By John Christen
The 2016 presidential race is ugly. On the right, Donald Trump slouches upon a tacky golden throne, a man who has been accused of sexual assault several times this month. Across the aisle on the left sits Hillary Clinton, a woman who put our country’s security at risk by using a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
Although one of these candidates is the most qualified presidential candidate to ever run and the other is a tax-evading misogynist, there are still millions of frustrated Americans who are unsure which of these two candidates will receive their vote on Nov. 8, if they will even enter the voting booth at all. However, what these Americans do not realize is that voting for a third-party candidate is essentially the same as not voting whatsoever.
The natural inclinations of voters equally dissatisfied with both sides of the ticket are either to not vote at all or vote for a third-party candidate. Enter the Libertarian candidate Gary “What is Aleppo?” Johnson and the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
In Gary Johnson’s New York Times op-ed appropriately titled “Take a Deep Breath Voters. There is a Third Way,” he simultaneously emphasizes and downplays the traditional “fiscally conservative” and “socially liberal” foundation of the Libertarian party to attract more voters. According to Johnson, the five most important things about his presidency would be a “real balanced budget” to check the growth of the federal government spending waste, a focus on protecting “the Constitution and civil liberties,” with special attention paid to the societal benefits of immigration and his pro-choice abortion stance, a “free trade to all nations” and “attack only when attacked” foreign policy attitude.
Libertarianism has always been a welcome compromise for socially progressive Republican moderates or fiscally conservative Democrats. Moreover, Gary Johnson’s positive campaign is a bright light in the treacherous cave that is the 2016 election.
Then there is Green Party Candidate Jill Stein. According to its critics, the Green Party’s consistent message has been “Earth before country.” On her campaign’s website, the first bullet point of Stein’s platform reads: “Initiate a WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history.”
I do not disagree with Stein here as the climate change threat is imminent. Nevertheless, it is impossible to mobilize a competitive number of American voters with a platform like this, especially since a CNN poll in January 2015 found that “57 percent of Americans did not expect global warming to affect their way of life.” This statistic is discouraging, but it is an ideological reality of this election.
The third party candidates are the alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and they are gaining a minority amount of support. According to a Gallup survey, they have polled as high as 15 percent collectively, but this statistic along with the positive things about both third-party candidates’ campaigns are irrelevant.
Voting for a third-party candidate is throwing away your vote because it produces the same result as not voting at all. Essentially, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each receive half your vote. A third-party vote in a presidential election is meaningless aside from your own moral satisfaction.
In our two-party political system, third-party candidates simply cannot win, due to our electoral-vote elections in which all but two states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate that amasses the largest plurality of voters on Election Day. By voting for a third-party candidate, you are betting that your candidate will receive a larger percentage of votes than either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. The political polarity of most states will not allow this to happen.
Low voter turnout and large major-party supporter bases allow for the dominance of the Democratic and Republican parties. Until our two-party political system changes, you need to swallow your pride, forget your protest vote and vote for one of the two major-party candidates who you think can lead this country. Otherwise, you are part of the problem.
John Christen, FCRH ’19, is undeclared in his major from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Matt • Oct 26, 2016 at 3:14 pm
Here’s an opposing view.
https://thefordhamram.com/2016/10/26/respect-your-political-views-and-vote-third-party/
Joe Patrick Esquivel (@JoePatrick85) • Oct 22, 2016 at 4:41 pm
The only vote gone to waste is a vote for someone who is only the lesser of two evils
Neal Gumpel • Oct 21, 2016 at 1:58 am
it warms my heart to see free thinkers on the Fordham Campus addressing issues of all sorts. John is an idiot, not for believing what he does but for doing such a lousy job of doing it. He embarrasses those who may think the way he does.
Neal Gumpel
Victim of Father Roy Drake Jesuit
Paul Andrews • Oct 21, 2016 at 8:32 am
It is amazing how many people are sheep. They follow along with whatever the establishment dictates for them to do… and then they attack us free thinkers because the establishment tells them to. Whenever I hear the argument that a vote for 3rd party is really a vote for the opposing R/D candidate, I shake my head in disgust at the level of ignorance that is out there. It is as if all of them are using Common Core and can’t understand how elections truly work. I would never vote for EITHER Hillary or Trump so my vote for Johnson wouldn’t go to EITHER of them if Johnson wasn’t in the race. I would write in a name vs. voting for either one of them. I rarely hate people, but I absolutely hate them both. They are loathsome people and the fact that somehow out of ~320 million people THESE two rose to the top for the R/D parties tells me everything that I need to know about those parties.
l • Oct 21, 2016 at 12:39 am
john suck my cock
happydadster13 • Oct 19, 2016 at 6:29 am
You obviously need some further education on the impact of voting 3rd party. It is well documented that popular third party positions often cause shifts in their positions. If Gary Johnson receives 5% of the vote nationally then the Libertarian Party will be designated as a minor party and will receive matching funding in the next election (donations, not taxpayer dollars). Also, it behind a movement to break the two party system that has lead to the decline of our great nation. So explain again how it’s “wasting” my vote? Again, you might want to educate yourself prior to writing uninformed information.
Ben Arisen (@BrightLeaf88) • Oct 20, 2016 at 2:36 am
These people don’t care about being informed or uninformed. They only care about shilling for Hillary. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is an intellectually honest critique of third party candidates. When the author states that “…one of these candidates is the most qualified presidential candidate to ever run and the other is a tax-evading misogynist,” it becomes clear that the agenda of this article is to convince millennials not to “waste” a vote that should go to Her.
tedlawlor • Oct 20, 2016 at 1:54 pm
To be informed is to vote for Hillary Clinton. Any other candidate lacks either the experience or knowledge into the semantics of domestic and international policy to be named as our next president. Furthermore, I doubt that most of the electorate siding with either Johnson or Stein even believes in half of the platform created by either of their respective parties. Even the slightest inquiry into any major policy put up by Johnson, Stein, or especially Trump shows how unfeasible their ideas really are. Both trusted politicians and analysts from either side of the political spectrum agree that Trump’s policies simply cannot pay for themselves. It is mathematically impossible to deport millions of people, build a wall, expand our military and rebuild our infrastructure while simultaneously cutting taxes for everyone without destroying even the most basic functions of government. Even if you were to look beyond the moral character of either candidate, only Hillary’s policies even have the slightest chance of defending themselves from criticism.
Paul Andrews • Oct 20, 2016 at 5:59 pm
Tedlawlor, I completely disagree with you. Hillary has proven that her experience means absolutely nothing due to her poor decision-making skills and her perpetuity for lying. She voted for the war in Iraq as well as helped drive poor policy decisions that lead to the war in Syria and a horrible relationship with Russia (not that I trust them, but there were 1,000 ways to make sure that the relationship functioned better than it did). Her personal choices with the pay to play with the Clinton Foundation, being involved in the Democratic deceptions that backstabbed Bernie, and the constant lying (i.e. deplaning while under sniper fire, her being named after Sir Hillary, etc.) shows that she is a typical politician. Her policy plans will continue to add debt and she “adopted” policies solely to placate Bernie supporters (i.e. being against TPP). All of this shows that she is what people claim that she is… corrupt. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a psycho, but your comments about Hillary are absolutely incorrect as her policies are definitely to be criticized and have ZERO chance of passing in a Republican Congress.