TS:
But Bernie Sanders WAS a Democrat. If he was above being bought by corporations, he'd be a Libertarian, and would NOT take ANY contributions. Last year I was a candidate (note: not a politician!) on the Libertarian party and ran against a Democrat, receiving over 22% of the vote. Next year I'll run again as a Libertarian. Thanks for the comment.
Aloha.
P

Have you ever considered voting for the Libertarian candidate? Just wondering.

I used to in the past . Then I grew up , and wised up . No personal offense intended . I just came to realize that no matter how personally well intentioned they might very well be , I have come to find that Libertarians are still short sighted and misguided , in regards to their worldview .

It is, but it still wants to dismantle the NHS and because of idiots like Johnson is costing us billions for the "privilege" of leaving the European union. They may be more liberal than their shower but they are still a bunch of self serving parasites like all mps- expenses,etc etc ad nauseum.A sickening bunch.

Thank you for the clarification. Americans in general do not know that parties in Europe may have similar names but opposite ideas than ours.

@DavidLaDeau European politics as a whole is quite a bit further left than their American counterparts. Things like universal healthcare, the benefits system and the separation of church and state aren't even debated issues here.

There are usually only two candidates that the news reports on. That means that there are one or more other parties.

yeah, that's what i thought...

Yes, because how the parties have rigged the individual states, only 2 parties are viable. There is a movement here in the USA to get weighted elections that would make it viable to have more parties and canidates.

You should watch the south park episode about the school election between the giant douche and the turd sandwich. Perfectly describes american politics. It is embarrassing and rigged as fuck. Every election is a contest between 2 idiots who sit on podiums and lie to please their constituents until they get elected and ignore all of their campaign promises. Our political system has been a complete sham my entire life, and theres nothing that seems to be able to stop it. The american people have debated as long as i've been alive about democrat vs republican instead of waking up to the fact that you simply cannot fix this system by playing by the rules.

We have two major parties and a number of minor ones. The American system does not allow for a coalition style government like many European countries. Our three branches (executive, legislative, legal) are designed to balance each other, though you would not believe that in recent years. We have had third party candidates take significant votes away from the primary candidates in the past, causing them to lose the election. Ours is a winner takes all system and has survived for 240 years. Not bad for an experiement.

I agree, and that's the problem. People feel that even when they votew that their voice won't matter. While it's true we all can't have it OUR way, its still important. The electorial college needs to go. it should be straight popular vote. that's how they do it in sports...the team with the higher score geberally wins.
there's also a problem of the republicans supressing voting. if you have to keeo people from voting ( a group who usually wouldn't vote for them in the first place) then 1) your ideas suck and 2) you're a sore loser, because both sides win and both sides lose, if you lose then in 2 or 4 or 6 or what ever years you try again.

I very strongly disagree with you on this one. I used to hold the same opinion. The problem is that very few people pay any attention to the issues at all and are thus uninformed. If they have heard anything about an issue it is just quips from politicians in the media which are designed to influence voters not to educate them. An uninformed vote is very dangerous.