans are in charge, their policies don't make just people in the Republican reality miserable, they make the whole country miserable. So until we find a way to make the people in different realities live in different countries, we can do nothing else but keep fighting the good fight.
I disagree. The map shows as contested states that are historically Republican wins. For example, the only time since 1980 that North Carolina had a Democrat win was 2008. If you change North Carolina and Florida to Republican, you end up with an almost neck-in-neck race. It really shows the undue influence that a handful of lower population states have in selecting the presidency, because so many are predispositioned to a certain party.
Additionally, there's a general fatigue that happens after a party has held the Presidency for eight years that pushes disillusioned voters towards the opposite party of the current Presidency. As much as I hate to admit it, the long term Republican plan of making the Democrats look ineffective by not doing their job is very likely to pay off in the 2016 elections, and I fully expect them to have House, Senate, and Presidency wrapped up until most likely 2020 or 2022 (when I expect they will lose the Senate).
I fully expect the current Republican plan to be to pass as many laws as they can that the President will have to veto, thus making him look obstructionist leading up to the 2016 election. The strength of the Republicans for the past six years has been their ability to work together internally and provide a unified front against the Democrats. It's also why crazies like the Tea Partiers have had such an outsized control of the party relative to their population within the party.
The Democrats have not been able to make such a unified compromise internally, and have repeatedly fallen victim to their own bickering. This is why they were unable to get much of the desired reforms passed when they controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2008. They had a supermajority in the Senate, but still only passed one of several major pieces of legislation they had campaigned for (health care).
The 2014 elections weren't won by the Republicans so much as lost by the Democrats. What I mean is that the Democrats fractured and couldn't provide a coherent narrative in order to maintain or win new spots. The Republicans, while the certainly did work to win those elections, could have often just sat back and let the Democrats piss away those seats.
I disagree. The Republicans have made some grand compromises within their party, especially towards the Tea Party, that have resulted in a faux ideological coherency. They aren't coherent though, they just present this front in order to win the political "game". Democrats haven't been able to follow through, and are suffering accordingly.
1) I don't agree that the Democrats are the default party for 2016. The Republicans have two years to change this view, and already expected push to have Hillary as their next candidate will be very polarizing.
2) As noted previously, I expect the Republican strategy to reverse now so as to make the Democrats look obstructionist. Had the Democrats pushed the obstructionism over the past six years, I don't think they'd be hurting so much now. The Republicans won't make the same mistake.
3) If losing control of the Senate isn't sufficient reason to change, then the Democrats are doomed to lose.
I think your conclusion is incorrect, but let's say I'm wrong and you are correct. I don't think we will have a "lost decade" of governance simply because if Government heads towards this kind of deadlock, something will break leading to major change. Either you'll have a voter revolution (meaning rapid change in controlling party, not up in arms), we'll have yet another financial crisis (stocks are sky high but Joe American has less buying power than 10 years ago), or some other event will occur forcing major reform.
I'll just quote the most relevant bit, since the article talks mostly about possible 2016 GOP primary candidates and their prospects.
I might be reading too much into this, but I'm getting the impression they understand their prospects aren't good; however, failing to understand that their shit prospects has to do with demographics. The current GOP is increasingly becoming the wealthy, white, elder Christian party. Their two most influential wings are the fundamentalist reactionary Christian wing, that also suffers from a bad case of misogyny and racism, that is currently calling itself the tea party (formerly known as the moral majority) and the oligarch wing, which seems primary invested in fossil fuels and a few other old and sometimes shitty industries. Neither one of those wings has broad appeal the the future American electorate that already has real power in the Presidential elections (god I wish they would show up for all elections). I also see both those wings eventually being at odds with one another because what the tea party wants, isn't good for any business and there are a fair number of oligarchs that aren't drinking the kool-aid, who aren't happy what the tea party agenda would entail for them (aka they are self aware enough to realize they will get fucked by the tea party and can already see that cozying up with the tea party isn't going to help them long enough to be worth it).
I'd argue that increasingly, we're hitting a point where we'll either to get the GOP Civil War and/or some new party is going to get in gear and start turning parts of the new electorate into their base and drive the GOP out. Pretty much something is going to have to give because the current two electorates we have a very different. Yeah, we've always had two different ones because the wealthy and elderly have always been more reliable on getting to the polls, but I don't think the two electorates have ever been this far apart recently.
And I think we're all kidding ourselves.
To kick off let's agree on some realities here. The first is that the Democratic party will have a statistical advantage on the map in 2016. It just will. Swing States aren't as swingy as they once were and the nation as a whole is closer to the Democratic platform now. Not to mention the fact that the perception, if not the reality, is that if you're not straight, male, white, and near or past retirement, the GOP just doesn't care about you which makes it a little hard to bring people on side.
But demographics are not always destiny.
If Democrats get strumpy and presumptive they'll lose, and maybe badly. Someone like Jeb Bush or pre bridge Christie would wipe the floor with a Hilary as bad at running a campaing as she was in 2008. And if they answer from this year is tac harder right, forget it.
And God forbid we get another economic downturn or Russia decides to invade somebody else. A belligerent Russia run by a paranoid old man, a failing economy, and an elderly white guy talking about privatizing everything and it'll be like every 80s Christmas will have come home for old Jebber.
And let's not forget that the people who run the Republican party aren't actually stupid. They know what they need to do to win votes, that was proved this year when they made candidates go to media bootcamp and boiled tea party challengers in oil during the primaries.
Democrats better start dusting themselves off and embracing their successes and deciding what new ones they want pretty damn quick.
Fixed now.
But I've lived through two Jeb Bush campaigns. And while I think his last name is a real stigma, I think that 1.) the GOP won't have a repeat of the 2012 primary of terror and 2.) I think people from the upper 49 tend to underestimate just what a machine the man is in a campaign. He's probably the closest to an Arnold Vinick they have now.
And that's what makes him so dangerous, it's easy for the average voter to ignore his campaign to torch public education and push pro life ideals onto everybody.
The margin for North Carolina in 2012 was 100k votes (~2%) and the demographics there are shifting quite a bit and in a more liberal direction. Charlotte and the Research Triangle area are the main population drivers, and they're almost entirely carpetbaggers from Democratic states. Come 2016 I would not be surprised to see it become a very swingy State. Florida was about the same margin in the other direction, so I would agree that it isn't solid blue but it isn't that unrealistic to consider it to be a strong pickup. And if you look at bum's second map, even with losing both those States (and Virginia, which is becoming pretty solidly blue) Democrats still have a straightforward map to 270. The Republicans have to do everything right to win the Presidency. Which, again, isn't impossible. But it is a lot harder to do than the Democrats being able to screw up a lot of places but still come out on top.
That is definitely a thing, but it tends to only really hold sway after a 3rd term. Bush the Greater had a pretty good margin, and Gore won the popular vote. If trend lines continue without any major exogenous shock then the economic fundamentals for 2016 would favour a 'third term' but going for a fourth would be unlikely. Which kinda sucks since 2020 is more important. However, it's more important due to State level redistricting, and Governors can split tickets, so who knows.
Both major parties should be thankful that the third parties suck at playing the game. Things are getting ripe enough that a third party could easily move in and claim large swaths of the electorate at the expense of both parties. I think ultimately, that would doom the GOP because they are increasingly out of step with the American public, minimum wage increases won in deep red states after all and they had to do mental gymnastics in Kentucky, to claim that Kinect wasn't part of ACA. If I were a serious third party, I would be looking at the data and then I would make some test runs in the states that will be holding state and local elections fall of 2015. Ideally to fine tune strategies, while also hopefully, getting some seats and strongholds to point to future runs. In fact, if I were a third party, I would ignore wasting resources on the Presidency in 2016, since those would be better spend trying to win seats away from the two current major parties (I think a left leaning party would be a bigger threat to the democrats, but the democrats also run republican-lite, so there are likely a a fair number of GOP held seats, which ended up that was as a result of apathy).
The problem is that the vast majority of Americans are just fucking stupid, and like it. They want to shovel shit soup in their mouths because someone totally swore it was filet mignon, They want to keep voting people who will deregulate, cut taxes, and not get rid of loop holes for the rich because one day they'll totally be rich and can exploit it all too, and for a hundred other reasons.
A third party won't fix it, no amount of campaigning will fix it. Because the vast majority of them will live in their blissfully ignorant bubbles until something comes along to pop it, and it might change one vote one time, and they'll quickly huddle themselves back into the comforting warmth of their bubble again and blissfully go on their way.
You can believe people are stupid. You might be right, you might be wrong. You definitely can't do anything about it without magic powers.
It is difficult, but not literally impossible, to change electoral systems. People hate to look at electoral systems, I don't know why. Perhaps it's that electoral reform refutes the idea of democracy as a binary. And the idea that 'We're OK because we're a democracy' is very seductive. People cling to that idea, emotionally.
But I think we all have to abandon that idea, and accept that nations are not democratic/undemocratic. That it's a continuum. So we have to abandon that specious moral high ground of 'valid government', and work to make our electoral systems better.
Continuously. Perhaps forever. We will always need to be improving our electoral systems. And getting rid of FPTP and its bias towards entrenched elites would be a great first step.
IIRC we only have one that has manage to get some sort of presence in local politics and that up in the Northeast, can't even remember which state. Most don't bother with organizing enough and then running in local races, where they have a shot at building a base. They try to capture the Presidency or do a non-serious attempt at some of the other big offices and then act really confused when they do poorly.
I'd say right now is ripe for a competent third party because both the democrats and republicans have kind of ignored a fair chunk of the electorate. GOP is pretty much catering to the wingnut, no taxes and big business crowds. Democrats seem to be trying to be Republican lite. Right now the left and even some of the center left aren't really being courted seriously.
Now it's possible if one did show up and started making some serious gains. They could run into issues if the two main parties pull their heads out of their asses and realize that they should be going for those voters. I just think that if that happened the GOP is more likely to be doomed because they've chased many of their moderates out into the democratic party tent. So the scenario could result in the democrats being the centrist party, while a new party claims the left and the GOP and far right electorate become largely irrelevant on the national scene (maybe even becoming irrelevant on the state and local lvls too, depends on whether the left gets that those are important elections).