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Election 2016: Third-party candidates are thin in policy and relevant experience and knowledge #ImWithHer

This is part of a series of posts on Election 2016.

The most common reason given not to vote for a 3rd-party candidate is that by doing so you are (a) actually voting for Hillary Clinton or (b) actually voting for Donald Trump. That argument only works against people that share your hatred of the other candidate but not a hatred for your chosen candidate. Actually, it doesn’t work against them, either, because they obviously thought a little about this to even consider a 3rd-party candidate, so this oh-so-obvious-and-slightly-condescending reductionist tidbit fails. (But if you have never considered this argument, remember that voting for a 3rd-party candidate is a vote for Trump.)

That said, don’t imagine that your vote for a Libertarian or Green candidate in a single election every four years will “change the system.” That might happen if we elect reps from other parties at the local and state levels first, but it is really only likely if we change the structure of government to not be a winner-take-all system (and instead some sort of proportional system). Note that I’m not arguing we should be doing that … just that if you want to make a change, it takes work and effort.

Now that we are past that, John Oliver did a decent job showing how bad these 3rd-party candidates are.  I’ll go through a bit of detail here, though – it just won’t be as funny.

Third-party candidates rarely have extensive experience in government or in comparable areas where they could gain experience in negotiations, legislative dealing, executive and administrative acumen, etc.  They have become the standard bearers for niche groups that have no real hope of fielding a successful run at the presidency, and that likelihood of failure doesn’t exactly call forth the best candidates.

But two of the candidates are getting measurable votes according to the polls: Johnson and Stein.  I won’t bother with the other candidates, but let’s take a quick shot at debunking those two:
  1. Gary Johnson. His complete ignorance around Aleppo, the Syrian city at the heart of the Syrian civil war, seems only to be indicative of his general ignorance around foreign affairs. His inability to name a living foreign leader he admired was less egregious, but again, it seems to be indicative.  He DOES have experience as a leader (he was a governor of New Mexico), but it is hard to understand his core principles.  His tenure in New Mexico tripled their debt (not a hallmark of small government conservatives); he doesn’t want to limit funding on Planned Parenthood; he thinks it’s okay to ban burkas, etc.  Basically, people of all persuasions should have major issues with him, as this article points out. 
  2. Jill Stein. She has cozied up to fringe groups, like anti-vaxers.  She wants to put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are “proven safe,” which is impossible (you can’t prove a negative). Forgiving student loans sounds kinda cool, but in the main it would actually help professionals more than the lower class. The worst part is that her idea of how to pay for this is a complete misunderstanding of economic theory. She is a Harvard-trained scientist, but some of her core ideas are crazy, impractical, or both. 
All the above doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t vote for a 3rd-party candidate.  Heck, I would prefer either of these minor-leaguers to Trump, and people have legitimate reasons for voting their conscience in any election. But, in my opinion, it simply doesn’t make any sense to imagine that they are great candidates for anything, and that you can “vote for someone you really want to be President, instead of voting for the lesser of two evils.”

To me, Trump is historically bad. Either he or Hillary will be President, so if I were voting pragmatically, I would not consider voting for anyone but the only person that can beat Trump. But I know you have already considered that, so I know it didn't persuade you. 

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