this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Then its time for a third option.
There is no third option until both a better option arises and one of the two existing parties is weakened enough to be supplanted. We aren't anywhere close on either front.
We do have a better option: it's called the Green Party. I do agree that the Democrats are nowhere near weak enough to be replaced, but that could change very rapidly depending upon how the next few years turn out.
The Green Party is not a realistic option. The best they have ever done is 2.7% of the popular vote for president and they have never held a single Senate or House seat. I think the more likely event is that the right splits into MAGA and America First parties, allowing a left supermajority that then splits into Progressive and a traditional Democrat parties.
...which is a lot more than any other leftist political party is doing. This is due to how difficult it is to get a party up and running, and then keep it running. Which we Greens have done for decades.
Plenty of people have thought they could do better, and where are those parties now?
It makes a lot more sense to join a party which has already done that hard work, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
There is a fly ramming against my window right now. That doesn't mean it is doing more than the other flies to knock my house down. No leftist party has come anywhere close to challenging Democrat power. All the third parties combined wouldn't even come close. Throwing a penny into a well and wishing for another party option would be just as effective as supporting the Greens.
Parties do not appear spontaneously. They require work and funding. The fact that you aren't on board with one tells me you haven't gotten far enough off the keyboard to do anything more than complain into the void. If you had, you would know from experience that it takes so much work that you'd want to join an existing group. We are once again in precarious times, everyone can sense that we are on the brink of something. What that is, is up to those who organize. Your defeatism hurts you more than I can, not that I want to. I think we want the same thing, and I hope we get it. Solidarity.
I know parties don't come from nowhere. That is why I think it is far more likely that one or both of the parties would split rather than a third party comes in from the sidelines. The Green party? Come on, seriously. The Libertarian party is more popular and they are ridiculous.
A party split is still forming a new party, if they were happy enough to reuse funding sources, party leadership, etc. they would stay as one party and not split the vote. So all of that needs to be rebuilt from scratch, maybe thats trivial if they have a billionaire or two backing them, but it still costs and takes time.
I like the green party fine, but I don't advocate for them. But I do support the DSA and WFP. And I understand that at the end of the day it is voter numbers that matter, but the libertarian party's numbers are inflated due to a 20 year campaign of investment, advertising, and propaganda to draw people in (ie. Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson). That (pretty well documented) campaign was for the express purpose of convincing people that government is the enemy of people and business.
In the current climate of mask off, grab the cash kleptocracy, I am hopeful that most people see through it and start reevaluating their assumptions and actions. Maybe too much to hope for, but I have seen a lot of the trump faithful become disillusioned since January. Now they are looking around with a fresh perspective but a lot of the anti-democrat propaganda is still real to them. I think they're more likely to go with any independent party than dems if the option is there.
I hope you are right that the right splits and fights amongst themselves. That would genuinely allow Democrats the space to move to the left.