John Adams warning against what you are lauding:
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
Here are links to the number and variety of active political parties in Norway (21 plus coalitions), Germany (17 + minor parties), Switzerland (13), and Israel(15 + minor parties).
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
In Israel it is very easy to create a political party and get on the ballot. In Israel and the other countries cited, at least there is some choice, and competition.
Here, it is very difficult to create and sustain new political parties... and as to getting on the ballot there are a host of challenges, that in multiple states would require a multi year effort and lots of money.
Just one example is the joint commission on debates, run buy the Rs and Ds. A third party has no voice.
As to "the people" selecting a two party system, I would say it is self perpetuating, surrounded by the hurdles to competition (briefly alluded to above). An example of how one of the parties, the D's view the people they "represent" is taken from the recent wikileaks emails release:
wikileaks.org
“And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking - and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.” |
