Third party successes (including being an effective spoiler) have never moved a mainstream party in their direction. What normally happens is that they allow the main party an opportunity to simply marginalize the views the 3rd party supports.
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Unfortunately yes. But what about major party failures?
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We third party voters have neither a ball nor a home.
But seriously, for me at least, it would take someone like Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren, or Keith Ellison. The likes of Cory Booker would also do, in a pinch.
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Fucking Democrats. (I say this as a longtime Democrat who spent the past several years with the Green Party until I went Dem again to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary this year)
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I mean fuck their ends and goals but the American right really knows how to get their goals enacted. So much less self-sabotage and navel-gazing.
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Seriously. We need some goddamn bare knuckles right now.
Seen on Twitter: āThey go low, we roll over and play dead.ā 
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Thatās what Iāve been saying this whole time
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There was one time when this was true:
Or rather, twice:
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Would you say they actually moved the established parties in their direction? For example, did the Democrats adopt Populist policies before the latter became an actual wing of the Democrats?
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From what I remember of my late 19th/early 20th century US history - Iād argue yes. Both the emergence of the Republicans and the Populist had a measurable effect on national politics and in the case of the populists, shifted the democrats into a new direction (the GOP just replaced the whigs, who just evaporated over the politics of slavery and labor). Now, that was well over a century ago, and the parties now are deeply entrenched and moving them is a much tougher affair now than back then, for a number of reasons.
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As hard as it is to believe, this was before my time, so I will cede to your expertise. In my lifetime 3rd part runs have always been at best counterproductive. If the Sanders supporters and the Greens want to have some real influence, they should do what the Tea Partiers did so successfully to the GOP, be a movement within the Democratic party and change it from the inside.
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If the UK Labour party is anything to go by, the neo-liberal wing would rather lose elections than have any change in policy. Expect a lot of failure from internal sabotage in the early years.
(If it is not obvious, I have argued in favour of doing this before. Just recognize that it will be a hard job)
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[quote=āthe_borderer, post:2868, topic:67518ā]
If the UK Labour party is anything to go by, the neo-liberal wing would rather lose elections than have any change in policy.[/quote]
The Corbyn wing seems to have solidified their control over the party. Yet to be seen is whether they can parley that into any kind win in the next General, assuming the UK still exists.
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Labour are a tremendous mess. Theyāre hopelessly split over Brexit, because UKIP will take all their Brexit supporting voters if they try to block leaving the EU, but if they donāt, the LibDems will eat their lunch instead.
I would never vote for the Labour party as it is right now. Iād have to vote LD if there was a snap election. But there wont be. Maybe after Brexit has happened and the country is buggered.
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Well, technically, mine too - Iām not THAT old! 
Just what I remember from my 19th century history.
I agree that third parties canāt get much done now a days, though. As you note, the tea party has had more influence, but part of that is the overton window stuff.
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Yeah, thatās when I took History too. Mr. Fliebus, 3rd period.
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This is a strange definition of success. Certainly the founder of the Tea Party, and all the people I interact with who were early Tea Party supporters, would call their efforts a tremendous failure! They did not change the GOP as theyād intended, and instead led to Trump winning the presidency.
But if you mean people can disembowel a political party and totally lose control of the process during the infighting and end up gnawing on each othersā bones, then yes the Tea Party was a great success. One that I suppose Berners could emulate to wreak equally uncontrolled destruction on the Democratic party. I honestly have no idea whether that would be a good or bad thing for posterity.
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The GOP has been pandering to the Tea Party for years, the TP is the reason Palin was the party VP nominee, the TP got several candidates elected to Congress and the Senate, the TP superpac endorsed Trump early, and finally the TP rallied behind Trump. If your friends are still unhappy then maybe they should be reconsidering whether the TP was the place to achieve their goals.
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The Koch Brothers? Ron Paul?
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I donāt have any friends in the Tea Party. Plenty of coworkers, neighbors, and acquaintances, all of whom I treat with civility and polite respect because thatās how I roll, but no friends.
But again, if you are recommending that people work from inside the Democratic Party to destroy it, the Tea Party is a good model. I just donāt know if releasing uncontrollable chaos is the only remaining strategy for party reform, or not.
You and I are far too old to see any truly meaningful change occur in the Democratic Party, frankly, but I have young friends who are working their way up the ladder the conventional way, and I would guess from what little I know of you that you do too.
Ron Paul almost accidentally created the Tea Party during one of his āmoney bombā events, but soon distanced himself from it. Then there was a period where every ambitious bastard in the GOP tried to become the Tea Party leader, which led to the hilarious moment of a guy named Dick Armey trying to assume command of aā¦ dick army, and failing, and then the Kochs and others started astro-turfing the hell out of it without worrying about command and controlā¦ of which it has none, to this day. Every teabagger is a lone wolf.
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