So I was interviewed by Bloomberg

I had the opportunity to be interviewed for the Bloomberg article, “Two Parties Aren’t Enough for All U.S. Voters”. I was a part of a group chat with the author and 4 other interviewees.

Overall, I’m happy with the article (despite only getting one measly quote!). I feel any mainstream article mentioning third parties, being at all critical of the 2 party system, and mentioning Ranked Choice Voting (woohoo!) is real progress. However, there are a few issues I did have with the article.

Here’s 5 issues I had with the Bloomberg article I was mentioned in.

1. The talk about Parliamentary Systems

Right away in the first paragraph the author makes a huge generalization that third party supporters “probably don’t want a parliamentary democracy either.”

Millions of Americans are going to vote for someone other than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in November. The Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party candidate Jill Stein together command about 10 percent of the vote in recent polls. Yet their supporters, who feel alienated from the two-party system, probably don’t want their country to adopt a European-style multiparty parliamentary democracy, either.

Not only is this a huge generalization, it’s completely inaccurate. Not a single one of us that he interviewed in the group chat expressed opposition to the parliamentary system. The author continues.

Third-party voters feel some rule changes are in order to level out the playing field. Yet they don’t like the idea of moving toward a European-style parliamentary system: They see it as the same kind of establishment oligopoly as in the U.S. with the ruling parties indistinguishable from each other. Besides, as far as they are concerned, it doesn’t work any better than the current American system — worse, if anything.

Wow. This was supposedly going to be an article about the Two-Party System that pressures us to vote the “lesser of two evils”. And rather than focusing on that, the main issue, the article spins our system of “lesser evils” to be itself a “lesser evil” to the parliamentary system! And again, this is when nobody interviewed expressed any issue with parliamentary systems.

2. Reinforcing the Nader spoiler myth

There were other attempts, including Ralph Nader’s run in 2000, which may have cost Al Gore the presidency. After that debacle, potential third-party leaders have shunned acting as spoilers who might strengthen the hand of an undesirable Republican or Democratic candidate.

It is disturbingly common (standard, really) for mainstream news to report Nader as a spoiler, responsible for Gore’s Florida loss in 2000. But the fact is more Florida Democrats voted for the Republican, Bush, than voted for Nader. CNN’s exit polling in Florida also showed Nader taking the same amount of votes from both Republicans and Democrats.

3. There’s a reason why 3rd parties are kept out of the debates.

I love the following paragraph. But there should be hyperlinks to articles explaining the story of the 15% rule. Like how the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) that made the rule is not government appointed, but a private corporation controlled by Republicans and Democrats. Third parties are often not even mentioned in the polls, making the task of getting 15% in polls a classic catch-22. Any news source with any integrity should have articles about these issues to link to.

The current system’s outsiders do have a strong argument, however, in calling for their candidates’ right to participate in debates. As things stand, a candidate must achieve 15 percent support in polls to be eligible. Only the major party candidates, but not the public, would suffer if the list of debate participants expanded: They’d need more preparation. Voters, however, would get more information about legitimate alternatives to politicians who would not be their first choice.

4. Dismissing the significance of third parties this election.

“Your vote is never wasted if you vote for something you believe in,” Dele says. “What will be a waste is going to a voting booth for someone you don’t agree with.” Perhaps the abstainers think that way, too — that’s why they don’t vote. In that case, they are an enormous resource for politicians with the courage to mount a serious challenge to the two-party system — not in this electoral cycle, but perhaps as soon as the next one.

To dismiss the possibility of third parties making a significant impact in the current election is typical. But the election is not over…If we can get third parties into any of the Presidential debates this year, it would have a huge effect. Of course things don’t look promising at the moment, but let’s wait and see what happens.

5. Can I get a shoutout?

Jeff 4 Justice, operates the Youtube channel, No More 2 Party System. It was his press release that the author responded to. Unfortunately, despite organizing and participating in this interview for the author, neither he or his channel was mentioned in the final article. The reason given was because he would not provide his full real name. Fair enough. But then again, Bloomberg would refer to Lady Gaga and Eminem by their stage names…

It’s a minor issue, but I myself was the only one mentioned in the article without a mention of my occupation, Youtuber*. I think that’s a bit odd. I would have appreciated the inclusion of that detail as I’m sure it would have led to at least a little traffic to my videos.

Final Thoughts

In the group chat, we all had a lot to say. It was of course heavily edited down, as is both typical and practical (nobody swipes through Bloomberg to read a whole book). But it was a good new experience and overall, I really am happy to see another article critiquing the 2 party system.

So despite being critical of the article myself, I want to thank the author, Leonid Bershidsk and my fellow interviewees: Hugh McDonell, Nicole Castor Silva, Billy Dele, and Jeff Justice.

*UPDATE: Bloomberg has updated their article to mention my occupation: “Matt Orfalea, 31, a Stein supporter from Washington who describes his occupation as YouTuber.” (Not sure why I’m the only one who “describes” their occupation instead of simply having one. But whatev.)

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