Well, yes, if third party was already a large enough community to even come close to rivaling the 2 established parties, people would be more likely to view it as an acceptable alternative, but that's putting the cart before the horse - it requires success to have already been achieved in order to start seeing success. We would need to find a way to get people to convert without having an established community, because that's how we would start building a community.

Sure, we've got over a million people who vote 3rd party in presidential elections, but that's a tiny number when you're spreading that group out across the entire US. I'm literally the only person I know in real life who thinks the Democratic party isn't acceptably politically left, and I know a good amount of people - there simply isn't a community for 3rd party in my social circle, and I'm in a blue state.

I'm tired of the whole "if a bunch of people suddenly start caring, we'll change the world!" I just don't believe that such a scenario will ever happen. People don't just start caring out of the blue; we need to find a way of forcing real, observable change with only the numbers we already have right now. People will start to join in once that happens, but I just don't have a clue how that can be done, or if it's even possible.