I recently received an email from a frustrated reader complaining that the 2024 presidential election would be an unsatisfactory rerun with two well-known and

unattractive candidates.

It’s a complaint I’ve heard before:

President

Biden and

Donald

Trump is too old. Trumps crazy and irresponsible; Bidens too lenient and ineffective. Neither will compromise; neither is competent. They encourage government dysfunction and polarization. Why, oh why, don’t we have better choices?

Then, suddenly, just a few days later, there was another message in my inbox that offered an apparent solution: No Labels, the centrist political organization dedicated to bipartisanship and ending stalemate, says it is also concerned about the candidates and has devised an ‘insurance plan’ that can provide relief.

The group is working to secure a spot on the ballot

S

of all 50 states for the 2024 general election, in case the race offers only a rematch between Trump and Biden or some other dismal, unsatisfactory combination. If that happens, the group would run a third party alternative ticket, a Democrat and a Republican who would pledge to work together to save the US from paralysis and extremism.

No Labels has so far secured ballot boxes in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska and is getting to work in Florida, North Carolina and Nevada. In mid-May, the leaders of the organization were in New York

last week

raise funds for the $70 million they believe they need for their voting efforts.

Founded by the likes of longtime Democratic fundraiser Nancy Jacobson and former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, No Labels promises choice! Compromise! An End to Toxic Bitterness! It says it represents the commonsense majority that wants an end to extremist politics and craves unity and cooperation.

Sounds good, right? As usual a quick kick in the pants from politicians.

But don’t be fooled.

A third-party candidature is a shiny object, a bright bauble that is superficially attractive. But it’s actually the

load

things we need.

And by we, I mean the sensitive, still healthy part of the electorate (both Democrats and Republicans) whose main concern is to make sure that Donald Trump or some other truly extremist anti-Democratic candidate doesn’t run for president again.

Some Democrats associated with No Labels have realized that the alternative ticket plan is a bad idea, and have said so publicly in recent days.

“No labels are wasting time, energy and money on a bizarre effort that confuses and divides voters, and the clear result is the re-election of Donald Trump as president,” said Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.)

last before this

week.

At the top of the No Labels wish list for a possible unity ticket is reportedly Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative West Virginia Democrat whose swing-vote status has caused so much turmoil for his party in recent years.

No Labels has yet to make a final decision on whether to continue, and Manchin has not yet officially agreed to become the party’s presidential nominee if it does. Manchin timidly told the Washington Post, I don’t include myself and I don’t exclude myself.

But anyway, Americans should get out of their heads the crazy notion that Manchin or any third party would be a panacea.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with third parties. The two major parties have none

G

od data right to an empty field. If another H. Ross Perot or Eldridge Cleaver or John Anderson or Henry A. Wallace or Strom Thurmond or George Wallace or Ralph Nader thinks they have something to offer, they have a right to try, as all those guys did.

And if Americans are not satisfied with the major party candidates, they have the right to cast protest votes.

But let’s be clear: that’s what this protest vote would be. Third-party candidates don’t win. They have not done so in the past and they will not do so in 2024.

What she

can

to do is reform elections if they get enough votes. And in this case, chances are they’re reshaping it in Trump’s (or

Ron

DeSantis

S

or whoever becomes the Republican nominee).

Do you remember the alternative parties in the 2016 election? Hillary Clinton might have won without the 7.8 million people who voted for the Green Party and Libertarian Party candidates.

(The Times editors had rightly warned that a vote for either is just one vote less for the only candidate who can beat Trump.)

Or think back to 2000, when Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader won 97,000 votes in Florida, most of which probably would have gone to Democrat Al Gore had Nader not run. In the end, Gore lost the state and with it the White House to George W. Bush by just 537 votes.

It is not absolutely certain that a No Labels candidate in 2024 would benefit Republicans more than Democrats; No Labels rejects that assumption. But it’s likely.

For starters, if a third-party candidate were to succeed in winning electoral college votes, it could make it impossible for any of the major party candidates to secure the required majority of 270 electoral votes. That would throw the race to the House of Representatives, where the GOP dominates.

And even if the third-party candidate didn’t win any electoral votes, but only snatched the votes of the major-party candidates, that would still favor Trump more than Biden (assuming Trump is the nominee). ).

Norman Ornstein, scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, puts it this way: To beat Trump, Biden must

S

to win over not only base Democratic voters, but also moderate Democrats and Independents and Republicans

who would normally vote for one of them

but cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump or any other extremist.

That will not happen if their votes are siphoned off by, say, Manchin.

You can vote for a candidate from a third party

OK

strategy if you really don’t see much difference between the candidates of the major parties

and to file a protest.

But voters who think that way

a Trump-Biden race must face reality. The idea that Biden and Trump are similar extremists, one from the left and one from the right, is an outrageous and dangerous

untruth.

If Trump is a candidate, there can only be one priority in 2024: to ensure that the fate of the country is not once again placed in the hands of a man who has already proven reckless, undemocratic, dishonest, selfish and pro-violence.

@nick_goldberg