Excellent article! You covered enormous amounts of political history and set up your argument well. The problems with the legacy two parties are clearly hurting our national discourse and political functions. The shift toward greater Independent affiliation is a noteworthy development of the past 10-15 years. Some issues behind these shifts relate to the economic structure of society and rapid changes in cultural life brought about by new technologies, particularly social media platforms.
You make the point: "Those who seek a re-invigoration of our storied democracy would find more success in building a foundation for a national movement by turning their focus to the state and local level." This may be true based on the old playbook. However, it may also be possible to build a national movement rapidly, everywhere all at once, using the tech tools of our modern era.
Again, your historical points and modern stats make a solid case that political representation is off. Thank you for providing such a coherent view the political landscape. Great work!!
Thank you for the kind words! Washington's warning that a "small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" would replace the will of the people with "projects of faction" is too spot on to the environment we find ourselves in today. And the Republican Party, despite very different circumstances as you noted, provides a model to preserve the Union that, as far as I can tell, has not been tried since. It seems to make sense that we need only look to history for solutions.
Not a bad article, but you're missing the MATH of the two party system. It's incredibly stable, because you've always got a party in power and a party trying to get into power. That's why when Federalists formed, their opposition coalesced into the anti-Federalist. The Republicans only became the other half of the duopoly because the Whigs fell apart. For the Forward party to become a major party under our current system would require one of the others to fall apart, presumably the Republicans. This is possible, but a stable multi-party system with winner-take-all elections (doesn't matter if it's RCV, FPTP, or something else) is not. That's just the MATH. The duopoly will continue to win 99% of elections. To disrupt them requires a new strategy. https://americanunion.substack.com/p/disrupting-the-duopoly
Do you think that a system with four to six national parties, say for example with 3 that are capable of winning majorities, isn't possible? I think having a collection of national, regional, state, single-issue, and other kinds of parties should be the goal to adequately reflect the growth of the population and the plurality of Americans who are independent. I don't see why something like that couldn't take hold if electoral reforms are passed, the U.S. is a massive country and I would imagine that state or regional parties could start to emerge.
Correct, I don't think that's possible, given a system of winner-take-all elections. There's a bill in Congress that would make multi-seat districts for the House, and that could unlock the possibility. But state level reforms can't do it.
You mention 'regional parties' and you saw exactly that happen in 1968, with the George Wallace and the American Independent Party leaving the Democrats over "states' rights." Wallace carried five states in the Deep South, and narrowly lost Tennessee and South Carolina. Nixon co-opted their main issue and brought them into the Republican party for the 1972 election.... no third party has ever received more than a single electoral vote since.
You mentioned single-issue parties, and something similar happened with Ross Perot who had national support in the 1990s... the two parties co-opted his main issue of balancing the budget, and the Reform Party melted into nothingness.
That's how the MATH works with winner take all elections, sorry. It doesn't care how you feel about it; the duopoly will continue to win 99% of elections because a two-party system is very stable.
Excellent article! You covered enormous amounts of political history and set up your argument well. The problems with the legacy two parties are clearly hurting our national discourse and political functions. The shift toward greater Independent affiliation is a noteworthy development of the past 10-15 years. Some issues behind these shifts relate to the economic structure of society and rapid changes in cultural life brought about by new technologies, particularly social media platforms.
You make the point: "Those who seek a re-invigoration of our storied democracy would find more success in building a foundation for a national movement by turning their focus to the state and local level." This may be true based on the old playbook. However, it may also be possible to build a national movement rapidly, everywhere all at once, using the tech tools of our modern era.
Again, your historical points and modern stats make a solid case that political representation is off. Thank you for providing such a coherent view the political landscape. Great work!!
Thank you for the kind words! Washington's warning that a "small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" would replace the will of the people with "projects of faction" is too spot on to the environment we find ourselves in today. And the Republican Party, despite very different circumstances as you noted, provides a model to preserve the Union that, as far as I can tell, has not been tried since. It seems to make sense that we need only look to history for solutions.
Thank you again!
Not a bad article, but you're missing the MATH of the two party system. It's incredibly stable, because you've always got a party in power and a party trying to get into power. That's why when Federalists formed, their opposition coalesced into the anti-Federalist. The Republicans only became the other half of the duopoly because the Whigs fell apart. For the Forward party to become a major party under our current system would require one of the others to fall apart, presumably the Republicans. This is possible, but a stable multi-party system with winner-take-all elections (doesn't matter if it's RCV, FPTP, or something else) is not. That's just the MATH. The duopoly will continue to win 99% of elections. To disrupt them requires a new strategy. https://americanunion.substack.com/p/disrupting-the-duopoly
Do you think that a system with four to six national parties, say for example with 3 that are capable of winning majorities, isn't possible? I think having a collection of national, regional, state, single-issue, and other kinds of parties should be the goal to adequately reflect the growth of the population and the plurality of Americans who are independent. I don't see why something like that couldn't take hold if electoral reforms are passed, the U.S. is a massive country and I would imagine that state or regional parties could start to emerge.
Correct, I don't think that's possible, given a system of winner-take-all elections. There's a bill in Congress that would make multi-seat districts for the House, and that could unlock the possibility. But state level reforms can't do it.
You mention 'regional parties' and you saw exactly that happen in 1968, with the George Wallace and the American Independent Party leaving the Democrats over "states' rights." Wallace carried five states in the Deep South, and narrowly lost Tennessee and South Carolina. Nixon co-opted their main issue and brought them into the Republican party for the 1972 election.... no third party has ever received more than a single electoral vote since.
You mentioned single-issue parties, and something similar happened with Ross Perot who had national support in the 1990s... the two parties co-opted his main issue of balancing the budget, and the Reform Party melted into nothingness.
That's how the MATH works with winner take all elections, sorry. It doesn't care how you feel about it; the duopoly will continue to win 99% of elections because a two-party system is very stable.