comment: >
context: The closest comparison I can think of is En Marche  ! From France, but I don’t think that would be a proper comparison. >
  
  There have been a few party systems in the United States over the course of its existence.
  Usually, it plays out like this:
  
  The United States faces a split over an important difference in policy (Constitution vs Articles of Confederation, banking and tariffs, slavery, Civil Rights)
  The parties start defining themselves over this central issue (Federalists vs Democratic-Republicans, Whigs vs Democrats, Democrats vs Republicans, Democrats vs Republicans vs Southern Democrats)
  Once a new central issue arises, either a new party springs up and subsumes one of the two existing parties, as the previous split no longer adequately defines the party coalitions, or one of the two existing parties incorporates the issue into their platform and absorbs the new party.
  
  The best example of this is the Whigs, a party that differentiated themselves from Democrats on economic grounds, but who didn't really have a reason to exist when economic differences became less important than views on slavery.
  In general, since both parties are already pretty ideologically diverse, its very difficult to make a meaningful third party run >
  
  I'd say Ross Perot's candidacy is probably the reason Bill Clinton was able to defeat George Bush Sr.  
  I don't know if Perot actually intended to win or if he intended to be a spoiler candidate, but he seemed to siphon more Republican votes than Democratic votes, thus resulting in a Democratic win. >
  
  When it happened in Canada it didn’t work out very well.  I can’t source it for you at the moment, but if you research ‘Canada Elects NDP’ it should pop up. They were and are always the 3rd party underdogs.  They won the election and were basically caught with their pants down. >
  
  I believe you may be talking about Bob Rae’s NDP government in the province of Ontario, not all of Canada. The NDP has never formed a national government but it has  been in government in 6 out of 10 provinces at one time or another. >
  
  Yes, I misremembered that.   Thanks.  I did remember the controversy but not the specifics. >
  
  The USA has a third party that is small and that is the Libertarian Party. It’s best if we don’t let them win. >
  
  An unpopular party cannot win an election.  If they win, they're ipso facto popular. >
  
  In 1974 the USA wound up with a strange situation in which a person appointed to fill the vacant Vice Presidency moved up to President after Richard Nixon had to scandalously resign.  Then a billionaire insider (Nelson Rockefeller) was appointed to be Gerald Ford's vice president.
  So we had an un-elected President and Vice President from a very unpopular and deeply incriminated party running the country--and running for (not)re-election as incumbents.
  I remember it; it was a comparatively quiet and peaceful time.  The government continued to function and honestly it was a small window of economic stability in between energy crises and then tax cut recessions.  But there were people openly asking if the rich people were just going to run off with the country.  Nobody seemed particularly prepared or inclined to do anything about it if it happened--by then the government had figured out how to infiltrate and discredit any large public demonstrations.  
  In retrospect it's clear they didn't take over because they already had.  Why suspend elections when you can just swing them your way through a series of amazing coincidences and backroom deals with foreign nations?
  Sorry, I realize that doesn't help you very much.  But perhaps you'll hear the first verse of that rhyme in your own nation's history and stop the poem before it can finish. >
  
  Although that's a valid concern, I'm pretty sure Rockefeller was governor of the swing state of NY and served in the FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower administrations
  It's not like the modern equivalent of appointing say Jeff Bezos as VP >
  
  More like Bloomberg, without the party switch to complicate things. >
  
  It literally could not happen in America. The two corporations (RNC and DNC) have captured the electoral process so thoroughly that, legally, it simply cannot happen.
  Yes, in theory it could … just as there could theoretically be a general strike where the US workers demanded basic healthcare and time off, but in both cases, it is so implausible because of corporate capture of the nation’s institutions that it delves into sheer fantasy.
  And this, children, is how you know you live in a dystopian corporate state, a totalitarian government kept in power by debt/wage peonage.
  Society is atomized — kept separate to prevent organizing by the peons — and workers are being steadily pushed downward so that poverty or near-poverty is now the norm for most Americans.
  Wait until you see what AI and automation have in store for you. Time is on the oppressors’ side. >
  
  You realize that both the RNC and DNC have been "defeated" several times, even recently, right? Literally all someone has to do is win more votes lol. 
  Obama ran against the party apparatus as a populist and won the primary in 2008 and Trump ran against the party apparatus as a populist and won the primary in 2016. It is literally a popularity contest.
  Like, it really isn't corporations or cabals or conspiracies or anything like that. Its people voting for what their preferences are. The fact that you don't like the outcome doesn't mean that it isn't democratic.
  If you think that this is a dystopian existence, I hate to tell you this, but we're currently experiencing the highest standards of living of any society in human history. The idea that people are being "pushed into poverty" just isn't borne out in the data, as in absolute terms both American and global poverty has been steadily declining for almost a century straight.
  Existing fundamentally sucks. It used to be that the default state was starvation, poverty, insecurity, and death, and anything that avoided those things was gravy.
  I get that theres tons of people telling you to be righteously indignant at everyone who disagrees with you, but saying "its all rigged by some unstoppable and evil enemy" is a childish view that people resort to because actually trying to understand the complicated dynamics in political systems is too difficult >
  
  Ha ha — spoken like a product of the American education system. Which is not meant as an insult. I am also a product of that system, and it takes a lot of effort to break out of doctrine
  It is funny you point to Obama — the dude who literally had Citibank approving his cabinet choices, and who installed Hillary Clinton — the biggest DNC operator in existence — as his SOS. 
  Not too mention the shitty appointments of corporate stooges throughout his entire government.
  I mean, the insurance industry literally crafted the so-called Obamacare. 
  He fucked ordinary Americans in every feasible way during the “bailout” years, appointing Goldman Sachs’s insiders to administer almost $12,000,000,000,000 in ‘aid’ that went straight to Wall Street. Regular homeowners got fucked every which way.
  He doubled down on the war on terror, legalized the CIA using propaganda operations on the US populace, and expanded the drone war to levels beyond Cheney’s wildest fantasies.
  Obama is the asshole who executed an American citizen via drone strike, w no trial … then executed his teenage son a few weeks later just for good measure.
  Not to mention Obama’s role in blocking Sanders and elevating Sanders.
  To dismiss cabals and conspiracies and secret meeting is the height of ignorance. Those things have been around throughout history. Sounds like J Edgar Hoover saying the mafia doesn’t exist.
  As far as our stupendous standard of living — humans work more hours now than ever in history. 
  The idea that the default is hunger and privation is bullshit you were taught. 
  The average hunter gatherer works about 14 hours a week and answers to no one. In the United States, as industrialization took over and self sufficient family farms and ranches were destroyed, there was almost revolution.
  My guess is you have either a comfortable living, so you are content w what you are told, and have an instinct to defend the status quo.
  Whatever the case, half of Americans being in poverty or near poverty is just a well known fact in economic circles. Kind of like the fact that capitalism requires poverty to function.
  It to you whom Centrists speak, as you are among the minority of Americans who participate in the charade of elections and think no further.
  But, you keep plugging away and voting Democrat, always frustrated how they are always just one pesky vote away from changing everything for the better. >
  
  It depends on who the third party more closely aligns with and their relative location on the political spectum (eg. more centrist or more radical). It also matters if the political environment is divisive or if they work together. And unfortunately I have to mention that it also matters if people are given a reason to doubt or dispute the elections. That's not saying anything about Nigerian elections as much as it is about modern elections as a whole.
  I wish I knew more about them to speculate but it could go all sorts of different directions.