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The problem being that voting for your third parties splits your vote, and that only has a good outcome when everybody on all sides are doing so. If one side defects then they win because their vote isn’t split between several different parties, it’s concentrated in one party. So if conservatives choose between Reform, Constitution, Libertarian, and Republican, each gets 1/4 of the total conservative votes available. If democrats all vote for the Democratic Party, they get all available democratic votes. If you assume that the parties are roughly equal in support, the democrats will win even though the6 don’t have more votes.
When I am arguing against the efficacy of individual strategic partisanship, "but then a group following this advice might cause the wrong party to win!" is not a meaningful response. Yes, if one side is collectively strategic and another isn't, then that other will lose the election. But (presumably) you don't have any control of either side, collectively, and your defection or cooperation will basically never make any difference, so you have no compelling reason to behave as if it it would. If everyone could be counted upon to behave as I am suggesting, it would actually be good for our election processes. If they can't be so counted upon, then you lose nothing by behaving better anyway.
I disagree because if the vote on the side you actually like cannot win, not only are you not getting what you want, but often moving the country in the opposite direction. In fact, this is the theory behind stocking horse candidates— run someone very similar to the mainstream candidate that you want to lose, split that vote and cruise to victory.
This is just simply power games. The thing that a lot of people don’t get about politics is that it isn’t in the least about being right, no matter what system you’re trying to get power under. The person with the right policies is a nobody. The guy who has power gets to decide what the right answer is. The correct answer is thusly form a very strong tribe that votes as a bloc. Then use that power base to essentially hold the political party nearest to your own side to account for not voting your way. Vote out bad politicians in the primaries. This is how the GOP was gradually moved rightward. If someone didn’t vote right, they were prinaried out of office. But the GOP was still winning because people were still with the Rightist party so they won elections. That would be the optimum strategy— vote as you please in the primaries, then vote GOP in the general election. You take power because the vote isn’t split, but you’re also to be feared because rinos get removed from the party.
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