The 2024 US presidential election is nearing, and the polls show a narrow margin between the Democrats and the Republicans. As we are left to predict who might be the next president of the most powerful nation on our planet, one cannot help but wonder what Noam Chomsky said, “In the US, there is basically one party–the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.”
What we have to understand is whether the Democrats and the Republicans cater to the interests of the same group. What does this two-party system have to offer? Do they help represent the voices of Americans? Are there any other alternatives that better reflect the common aspirations? And how can that impact US politics overall? Let’s find out.
When it comes to voting in a US presidential election, it essentially comes down to having two choices. This has been the case for more than two centuries. Indeed, many other parties and independent candidates have participated in the election throughout history. But they have never come even near to winning a presidential election. This scenario is the result of the plurality voting system. In contrast to the majority voting system, where a candidate has to get more than half of the votes to win, in plurality, a candidate only has to get more votes than other candidates to win.
For example, if candidate A gets 45% of the votes, candidate B receives 40%, and candidate C gets 15%, candidate A wins in the plurality voting system. As per the Electoral College voting system in the US presidential election, a candidate winning in a state gets all the electoral votes (although more than half of the voters in that state have not voted for him in our example). In this ‘winner gets all’ system, people who voted for candidate C and prefer candidate B over candidate A might feel like their votes are ‘going to waste.’ Therefore, from the next elections, these voters would start voting for candidate B, eventually leading to a situation where only two candidates can win. When this scenario occurs nationwide, only two parties emerge as the dominant ones, while the voters become discouraged from voting for other parties.
In political science, this is called Duverger’s law.
This is why other parties, even when they have better policies and represent the demands of many people, cannot impose their significance on the US political scene.
However, the democrats and republicans are unable to represent the sociopolitical stances and demands of 335 million people in the United States.
In a nation that is so diverse, many people are becoming frustrated with having two effective choices and are in dire need of political parties that will speak for them.
Furthermore, people are becoming more and more aware of the fact that apart from having disagreements about a handful of issues like abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and firearms regulation, Democrats and Republicans seem to care for the big corporations primarily.
Candidates from both parties get donations usually from the same donors through super PACs (Political Action Committees) that can raise unlimited funding. These donations largely come from big corporations. As a result, no matter whether we have a Democratic president or a Republican one, the policies are more or less going to be influenced (or, more likely, dictated) by the will of these companies. For the same reason, the genocide in Gaza will continue, whatever the outcome of November 5 is.
On the other hand, the presidential candidates for both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, respectively the third and fourth largest political parties in the United States, have pledged to end the genocide in Gaza. Both of these parties advocate for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate, is a proponent of cutting military spending and giving legal status to immigrants. However, his lenient gun-control policy and advocacy for laissez-faire capitalism mean that the left-leaning people are more likely to vote for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Other than being pro-Palestine, Jill Stein advocates for barring corporate money from politics, a $25 minimum wage, canceling all medical and student debts, free birth control and menstruation products, and even disbanding NATO. While these proposed policies do seem way too radical in the eyes of most Americans, this is exactly what makes Stein popular among progressive voters.
Stein’s presence in the pro-Palestine rallies will lead a large number of voters holding this stance to vote for her in this election because they do not want to ‘vote for genocide’; among them are mainly the Arab-American communities.
Michigan, one of the key battleground states in this election, is home to the largest Arab-American community in the country.
Reports and polls show that most of this demographic is thinking about voting for Stein.
And this could have a significant impact on the election. Stein was the nominee of the Green Party in the 2016 presidential election as well. That time, her total votes in Michigan exceeded the margin between Donald Trump, who won the state, and Hillary Clinton. Democrats accused Stein of ‘spoiling’ the election, asserting that if Stein had not participated, Green Party votes would have gone to the Democrats, and they would have won a critical state like Michigan. Stein did not participate in the 2020 election, and Democrats won in Michigan.
This time, Democrats need to win here in Michigan, and Stein poses a significant threat. So, Kamala Harris ran a campaign advertisement against Stein, stating that voting for Stein actually means voting for Trump. That Stein ‘handed the presidency to Trump’ in 2016, and she intends to do that this time as well by stealing Democrat votes. While this may discourage some voters from voting for Stein, others were outraged by it.
Many said that Harris does not own anyone’s vote and has to earn the votes if she wants them. Political commentator Ana Kasparian noted, “[I]f Trump is so disastrous, it should be a cakewalk for Democrats. That’s the point that I’m trying to make here. The election should not be this close, to begin with, and considering the fact that it is this close, I find it incredibly problematic that the Democrats are lashing out at Jill Stein or third-party candidates instead of maybe taking a moment at reflecting, doing a little bit of self-reflection, and trying to figure out, okay, what can we do to increase our margins in states like Pennsylvania, like Michigan?”
All of the dialogues and debates that have arisen surrounding the third parties prove that their presence is an essential factor to American citizens. So, as the election nears, it is becoming more apparent that the third-party candidates, whether or not they impact the battleground states, are a crucial part of US politics. They advocate for the voices of the people whose opinions are lost on the two major parties.
The United States needs more political parties to become mainstream for democracy to thrive in this country.
The plurality voting system and big money in politics are significant obstacles for these parties to become as dominant as the Democratic and Republican Party. These non-major parties might have their shortcomings. However, for people to talk about the pros and cons of these parties, the US media needs to highlight them more instead of discussing them only during election periods. The people whose views align with these parties also need to talk about these issues more frequently and demand necessary political reforms for a multi-party democracy. The most powerful nation seems to have many problems with its political structure, and solving these might just be the beginning steps toward a more representative and transparent democracy.