What have third parties been good for?

A number of Berners are already attacking those who have criticized Bernie Sanders for being #NotLeftEnough.

Well, as Bernie is as left s you'll get in a national Democrat, that means criticizing people for thinking outside the current two-party duopoly box.

And, in turn, that means responding with some insight as to just what third parties have been good for.

And, for starters, third parties were key to America ending slavery when it did, rather than decades later.

In 1844, James Birney's Liberty Party is believed to have swung the election to Polk; his number of votes there were well more than the Polk-Clay margin, with Clay being seen as a "squish" on the annexation of Texas.

Eight years later, in 1852, an offshoot of it, the Free Soil Party, may have swung Ohio, Connecticut and Delaware, giving Frank Pierce a bigger electoral college margin victory over Winfield Scott than otherwise.

That, in turn, may have helped hasten the demise of the Whigs, which led to the rise of the Republicans — who themselves, as that indicates, began as a third party.

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Skip to the Gilded Age.

The Greenback Party, which nominated Peter Cooper in 1876, was the first party to oppose problems associated with America's growing Industrial Age — hard money, debt, anti-rural moves and more. In 1880, its candidate James Weaver got more than 3 percent of the vote in a tight election year. Spoons Ben Butler carried its banner in 1884, an even tighter race.

It eventually became the Greenback Labor Party because, again, both R's and D's were ignoring labor in the Gilded Age. It then led to the People's or Populist Party, which lasted until William Jennings Bryan ran on a dual platform in 1896. That said, many of their issues, other than soft money, were eventually taken up by progressive movements in both halves of the duopoly — perhaps in part because they believed it right, but also because they feared the political consequences of not doing so. Also, though the Populists didn't draw labor support, Eugene Debs' Socialists did.

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Skip to the Depression.

While Upton Sinclair did run for governor of California as a Dem when pushing his EPIC program, he was a Socialist of long standing. FDR undermined his campaign through secret collaboration with the California GOP.

Nonetheless, Sinclair — and his campaign platform — were so popular that FDR was forced to give America Social Security and other things in the "Second New Deal" of the second half of his first term. No, FDR didn't do those things willingly. Sinclair plus the popularity of the Kingfish, Huey Long, forced his hand. In addition to Social Security, we got the National Labor Relations Board, the WPA, banking reform, and other things from it.

That's because FDR was #NotLeftEnough.

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And, it's timely for refudiating some of the Berners because on Saturday, Bernie uttered his first Twitter words on Venezuela since Trump started pushing for the coup there:

The people of Venezuela are enduring a serious humanitarian crisis. The Maduro government must put the needs of its people first, allow humanitarian aid into the country, and refrain from violence against protesters.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 23, 2019

Will wait for the most ardent Berners to try to squirm out of this one.

And, with that in mind, here's my initial take on Green 2020 presidential candidates.