why'd we give up on 3rd parties in the USA?

from 1878 to 1950 there was always 1 member of a 3rd party in the United States House of Representatives, from 1950 to today no member of a 3rd party has been elected to the House.
what happen?
 
The US population grew, and most started getting their political info from the TV. Thus, third parties lost their effectiveness, because they didn't have the big bucks.
 
  1. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan made a major effort to recruit and integrate third parties into major-party coalitions. Both parties used his techinques in later elections.
  2. The 1912 election showed the dangers of the spoiler effect, which both undercut public support of third parties and lead the two major parties to make structural reforms (increased weighting of primaries in conventions, etc) to prevent a similar strong third-party run in the future.
  3. The New Deal involved a major restructuring of the two parties, with the Democrats using their full control of the expanded federal government to recruit third party supporters into the New Deal coalition (where they simply faded into the Democratic party) and the Republicans redefining themselves as the anti-Democrat coalition.
Point three is really the crucial one. By the 1940s, essentially either you were for continuing and expanding the New Deal (in which case you were a Democrat), or you were for moderating it or rolling it back (in which case you're a Republican).

There's no room for third parties in this framework. If you want new programs and you aren't a Democrat, you don't get any goodies because the Democrats decide what new programs get implemented. And if you're against the Democrats' agenda and you aren't a Republican, you're shooting yourself in the foot by splitting the anti-Democrat vote.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
And part of it was the problems facing American society at the time. The Populists, the Greenbackers, the Socialists- they could find someone to listen because, well, American society was not as close-knit socially as it is now. It was a wreck, really, for a lot of people.

Much of that ended following the New Deal.
 
The OP misses out on the phenomenon of independent candidates: take Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont and previously Representative from Vermont since 1991. While he caucuses as a Democrat and though he considers himself a socialist, he runs as an independent. And there's Joe Lieberman, elected in 2006 as an independent against a strong Democratic opponent. 2 out of 100 in the US Senate is quite a lot, particularly when one considers the power one senator can wield.

Furthermore, Minnesota has the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party: on the one hand one can dismiss it as the Minnesota State Democratic party, on the other, though, it has a distinctive history and ethos from the DNC. Indeed, at the state and local level, the US has several third parties that play some sort of role.

The years since 1950 have seen there share of third party / independent candidates: George Wallace in 1968, for example, as well as Ross Perot in 1992, to say nothing of Ralph Nader in 2000.
 
The OP misses out on the phenomenon of independent candidates: take Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont and previously Representative from Vermont since 1991. While he caucuses as a Democrat and though he considers himself a socialist, he runs as an independent. And there's Joe Lieberman, elected in 2006 as an independent against a strong Democratic opponent. 2 out of 100 in the US Senate is quite a lot, particularly when one considers the power one senator can wield.

Furthermore, Minnesota has the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party: on the one hand one can dismiss it as the Minnesota State Democratic party, on the other, though, it has a distinctive history and ethos from the DNC. Indeed, at the state and local level, the US has several third parties that play some sort of role.

The years since 1950 have seen there share of third party / independent candidates: George Wallace in 1968, for example, as well as Ross Perot in 1992, to say nothing of Ralph Nader in 2000.

independents aren't a party or a movement

DFL is kind of different from the DNC

while Third parties have run post-1950 but they've never gotten into government
 
Sure, they have. Not on a federal level, but some state legislatures have third parties in them, and some state governors are/were third parties.
 
The difference is none of these cases interfere with the two party status quo.

Yes, we have seen DFL tickets, Wallace, Perot, and a few independents who made it into congress. But all of these people were associated with the democrats or republicans, either as former members or acting as effective members of the parties. For instance, Sanders was elected to the senate without a democrat on the ballot, because he was offered the democratic ticket. It seems like there is always a flavor of the month third party that everybody talks about every four years; Greens, Libertarians, Perot. None of these involved any sort of attempt to actually form a long term viable party.
 
Sometimes, a Third Party member will run as an independent (or on another party's ticket, as did Green Cynthia McKinney in Georgia, where she served, I think, 5 terms in the U. S. House). Also, many Third Parties tend to focus on single issues. OF course, many seem to focus on Presidential/Vice Presidential races and/or local ones.

(I think I will check the Incoming Congress for Party Affiliation the next few days . . . )

Bobindelaware
 
Top