The 2016 presidential elections document a very interesting time in American history. Five major presidential candidates emerged in this White House race, and in this digital age of instant gratification, where almost any topic imaginable awaits online dissemination, to have explained in depth from several different perspectives, instantaneously with just a few clicks, a majority of people can only name the two establishment party candidates: Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The three other candidates, Bernie Sanders (may his campaign RIP), Dr. Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson vaguely exist as part of the election show. Probably the most interesting aspect of these elections, the majority of people disapprove of these two main candidates basking in the media’s spotlight. This election could officially get coined the election of the two lessor evils when clearly, that outlook defies the fact that three other, now only two, intelligent candidates aspire to participate in the presidential conversation and present their presidential platform.
How do we have an historically embarrassing approval rating of two major candidates while at the same time marginalizing, almost downright ignoring, two (previously three) other candidates, in the media and collectively? How does one major party claim ‘anybody but Trump’ while the other claims ‘anybody but Clinton’ and no one finds any interest in a shortlist of anybodies? My only theory has to do with a phenomenon that I am noticing and can only describe as a psychological disadvantage to joining the presidential elections as a third-party candidate.
It seems many, if not the majority of, Americans, when confronted with someone different (politically or otherwise), subconsciously need to find a ‘place’ for that person. Finding the place – label – of that person, here a presidential candidate, takes precedence over all other logistical functionality regarding that person, meaning that before the candidate gets thought of as possibly offering useful information or as having a serious platform that could benefit the greater good of the country, the candidate must pass an internal verification process of each voter. The candidates of the firmly established parties, the republicans and the democrats, simply avoid these special, collective conscious discriminations that greatly reduce legitimacy of the third-party candidates.
This psychological disconnect of third-party candidates appears on television just as surely as it exists in your Facebook and Twitter feeds; it certainly exists in mine. This seemingly illogical ‘block’ that requires further processing may start simply enough with our words, as the most effective slight of third-party candidates stems from use of the phrase ‘third-party.’ With little imagination, use of third-party offers as much appeal as the third-wheel on a date and provides the same bad taste in your mouth. But I fear its use does much more than that…
Simply saying 'third-party' should obviously reinforce the idea that the system optimally operates in two parties, yet the subtleness of the phrase affects us subconsciously more than we may believe, allowing us to consciously ignore that connotation. Democrats and republicans do not make the first and second parties, yet all nondemocratic and nonrepublican candidates fall into the third-party label. Now that all opposing forces of the primary parties exist in this third-party box, the potential for group invalidation – much harsher and less fair than individual invalidation – becomes an instinctual option. Not only does label validation and invalidation exist, it becomes much easier to get invalidated as a third-party candidate since that box identifies with many people from many different political perspectives. Also, as third-party candidates do not often win, this box also fills with losers, and Americans do not like losers.
So for Sanders, Stein, and Johnson, somewhere between announcing their candidacy and laying out their platform, they already have to fight down all the randomly assigned modifiers of that third-party other box, which includes: not qualified, not represented in congress, not experienced (my favorite), not able to win, not to mention the less polite modifiers like kooky, radical, and extremist. This only happens because we collectively accept that third-party candidates, like all others before them, offer dreamers and losers, not potential respectable presidents. These third party candidates face scrutiny like no others all the while, in this election, the two major parties offer the people little in the way of change and little in the way of practical political conversation at all. They offer entertainment, insultingly unintelligent smear campaigns that dominate our daily news while real message offered by third-party candidates get little to no coverage.
Collectively, we have allowed this to happen and accept it. We do not want change because we fear it. While the media finds every way to invalidate third-party candidates in massive conscious altering campaigns, we reflect that same mentality in our own conversations, on Facebook, Twitter, and in real life. This psychological block allows us to watch the presidential election show comfortably, accepting that the ability to change what happens evades us. It allows us not to question that lack of media coverage from third party candidates, not to question the lack of politics in the coverage of the elections as a whole.
Most profoundly it, it allows us to very safely, very comfortable, ignore any voice that might exists somewhere inside that says, “maybe I should research this person or this campaign more, to see where their energy focuses, which issues they address, and whether I agree or disagree with their general platform.” In the same way, it allows us to avoid a much scarier question, “what if I agree more with a new candidate than my previously selected, party loyal choice?”
Sadly, without ever consciously becoming aware of any of these notions, otherwise open and highly intelligent people continue to write off third-party candidates without due process, without researching those candidates, without researching their platforms, really, with very little interest.
