Comment by JKCalhoun
12 days ago
My only issue with your comment is it seems to blame a two-party system. It is my understanding/belief though that a two-party system is just inevitable in the U.S. When a 3rd party has risen it acts only as a spoiler to the party it is most aligned with.
With increased granularity of representation, you can have more parties. Breaking The Two Party Doom Loop discussed details.
Our country has not increased the number of representatives sufficiently to allow local issues to reach national stage, so instead we all worry about national issues over local ones, for one example.
Most local issues shouldn't be handled nationally due to the diverse perspectives. That's pretty much the whole point of the (largely ignored) 10th amendment.
It's only as inevitable as the current voting system. If it changed to some kind of ranked choice, new parties would quickly gain representation.
To be sure. But here we are.
A third party has never had enough support to really be viable. Nor have we had multiple alternative parties with viable support. Right now it's all or nothing. If you had multiple new options with nuanced positions (even just filling the quadrants of social/fiscal conservative/liberal), then people could have real options. I admit this is unlikely under the current structure. However, it could take shape with structural changes to the voting process. Yes, even with some of its negatives, ranked choice might be one possible road to multiple mainstream parties.
> A third party has never had enough support to really be viable
The republicans were a third party. Granted the old Whig party was seeing significant troubles, but they still were a third party and thus prove you wrong. 3 parties are not viable, but third parties are.
Sure, I should have qualified in the past 100 years, or modern times, or whatever. The political environment, the modes of information, types of issues, and even the culture has drastically changed since the Republicans surpassed the Whigs. It's not really an applicable example to the modern scenarios.
Why does that make it inaccurate to blame the two party system? The two party system causes the problem, but that doesn't mean something else can't cause the two party system.
Yeah, not inaccurate ... maybe loaded? I wasn't really refuting the point, merely responding to why OP may have been getting downvotes. Sometimes words can suggest a bias and people may respond to that.