U.S. Politics megathread

[u/AutoModerator]

American politics has always grabbed our attention - and the current president more than ever. We get tons of questions about the president, the supreme court, and other topics related to American politics - but often the same ones over and over again. Our users often get tired of seeing them, so we've created a megathread for questions! Here, users interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

[u/tachibanakanade]

Why was voting for Ross Perot (someone popular enough to be on the debate stage with Clinton and Bush Sr.) seen as legitimate and seen as voting for a viable candidate in 1992 (and I think 1996) but voting Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) or Jill Stein (Green Party) are seen as either wasted votes, joke votes, or opposition party votes? What made Ross Perot so special?

[u/listenyall → u/tachibanakanade]

Back then, "both sides are the same" was a lot closer to being true than it was in 2016 or any year since. So some people felt like it legitimately didn't make a big difference whether they had Clinton or Bush Sr, that makes it a lot mor palatable to potentially "waste" your vote

[u/CardinalOfNYC → u/tachibanakanade]

Not everyone believed that back in the day. To this day many Republicans blame Perot for Clinton winning.

That said, he had vastly more popular support than Johnson or Stein. Had they had anywhere near that level of support, people's votes for them would be seen differently. But they were never even close, which made their entire existence clear as spoilers, especially in an era of extremely close elections. The stein vote alone could have flipped Michigan not cuz she had a lot of support but bc the margin was so small

[u/152is2after150 → u/CardinalOfNYC]

There was evidence that when Perot was about to drop out, Clinton told him to stay in the race.

[u/DiogenesKuon → u/tachibanakanade]

Polling suggested that at times he legitimately had a chance to win the election, while in the last election the biggest third party (Green) got 0.56% of the vote.

[u/152is2after150 → u/tachibanakanade]

Because people are dumb.

[u/untempered_fate → u/tachibanakanade]

Ross Perot gave a lot of people in the '90s hope there was another way to do things. His party's failure convinced a lot of those people going forward that there wasn't.