I know Brie's on a kick about a third party. And I understand lots of reasons why the Two-Party System sucks. But sometimes I wonder... why don't Leftists just try to run candidates under both parties?
Like, fuck it. You're going to get called a Hitler-Stalinist anyway. We all know Dems suck and they're going to make running - much less governing - nearly impossible. If you really want to get serious about electoralism, there are plenty of instances where the vestigial GOP in a state is as useful a vehicle for running candidates as the Democrats.
Any port in a storm, and all.
But I'll concede a lot of this hinges on seeing a weakness in the system and exploiting it. Doing quixotic electoralist bids (a la Ralph Nader) doesn't seem to accomplish much in the long run. Squeezing through the cracks only seems to work for a handful of exceptionally lucky candidates.
Still, I think the baseline claim that "Dems bad / Repubs worse" sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy, where leftists corral themselves in the D-party / 3rd-party bucket and never seriously try to tap into the populist sentiments in the other major party.