MSNBC Guest Calls Third Party Candidates ‘a Threat to Our Democracy’
Project Lincoln senior adviser and former CNN commentator Tara Setmayer called third-party presidential candidates “a threat to our democracy” on MSNBC on Wednesday.
During a discussion on MSNBC about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign, Setmayer said:
I think that third party candidates are spoilers. I mean, history could potentially repeat itself again, and now more than ever the idea of a third party is a threat to our democracy. This is not the time for this. I understand the frustration that the American electorate has. People always express a certain amount of frustration with the two-party system, but that’s the system we have, and we’re not in a position now where we have two candidates who equally are, you know, who are equal threats to our democracy.
Donald Trump is a threat to our democratic system. He says he wants to be a dictator on day one. You know, President Biden doesn’t pose that threat. It’s a policy difference, or maybe people think he’s too old. Okay, well you need to take a step back and look at what the choices are here. Third parties do not work, they’re spoilers, so if you want Donald Trump to win the election, then go ahead, throw your vote away and vote third party. If you don’t and you want to maintain our democracy and work within our system to reform it maybe down the line, there can be an opportunity to have ballot access or a third party or whatever, that’s fine, but right now, the threat to our democracy is too great to be messing around with third party candidacies. These are just vanity candidacies anywhere because they can’t win.
Setmayer went on to blame Green Party candidate Jill Stein for Hillary Clinton’s loss against Donald Trump in 2016 before accusing third-party candidates of “exploiting the frustrations of the American people.”
In May, Setmayer called on Republican “vanity candidates” to “get the hell out of the race” and “consolidate behind one person” in an effort to stop Trump from gaining the party’s nomination.
Watch above via MSNBC.
