Third-party candidates in the United States routinely see a decline in support in the final weeks of presidential campaigns. While political scientists attribute this partially to Duverger’s Law, many communication scholars have tied this collapse to media coverage that frames third-party candidates as fringe outsiders, longshots, and spoilers. This study extends these explanations of third-party failure by describing the rhetorical containment of third-party voters. Based on a case study of the 2016 presidential election and public debate about supporters of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, the essay suggests such voters face a form of marginalization that portrays them as intruders in a two-party race, as immature and uninformed, and responsible for eventual victors, while presenting them a false choice of winning by sacrificing their cause.

中文翻译：

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在 2016 年美国总统选举中遏制第三方选民

美国的第三方候选人在总统竞选的最后几周经常看到支持率下降。虽然政治科学家将此部分归因于杜弗格定律，但许多传播学者将这种崩溃与媒体报道联系起来，将第三方候选人视为边缘的局外人、远景和剧透。本研究通过描述第三方选民的修辞遏制来扩展对第三方失败的这些解释。基于对 2016 年总统大选的案例研究和关于加里·约翰逊和吉尔·斯坦的支持者的公开辩论，这篇文章表明，这些选民面临一种边缘化形式，将他们描绘成两党竞选的入侵者，不成熟和不知情，并且对最终的胜利者负责，同时向他们展示了通过牺牲自己的事业而获胜的错误选择。