Zeal For Truth

There is growing support for a third political party in the US. However, because of ideological reasons, it will never survive. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say the particular party will not survive but that the concept of three parties will never survive in the US.

Because of the emphasis of the two-party right/left divide, there can be only two parties. A third party may replace an existing party, but the only possibility there is of three political parties in the US political landscape would be if they divided along similar ideological lines (i.e. a ‘left’, ‘centre’, and ‘right’). In the remainder of this article, I will use this spectrum to hash out two generic examples of why a third party will always (ultimately) fail. I will use current popular third parties as exemplars of their position in the spectrum.

In the Centre
My first example is best witnessed in the Libertarian Party. Along the American spectrum, its recent invocations (the past 20 years or so) have fallen around the centre-right area. When they masquerade in the two big parties, they are almost exclusively Republicans who happen to vote against their party at times (e.g. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich). In fact, because of this positioning, they sometimes have difficulty separating themselves from the GOP. If they were to become a major political party, they would continue to occupy the centre of the spectrum, likely fighting the GOP for votes and members.

As a result of this tension, two scenarios are likely: a simple replacement of the incumbent right-side party (e.g. GOP) with the new (e.g. Libertarians) or a distancing of the two with one (Libertarians here) moving closer to the centre and the other (Republicans here) moving further right. However, a centre-right party will not be able to gain many votes/members from the left side of the spectrum, which means any result would be a weakening of the right-side of the spectrum and more than likely a reconciliation or coalition of the two parties, resulting (ultimately) in a single right-side party that has two manifestations. The same outcome is likely for any centrist party that sufficiently leans one way such that it will not be able to take from both sides simultaneously.

Bookends
The other possibility is that of a bookend party, either far-enough left or far-enough right that it is placed on the outside of its related major party. For this example, I will use a stereotypical far-left party: the Socialist party.

Imagine this party gaining strength. Like the first example, it will do so at the cost of its related major party (i.e. the Democrats). Also like the previous example, it will result in either a replacement of its major party or a distancing of the two. However, where we see the biggest difference is in this distancing because it will be pushing the remaining Democrats right but more than likely not enough to push them straight into the major right-wing party (i.e. the GOP), we will see instead a weakened centrist Democratic party that pushes the major right further right while also taking from its membership a small amount. In other words, it would force three parties split along the left/right spectrum with a centrist middle party.

However, I will be bold here and suggest that the centrist party will exist in name only. In practice, it will stand torn between the two other parties, unable to find an ideological position of its own. This is because American political ideology is so entrenched in a two-party system that the option of a middle-ground third party is unfathomable as an ideological position. This ideology crushes any and all middle third parties by ideological attacks from both sides. Instead of a centrist party, there will instead be many centrist third parties unable to coalesce into a major political party or ideological position, much like there is already today. In other words, much like the previous situation, the displacement needed for a third party will ultimately lead to the downfall of an actual third party and become, yet again, a simple replacement of an existing incumbent party.

Plurality
The only possibility of a sustainable ‘third party’ is really through the formation of, in my own count, 4 major parties that break the left/right spectrum. These 4 parties would be split so that one could see two left parties and two right parties, however there are enough ideological beliefs in the four so that there exists a tangible regular alliance across the left-right distinction (e.g. along the lines of government size which would see both left anarchists and right libertarians side together). However they are created and displaced, there will still be a central region which remains undecided which will still be unable to coalesce into its own ideological position. In other words, neutrality–as an uniting ideological position–remains impossible.