Is Polarized America Primed for a Breakout Third Party
Voice of America
22 Jul 2021, 08:05 GMT+10
The ouster of Republican Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the House of Representatives could provide fertile ground for the emergence of an alternate party, according to political scientist Bernard Tamas. I would say that the time is basically ripe for a third-party challenge, and, largely, the reason is because of the level of polarization in American politics, especially the movement to the right by the Republican Party, says Tamas, an associate professor at Valdosta State University in Georgia and the author of The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.
An associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University says voting should be easy, but some states are trying to make it hard through voter suppression laws.
“What you are seeing is a long-term pattern of Republicans taking steps to tilt elections in their favor,” said Dr. Bernard Tamas on Thursday’s edition of “Closer Look.”
Tamas told show host Rose Scott that there are two types of voting laws: laws that ban voters completely and laws that increase the cost of voting by making it more difficult to vote.
“My research doesn’t say voter suppression laws don’t matter. I’m saying voter suppression laws at the moment don’t matter,” said Tamas, who recently wrote an op-ed piece titled
Bernard Tamas (@bdtamas) is an expert on elections, electoral bias, and US third parties. His current research on electoral bias in US elections is funded by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and the American Political Science Association. Tamas has held a Fulbright scholarship to the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-MIT Data Center at Harvard University. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia University and has previously taught at Illinois State University, Williams College, and Brandeis University. His recent book is The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties: Poised for Political Revival? (Routledge, 2018).