A Tale of Two Airports: The False Promise of Third Parties

Notes from Europe, historical election results, and a clumsy analogy.

In Berlin last week at an annual convention, I had the opportunity to talk to friends from around the world about how their respective countries are holding up in these perilous times. The news was encouraging, I’m pleased to report. Finland remains staunchly anti-Putin. Democracy in Poland—on shaky ground not long ago, as Poles had to take to the streets in mass protest against its fascistic president—is in much better shape. Although its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is considered inept, Germany has taken steps to contain the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. And in China, Xi Jinping—more Trumpy than I realized—is seen as a paper tiger, all bark and no bite, too busy quashing dissent on the mainland to even consider going to war with Taiwan. The only country leaning in the wrong direction is Slovakia, whose Putin-loving prime minister opposes giving military aid to Ukraine—but the Slovak fellow we talked to described Slovakia as “a meme country in a clown dimension,” so maybe we’ll survive.

Generally speaking, people were much more concerned about what’s happening in the United States. “Is Trump going to win? They say he’s a winner. Is he going to win?” And I had to reassure them about the long odds of this four-times-indicted rapist, who will likely have all of his fortune confiscated by the State of New York this month, beating Biden. (Confidence in Biden is as tepid in Europe as it is in the U.S., incidentally, which surprised me.) Needless to say, with the possible exception of the clown dimension guy, no one wants Trump to prevail.

One idea that is as fixed elsewhere as it is here is that a third party would be preferable to our zero sum, us-and-them political system. The Chinese, who only have one party, want us to have three. The Europeans, who have too many parties, and whose parliamentary systems routinely award seats to the AfD and its neo-Nazi equivalents, also wonder why a third party isn’t the solution. So time and again, I found myself explaining, or trying to explain, the virtues of our governmental architecture, and how, in a binary, winner-take-all system, third parties are irrelevant at best, dangerous at worst.

In the United States, the most successful third party candidacy was that of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. TR had already served two terms, sat out for four years, and, when the Republicans didn’t nominate him for a third bite at the apple, formed his own “Bull Moose” party. He won over a quarter of the popular vote and captured eight states, including California and Pennsylvania, which gave him 88 electoral votes—a great showing, but not nearly enough to win. And that was Teddy Fucking Roosevelt, one of the four best presidents we’ve ever had, a political giant whose face is etched in stone on Mount Rushmore. If he couldn’t do it, we think that Marianne Williamson has a snowball’s chance in post-climate-change West Texas?

H. Ross Perot, another strong third party candidate, won 18.9 percent of the popular vote in the 1992 election, and as many electoral votes as you and me: zero. In 2000, Ralph Nader of the Green Party managed just 2.74 percent of the popular vote: 2,882,955 people, fewer than voted for TR in 1912. He didn’t come close to even sniffing an electoral vote. His candidacy was unviable at any speed.

Here is a list of every U.S. third-party political candidate since the birth of the GOP in 1860 to win electoral votes:

• 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, Bull Moose: 88

• 1968, George Wallace, American Independent: 46

• 1948, Strom Thurmond, States Rights: 39

• 1892, James Weaver, Populist: 22

• 1924, Robert La Follette, Progressive: 13

That’s five candidates, with 208 electoral votes combined. Two hundred seventy electoral votes are required to win the majority and become president. That means that if we add up every electoral vote won by every third party candidate since the start of the Civil War, it’s still 62 electoral votes shy of winning the White House.

In short, a third party candidate is never winning a presidential election in the United States, because the two-party system is baked into our political cake. The system is designed that way. And this has its virtues. In the U.S., an AfD-style party could only succeed by infiltrating and co-opting one of the two extant political parties, as MAGA did with the GOP. Plus, when we vote you out, you’re done—and no amount of John Eastman legal shenanigans can reverse the loss.

And yet I understand the appeal of third parties, to Europeans and Americans both. Intellectually it makes perfect sense. How to explain, then, why a third party won’t ever be viable in the U.S.? All week, I struggled to come up with a suitable analogy. I finally thought of one on the flight back from Berlin. It’s not as elegant as I’d like, and I apologize in advance for the clumsiness, which I will blame on jet lag. I call it “A Tale of Two Airports,” and it goes like this:

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A Tale of Two Airports

Astronomers realize that an asteroid the size of Upper Mongolia is on a collision course with planet Earth. On November 9, 2024, the asteroid will smash into the Pacific Ocean, ending all human life.

But there’s hope! Aliens from Alpha Centauri materialize from their base on the dark side of the moon with a lifeline: they have a transport ship out by the Oort Cloud, capable of rescuing many millions of people. They intend to send this ship to Earth.

Here’s the catch: The only two places where the ship can land are Newark Airport and JFK. And the aliens only have time for one stop. So the Alpha Centauri ambassador says that, in the spirit of democracy, the ship will arrive at whatever airport has the most people gathered by November 8, 2024. The people at that airport—and that airport only—will be taken to safety. Everyone else will die when the asteroid hits.

President Biden oversees the operation at Newark (because there’s also a city in Delaware called Newark), while FPOTUS Trump takes command of JFK (because it’s in Queens). And the American people have to decide which airport they prefer.

Trump re-names JFK “My Running Mate JFK, Jr. Airport.” He says everyone has to have a valid U.S passport to get in. He makes people pay for admission, because why not make a quick buck? MAGA nation—white guys, mostly; in oversized pick-up trucks; wearing red hats and FJB shirts—flocks to Far Rockaway. But most people look at its location on a city map and decide that it’s too far to the right.

Newark is much more inclusive, embracing people of color, the LGBT community, immigrants, and the lion’s share of Americans under the age of 25. There’s a taco truck at every gate. But a lot of people aren’t jazzed about it, because it’s “too old,” and it isn’t moving away from fossil fuels quickly enough, and it’s really just a hub for the same old imperial airport power. (Also, Newark has direct flights to Ben Gurion, and some folks are having second thoughts about this star alliance, because they don’t like the bloodthirsty crook currently running things at Lod.)

In short, both airports have their flaws. But the Alpha Centauri transport is going to come to either Newark or to JFK—one or the other. So people have to make tough choices.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. thinks that the binary, two-airport system is flawed. He establishes his own operation at Teterboro, where there are no vaccine restrictions. “Why can’t a third airport work?” he asks.

Cornel West sets up shop at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, and gives a fiery speech about how there is no difference between Newark and JFK.

The No Labels donors—whoever they are—take over Westchester County Airport, and set about luring a suitable candidate to run operations in White Plains. Andrew Yang says that it doesn’t matter what conditions the Alpha Centaurians impose, because we can just put the renegade asteroid on the blockchain.

Dean Phillips has three Cessnas in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Co-op City and pays Steve Schmidt a boatload of money to tell people it’s a real airport and that Newark sucks.

Aaron Rodgers, meanwhile, goes on the Pat McAfee show and says that he’s done his own research and has determined that the whole asteroid thing is BS.

And Jill Stein is at Sheremetyevo International Airport for some reason.

(I know, I know; this is a clumsy, overwrought analogy, but it’s the best I could do.)

You can pretend that the asteroid isn’t coming. You can bitch and moan about the aliens and their ridiculous and arbitrary conditions. You can criticize the underlying system for only accommodating two airports. You can decide that both airports suck and just stay home in November. You can shake your fist at the sky and lament that of all the numerous and vastly superior airports in the country, these are the two that we have to choose from. But none of that changes the reality that there are only two viable options— Newark and JFK—and that by going to Teterboro or Westchester instead, you are hurting the people closer to you politically, as well as yourself.

So: Newark or JFK. That’s the choice. It’s binary, just like how either the Chiefs or the 49ers will win the Super Bowl this year, no matter how much you insist the Rams still have a shot. Please choose wisely. Remember: if you lean more towards Newark but go to Teterboro as some sort of protest, you are only helping the MAGA supporters of My Running Mate JFK, Jr. Airport.

And trust me, I know what I’m talking about; I spent the 2000 election at LaGuardia with Ralph Nader.

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Photo credit: Yours truly. Tarmac at Berlin Brandenburg Airport.