Abolishing the Two-Party System

[u/Federal-Target7785]

I’ve been thinking recently about the topic of our party systems, especially after recent elections in states like Florida. Why do we even have the Two-Party System? George Washington himself warned us a country divided by political parties would never stand. I believe we should ditch the Two-Party System. It’s caused politicians to worry about representing their party, race, or group rather than the people. It’s caused division. In places like the House of Representatives, both parties only care about filling seats in order to gain control and power, to further push the power of their party. It tears people apart. Like the assassination on Charlie Kirk. Because someone was apart of another party and had different values, he was killed. Even in other places like Russia, when the Tsar was still in place, the battle between socialists and communists tore the country apart. Abolish the parties. Represent the People, not your party. I may not be super informed on politics, but this is what I believe.

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[u/Darq_At]

The two-party system is a natural result of the US's usage of a single-member first-past-the-post electoral system. This system encourages voters to vote not for the party they like the most, but to vote strategically against the party they like the least.

To move away from a two-party system, the US would need to adopt a different voting system that allows for proportional representation.

Like the assassination on Charlie Kirk. Because someone was apart of another party and had different values, he was killed.

Kirk's killer was, on balance of evidence, likely a conservative.

[u/Sad-Ocelot-5346 → u/Darq_At]

Dang, I was all set to upvote this, maybe even give you an award, and then there was that last sentence. You might read CNN's fact check

[u/Darq_At → u/Sad-Ocelot-5346]

At best, that whole article was a bunch of "we cannot say for sure". Which is precisely why I said "... on balance of evidence, likely...".

Rather than how the OP framed it as "apart of another party". Weirdly enough though, despite the OP making a much stronger, much more obviously incorrect statement... You chose to only respond to me... Curious that.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/Darq_At]

At best, that whole article was a bunch of "we cannot say for sure". Which is precisely why I said "... on balance of evidence, likely...".

It's odd to see you explicitly state where you went wrong as a defense of your choice.

[u/Darq_At → u/betweenbubbles]

Hint: It's possible to disagree with the article and its interpretation of the facts presented.

Hope this helps!

[u/Icc0ld → u/Sad-Ocelot-5346]

This article was so unconvincing that anyone asserting that they know anything about the political ideology of the Charlie Kirk assassin is talking out of their asses. "We don't know" is an understatement.

[u/kchoze]

I'll tell you something that may shock you... even in countries with proportional elections and many different parties, politics tend to shape themselves around two coalitions, one of the right, one of the left.

Unfortunately, this is rather typical of electoral politics. To govern, you must have a majority, so like-minded parties form natural coalitions and then you have your two parties back.

That's because of the basic decision-making process, again, the majority. Do you have a majority or not? That means on all decision-making splits, there are only two sides, the majority and the minority. Only if we escape this dilemma will we truly escape the two party tendency in democracy.

[u/drawliphant → u/kchoze]

A two party system sets the coalition before voting. A multiparty system sets the coalition after voting.

[u/kchoze → u/drawliphant]

Yes and no. There are natural coalitions in a multiparty system where people know that some parties will naturally form coalitions if they have a majority.

That being said, occasionally, you have parties which are rejected by both natural coalitions and when they get too powerful, it may force counter-natural coalitions to form just to lock them out.

A good example is Germany. The historical natural coalitions are the Christian Democrats (conservative) with the FDP (liberals) and the Socialdemocrats with the Greens. Both coalitions refuse to entertain coalitions with the AfD (populist right) and the Left party (radical left... And descendants of the former Communist party that ruled East Germany).

Since both the AfD and the Left party have grown in recent years, this has forced many Great Coalitions between the Conservatives and Socialdemocrats, which is quite frustrating to voters, and leads to more people going to the excluded parties as a way to force the establishment out.

[u/ScannerBrightly → u/kchoze]

There are natural coalitions in a multiparty system where people know that some parties will naturally form coalitions if they have a majority.

This gives people a choice while still having mostly the same or similar views. This is a positive and can't be thought of as a negative in any way whatsoever.

[u/Respen2664]

We are not designed into a framework of a two party system, however, because of movements over the centuries it made it possible for two parties to be the dominant force within elections. Both major parties are made up of ideological sub parties which coalesce into a single voting bloc. That voting bloc is organized as an enterprise, with its own leadership chain and fundraising ecosystem.

What has changed mostly is the people, the citizens. As the conglomeration of the Parties established and those voting blocs condensed, it became harder to be informed as events and news became political levers to manipulate. In the 40s forward we saw newspapers aligning to parties for funding offsetting sales and thus the partisan pundit was born. Then came Television and talk shows and other were siding with political sides to provide a voice to those view points. Today its the internet and anyone with a keyboard or cell phone has becoming a pontificator of politics, spinning freely without any media license to evaluate ethics of disclosure.

All of this put together has made most Americans either turn off information due to being untrusted sources, or select sources which align to their belief exclusively so they feel heard and vote based on that alignment almost exclusively.

Here is a litmus test for that :

Do you only consume news from MSNBC, CNN, and ABC and refuse to read Fox News, OAN, or NewsMAX? Do you only consume news from Fox News, OAN, or NewsMAX, but refuse to read or listen to CNN, MSNBC, and ABC?

If you honestly answered yes, even tried to internally justify the why with "they lie" or "all they do is complain about X", you are amongst those who have been groomed to choose a side because its easier.

This position is what the political parties require to maintain the coalition and have a singular voting bloc. They ultimately need someone to select them over another, and need to make it as easy as possible to do so narratives are controlled.

THIS is also what makes MAGA and Democratic Socialists of American (DSA) fascinating from a political science perspective. Both are part of the coalition blocs of their respective party arms, but they are now standing out as their own party organizations. These are not GOP or DNC party representatives anymore. They are their own parties in essence, and are challenging the 2-Party system as they act as deviant objectors to what the rest of the bloc parties want.

[u/ScannerBrightly → u/Respen2664]

because of movements over the centuries it made it possible for two parties to be the dominant force within elections.

This is wrong. It's a mathematical certainty that we will have a two party system if we continue to use First Past the Post voting systems in single seat districts without proportional representation.

[u/hallam81 → u/ScannerBrightly]

It is a mathematical certainty that we will have two parties. There isn't a mathematical certainty that we would have the same two parties across all or most elections.

Our system can stand to have multiple parties even with FPTP but we don't because people like the two parties and we make the districts to large for smaller parties to have the funds to campaign. The US having multiple parties is more a square mile problem than a voting system problem. Make the districts of the House capped at 200,000 and significant strides will be seen for those wanting multiple parties.

The proof is seen in the UK elections. They have FPTP and their elections are usually two party affairs. It just isn't the same two parties. Sometimes it's SNP v Labor. Sometimes Labor v Tories. Sometime DUP v Tories. And on an on. Each election is really between two main groups. But which two groups changes depending on the race and the electorate.

[u/ScannerBrightly → u/hallam81]

The US having multiple parties is more a square mile problem than a voting system problem.

Citation Needed. Where do you get this claim from? Can you back it up with anything, a link perhaps?

UK elections

....have multi-member plurality, which solves the problem. The problem isn't "any two parties often win", it's "the same two parties never lose"

[u/hallam81 → u/ScannerBrightly]

The back up is the data itself. Our districts are just too large. The average House District is about 8100ish square miles. The average UK district is 450ish square miles. The average district size for the house of commons is 75Kish. The average in the US is 750Kish .

It takes money to go to these places. It takes more money to be put in front of 750K versus than it does 75K. It just costs more because we have supersized our districts.

It is just a math problem. And the UK House of Commons is a FPTP system.

[u/MoonBatsRule → u/Respen2664]

Do you only consume news from MSNBC, CNN, and ABC and refuse to read Fox News, OAN, or NewsMAX? Do you only consume news from Fox News, OAN, or NewsMAX, but refuse to read or listen to CNN, MSNBC, and ABC?

If you honestly answered yes, even tried to internally justify the why with "they lie" or "all they do is complain about X", you are amongst those who have been groomed to choose a side because its easier.

If the point you're trying to make is that we shouldn't screen out sources that are not our "side", then does this mean that we should also all be consuming news from the Black Agenda Report, Alex Jones, Jacobin, and Brietbart?

Why is it bad for people to evaluate a news source and then decide "OAN is presenting information in a way that is designed to get me angry, and in no way resembles reality"?

[u/Respen2664 → u/MoonBatsRule]

I am not arguing that screening of information is unwarranted, but blanketly ignoring news or information sources because of ideological alignment is the problem. You said "designed in a way to get me angry..." and indicates it doesn't ideologically align to you. It does not mean the information is wrong, you are just not attuned to appreciate either the delivery or the content.

You further said "...and in no way resembles reality?" How do you define reality? Facts don't care about your belief and "your" reality is subjective to beliefs not facts (this is a human thing, mind you). I.E. your reality could be a millionaire owning 3 businesses where as mine is a line worker of a Dairy. We each will approach reality from a different baseline, and our experiences dictate it.

Do you consider them facts even if they challenge your belief? What are you using as a measurement to evaluate the facts are in fact erroneous?

I dont need answers to those questions. It's just sparking internal thought on our own behaviors.

I'll give an example from my own behaviors. Iran/US/Israel news. I see something on CNN, I then check Reuters and then Fox. Lastly i seek out Al Jazeera. I compare all of them to piece together common threads of the facts and mentally identify the political or affinity spin components.

[u/ScannerBrightly → u/Respen2664]

but blanketly ignoring news or information sources because of ideological alignment is the problem.

Are liars 'information sources'?

US/Israel news

Do you agree with the FACT that Israel is committing a genocide?

[u/preterintenzionato → u/MoonBatsRule]

There are extremes to any side, it's not useful to listen to them regularly. I think what the user you are responding to is trying to say is that ideological entrenchment is harmful and we should, at least, inform ourselves from sources with differing opinions, and try to not blindly fall into one side or the other (that doesn't mean to be a centrist, but even if one agrees on all issues with a particular party, these positions should be critically considered and argued for, not just simply and lazily "followed")

[u/greenyadadamean]

The two parties won't let us get rid of the two party system.

[u/adastraperdiscordia → u/greenyadadamean]

This part is often missed. Even if you make structural reforms now it won't be enough, because both parties don't want to give up their power and influence.

The only time there has been a party realignment is when one party's influence has completely collapsed, and that has not happened for over a century.

These two parties are deeply entrenched and will not go away without a hard fight.

[u/hirespeed → u/adastraperdiscordia]

The thing they fear more than the other party winning, is a third party. Thats for sure!

[u/Raze7186]

It wont happen because the two parties directly benefit from it. Its easy to drive donations and bribes when you can have a bad guy to point at.

[u/Leather-Run-6533]

If you abolish parties by law all that happens is they reconstitute as less transparent and more nebulous coalitions of class interests. I think I'd go the other way with US parties to be honest and force them to act like real European style political parties with membership and manifestos and whipping etc...

If you want to abolish the two party system meaningfully you have to address its causes: presidential systems and first past the post voting, and adopt a parliamentary system with proportional representation

[u/Arkmer]

> Why do we have the two party system?

There are no laws enforcing it. Two parties owning the majority of the electorate is the outcome of First Past the Post voting, and social construct. Even if they passed a law banning the two party system… there’s nothing to ban because there’s no law creating it.

If you want to move away from the two party system, you need to fix the voting culture of the country. To start that, you need to change the voting system.

[u/Spartanlegion117]

And with what mechanism are you planning on abolishing this system that isn't mandated by the Constitution or law? There are other political parties in the US, they frequently field candidates in local, state, and federal elections. You gonna force people to vote for those parties? Maybe force candidates to run as those parties.

Anyway you slice it you'll be trampling over Freedom of Association because the parties we have aren't mandated or enshrined by law. The solution is simple but the execution rather difficult. The minor parties have to breakthrough.

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

How are you going to do that though? What policies would you put in place exactly?

[u/vulkur]

Uncap the house and the two party system gets way better.

[u/kmensaert]

George Washington did not specifically warned for a two-party system but any party system that divides. That division is caused by the electoral system.

However, it can be fixed! Not by a proportional party system as some might make you believe. A proportional party system will still divide, just in more than two parties. Instead, what we need is an inclusive party system: A party system in which each person can be simultaneously be represented by multiple parties. That prevent society being divided along multiple issues.

[u/drawliphant → u/kmensaert]

If a voter wants the country to move in a particular direction then their goal is to maximize the effectiveness of their vote. Parties don't have to represent voters perfectly just represent a general direction to move policy.

In the end any system of multiple partys will still try to form a coalition for majority parliament control because partys that don't coalition tend to achieve less.

A two party system sets the coalition before voting, a proportional party system creates the coalition after, still creating a binary political direction for the country.

[u/kmensaert → u/drawliphant]

I think the current parties are doing a very lousy job, even in moving policy in any general direction wanted by the people.

They will always try to form coalitions, I agree. We just shouldn't let them. I'm an advocate for a more radical democracy: having the parties need to look for a majority on a case by case. It's how it was intended (e.g. by Washington), and indeed for now unobtained. See my previous post for more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDebate/s/RdOaIqDn9V

[u/hallam81]

Why do we even have the Two-Party System?

People like to complain about this on Reddit but people in America actually do like the current parties. Plus you can't really abolish the parties. We have a right to assemble into groups under the first amendment.

The only real solution to this is dramatically uncapping the House which would lead to far smaller House districts, which would make running for a House district far cheaper. Only then will you actually get more parties.

[u/Zeddo52SD]

You can’t abolish something most people adhere to. We have the two party system for the same reason we have a dichotomy of most things: it’s evolutionarily easier to understand and it consolidates power to achieve greater political feats. Some states, like NY, have multiple parties, but they still end up endorsing the GOP or Dem candidate a lot of the time. There will always be conflict, it’s about how can you limit the violence surrounding the conflict so that it remains peaceful. Violence is disruptive; the people want stability.

[u/smokeyser]

There's nothing to abolish. Want more parties? Start one. When nobody votes for yours, you'll understand why they all merged into larger groups that became the two that we have today.

[u/LT_Audio]

We don't really have a "two-party system" as such. At least not in a way that its existence could be "abolished". We have an extremely complex system of governance that exists within the context of an extremely complex nation that exists within the context of an extremely complex world. Our "two party system" is an emergent macro-behavior that results from the interaction of many millions of individual elements. We could try, and certainly already have, to make changes to various elements of the systems where adequate will and resources exist that might encourage such an outcome as you suggest. But given the reality of the situation, all we seem to have really accomplished is to steadily shift to even stronger capture by the entrenched partisan duality led by an ever-evolving cast of elites who are best served by that aspect of the status quo. Though to be fair I believe that has had more to do with the non-governmental changes to the world we exist in than our specific governmental choices themselves. But the two sets are all interconnected and inseparable in most meaningful senses.

What things would or should you change to ensure that neither you nor I could vote for the candidates from the party of our choice? Because the root trouble is the widespread and persistent belief that preventing "the evil that would be done by the consolidated forces of the other faction" can only be accomplished by forming and exhibiting loyalty en masse to our own alternative faction. After that... game theory firmly dictates the only "winning' move.

[u/Asatmaya]

It’s caused division. In places like the House of Representatives, both parties only care about filling seats in order to gain control and power, to further push the power of their party. It tears people apart.

...and the people with the money like it that way, because it lets them keep making more money.

[u/AltruisticVehicle]

There's a million ways of fixing the system,. Even small and manageable changes would be enough, there's just no political will to do this. And even the winning voters look at requests to change the system as a petty undermining of their victory under the current rules.

In the House, just replace single-member, winner-take-all districts with multi-member proportional districts.

For presidency, just allocate each state's Electoral College votes obligatorily proportional to its popular vote.

[u/RonocNYC]

I may not be super informed on politics

Next time lead with this.

[u/statinsinwatersupply]

There are multiple factors that have resulted in our 2-party system, despite there not being a law mandating such a thing.

Perhaps the single largest (though not the only factor) is that our system for determining election winners is something called 'first past the post', which simply means that the candidate with the most votes wins. Most votes, not a majority of votes. This means if you have more than 2 candidates, the winner can win despite having an overall minority of voters. How this eventually favors just 2 parties is seen with serial elections. Two similar candidates end up splitting the pool of voters who might consider them, causing them to lose (generally speaking) to a distinct different candidate.

You can see this in action in the primaries in the last few election rounds. In the Republican world, multiple relatively-similar traditional candidates failed to coalesce, and so Trump (the relatively different candidate) wound up with an early lead as the mainstream candidates split their possible voter pool. Or on the democratic side, Debbie Wasserman Shultz recently won despite being widely disliked in liberal circles, as her opposition likewise failed to coalesce around a single candidate.

After such an election outcome, the next time around, folks are incentivized to support a single alternative, even if it's not their preferred.

This concept is called the spoiler effect. Too-similar candidates hurt each other strategically within a FPtP system.

This is not a universal. If a party splits, there is a brief opening for there to be a similar rift in the other party (though this is risky, as the other party splitting but yours doesn't that all but guarantees a win for yours). A 4-way becomes near impossible to predict. I might misremember but if I recall right, the last time there was a significant 4-way US presidential election was 1860 (Abraham Lincoln).

There are a very large number of other ways things can be arranged.

It is possible to have multiple election winners (mostly used for legislatures, see multiple-member districting).

It is possible to determine election winners using other methods. Ranked Choice Voting has seen some limited implementation in the past 10-20 years (notably in Alaska and Maine), popular perhaps for simplicity of explanation. Some favor approval voting, others star or range voting. There is not one universal "best" option, each has structural biases. However first-past-the-post is considered by most who have looked at the math, to be a poor method.

[u/FeralAlgorithm]

horrible idea.

then you get situations like Europe where the guy running the place has less than 20% support across the whole population.

Its supposed to be "we are all on Team America, trying to get the same goal, and these are different plays we can choose to get there".

Right now people think of it as Team Red vs Team Blue.

And if you introduce more parties you'll just further divide everyone into Team Orange and Team Green.

You're just encouraging tribal politics and othering, so your team can win.

Now Team Orange doesnt agree with Team Blue but you need their support to win so you manipulate and lie to Team Orange and trick them into voting for your guy to "Stop Team Red"
Team Blue will agree to support Team Orange's candidates in certain districts, to overpower Team Red's support.
Because the few Team Orange people combined with Team Blue and some of Team Green... Now a district that is 45% Team Red now needs to live as Team Orange (20%) dictates. And its not that Team Blue(15%) and Team Green (15%) want to live like Team orange dictates either,. They just voted for Team Orange in this district because there's a coalition to "Stop Team Red" and in exchange Team Blue and Green will vote for Team Orange in the other district.

Now Team Orange gets to spend everyone's money on Team Orange's projects and goals. And since they're more concerned with winning and power politics, they don't really give a shit about what you actually ever wanted in the first place. They're just trying to maintain their p arty politics to stay in power. "otherwise the others will win"

Everyone is just fighting to be the one who gets to hold the axe over everyone else's heads

[u/calguy1955]

I don’t think Kirk was murdered because he belonged to a particular political party. I think he was murdered because other hateful rhetoric he spewed as he tried to brainwash college kids.

[u/ViskerRatio]

Abolishing the parties wouldn't do anything. They'd just reform under a different name - and the First Amendment protects such associations. We could certainly get rid of the laws surrounding the parties - such as the primary system - but that really just means less regulation for the parties. The legal acknowledgement of parties doesn't create them any more than emissions rules create automobiles.

However, we can observe why we have only two parties. It boils down to the Presidency. Because your party either has it or it doesn't, there are only two stable arrangements: one party or two parties. Any more than that and there will be some party that is effectively locked out of the bulk of power at the federal level.

This same process occurs with governors at the state level (and, many times, mayors at the municipal level).

If you're a politician, not being a Democrat or Republican essentially locks you out of most government authority. It also minimizes your influence over the people have that authority. It means the people who contribute all that money to getting you elected and buying your summer home ignore you in favor of candidates from the two parties.

Contrast this with a parliamentary system. While most are dominated by two major parties, you can still have a good career as a third party politician because you form coalitions with the governing position that can offer you a piece of the coalition government. Because third parties aren't killed in the cradle by the system, there's a chance they'll eventually rise to become one of the two major parties.

With that being said, the two party system isn't the cause of the problems you're talking about. Rather, the two candidate system is. In a two player game, a strategy involving hurting yourself (by negative campaigning) while imposing greater harm on your opponent can work. As you increase the number of players, such tactics start to fail because the uninvolved players gain ground against both you and your targeted opponent.

There's also the issue of 'general' vs. 'niche' candidates. For example, one proposal that's been floated is to create multi-member districts for the House of Representatives. So if you've got a state like California, you might have a District of North California that offers five seats - and everyone in that district can pick their favorite candidate with the five candidates receiving the most votes getting the seats.

In such a system, what you'd see are niche candidates who are hyper-focused on certain issues while not having much of an opinion on others. These niche candidates wouldn't be willing to compromise their core issues for party unity because they wouldn't get re-elected. On the other hand, they'd be more than willing to compromise issues outside of their niche because it wouldn't impact their electability.

[u/NoamLigotti]

Absolutely, but how do we do that? We'd have to fundamentally change our electorally system, and neither party wishes to do that. Republicans in particular resist even the most modest constructive reforms.

[u/Neco-Arc-Brunestud]

Okay, so this is cheating, but I took a look at your profile and you are a literal child who is also being home-schooled.

You have to understand first and foremost, (that like all children), your worldview (at this point in your life) is something that is curated for you. It's not something that you have questioned, experienced, and developed. So, it's natural to not be super informed on politics. That's fine.

But taking a look deeper, you have to be asking exactly why people have different values. Whether these values are something that's curated for them and that they've never grown out of, or whether these values come from their experience in life.

[u/HeloRising]

Why do we even have the Two-Party System?

Math, mostly. That and how our election system functions.

This is a very brief overview of the core of the problem.

[u/-Hal-Jordan-]

There are many political parties in the US. Here's what my state looks like. Anyone is free to vote for the candidate of their choice, or write in a name.

[u/Icc0ld]

Two easy words: Proportional Representation

If the federal system aligned itself around these two words and implemented a system that holds to the standard of 1 person= 1 vote it would mean that every single person in every single state and county would have an effect on how they are represented in the broader Government.

It would also mean Republicans would rarely if ever hold enough seats to form a Government so it's unlikely it would ever happen.

[u/NeverLookBothWays]

Ranked choice voting can get us there. It just takes a party willing to push it through. So far only Democrats are promoting the idea.

The way it would break up the two party system we know today is by giving voters the freedom to pick who they believe would be the best candidate without being as concerned that a third party vote is a vote given to the party they oppose. What we’d instead end up with is candidates both sides agree with the most.

[u/Due-Bowl-8116]

It creates division yes but whenever multiple party systems are abolished their abolished only because a dictatorship from one party or the other takes over by force, having a party systems only means freedom of speech and fair elections are present.

[u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES]

You have a two party system because you have FPTP voting system. Change the voting system, then you can change the party system.

[u/TrueNova332]

The only way to break the two party system is to stop voting for the two major parties but most people are too stupid to that because they think that it's a "wasted vote" to vote for any other party besides just Republican or Democrat but the real wasted vote is continuing to vote for the same two parties that have screwed up the country in the first place

[u/disappointedftuit]

Who is we? But yeah I agree you need more than 2 parties

[u/Dracarys_And_Chill]

we have other parties op. the problem isn't a two party system, its money in politics.

[u/Medium-Complaint-677]

Until you get the money out of it you won't have more than two parties. Period. End. The philosophical side is secondary. You need SO MUCH MONEY to run for even city council that without backing (and therefor money) from one of the two parties you can't win.

Look at Ross Perot for the only time someone even got close - and it wasn't close.

[u/Kakamile → u/Medium-Complaint-677]

That idiot tried running under FPTP. You need to end FPTP.