Imagine if we decided to stop fighting wars and spent that money on healthcare instead. What if we watched one less hour of TV or doomscrolling and dedicated the same amount of time to exercising every day? Every minute we waste on something stupid could be redirected to productive activity; every dollar we squander can be invested wisely.
I am reminded that the passive decision to yield to inertia has as much impact as the active move to change direction, when I read about the prodigious amount of money and time we pour into electoral politics. More than $10 billion has been spent on ads for the 2026 midterms so far, with the full cycle projected to reach about $11.6 billion.
This already exceeds the final ad totals for 2020 and 2022 and is on track to surpass the $11.2 billion spent in the 2024 presidential election. The 2022 midterms saw ad spending of about $8.9 billion.
Americans who have been around a while know that, regardless of November’s results, nothing will get significantly better for the average person. The system will remain about the same. Wages will continue to decline, prices will still rise, we’ll always be at war, there will never be high-speed rail or free college or universal healthcare, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.
Only two political events could significantly improve America’s bleak trajectory: revolution or radical reform. Violently overthrow the state, or leverage the existing system by elevating one or more “third” parties outside the Democrats and Republicans.
Most Americans—62%—tell Gallup that the Republican and Democratic parties “do such a poor job” representing Americans that a third major party is needed. Only 30% say the two major parties do an adequate job.
Yet voters do nothing to turn a minor third party into a major one. They don’t donate money to them. They don’t volunteer to work for them. They don’t vote for them. “Overall, 55% of U.S. adults say they are very or somewhat likely to vote for a third-party or independent candidate in an election for president, Congress or governor,” Gallup reports. “However, just 15% of Americans say they are very likely to do so. Ongoing frustrations with one or both of the two major parties make the idea of a third party sound appealing…However, the prospects of a viable third party are dampened by soft support for third-party candidates, likely because Americans want their vote to matter in elections.”
It’s time to stop focusing on whether your vote will go to the winner, or even if it will count.
Your major-party vote will count insofar that it will probably be tallied. But, under this two-party system, it probably won’t matter.
Imagine what a party like the Greens or Libertarians could do with even a fraction of the $11 billion spent on 2026 midterm ads.
Imagine if a third of the millions of people who attended the October 17th “No Kings: Vote Early” rallies—events organized by Democrats to encourage voter turnout for Democrats—came together instead to canvass for a small party, or took a page from French students and workers and raised hell for the next month.
Imagine if no one turned out to vote for either the Democrats or the Republicans—the parties that most Americans despise—this November.
Money, energy, time, and votes are finite. We’re wasting them on a corrupt system that does nothing for us. Why don’t we spend those precious resources more wisely?
Media propaganda cons citizens into thinking that voting matters. America’s history of crushed outsider movements and third parties signals that another attempt at real change would likely be doomed too. Lesser-evilism is seductive: this election is important, this election is now, we can’t allow the even-worse major party to win, we can build a minor-party alternative at some point in the future, not now in this very important election of our lifetimes™.
The main psychological block to escaping the two-party trap, I think, is FOMO—fear of missing out. News media coverage of electoral horse races and all those ads transform the red-vs-blue BS into sports-like contests that everyone talks about. Not unlike that left-out feeling of living in a city whose major-league team is in the World Series or Super Bowl when you don’t follow sports, deciding not to care about an election and telling your friends and family members that you don’t care entails risk: exclusion, being insulted as apathetic, being considered unintelligent and/or unengaged. That goes double if you explain that you’re working to overthrow or reform the system entirely, and that supporting Democrats or Republicans diverts the energy, time, and money needed to actually change things.
(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)
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The way elections are run, a third-party candidate is almost always a spoiler; they cannot win but they can tilt the balance towards the worse of two evils. There are several approaches that might solve this problem, and I urge each and every one of you to pick one (or more) of them and work towards it. (1) Good candidates can run in one of the two major parties. (2) We can use ranked voting so that voting for a third-party candidate does not shut out the voter from also choosing the lesser of two evils should that third-party candidate not win. (3) We can take over one of the two major parties (much as Trump took over the traditional Republicans). (4) Talk with our neighbors about the issues.
Two points:
1. The problem isn’t “we need numbers.” The thing that’s keeping the “third” party from organizing? They aren’t organized. It’s that simple. Look at the recent coverage of the lesbian bar in Greenfield, Mass. The issue? The owner can’t cover the rent because the Masks Required policy, although good for the immunocompromised lesbians of Western Massachusetts, wasn’t generating enough income. Oh, wait, sorry. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that a white psychologist participating as a mediator was an example of colonialism. Oh, wait, sorry, that wasn’t the issue. What was the issue was that black representation wasn’t sufficient. And that the entire thing was an example of attempted genocide against the immuno-compromised. Hang on, the person who hijacked the meeting has a bunch more bullshit to throw to make sure the whole discussion never gets back to how the owner can’t pay the rent. Which is, literally, the only issue that matters at this stage. Why is it the only issue? If you can’t pay the rent, the bar closes, and no one needs to worry about whether the new policy is inclusive or not.
2. Whatever Third Party does emerge has to adopt a one-plank policy. It doesn’t matter WHAT the plank is, but it must be something massively popular with a massive majority. Abortion is a 50-50 issue. About half the country feels one way, the other half feels another. You will never WIN with it. It’s like buying Bitcoin at $100,000. If you bought at $5 each, you made out like a bandit. At $100K, you barely get your bait back. I’d run on free basic cable at the local level and universal health care at the national. EVERY — and I mean EVERY — other thing (your position on Palestine, abortion, trade deficits, ozone depletion) gets the exact same response: I am hear ONLY for the purpose of pushing for (free basic cable/universal health care). Either get in step or leave.
It’ll only change when that small number of critical people finally come together and sit down and say, “Okay. Now, how to we fuck up literally everything until we get our way?” If 327 people can be arrested for 1 in 3 shoplifting crimes in New York City, don’t tell me a couple hundred people who are willing to pull out all the stops couldn’t get basic cable in the five boroughs.
“Free basic cable” wasn’t on my radar so I am surprised to hear you say that it is a plank that is massively popular with a massive majority. Perhaps you are being sarcastic?
Yes, I think universal health care is a plank that is massively popular with a massive majority and could bring a candidate to victory.
Given that Artificial Intelligence is stealing our intellectual property and our jobs, and that the hodgepodge of social safety net programs are difficult to get benefits from (e.g., see The Time Tax by Annie Lowrey), I am thinking that a universal basic income could also be massively popular with a massive majority. But unfortunately, maybe not just yet.