Why are there only two big parties!

[supervan]

You don’t have to keep the status quo. What stops you from starting a new party?!
(Question from the UK)

[Inland]

1. two reasons.

One is institutional. Reps and demos are actually favored in elections by law. For example, the nominee of either of the two party for any office is guaranteed a place on the ballot. Everyone else has to get signatures on a petition, or prove something or other, to gain a spot.

Second, in a winner take all election--or first past the post, as they say in the UK--there is a natural tendency to duopoly. US elections are a series of winner take alls, by district, state, and then caucus. The UK tends to duopoly as well for that reason.

The US has changed the status quo by changing the party in all but name. Today's democratic party in 1950 was a confederation of southern, segregationist, working class, catholic groups. Today, it is heavily favored by minorities and non-churchgoers, while the southern segregationists all went republican, and every moderate of every stripe has pretty much disappeared from the republican party apparatus.

[supervan]

6. but if

the 'new' party gets to be the biggest then they take top spot?

With a new party you get rid of all the old labels 'southern, segregationist, working class, catholic groups' etc.

A real fresh start, so to speak.

Here in the UK I can see the Liberal Democrats doing well in the next election, they may even become the official opposition party.

[norml]

13. Parliamentary systems are different. Here we don't have proportional

representation. Better here that right-wing third parties should be encouraged to split the repub base.

[phantom power]

15. Yep. It's the only stable state in a winner-take-all system.

[kiahzero]

2. Duverger's Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

First Past the Post voting naturally leads to two-party states.

[Stanchetalarooni]

3. A Left Brain and a Right Brain. Simple neurology.

The two parties match up with the way the human brain takes in information and processes it.
On a mass scale the population gets cleaved right down the middle.
At least this is the way I understand it from my Right-brain dominated perception of reality.

[Ravenseye]

4. It's the Winner Take All System.

I wish we could have more parties, but the winner take all system discourages it, not by design though.

Basically a third party tends to be either left or right, even if it's center left or right. Sometimes, as with the Reform party, it takes from the Republicans, sometimes as with the Green party it takes from the Democracts.

When this happens you could have a population of 60% liberal, 40% conservative, but if you have 2 even liberal parties, one far left, one moderate left you'd have a totally conservative government because the liberal vote would split.

If you don't win, you don't get anything, so third parties are short lived protest parties in this country and will never be anything else.

[Romulus Quirinus]

14. Unless

...the third party is madly successful and eats one of the two big parties, like what happened with the Whigs and Republicans.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Two party system mathematically leads to this kind of divisiveness.

The two party system has to be scrapped. It mathematically leads to this kind of divisiveness.

When you have two parties that effectively lock out all the other parties, then the parties scramble for every spare vote. They secure their base, so it doesn't wander. They then modify their fringe positions to attact the other parties fringe. The two parties are about equally competitive, so they end up attracting approximately equal amounts. This makes them more equally competitive, and it goes cyclicly until they are locked in about 50 percent each.

The two party system is an artificially maintained duopoly. Let's have competition.

[forgethell]

7. The winner take all

system in America means that 3rd parties have no chance. This keeps both major parties more moderate than they otherwise would be.

[Doohickie]

8. Funny thing is, there weren't always these two parties

Remember the Whigs?

Perhaps the failure is due to baggage attached to the Democratic Party. Perhaps it is time to retire the donkey. There are several statewide parties that maybe should try to build regional/national networks (for instance, New York State has a Liberal Party). They could unite under the ABB cause (or, rather, ABB's Successor). They've got 4 years to do this, starting.........

....NOW!

[sadiesworld]

9. I only see one.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Maybe in the future.

If the Republican Party splits, I suspect we'll see a similar evolution in the Democratic Party. Until then, we will only insure future irrelevance if we split in the face of the monolythic right.

[Marthe48]

11. Polictians and news media

ridicle and marginalize any 3rd party tries--look at what they did to George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot, Ralph Nadar. I won't even mention the rest of the alternate parties, like the Libertarians. They are all made to look extreme, then both major parties accuse the third party of drawing off votes and the media will not air any speeches so that people can see what the alternate party is all about. I voted for Kerry, because I wanted Bush out of the WHite House. I've been listening to speeches on the Internet (Grassroots Independent Media via Live365) Ralph Nadar, and also the Libertarian candidate. The alternate candidates have a lot to say about how rotten this system is and how it needs to be taken back by the people. This election cycle, the Democrats tried to make a coalition of the various interests to get Bush out, but when the Republicans own the voting machines (and worse, the tabulators) how can anyone win? Maybe instead of creating a new political party, we should build voting machines.

[daa]

12. That's the way they want it

Ever notice how Nader, or Perot, or 3rd party candidates have trouble getting on the ballot? Ever see them in a debate?

[BillZBubb]

16. Evolution.

Given the constraint of winner take all in our elections, the inevitable result is a bipolar electorate. Small factions are either crushed or swallowed whole by the bigger blocs. One bloc represents the conservative world view, the other everything else.

You can start a new party, but to do so you have to draw primarily from one of the big blocs. Unless you can reach a critical mass by pulling enough of them to you, you will fade out.

In US history very few third party movements have succeeded.

[Yupster]

17. It's the electoral college

A third party just hurts its own side by splitting votes, so they rarely matter for any length of time.

A giant issue may bring a third party to replace one of the other two like slavery brought the Republican Party to replace the Whigs, but in the end, you're back to two parties.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. I don't think we will stay with the exact system we have now

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