My Thoughts On The Two-Party System

Mayhem

Banned
As someone who is lurking these threads because he isn't American and therefore keeps out of these debates, you guys just mentioned something that intrigues me a lot. Why hasn't your country evolved to a political system with more than two parties? They are too much opposite of each other, and I'm sure there are enough people who are somewhere in the "middle", so why isn't there any other party strong enough to compete with Republicans and Democrats? I don't get that. Are their really only two kind of views in the US strong enough, so that not even another party can get to that level to compete? I find that very weird. If someone cares to elaborate, feel free to explain.

Americans are absolutists. To us, it doesn't matter how close a contest is, it only matters who wins.

With the two-party system, each candidate is hoping for 51% of the vote. This is a general term, but it fits to the vast majority of political elections.

If there was a viable third party, each candidate would be hoping for 34-35% of the vote. In other words, 65% of the voters voted against you, but you won.

If there was a viable third and fourth parties, each candidate would be striving for 26% of the vote, with almost 3/4ths of the electorate wanting someone else.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… - Winston Churchill
 

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