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How come there are still only 2 parties in the U.S.?

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blacksmith

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How can someone call that a democracy?

When I think of democracy, I think of the Canadian political system, where there are many parties and anyone can start his own party given that the person has enough money.

I am surprised that most American politicians seem to ignore this issue.
 
How come there are still only 2 parties in the U.S.?
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Paradigms. Team mentality. Ridiculous ideas like "wasted votes" and "non-viable candidates." Our current politicians want it that way.
 
The two party system forces compromise at the bottom (grass roots, the voter) instead of at the top (in parliament) while mainstreaming popular ideas.

I'd like to see a 3rd party enter the fray, we have a few minor parties.
 
ecofarm said:
The two party system forces compromise at the bottom (grass roots, the voter) instead of at the top (in parliament) while mainstreaming popular ideas.

I'd like to see a 3rd party enter the fray, we have a few minor parties.
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Sadly, a third party would only syphon votes from one of the other
two parties, leaving the other party to win.
 

Single member districts compel two party organization. You can only have multiple parties when there is proportional representation.
 
Meister said:
Sadly, a third party would only syphon votes from one of the other
two parties, leaving the other party to win.
Click to expand...

That is not necessarily true in Canada the Liberal Party has been able to hold power for most of Canada's modern political history even with a successful third party that shares some of it's voting bloc.
 
What's worse is that for all practical purposes, there is one party. Democrats and Republicans are two wings of a broken system. They occasionally meet in the mediocre center where dreams die.
 
Carjosse said:
That is not necessarily true in Canada the Liberal Party has been able to hold power for most of Canada's modern political history even with a successful third party that shares some of it's voting bloc.
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Ross Perot syphoned nearly 19%, majority from repubs and Clinton won.
 
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Amadeus said:
What's worse is that for all practical purposes, there is one party. Democrats and Republicans are two wings of a broken system. They occasionally meet in the mediocre center where dreams die.
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True that
 
Meister said:
Sadly, a third party would only syphon votes from one of the other
two parties, leaving the other party to win.
Click to expand...
True, that's why instant runoff voting is superior.

 

There are several parties. There are only two most folks care anything about. And we're a republic.
 

As it stands now, every republican and democrat politician, if they can get on the ballot, has about a 50% chance of winning. If we had multiple parties, their chances would decline. So it's fair to say that our elected officials prefer the two party system as it makes it more likely that they will remain in power.
 
Meister said:
Sadly, a third party would only syphon votes from one of the other
two parties, leaving the other party to win.
Click to expand...

Not if that third party was a moderate party or a centrist party. Of course if we did have a centrist party, they would win every time because we are a centrist country.
 
Meister said:
Ross Perot syphoned nearly 19%, majority from repubs and Clinton won.
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Not quite. He got 19% of the popular vote, but he siphoned about a third or so of those from Democrats, too. But true enough, he got enough Republican votes to hand Clinton the election.

Similar thing happened in 2000, when Nader siphoned enough votes from Gore - in both Florida and New Hampshire - such that the election was handed to W. Either state in Gore's hands would have been sufficient for him to win the election.
 
Because it's a districted system wherein the winner-takes-all, there's no proportional representation as such, which is where additional parties can get some control. In a parliamentary system, each party getting a certain threshold percentage of the popular vote gets some seats, making it easier for additional parties (i.e., on top of the main contenders) to get seats and exercise some influence, since this is more likely (than in a presidential system like ours) to deny any major parties a majority in the parliament. It then falls to the party to form a government that can create a sufficient coalition amongst the members, requiring compromises before the government (i.e., the executive branch) is even formed. Contrast our presidential system, wherein the president is selected separately from the legislature, making divided government more likely. Thus, in our presidential system, as we've seen from our own relatively recent history third parties merely gum up the works for one major party, because here there's no prize for second place.

The only way to fix the system and have third parties be influential at all in the actual government (as opposed to merely in the election, shifting it away from its intended goal) would be to completely redo the Constitution to provide for a parliamenary system.
 
....Googles "Canadian political system" and pretends I was educated on this topic all along....
 

There are actually more parties.Its just that the democrats and republicans are legally allowed to screw the other parties out of elections and those in the media are complaisant in maintaining the two party duopoly.
 
How come there are still only 2 parties in the U.S.?
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gerrymandering, mostly.
 


It's about the money. If we took out the heavy finance there would be more parties.
 
jet57 said:
It's about the money. If we took out the heavy finance there would be more parties.
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That and the fact Republicans and Democrats write the election laws as a mutual protection act making it as hard as possible for any third party to become viable.
 

It's not the case that there are only two parties. There are several parties, you just never hear of the others.

Among the parties that actually field candidates:

Libertarian Party
Constitution Party
Green Party

Here's how the parties break down on the issues (Wikipedia)



In all of the elections in the US the two major parties position themselves so as to take a little over half of the electorate. No districts are left out, no issues are ignored. Seldom is it the case that a third party has a chance.

In case you were wondering, yes, I'm with the libertarian party on every issue.
 
Perotista said:
That and the fact Republicans and Democrats write the election laws as a mutual protection act making it as hard as possible for any third party to become viable.
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Yeah, the whole thing these days is about protectionism. It's careers that are being protected as well as financial connections and controls. The whole thing is a business. I don't know about you, but I seem to have noticed that no matter who wins the presidency, there seems to be this ongoing agenda surrounding wars and American business interests that never seems to change. That is to say; take the ongoing ME wars: nobody is going after why we have so much of a problem over there and why we keep throwing our own people down a black hole. Domestically, take American labor; no president has made any moves toward, at the very least, some sort of policy for or against. It just keeps going down the tubes, and no matter what seems to be happening, the stock market just roars forward... I don't want to say that the fix is in, but there is definitely an agenda that has itself to be nothing but a one way street and no matter what a presidential hopeful says, when they take office, it's the same old stuff...
 
There are in fact over 30 political parties in the US. It's just that most voters choose the parties that most closely represent their philosophy. For most liberals, it's the democrat party. For most conservatives, it's the republican party...though the republican party is slowly losing support as it is inching closer and closer to democrat-lite.
 

So, being an American, why do you not refer to Democrats as The Democratic Party?
 

Yes, it does seem like that. If one could hide the R and the D, just put forth how the last two presidents have governed, one would see very little difference. At least in the big things as you described. Yet if one listens to the rhetoric, they are polar opposites.
 
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