America does not have a two party system
By
LinuxTX
on February 22, 2007
There may be two major parties, but there are others out there that need to try harder to become more popular. Libertarian, Socialist, Green, etc...
Just because the main two are always in the news, does not mean that our country has to vote on or be affiliated with either.
Agreed
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Discussion (9)
i don't anyone ever made the claim that we are just 2 parties
Not officially. Just in practice, yes.
While not enshrined in the constitution - parties are actually antithetical to the Framers view of responsible govt - the "one rep per district / plurality wins everything" system creates two parties nigh inevitably.
At a sub-constitutional level, the vast majority of laws are structured to contain and control the two main parties.
While there are a lot of "third" parties in the US, many of which do very good work and I would like to see prosper, if any of them were to grow to significant size they would simply shatter the coalition forming one or both of the main parties - and a new two party system would emerge. Witness the formation of the Republican Party on the ashes of the Whigs as evidence.
Claims inspired by this comment
Winner-takes-all produces two-party government, whatever the nominal rules of the game.What http://xam.openid.com said. Winner-takes-all produces two-party government, whatever the nominal rules of the game.
D'A
*&^#@$)#@. Don't let me type on this little sleep. Sorry for screwing up your actual ID. obviously, I meant to say http://xam.myopenid.com .
Technically no. Has another party ever been elected? Or been given a chance to?
uh, yes. are you familiar with american history?
Let the record show that BWG is as ignorant of American history as of science and the English language.
D'A
I told my mom to vote Green (Nader) back in '04 I think it was. Could have been '00, I'm not sure.
But yeah. America doesn't have a two party system, a Libertarian actually won a regional... something, or other, position in Arizona when I voted in '06.
America doesn't have a two party system, on a national level, it sure feels like it.