Back during the 2016 election, I was a very outspoken hater of Donald Trump, however I wasn't about to vote for Hillary Clinton. I've obviously since changed my mind about Trump — voting for him in 2020 and will again this election season — but it was during that time I began exploring the realm of third parties, namely the Libertarian Party. As a self-identifying libertarian, the Libertarian Party seemed like it would be a nice place for me to cast my vote. 

Of course, I would discover that the Libertarian Party, like Monty Python's Camelot, is a silly place that no one should go to, but I digress. 

I soon found out that our election system is entirely unkind to third parties. If you're not a Republican or a Democrat, you're probably going to have a hard time getting elected, if not unnoticed entirely. For most people, the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Independent, et al., are only heard about randomly in passing conversation and news reports. 

For instance, being a third-party candidate on a debate stage alongside Republicans and Democrats is borderline impossible thanks to rules that were created through a group founded by both Republicans and Democrats. I wrote of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 2016 and how it effectively pushed out the League of Women Voters to seize control of the debate stage: 

The organization itself was founded in 1987 by a bipartisan Republican/Democrat effort, and has run the debates ever since. It was in the year 2000 that they established the rules that a candidate can only appear on the stage with 15% in 5 polls, pretty much securing that only Republicans and Democrats would appear on the stage together.

If it sounds shady, you’re not the only one who thinks so. Before the CPD, the debates were run by the League of Women Voters from 1976 to 1984. The League withdrew when Republicans and Democrats made a deal that would give them full control over the debates, and how they were run.

Nancy Neuman, then head of the League, called the deal “outrageous,” and noted that the Democrats and Republicans wanted to control the questioners, composition of the audience, press access, and more. All of this was done behind closed doors. By the time the deal was done, the League was presented with 16 pages of non-negotiable rules for the debates.

The League departed with a statement that called out exactly what the dual parties were doing and remains accurate to this day: 

“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter,” League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.

“It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions,” Neuman said. “The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

Even Walter Cronkite called it an "unconscionable fraud." 

Achieving 15 percent popularity in five different polls is a huge ask for parties in the shadows that are largely ignored by the mainstream press due to the corporate media being in the pocket of Democrats, and "Republicans are bad" sucking up the rest of airtime. Top donors are mostly going to hand their money to whomever has the best chance of winning the election and, moreover, capable of being swayed or bought with said money. 

So third parties languish in the dark despite attempts to alter the rules in courts, with cases that are thrown out by judges. 

As Sister Toldjah wrote on Thursday, keeping third parties at bay is a time-honored tradition here in America. Both RFK Jr. and Jill Stein of the Green Party were attacked by the Democrat Party, actively working to halt any progress in the race for the White House. Stein's fans have also dropped proof this is happening: 

The party of “fairness” and “democracy” for you:

- hiring infiltrators
- hiring an army of lawyers to throw @DrJillStein off the ballot
- stockpiling cash and staff to coordinate a “campaign” to silence and sabotage 3rd parties
- denying federal matching funds

The Undemocratic… https://t.co/AsmdqL3VjW pic.twitter.com/k51JDbGeTH

— People For Jill Stein (@peopleforstein) August 22, 2024

You might be thinking it's good that yahoos like Stein are being kept from the White House, but that's not how America is supposed to be. 

No matter how insane you might think the person is, they deserve a fair shot at winning the people's affections. The rules should not be weighted against them, and the other parties should not be able to manipulate rules to keep them from reaching the people. 

It's my honest opinion that a two-party system is incredibly dangerous and limiting. If America's economic system has taught us anything, it's that competition brings out the best in people and the best people overall. Yet, we're currently tied to a dual-party system so filled to the brim with corruption that sometimes it's hard to know where one party begins and the other ends. 

I think RFK Jr. and Jill Stein should indeed unite with the Republican Party and attempt to sway things away from Democrat control. At least, at that point, we'll have a better chance at changing things within the system to make it more fair to third parties to compete. We certainly know there's a snowball's chance in hell that the Democrats will give up any advantage to power, but perhaps it's time that we change that and hear what the other guys have to say. 

Their ideas can sink or swim based on their own merit, as they should be. 

Because if our government and the two major political parties are actively working to silence other candidates outside their groups and manipulating the system to succeed, is this really a free and fair election system? 

Editor's note: This article was edited for clarity after publication.