Censored and Jamie: This is one of those pesky situation where you're both right.
I agree! I agree that 3rd parties, particularly this last time out, weren't helpful to Hillary Clinton's campaign. However, the Sanders campaign (and let's face it, he was really more of a 3rd party candidate than an actual democrat candidate) greatly shaped the issues Hillary spoke to. There's another double edged sword because, even though he withdrew, Sanders supporters still refused to vote for Hillary.
It's easy to look at those supporters as small thinkers, but if they truly believed that their moral compass couldn't support her candidacy (even though Trump is far worse on their issues) then they had not business voting against their conscience. I speak a lot about integrity. This is what I mean. Those friends of mine who voted for Stein infuriate me, but it's not because they didn't blindly vote for Hillary out of partisan allegiance. It's because I felt they bought into all the BS being pushed against her for decades. There's a lot of truth to the criticism of her. I just didn't see that it tipped the moral bar.
They, however, did and had every right to vote the way they did. Their reasoning infuriates me, but following what they believed makes me proud. Voting for someone they felt was morally bankrupt for some greater good (even though that was my candidate and I saw her differently) would have lost my respect for them.
The winning and losing thing. Well, if a person is only after winning - I don't see much connection to them. Dem or Republican, I don't consider those people to be close friends. When the chips are down, I want people around me with great integrity so that we guide each other to be better people. I fail at that a lot. My friends do too, but that is always the goal.
As far as 3rd parties not being an actual winning reality for American elections - that's 100% true in the past, right now and the foreseeable future. I'm not naive about that.
To say that 3rd parties and voting for them is useless, that's completely inaccurate. They shape the conversation of the election cycle and future cycles to come. They help the silenced find a voice that matters to the top two parties. That is not useless.
I kept agreeing on the points he was making, but they reached too far and he stopped listening to or responding to the points I was making and continued making a blanket argument.
I don't want just a 3rd party candidate. I want dozens of them because they make republicans, democrats and all of us better.