I agree with Daniel Ziblatt that when authoritarian parties threaten democracy, the best way to fight them is for the pro-democracy elements to cling together in a frail coalition until the danger passes. I also agree that this is extremely hard to do, requiring participants to set aside their ordinary policy preferences in the face of the all-consuming mission to preserve democracy. It is especially hard if you are the one being asked to make such sacrifices. All too often, mainstream parties form coalitions with authoritarian parties that are ideological kindred, allowing democracy to fall.
Traditionally, it has been easier to exclude authoritarians in the US because the binary nature of our system makes it easy for the mainstream parties to exclude authoritarian challengers, while adopting enough substantive policy proposals of third parties to coax their members back into the mainstream.
But this advantage is reversed when authoritarians take over one of the two parties. At that point forming a coalition of pro-democracy elements means that one of the parties has to deliberately lose! That being said, such things are not absolutely impossible. Louisiana Republicans did just that in 1991 when their candidate for governor was David Duke. But the David Dukes of politics are not very common, and deliberately losing an election for governor is one thing; deliberately losing and election for President is another.
This issue becomes increasingly significant as Congress (particularly the House) starts looking more and more like a multi-party system. Democrats and moderate Republicans have teams up to prevent a debt ceiling breach, to avoid a government shutdown, to send military aid to Ukraine (perhaps to late to save the day), to expel George Santos, and to prevent the removal of Mike Johnson as Speaker. This is not the same as true coalition politics in a multi-party system, which would mean parties making a formal alliance and voting together on a wide range of issued. This is just a case of the sane members of Congress informally joining forces to do the bare minimum needed to keep the lights on. But it counts for something.
At the same time, Republicans are resigning from the House in a manner seemingly calculated to harm their party. And the right wing of the Republican Party has been kept in line at least partly by fear that if they oust Johnson, enough moderate Republicans would resign to put the House in the hands of the Democrats.*
It is, of course, the sense that the two-party system is destroying US democracy that led No Labels to propose running a third party candidate -- a project eventually abandoned when no one was willing to take the job. In this, No Labels totally fails to understand how our system works. Of course they are not alone in that.
No Labels is wrong at numerous levels. They fail to recognize the extent to which third party candidates serve as spoilers. They fail to recognize just how diffuse US political power is, and the folly of putting all their eggs in the presidential basket. And they fail to understand what is really behind our two-party system.
Underlying our two party system is the system of first past the post elections. This system creates districts, each of which elects a single representative, and whoever gets the most votes wins. First past the post systems have a marked tendency to have two-party systems. Only one candidate can win any given election. This tends to create pressure for all but two candidates to drop out, since third parties only act as spoilers. This has the effect of limiting voter choice. Much depends on how districts are apportioned, since carefully apportioned districts can allow a party to hold the majority of a legislature despite not winning a majority of the popular vote. In short, anyone wishing for a multi-party system has to overcome the effects of first past the post
The alternative is a system of proportional representation, intended to ensure that each party gets a number of seats roughly equal to its proportion of the vote. This makes for multi party systems, but multi party systems have their own problems. They tend to rely on frail and ever-shifting coalitions, which tend to behave very much like our House of Representatives has been behaving lately.
Various plans have been proposed to overcome the two-party duopoly without causing all the problems associated with multi-party systems. One such system is an open or "jungle" primary, in which all candidates compete regardless of party. Anyone achieving a majority in the primary wins. Otherwise, if no one achieves a majority, there is a runoff between the top two vote-getters.** Another alternative is ranked choice voting, in which multiple candidates run and voters rank them in terms of priority. If no candidate wins a majority, a winner is decided by some formula of determining who was considered next-best. The right wing of the Republican party opposes both alternatives because both undercut its basic strategy -- to have the most right wing candidate win the Republican primary and then win the general by appealing to Never Democrat voters.
But my point here is not to argue the merits of such a system for candidates other than President. Either one may or may not be a good idea in choosing Congress, governors, state legislatures, local offices, etc. The Presidency is necessarily first past the post. That is not just because there can only be one President. That is significant, of course, and distinguishes the US from multi-party parliamentary systems, which allow the ruling party to change Prime Ministers without holding new elections. (Again, something similar is happening in the House today). The Constitution (Twelfth Amendment) requires a candidate to win a majority of the Electoral College to win the Presidency. Failing a majority in the Electoral Colleges, the House of Representatives, voting by state, chooses the next President. Again, a majority is required to win. Under these circumstances, a third party candidate necessarily serves as a spoiler.*** And if a third party candidate did win enough electoral votes to present an Electoral College majority, the result would be go guarantee a Republican win. That is because the House of Representatives would vote by state, rather than individually, for a President, and Republicans can be expected to control a majority of states for the foreseeable future.
Some people suspect that is what No Labels intended from the start.
*Democrats may fear that just as much as Republicans do and wonder if their own equivalent of MAGA will prove just as obstructionist.
**This system is not without its flaws. I was what created the unpalatable choice for Louisiana voters between David Duke and Edwin Edwards in the first place.
***George Wallace did not serve as a spoiler to Nixon in 1968, an indication of just how strong Nixon's lead was. With the electorate as divided as they are now, a third party candidate would necessarily be a spoiler.
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