We’re of the same age range so you’ll probably remember:
I was 8 years old when John B Anderson ran in a 3rd party. At 8, my knowledge of things is of course limited but I watched whatever was on TV and I followed the election news closely as it seemed interesting to me. I’d done a book report on Jimmy Carter the Peanut Farmer and here he was fighting against this “dark horse” they called him and a guy that sounded like a John Wayne bought of a Discount Store Rack.
[sorry I wasn’t a fan of Reagan from even before he was elected as a kid – seemed fake]
Anyway, I rooted for this “dark horse” guy, the little I heard about his policies sounded reasonable, but they forbid him from the debates which got me annoyed because I wanted to hear him – and didn’t care about the other two really, even though I’d done a book report on one of them.
So the election comes and goes. Discount John Wayne won. I liked maybe 3 things from him over his term.
1984 rolls around. Killer Olympics. Boring election. where’s the 3rd guy? No 3rd guy? I’m 12 years old and bored of politics now.
16 years old, 1988: no 3rd party, just a bit of a scandal and we end up with the VP of the previous guy. Boring.
1992: FINALLY somebody interesting. 3rd party again. I can vote now and my faith is restored.
Then some jerk on talk radio claims that the 17% of the vote that went to the big eared guy would have gone to Bush and that he stole the vote. Well, that pissed me off because I had no intention of voting for Bush. I’d have voted for the sax player but I wanted the big eared businessman for a few years.
Voted for him again in ’96. Skipped 2k. Voted Bush in ’04 because I liked his cabinet which he switched out right after he was sworn in; so that was annoying. Then Obama, Obama, Clinton, Biden.
I haven’t given up on 3rd parties; Obama I liked because he energized a base that normally wasn’t energized although he was a pretty standard president. Trump I’d already had zero respect for from way back in the late 1980s for various reasons and in particular the Indian casino trials, so I had no use for him for decades and the base he was energizing was an embarrassment.
Always thought we needed a variety of parties in the USA even at 8.