Not Swallowing Matt Christman's Black Pill

In a recent conversation with Ben Burgis, Matt Christman argues that third-party presidential efforts are a waste of time. I commented:

This discussion reflects a very narrow and mechanical conception of how political change takes place. Over the long run people's attitudes and behaviors in all areas, including politics, are shaped and reshaped by a variety of kinds of social influence, many of them quite subtle.

If I'm in a polity -- Philadelphia, for instance -- that overwhelmingly supports one of the two capitalist parties, then it's profoundly un-pragmatic to vote for either of them, precisely because there's no chance that it will make a difference to who's elected in this cycle. But if I understand social psychology, then I can appreciate that voting for a third party creates social proof (one of the six "weapons of social influence" identified by Robert Cialdini in his signal work Influence) for supporting a different kind of politics. At any given time under normal historical conditions, most people won't be carefully studying the election results, but those who do will notice an increase in the vote for a third party and will start taking it more seriously. It may lead them to investigate its platform and get involved in some of its issues. Even if they don't get into the weeds of the election returns, the same things might result simply from noticing how many people are wearing a third candidate's campaign buttons. And again, particularly in an election that isn't close, this may result in their also wearing that button and voting for that candidate, which in turn broadcasts social proof to others, etc. You have to be willing to think long-term.

I should add that the non-existence of any (major) vehicle for effecting change outside the red/blue dichotomy doesn't mean you can't work on building them, and there are currently several such projects. One of the most interesting is Vote Pact, a concept that involves finding someone with opposite ideological leanings but a similar frustration with the pressure to vote lesser-evil, and jointly declaring that neither of you will vote for either major party in any election for which you're both eligible. This withdraws two votes from the big capitalist parties without changing the balance between them, but also has the virtue of motivating people to seek out and develop understanding and trust with people who have a different perspective.

See the interview here: https://fstube.net/w/5NG9yC3etQLLgBAweuv7DA