Can't speak for everybody, but I think the conventional wisdom is that it may do two things. One, it may put the two major parties on notice that a significant number of citizens are dissatisfied with the current status quo and want to see alternative solutions, new faces, etc., in government. If the Greens can get on the ballot regularly and get a good number of votes, maybe the Democrats will move the planks in their environmental platform a little more to the left. If the Libertarians get more votes, then maybe the GOP will, I don't know, privatize the New Jersey Turnpike, end the Fed, and abolish property taxes and public schools.
Two, there's a hope that it can create a snowball effect of larger and larger percentages of the vote every cycle. The hoped-for end result (after who knows how many cycles) is that we get a three- or multi-party system rather than the perceived Tweedledum and Tweedledee, "they're both in bed with Wall Street and Big Pharma and Big Agro, but I can't 'waste' my vote on a third party" choices we have now.
In other words, the conventional wisdom suggests that it's a long game for disestablishing the two main parties. Two percent doesn't mean much, and neither does 3%. But next time maybe this November's 3% will turn into 6% in 2020, or 10% at the 2022 Congressional mid-terms. Next thing you know we have more than two so-called "Independent" members of Congress. Or the states have a few third-party politicians working on their re-districting, re-drawing the gerrymandering that's kept so many state legislatures solidly Republican and skewed the House of Representatives the same way.
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Two, there's a hope that it can create a snowball effect of larger and larger percentages of the vote every cycle. The hoped-for end result (after who knows how many cycles) is that we get a three- or multi-party system rather than the perceived Tweedledum and Tweedledee, "they're both in bed with Wall Street and Big Pharma and Big Agro, but I can't 'waste' my vote on a third party" choices we have now.
In other words, the conventional wisdom suggests that it's a long game for disestablishing the two main parties. Two percent doesn't mean much, and neither does 3%. But next time maybe this November's 3% will turn into 6% in 2020, or 10% at the 2022 Congressional mid-terms. Next thing you know we have more than two so-called "Independent" members of Congress. Or the states have a few third-party politicians working on their re-districting, re-drawing the gerrymandering that's kept so many state legislatures solidly Republican and skewed the House of Representatives the same way.