Every four years, Americans are faced with a choice for president. They typically only have
two choices. Republicans and Democrats. But, every once in a while, a third party candidate
comes on the scene and starts getting attention. This is one of those years. So let’s explore why
this happens and what effect a third party candidate can have on the overall election.
[Intro music]
So every four years, the American
people are faced with the same choices that they have every other four years. Apples and oranges.
Now you can sit there and say that these are two sides of the same coin all you want. That simply
isn’t true. Yes, they’re both fruits that grew on trees, and are generally considered sweet,
and yes they’re both politicians that have been bought by corporations to run for president.
But their stances on the issues are completely different – they’re anything but two sides of the
same coin – they’re different coins completely. Sometimes the apple candidate is a red delicious,
sometimes it’s a granny smith, and sometimes it’s a honeycrisp. Sidenote, have you tried
a honeycrisp apple? It will change your life. But it’s always some sort of apple. The apple believes
in closing the borders and not letting in any more figs or dates until we know what’s going on.
Bad dates. The orange candidate can sometimes be a navel,
or a tangerine, or even those cute little mandarin oranges. But it’s always an orange. And this
orange believes that global warming isn’t that big of a deal because it would allow oranges to be
grown at more northern latitudes, increasing jobs. On these made-up issues these two couldn’t be
more different – but it’s the same for the actual issues. Many people consider it to be
a bad apple season, or a bad orange season, or both. The apple has a few too many bruises and
the orange has seeds in it – seeds?! We got rid of those years ago, what is this, 1860?!
Obviously not, but that is an interesting date to bring up, because it is the last time the country
had an election with not three but four running parties. Not only did we have an orange and an
apple candidate, but we had a banana party and lemon party candidate as well. And this severely
messed things up. I shouldn’t have to remind you what this election caused, but just in case…
[Musket and cannon fire]
Abraham Lincoln won this election. But because of
the party split, it was anything but a landslide. All four parties won Electoral Votes:
Abraham Lincoln won 180 votes, with 1,866,452 popular votes. Breckinridge won 72 votes and
847,953 popular votes. Bell won 39 votes and 592,906 popular votes. And Douglas
won 12 votes, with 1,392,713 popular votes. That means Lincoln won the Electoral College and
the presidency, but only had 39.6% of the popular vote. Douglas, who had the least Electoral Votes,
had 29.5% of the vote. So had the election been decided by popular vote instead,
things would have ended up much more different and possibly more violent.
So let’s look at the election of 1824. Another four-way race. They were all from the same party;
the Democratic-Republicans; so imagine four grapefruits running against each
other - and the results reflected that. Jackson won 99 Electoral Votes, Quincy
Adams won 84, Crawford won 41, and Clay won 37. As you can see, nobody won the required,
at the time, 131 votes to win. So what happens in this situation? Well, the vote goes to the
House of Representatives, where they get to choose between the top 3 Electoral College
winners. In this case, they chose Quincy Adams – who had technically got second
place. Keep this in mind as we move forward. That was the election that finally split the
party into the Republicans and Democrats that we know and love today. But let’s fast forward to
the most recent election that had a third party candidate. And the last election that a third
party candidate actually won electoral votes. In 1968, in the middle of the civil rights
movement. The Democrats fractured and instead of supporting their main candidate, Humphrey,
the southern states supported Wallace, the pro-segregational racist. Because of that
Nixon won. If you add the popular votes of both Humprey and Wallace together, they would have
beat Nixon by almost 10 million, and while it would take far too much math to figure this out,
it would have likely changed the electoral vote as well. But as it stood, Nixon won the electoral
vote and the election. Which brings us to one of the biggest ways that third parties can kind of
mess up an election – through the states. Because of our winner-take-all system,
we can shrink down the same dynamic and play it out in a hypothetical state, where Nixon would
get 32 votes, Humphrey gets 30, and Wallace gets 10. Now imagine Wallace doesn’t exist,
Humphrey would have won that state by quite a huge margin. But because the two existed and they were
from similar parties, Nixon won the state despite not having an absolute majority. Having a third
party candidate takes away votes from other candidates. Remember, you only have one vote.
It’s a two party system. You have to vote for one of us.
He’s right! This is a two party system. Well I believe I’ll vote
for a third party candidate. Go ahead, throw your vote away! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Which brings us to now. For the last 50 years or so, Americans have had the choice between apples
and oranges. Every once in a while a banana shows up and messes up a state or two – which
Nader is accused of doing in the year 2000 – but for the most part, people don’t take
them very seriously. This year is very different though, this banana is getting a lot of attention.
Ahh. Uh oh. BANANA!
Perhaps it’s because people
think it’s a particularly bad apple season or a bad orange season and they’re looking for a
third option. Which is fair. Perhaps they’re looking into the banana’s policies and really
believe in them, which is also fair. But if you’re voting for banana simply because you’re
tired of the two party system, please stop and pay more attention to what you’re doing.
I am all about voting your conscience. It’s one of those things that I just feel in my
heart to be true. But in my mind, I know the mathematical reality of the situation. And so
do you. We’re gonna end up with an apple or orange president. It doesn’t matter whether
you vote for a banana, grape, or lemon – we’re gonna have to deal with that apple
or orange for at least the next four years. Normal apple voters may be turned off by
this year’s apple, but they absolutely cannot stand oranges – perhaps even,
they’re allergic to citrus. Or orange voters who are used to a more sweet flavor are finding that
this year's pick is a bit more sour than they’re used to. So, instead of their usual “lesser of
two evils choice” - where they’d normally just go with the fruit that they always do – people
have started looking around the grocery store and found people talking about the banana.
The people haven’t seen a banana in years. So many believe it to be a moderate, center candidate,
which is one of the main fallacies. If you actually look into its policies,
which I definitely recommend you do, you may find that the banana sides more with
the apples or the oranges – depending on who you mentally assigned to which party.
This banana, the current front running banana, was a Republican governor for 12 years,
ran for president twice as a Republican, and only this year, decided to join the banana party.
But the banana is receiving a lot of attention this year, possibly due to the toxic nature
of the political climate. Many voters who have never seen a legitimate third party candidate,
and think it’s not possible, are starting to warm up to the idea. But many others
are just voting for banana out of spite. Some men just wanna watch the world burn.
The banana knows that it can’t win by normal methods. Here is
a quote from its campaign’s facebook page: “We can stop Hillary and Trump from getting the
critical 270 electoral votes they need to win.” Here is where I would normally ask – do you know
what happens if nobody gets the critical 270 electoral votes? But you already know,
because I told you a few minutes ago. The banana knows too. Here’s another quote:
“If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the election goes to the House of
Representatives. From there, the House selects from one of the candidates
that received at least 1 electoral vote” This is incorrect, they choose from the top
three winners in the Electoral College. The banana is assuming that it will be the one and only third
party candidate. There’s a… grape party candidate running in Utah who is pulling significant
numbers, and if he wins the state, that would make four electoral winners. If he doesn’t win,
he may pull enough votes away from their usual candidate and Utah may align with a state that it
hasn’t voted for since the civil right’s movement. But Back to the banana. If it's only real goal
is to disrupt the political process and make us invoke a rule that we haven’t used in 192
years… that’s not a noble goal. People are already jaded with the system and feel that it's rigged.
There's plenty of things wrong with our Electoral College System and our voting system in general,
I recommend you check out CGP Grey’s videos on these topics. But this is the fourth quarter,
we can’t change the rules now – this is the game that we’re playing. And if the banana gets its
way and neither of the two major parties' candidates wins by popular vote… it goes to
the currently-Republican controlled house, where I assure you, even more people will consider it
rigged, no matter who wins. Especially if they don’t choose one of the main two candidates,
the apple or the orange, who will likely earn the majority of the popular vote – but instead
go for a smaller third party candidate. I can’t say we’d go into rebellion,
but the word chaos seems fairly appropriate. And that seems to be the only way the banana can win.
I don’t believe that the banana truly wants to win by that method as I’m sure it knows what kind of
disaster that would create. Which means there must be a more sinister motive behind its ambitions.
If a party receives at least 5% of the national popular vote, they get access to federal funding
for the next general election cycle. Some say that this would make a third party more relevant
in the next election. Personally, I think this election is far too important to start messing
around with future cheques for political parties. We have a two party system in this country,
not out of choice or laziness, but because of the mathematical eventuality of our voting system. The
Electoral College, and the Winner-take-all system it uses, lends itself to there being only two
parties. And trying to throw a wrench into that system by voting for a third party candidate,
will do little good. At worst, it will put the election in the hands of the most hated Congress
this country has ever seen, and at best, it will let the person you least want in office win.
Apples and oranges are the only real choice that you have this election. I’ve said it before and
I’ll say it again. I feel in my heart that voting your conscience is the right thing to
do. But it’s not the smart thing to do. Take the presidential quiz that I link down below
to find out who you most align with. If after taking that you find that banana is your choice,
then by all means vote for banana. But if you’re only voting for banana because you
hate the apples and oranges this year – beware… you’re gonna end up with an apple or an orange
whether you like it or not for at least the next four years. And your vote could have changed that.
And much like having to take a class from a professor that you hate, you’re gonna have to
try to find a way to make it work. This goes for everyone, apples, oranges and bananas. Don’t spend
the next four years whining and complaining about how much you hate this professor,
and actively working to make sure nothing in class gets done. Because in the end,
we’ll all have that F on our report cards. And you don’t get to complain for the next
four years that you had a bad teacher or that you voted for banana – nobody cares. In fact,
they’re probably gonna blame you more than someone who voted for a major party candidate. Complaining
about the election, especially if your plan is to actively work against the apple or the orange so
that they look worse in future elections, is one of the most damaging things you can do to this
country. Just look at the last 16 years or so. So if you or someone you know is currently
thinking of voting third party, ask them to think long and hard about the lesser
of two evils argument. Do they really want to vote for the banana? Or do they just want to
watch the world burn? Know who you are voting for beforehand, and don’t let this be another
Brexit situation. Because now, you know better.
Hey guys before I get into my usual outro stuff,
I just wanted to let you know that I will be live-streaming during the final presidential
debate, so if you’d like to hear my thoughts or maybe some clarifications on what’s going on,
make sure to watch. I’m also considering making the bumper stickers that you saw
during this episode into merchandise, so leave a comment if you’re interested. But if you enjoyed
this episode or you learned something, make sure to give that like button a click. If
you’d like to see more from me, I put out new videos every weekend, so go ahead and vote for
that subscribe button. In the meantime if you’d like to see one of my older videos,
how about this one?
[Outro music]