Why DO We Have a Two-Party System?

[MineralMan]

It's pretty simple, really. The Constitution sets up a majority system for things like elections, etc., and that's our tradition. We decide things, more or less across the board, based on majority votes. Majorities are required for most elections to office, although not for elections where there are more than one position to fill. Our President is elected by a majority in the Electoral College. If no majority is reached, a majority of members of the House of Representatives decides. Each member of that House is elected by majority vote, also, in most cases.

Our court system is headed by the Supreme Court, where majority vote rules, as it does when federal appellate courts rule en banc. Our Congress and most state legislatures require majority votes on legislation. Sometimes even a super-majority is required.

Third and other parties are in no way prohibited in our political system. We have several of them. From time to time, a third party candidate appears who gets a sizable percentage of the vote. More rarely, a third party candidate wins, as in Minnesota, when an unlikely former wrestler became Governor, without a majority of votes. But those are unusual situations. In most state and local elections, if there is no majority, run-off elections occur. We live by majority decisions for most governmental and legal issues.

That deeply-ingrained concept of majority rule more or less dictates a two-party system. People want to vote for one or another candidate, with some assurance that they are voting to decide which of the two is better. We don't have a parliamentary system, where parties must form coalitions to gain a majority position.

Nothing about our two-party system is set into law. It simply derives from our insistence that majorities decide most issues. Given that, a two-party system is almost inevitable. For people in the United States, just about every decision is based on majority rule, from club meetings to Congress and the Presidency. Everything in between, pretty much, follows the same majority rule. People want to be able to make either/or decisions in elections.

Calls for a different way of choosing our leadership will always fall on deaf ears here. For a third party to succeed on a national basis, it must become one of the two dominant parties. Such a thing has not happened for a very long time. We don't yearn for a multi-party system in the United States. A majority of Americans would have to exist that wanted such a system. That majority does not exist.

We vote for whom we prefer. The candidate who gets the majority of votes wins. That's why GOTV is so important.

[longship]

1. That makes entire sense.

Happy to support this post.

R&

[MineralMan]

2. Thanks!

[Springslips]

3. Close.

Read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

The two party system arrises from the way we elect reps--first-past-the-post, single member districts. Since we don't have run offs elections, and don't gave proportional representation, we are forced to vote for the most viable candidate on our individual list of preferences, or having someone we don't prefer win due to our side splitting the vote.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. The constitution sets up a *plurality* not *majority* based system, but

only where it specifies electoral processes at all. In many cases it doesn't. What the constitution doesn't do is to mandate an explicit two party system, nor does it specify the processes and regulations by which these specific two parties have managed to create a stranglehold on the government of this nation both at the federal and state level. All of that is extra-constitutional.

The plurality system mandated in the constitution is key to why we have two parties and to describe it as a majority system is either naive or willfully inaccurate.

If we had actual majority rule, where the winner had to have a majority of the votes, we would have to have some sort of run-off process and the door would in fact be open to third parties.

[daybranch]

5. I have to agree.

Thank you.

[merrily]

6. Good grief. The Constitution has nothing to do with political parties. Also, it's possible to get a

minority or plurality of the popular vote, but a majority of the electoral vote. We have a two party system in part because the two largest political parties held hands to make sure third parties had little realistic chance of challenging them and in part because things just evolved that way.

[1939]

8. The founding fathers believed

That the Electoral College would be just a nominating process and that the actual president would be selected by the House of Representatives. The emergence of parties provided the means by which the Electoral College became decisive.

Third parties have emerged over the years in the US. In a few cases, they displaced other parties (Federalist-Whig-GOP). In other cases, once third parties began to hurt one or the other of the two parties, their platform was taken over by a major party and they died quickly as they were "single issue" parties (Free Soil, Greenback, Free Silver, Prohibition) or they were single election phenomena (Harry and George Wallace, Teddy Roosevelt, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader)

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. "The Constitution has nothing to do with political parties"

Yes, it does.

It establishes a winner-takes-all system that does not necessarily mandate, but favors a two-party system. If you take the majority a vote, be it popular or electoral, you win. The other guy loses no matter how many votes he gets. The natural result is a two-party system in which both parties must attain broad appeal (called "umbrella parties&quot to remain successful at the ballot. You can't have three, four, or a dozen highly differentiated political parties running around in such a system, because there's no fucking way any of them will get a simple majority.

As much as it may pain me to say it, MineralMan is correct here. He's basically paraphrased an entire lecture of the American Political Parties course I took in college.

[merrily]

21. Sorry, I still disagree with Mineral Man, for the reasons I stated and also....

Throughout most of its history, American politics have been dominated by a two-party system. However, the United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties; at the time it was signed in 1787, there were no parties in the nation. Indeed, no nation in the world had voter-based political parties. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s.[1] Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United_States

Mineral Man is claiming that the Constitution sets up everything for majority rule. However, that is not so, also for the reasons previously. You claim that the Constitution sets up a winner take all system, which is different from majority rule. And there is no reason why you cannot have four political parties and still have winner takes all.

[Act_of_Reparation]

23. I don't think you're working with complete information.

And there is no reason why you cannot have four political parties and still have winner takes all.

No, there's no reason you can't, but I didn't say can't. I said favors.

Look, if you throw four political parties into the mix, here is what is likely to happen: One will move sufficiently towards the center as to win the majority, marginalizing the others unless they do the same. If the party leaders are at all concerned with self-preservation, we'll wind up with what we have now: umbrella parties trying to appeal to the widest possible base. And then it is only a matter of time before at least of two of them realize it's better to pool your resources with another party more or less aligned with your own than go at it alone.

Throughout most of its history, American politics have been dominated by a two-party system. However, the United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties; at the time it was signed in 1787, there were no parties in the nation. Indeed, no nation in the world had voter-based political parties. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s. Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party

The intentions of the founders aren't relevant . Whether or not the founders envisioned a two-party system doesn't have any bearing whatsoever on whether or not the two-party system is a natural result of the electoral system outlined in the Constitution. I doubt the guy who invented the automobile knew his invention would severely alter the environment, but it did all the same.

[merrily]

24. I didn't say the intent of the Founders was dispositive. It was not even part of my first reply.

However, when one makes a claim like the Constitution set up a two party system, the situation in 1787 should be mentioned or the statement can be misleading.

While terms that you used, such as "favors" and "tends" may or may not be accurate, they are not the terns Mineral Man used. Even after your comments, I'm going with my first reply to Mineral Man, esp. as to MM's statements about majority rule. I get that you disagree.

[forsaken mortal]

7. We have a two-party system due to Duverger's law

When you have a "first past the post" style of electoral system, two parties will tend to emerge. If we changed to a different type system, we would easily have more than two viablr parties, and I think most Americans would eventually warm up to it. They just don't know anything different than what we currently have.

[MineralMan]

13. But, see, we can't change to another system without a

Constitutional Amendment, and those generally originate in Congress, where it is unlikely that such an amendment would ever even be introduced.

We have an established system. It can be changed, but not easily and any changes require super-majority support. A parliamentary system with multiple parties might be interesting, but it's not going to happen in the United States. Pretty much impossible to happen.

[mmonk]

9. That's now how or why. I disagree.

It became an unintended evolution.

[HughBeaumont]

10. "For a third party to succeed on a national basis, it must become one of the two dominant parties."

Well, the Libertarian Party is sure taking great steps to make that happen.

[MineralMan]

12. Hmm...have they ever hit even 1% in a presidential election?

I don't think so. I think a lot of Libertarians don't bother to vote at all. That would explain it. Either that or there aren't really many of them out there at all. That's my guess. They're all to busy with their LINUX consultancies to take the time, I suppose.

[Wounded Bear]

15. I think he's referring to current attempts by libertarians...

to take over the Repub party.

[MineralMan]

16. Have you ever been to a Libertarian Party meeting?

I have. Nobody agreed on anything. It was hilarious. Every person his own government seemed to be the order of the day. Libertarians are a laugh a minute, and the more of them there are in one place, the less that happens.

[Wounded Bear]

17. No, I haven't...

but I'm not surprised by that in a group that emphasizes "personal responsibility" and demonizes any form of community or group action.

What I fear is one of them- *cough, cough*- the Paul's of the world winning a Repub nomination and directing a major party into its chaotic model. Given the near 20 candidates this cycle, I can see a little bit of that happening. What we'll get this time around, from any of the Repub cnadidates, is a furthering of the authoritarian madness that has been creeping into all of our public policy actions.

[MineralMan]

18. Well, Rand Paul himself tried to run in the Republican primaries

this year. Complete failure to perform was the result. The only way Libertarians can take over the Republican Party is through stealth, and Libertarians are lousy at stealth. They just can't not tell everyone what they think. They have to demonstrate the superiority of Libertarianism, loudly and annoyingly.

It would be pathetic if it weren't so entertaining. Of course, actual libertarianism doesn't really exist as a system that has universal support from Libertarians. Libertarians and anarchists are the least effective of all political believers. They just don't get what politics are about. They're so convinced of their beliefs, such as they are, that they can't understand that everyone doesn't automatically believe as they do.

Libertarianism is a non-starter.

[KamaAina]

19. I am a firm believer in the two-party system.

As long as the two parties are Democratic and Green, with the repukes banned the way the Nazis are in Germany. Then, I would be your basic middle-of-the-road swing voter.

[MineralMan]

20. LOL! Now there are a couple of good parties.

I wish I'd seen what Name Removed wrote, though. He seems to reply to a lot of my OPs.

[ismnotwasm]

22. Nice!

[Ron Green]

25. Culturally, two parties work because America isn't as politically sophisticated

as some countries that support multiple philosophies.

Economically, two parties are easy to buy and control while giving the illusion of choice.

[Xithras]

26. Some argue that we really don't have two parties in the U.S.

In nations with multiparty governments, it's usually necessary for multiple parties to join together into coalitions to form majorities capable of pushing legislation. Many political analysts have commented on the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties are, in many ways, simply semi-permanent coalitions made up of smaller political movements that are individually incapable of establishing electoral majorities.

This has also been cited as a reason why many people in BOTH political parties have a problem "holding their noses" to vote for candidates that they don't really support simply because they're "in the party". When they're asked to hold their nose for a candidate that doesn't support their positions, they're essentially being asked to vote for a coalition that has decided to exclude their own political movement. This is why it's important to throw bones to all of the various interest groups when election time rolls around. Some members of that group MAY support the coalition even if they're excluded from it, but many will not.

[IsItJustMe]

27. My opinion is that the deck has been stacked by both parties.

A true third party in America scares the hell out of both Democrats and Republicans. What exists in this country now is known as a duopoly and both parties have a vested interest in keeping things exactly where they are at.

If you were to examine the election laws, you would find that they are extremely cumbersome and technical making it very difficult for a third party candidate to run a successful bid for office. These laws were placed into effect by Republicans and Democrats to protect their duopoly status. They are simply protecting their status and control.