Chuck Baldwin

Third parties: less than the sum of their parts

On the first day of in-person early voting two weeks ago, a staffer friend of mine was marking his ballot and wondering aloud about the plethora of socialist options among the nine presidential candidates on the ballot. Socialist, Socialist Workers, and Party of Socialism and Liberation, not to mention the Peace and Freedom Party and the Green Party.

As one considers the minor arcana of dogma that separates these groups from one another, it’s easy to recall a scene from Monty Python’s Christ parody, “Life of Brian.”