Listen Up, Libertarians and Greens

You cannot win this Presidential election.  To believe that you can requires a level of self-delusion that puts you up there with believing the moon landing was faked or that the government is spraying chemicals on us with airplanes.  Not only that, you don’t deserve to win.  You simply have not put forth the effort to make your parties a reliable political entity.  You’re like a Starbucks barista with five years of experience believing that they should be CEO.  Neither of your parties have won elected office much past Dog Catcher.   Libertarians only have 143 elected representatives in office nationwide right now.  Only 43 of them were labelled as Libertarian on the ballot.  Greens are even worse.  They only have 137 in 16 states, half of which are in California.  There are over 500,000 elected offices nationwide.

Even in this election where we are supposed to take you seriously, you just haven’t put forth the ground game to be worthy of the Presidency.  Jill Stein isn’t going to be on the ballot in all 50 states.  You’re missing South Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia and you likely won’t be in Oklahoma and Nevada either.  That’s 45 electoral votes definitely down the tubes and another 13 likely down the tubes.  You need 270 votes to win.  Those 45 electoral votes is 17% of that number.  Add the other 13 votes and you’re at 22%.  Not to mention, you’re still waiting to see if you’ll be on the ballot in four other states.  Libertarians, you’re a little better.  Johnson will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states (though you’re still missing Kentucky, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as of this writing), which will represent the first time you’ve achieved that goal.  This has more to do with an upswelling of support from insider Republicans against Trump than it does the power of your party so take it with a grain of salt.  Maybe there’s a future there, maybe not.

Then there’s the fact that half of your base in both parties is kind of crazy.  The Libertarian party is by far the worst offender.  Your conventions are equal parts Burning Man and entitled selfish pricks.  The Greens suffer from this as well, though.  Your party is infused with woo.  You have a large anti-vax population, you’re strangely anti-GMO despite no scientific proof it’s dangerous, and your chosen candidate actively panders to that segment of your population which proves it’s not insignificant.  The Green Party is at least getting better in this regard.  You used to be really anti-science and are now just mildly so.

To all those new to the Green or Libertarian party, yes the two party system is fucked.  Thank you for finally starting to pay attention.  Enlightenment is good.  Your parties are still laughably unready for the Presidency, though.  The Presidency is about building coalitions to pass meaningful legislation and you have zero support at the national level.  How do you think that’s going to work?  The only “message” your vote will send is that you’re not worthy of being courted at the national level.  Maybe I’m wrong and this will finally be the turning point that will dissolve our two party system, but I’ve got over two hundred years of history that says I’m right.  If you want real change, you should assume I’m right and get an entry level job as a barista.  Then you can get out there and manage a Starbucks store or three.  Then go on to become regional manager.  Earn that CEO position.