Let me first make the observation that the tally for the Green Party in the electoral crisis of 2000 was almost certainly padded by vote-rigging.
Recall how votes cast in Florida for Pat Buchanan, identifiably anti- Semitic, were actually made by people in Jewish neighborhoods voting for Gore. These voters had been deceived through ballots and machines that were rigged to make a vote for Buchanan look as if it were being cast for Gore. Given the accumulation of evidences of electoral fraud that have emerged in the 8 years that followed , it is scarcely to be doubted that many, if not most of the votes for the Greens were taken from the Democrats in the same or similar ways. Florida's Republicans, headed up by a brother of the Republican candidate, simply redistributed votes from the Democrats between the Libertarians, Greens and other minority parties. .
A friend has informed me that Monica Morehead of Workers World Party received around 1000 votes in Dade Country. As he commented, "No one really believes that a thousand people really wanted her as president."(!) .
By giving such a dubious boost to the Green Party, the Republicans cleverly killed several birds with one stone. It made the Green Party (and any political opposition by a third party) look like "spoilers". At the same time it encouraged a false picture of real democracy at work - ("we encourage a broad spectrum of opinion") - while perpetrating outright fraud. .
My next point might be considered an application of basic game-theory, a la John Nash: One cannot have a system based on only 2-parties in a properly functioning democracy. Three parties, at least, are needed for genuine political debate. Three parties open up the possibilities for compromise, public debate, give-and-take on principles and strategies, the formation of coalitions, and competition based on a healthier climate of political engagement. Like the transition from 2 bodies to 3 bodies in Celestial Mechanics, a dynamic process is set in motion that keep the forum for political dialogue alive and alert. .
One of the consequences of our two party system, evident to anyone who has traveled abroad, is that Americans have become accustomed to speaking a language of "liberal versus conservative", of "left against right" (almost as bad as the communist jargon of "bourgeois versus proletariat"!). Sometimes one hears of the existence of a murky area of controversy labeled derisively as 'fringe'. .
Yet the authentic, extremely serious political issues that directly affect our lives and our futures are almost never a simple matter of "all or nothing", "yes or no" decision making. The presence of merely two issues - (say, for or against "abortion rights" and "school lunches") - already creates 4 points of view! .
Consider the situation in many European countries, France in particular, which combine a powerful Communist party with a large Catholic population. Normally one associates communism with the far Left, catholicism with the reactionary Right. Voters who don't want the "religious Right" to get into office will think twice about giving their vote to the Communists rather than the Socialists: to date, the Communist Party has yet to send a Prime Minister to the Elysee Palace. However both communists and catholics are extremely conservative. One can normally expect them to see eye-to-eye on a host of issues such as restrictions on press freedom, school curriculum, immigration, defense of national honor, the armed forces, sexual mores, tolerance for alien religions or dogmas; all of the issues dear to conservatives everywhere. .
Thus, for example, in one election one could find socialists and communists banding together for a 37 1/2 hour work week; while in the next election catholics and communists could find common cause in prohibiting the wearing of shawls in schools by Moslem girls. .
In contexts such as these, neither Left nor Right can afford to ignore the power of the Communist Party, which must be lavishly courted when the time comes around for coalitions and run-off elections. .
A two party system invites stagnation. Stagnation produces rigidity, lack of imagination and, rather than real debate, an fabricated appearance of opposition in public, and collusion in secret. This is, in fact, what we're dealing with in this country. Collusion and lack of real political debate on the issues, sets into motion inexorable tendencies towards corruption. As we know, both parties in the United States are corrupt as hell and destined to get worse. .
The final point I want to make is that it's possible that Nader and the Green Party have already had the positive effect of pushing the Democratic Party further to the left. For the first time in our history, either a woman or an "American with an African ancestor" (Recall the hair-splitting definitions of "Jewishness" in the 3rd Reich!) is in line to become a contender for the presidency. The hypothesis that the competition of the Greens and other "fringe" parties pushed the Democratic Party to this stage is not an unreasonable one. .
In my opinion, Ralph Nader would not be a good president. His tough, uncompromising character, which is his strongest asset as a gadfly, ill befits an office like the Presidency where the abilities to negotiate, to compromise, to practice diplomacy or delegate are at a premium. Yet he would certainly have been better than the choices we were faced with in 2000, or 2004. Pragmatism is the first principle of politics, but it is very "unpragmatic" to continue with the major, profoundly undemocratic defects of our 2-party system. .
In the short term a manipulated vote is no vote at all. This is not an argument for not voting. In the long term, votes for minority parties may lead to the full emergence of a major challenge to the prevailing system. There is a precedent for this in American history. After a bit less than "four score and seven years", a third party, the Republican (no less!) was launched on a platform of abolishing slavery. It took over 80 years for this to happen, but the Abolitionist momentum did bear fruit. As to the horrors of the Civil War, (or what the Republican Party has become since then), we are all too well aware. In the same way, Mahatma Gandhi's half century battle for Indian freedom led to the catastrophe of the Hindu-Moslem riots. One can't blame him for that. .
If right-thinking people succumb to the inevitability of a Coca-Cola/Pepsi-Cola political process, we will all end up with rotting teeth.