If you're living in America, you live with three major political parties you can pick, of which Republicans and Democrats are the second and third largest among the three. You'd think that you'd have heard of this overwhelmingly large political force, and you'd be right; it's simply not called a political party normally. The only reason this party doesn't officially win elections is because by definition no one represents them.
This is the "Not Voting" party.
Yeah, pulled a fast one on y'all - I'm talking about the choice not to vote. We could bitch about how people don't care, if they voted we could've had X,Y or Z for whatever office, but I'm not going that route here. Just wanted to toss a little political theory over here and see if it makes sense to y'all. If I'm thinking/talking out of my ass I'd rather be corrected, too, so better to our it all out in the open.
See, I understand why Democrats insist on being as centrist as possible. In a two party system, being right in the middle will guarantee the most possible votes, since in the middle you grab everyone to the left (or right), and you can theoretically maximize your votes close to the center of the other political side. If a system is truly two parties this is the optimal political strategy - literally unbeatable unless your opponent does the same.
A funny thing happens when you include people who don't vote into the equation: the entire voting game changes. Another strategy becomes not only viable, it becomes dominant; if your opponent loses their support to non-voters, you can win without moving to the center. Suddenly, the best strategy becomes galvanization and apathy against your opponent: you create dissent among the opposition and generate apathy (or let them do it themselves), and galvanize your base to protect yourself from such a thing happening to you.
The center doesn't matter when there's a third party splitting your vote, and it's not advantageous when the opposition galvanizes their side as much as possible. Going to the center is thus a bad strategy in this context. If you hope to succeed in this environment you must make sure your party votes for you rather that letting them fall away in this third party.
For as much as anyone may dislike the right-wing, they are FAR more effective politically than the left-wing, since they recognize (either purposely or accidentally) that this is the game they're playing. They galvanize the right against the left, and by sticking to hard right politics rather than running to the center they change the frame of what center means for the left. This effectively means that Democrats, if they take the centrist bait, WILL lose their base chasing a moving centeist goal post, leading to indefinite Republican victories.
Getting slightly more political for a second, if anyone wonders why the Progressive left tells Democrats to move left in their policies rather than punching left, this is a biiiiig part of it. Many (like myself) will vote for the weaker centrist candidates regardless, but we recognize that they're not going to win; if you suffer too much loss to the third party called non-voters, you can't win against a party that's spent decades solidifying what supporters they have.
Y'all want to know why candidates like Hillary liss me right the fuck off? Because candidates like her are adhering to a weak, pathetic strategy that assumes the wrong thing, and they get upset when that strategy doesn't hold. They attack progressives that didn't vote, or people that vote third party because they don't at all cater to their base, which is self destructive as all hell.
Enough of that, though. Anyone who's more politically savvy than I willing to correct, confirm or completely reject this thought? Just thought I'd share it with y'all.
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