[ExI] My prediction

Tue Jan 6 16:13:54 UTC 2026

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] My prediction

On Tue, Jan 6, 2026 at 12:53 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

> Any argument that suggests any two party system is forever stuck in a two party system leads to self-referencing paradox.

>…Most democratic countries in the world have viable third or even fourth parties, but the US never has and that's because the US is the only country in the world that has an idiotic system like the electoral college….

Solution: form a new political party whose goal is to have a constitutional convention, get 38 states to agree to eliminate that system.

>… So in most countries even small parties can win representation and have real influence, but not in the US….

Replace the word “parties” with the word “states” in your comment to understand why we have the EC.  The electoral college protects minorities, such as voters from Wyoming and Alaska.

> But if half the people with a libertarian bent reject your line of reasoning, then the Libertarian Party candidate has a realistic chance of winning,

>…That's not the way the world works, or at least not in the US. No Libertarian Party presidential candidate has EVER had a realistic chance of winning, 

That argument is weakened by what happened in 2024.  One of the mainstream parties removed their candidate (why? how?) and replaced him with a candidate who had run in 2020 without ever winning a single delegate (why her?) who had no realistic chance of winning.  There were two other candidates who won 4 and 3 delegates in the 2024 primaries with 37 uncommitted, yet they chose an alternate candidate (why?  how?) who had won zero in 2020.  She never had a realistic chance.  Yet she was the nominee?  

>…None has even come close to winning one single electoral vote, and they'd need 270 to win the presidency. However in a close election (and that's the only sort the US seems to have anymore)… John K Clar

It depends on how you count it.  One can go with EC, which was intentionally designed to prevent the kind of chaos we almost had in 2020, where the election came down to a few hundred popular votes in a time when weather might have prevented vote counting for months.  A better system might be to look at the swing states.  Usually there are only about 6 to 10 of them which could go either way.  In 2024 there were seven.  It was unanimous.

The EC will take on new significance in the coming years as we see the results of something I posted in this forum nearly thirty years ago: either we balance the federal budget or the federal budget will balance us.

Well… that is happening right now.  As that process continues, state governments take on a new significance.  Small population states, such as Wyoming and Alaska, are protected by the structure of the senate and the electoral college.  Note that both Alaska and Wyoming are very libertarian oriented.  The EC is our friend.

spike

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