2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: In a democracy, are minority party candidates "bad"? Is Stein-Baraka "bad"? Is Johnson-Weld "bad"? [View all]Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)Third parties build the democratic process by bringing in people who are dissatisfied with their major party choices.
Neither B. Clinton nor H.W. Bush owned the votes that went to Perot - his supporters were an odd bunch whose votes didn't BELONG to any major party candidate.
The same is true today.
Johnson isn't stealing Trump votes - Johnson is winning votes of people who neither support Trump nor support H. Clinton.
Likewise, Stein has a half (or less) of the support of Johnson; she's not taking any votes that belong to any other candidate - instead, she is bringing people into the democratic process and -- ultimately -- the people she brings into the process were (1) not going to vote for H. Clinton or Trump and (2) may be more likely to vote for Democrats down-ballot rather than voting for down-ballot Republicans.