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Originally posted by Cartmaniac:
A disenchanted Stephen: "I voted Republican and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." B)

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Originally posted by Harry:
On a semi-related note, why does America have only two significant parties? Has it just grown that way? Have there ever been marginally succesful 'third' parties? I mean, there are other parties, aren't there? Or am I talking bull now?

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It's quite ironic, actually, but the Republican Party of today actually was itself a third party back when it was first founded in the 1850's.

This may require a somewhat long treatise on the history of American politics, but I'll try to be brief.

Originally, there weren't supposed to be any political parties in Congress at all under the 1787 Constitution. Ideally, everyone was just supposed to work together. But within the first decade, two basic factions developed, which could generally be characterized as favoring strict or loose interpretation of the Constitution. There was no real party organization at all in those days, but they were generally referred to as "Federalists" (for the loose interpretation group, who looked to Alexander Hamilton as the "leader" in terms of philosophy and policy), and the "Democratic-Republicans" or just "Republicans" (for the strict interpration group, following Thomas Jefferson).

After the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, the Federalist party basically collapsed and disappeared. America was actually a one-party government (unofficially) for about 15 to 20 years, before some disagreements arose (partially pertaining to North/South sectionalism), and the Whig Party was founded. IIRC, the Whigs did include some former Federalists from a few decades before, but they didn't take a whole strong connection. The Democratic-Republicans gradually came to be known as Democrats by the 1830's or so, the same Democratic Party we know and love (or not) today.

The whole build-up to the American Civil War from around 1848 until 1861 created a huge mess in politics. The Republican Party was founded in the 1850's and was only becoming popular because all the other parties were divided into North/South branches. Basically, there were two separate parties for each party name -- like the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats. Then there were the Northern Whigs, the Southern Whigs, and the Conscience Whigs, the Free Soil Party... and my personal favorite, the "Know-Nothing Party." (Which came from its secretive practices, when the members would answer "I know nothing" to any question about them.)

After the Civil War, everyone who was against the strict anti-slavery Republican policies basically unified under the Democratic banner. Aside from a few "populist" parties in the 1890's (early socialism, basically) and Teddy Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, the US has been pretty well locked into the two-party system. Which, in my personal opinion, definitely sucks for us.

Well, that about sums it up. In the future, never ask an open-ended question like this when a History major is lurking about...

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“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha

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It's quite ironic, actually, but the Republican Party of today actually was itself a third party back when it was first founded in the 1850's.

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Originally posted by Sol System:
[QB]That doesn't really explain why the U.S. is dualistic, though.

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Of course it doesn't. That would require several volumes of political science textbooks, which I don't have the time to research and transcribe right now.

But seriously, I think the reason why no truly viable third parties have developed is because since the 1890's or so, there've been various campaign laws enacted concerning funding, recognition, and so forth. I'd think that there's no real "conspiracy" per se, but basically, it's become very, very hard for any party other than the Democrats and the Republicans to get elected. Among other things, the finance laws automatically funnel plenty of Federal funding into the two main parties each year (for elections, really), while the third parties are under incredible pressure to first get recognition -- meaning create enough awareness of their party and their platform and gather several thousand petition signees -- and THEN try to gain enough support to get at least a tiny fraction of the Federal funding that the big parties get.

And as I understand it, all this basically has to be done inside the four-year election cycle, or else it has to be started again. Meaning that it's very difficult for parties to just slowly build a presence, since they've got to get big results right away -- and that rarely happens.

I'm not sure how accurate all this is -- I'm a History major, not PoliSci. But I have taken a few GoPo classes (GOvernment and POlitics) in my time. Got a "5" on the AP GoPo exam my senior year of high school, but that was four years ago.

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The Republicans and Democrats are remarkably skilled at co-option, to such a degree that to claim that they really only represent two points of view is misleading.

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So true. After all, most political compasses out there have the FOUR major points -- fiscal conservative, fiscal liberal, social conservative, social liberal. From what I remember in my GoPo class, many (or most) people are conservative in one realm and liberal in the other (e.g. a financial conservative but a social liberal).

I remember reading some very interesting arguments in a class I took about three years ago in college. One of the big arguments against the current American political system was that there was just one representative for each election district. Not only did this lead to huge redistricting fights and gerrymandering (see Texas for the latest example, or North Carolina for a classic example), but it also can easily fail to represent a RANGE of opinions inside a district by having a "winner take all" system. What that book I read argued for instead was an "at large" system where there would be three or five representatives for each (enlarged) district, elected simultaneously. It people would vote for multiple candidates, basically. (Probably like how everyone's old high school Student Council elections were run, I'd bet.)

Is this Flameboard material yet? I'll wager two strips of latinum it'll happen before the end of the second page.

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“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha

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And the old liberal Democrats self destructed, or something like that. Not literally, I would assume, although that would have been cool.

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Is the position with the Tories today at all comparable? I mean, I know the Daily Mail thinks that the Tory party is going to get 150% of the vote next time, but they still seem to be more impotent than a 90 year old man with no winky.

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