Mainstream voter – Third parties threaten democracy

Winston Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government “…except for all those other forms which have been tried before.” This election cycle more than ever has proven Churchill’s words to be true. The democratic process has failed us, not because anything was rigged or pre-determined, but because the process was too democratic.

Donald Trump is not a byproduct of the Republican Party as a whole — many in the party viewed him unfavorably during the primaries and today still view him unfavorably, some even to the extent of endorsing Hillary Clinton.

The Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, is largely made up of reasonable people. The problem is that there was a massive over-saturation of nominees in the Republican primaries. Seventeen Republicans in total vied for the right to be named the official Republican presidential nominee, and many of the seventeen would have made, at worst, decent presidents and at best very good presidents.

Because most of the seventeen were rational people, all of the rational Republicans found themselves supporting differing candidates. Truth be told, there is very little difference between someone like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. The major difference is between Rubio/Bush and Donald Trump. If the establishment wing of the Republican Party had endorsed one candidate, the American people would be seeing a Republican president in office this November.

For instance, in a recent CBS poll, Republican nominee hopeful John Kasich was predicted to trounce Clinton in the general election if made the nominee. But the party did not find one reasonable candidate to back, and instead spread the election so thin that the angry, nationalistic mob has voted in a man completely unqualified to be president.

Many have said the solution to such a problem is to vote third party, yet this would simply perpetuate the same mistake. The sad reality of modern day America is that a large number of uneducated and uninformed people have the same right to vote as those that have a semblance of an education.

These uneducated people are Trump’s most fervent supporters, according to recent polls from Bloomberg created to better understand why people are backing the billionaire real estate mogul. Now imagine a multiple party system where these uneducated, ultra-nationalists have their own party with a spot on the ballot every year. It has already happened historically, such as in 1932 Germany where six parties received more than one million votes, the most famous of these parties being the Nazi Party, which only received 37 percent of the vote but managed to dominate the five other fragmented parties.

This is the greatest cause for concern in a multi-party system. Although in theory, it is nice to have everyone’s voice be heard, in practice the reality is the average person is woefully unqualified to be making such judgments. The average human is prejudiced against those of different religion, color, sexuality or regional origin, and many multi-party governments across the globe have entire political parties specifically constructed around racial identity.

One example stems from the United Kingdom in 2009, when the British National Party, a party of ultra-nationalists keen on sending immigrants and their descendants “back to their country of origin,” won two seats in the British Parliament.

This does not mean I am anti-democracy. Democracy is thus far the safest and sanest form of government. But democracy has its weaknesses, and even our founding fathers recognized its ability to be tainted and corrupted by mob rule.

The two-party system has allowed this great nation to thrive for as long as it has. It creates a system where half of the country lays aside minor ideological differences for the sake of choosing one nominee to pit against another. This limits the possibility of the more radical parts of American society to undermine the entire nation, and ensures that both parties remain relatively moderate and rational.

If there is anything that this crazed, over-saturated election desperately needs, it’s a little moderation and rationality.

Sam Balas can be reached at

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