More Political Parties in the USA?

[regeneratia]

If the USA were to have more media-recognized political parties than just the two, Democrats and Republicans:

How many do you think the USA would need to cover the sentiments of the voters?

What do you think they would be?

[Gunn]

Hey! Let's bring back the Whig and Know-Nothing parties!

Seriously though, it seems to me multi-parties have fail or will fail in our political system, like what happened in the past. I just don't think some of them would last long, because of some major issue in the future would probably split up the smaller parties or they'd die a slow death because of disinterest and they'd go the way of the small Whigs and Know-Nothing parties.

However, in a usual turn of events, which I think is happening now, I do see a possible replacement of both current parties in the future with new parties, like the Republicans being replaced by the ever growing popular Libertarian party. Or maybe the Libertarian party finally gets enough members in the House and Senate, causing everybody to think we might become a three political party system, but only for a little while, because the Libertarian party could slowly replace the Republican party and the Republican party would become so small, it would eventually die out. But then again, maybe the Libertarian party ends up going the way of the mid 1960's American Independent party, which the American Independent party lost it's momentum because it kept splitting up and never seemed to get big enough to make a impact; not likely for the Libertarians though, their momentum is still going, slowly but surely. Of course all this may depend on whether the Libertarian party ever gets enough members elected in the House/Senate or not, yet I have a feeling they will.

What about the Democrats? Not sure about this, but there seems to be a growing movement or separation from the old Democrats as well, who now call themselves Progressives. Now they don't seem to be as big as the Libertarian party, yet, but if the Progressives grow in popularity, like the Libertarians are continuing to do now, would they become a party and slowly replace the Democrats? Seems possible, time will only tell.

Anyway, multi-parties in our political system just don't seem to last, it somehow stays or eventually becomes a two main party system again. But the name of the parties and the political ideology can change and do. Just look back on our political history.

[darkmoonlady]

I think the two party system has evolved to not allow room for middle ground parties by keeping people constantly polarized. If we had a viable alternative that featured more common sense and less crazy I'd gladly vote for a different party. The way the system is now it's broken, the two parties spend too much time tearing each other down, keeping the other party from accomplishing anything and dismantling the old regime's policies without making any progress (both Democrats and Republicans). I think the Republican party as it is now, its days are numbered, if they don't change and get with the times, evolve a little they will inevitably fracture along socially progressive and fiscally conservative lines leaving the hardline fundamentalists and those unwilling to compromise out in the cold. If that happens we may see multiple parties splinter off from that but in the meantime if another party emerged with a solid platform and an intelligent, well thought out message and mission, then I'm sure a lot of votes from both sides would leave and join up. Voters are tired of the same (*&^ different day attitude both parties suffer from.

[ninjadude]

If the USA were to have more media-recognized political parties than just the two, Democrats and Republicans:

there are like 30 political parties. What are you whining about?

[Kowalski]

there are like 30 political parties. What are you whining about?

Yet ONLY TWO are covered by the media.....

[Kowalski]

I'd really like to see several Mainstream parties that are ALL covered by the media.

[RavenHawk]

If the USA were to have more media-recognized political parties than just the two, Democrats and Republicans:

How many do you think the USA would need to cover the sentiments of the voters?

What do you think they would be?

It wouldn’t matter. We already have several other media-recognized [minor] parties, i.e. Libertarian, Green, Socialist, etc. Although, the Democrat (Progressive) party is the real Socialist party. Our system only runs on two parties. It’s been the history of our party system. We’ve had five different party systems so far. We started off with the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans (or anti Federalists) (don’t get terms confused with today’s meanings). Since then we’ve had the Whigs and various versions of Democrats and Republicans. All based on different ideologies than today. The only real question is “more government or less government”? We see that from the beginning with the Federalists vs anti Federalists. But in that day, more government meant having a stronger central government over state government, not an all controlling one.

On the political spectrum, you have Anarchy (0%) at one end and totalitarianism (100%) at the other end. I don’t think that the Founding Fathers wanted anything less than 10% but they also didn’t want more than 30%. The Founding Fathers wanted the proper amount of government and I see that somewhere between 10% and 30%. Now these are just numbers for example’s sake. I’m sure they are certainly open for debate. But anything more than 30% and it has a tendency gather critical mass to shift to the 100% end. That is what Socialism and Democracy does. It can be a lighting fast transition or long and slow. It just depends on the charisma and cunning of the ruling elite. But it eventually gets there.

The thing with multiple parties is that one very rarely wins a majority. In order to gain the majority means to form a coalition between several parties. In order to do that they have to compromise their (the people they represent) ideology. They do that with making backroom deals with each other and by doing that, distance their office from the people they represent. And when that happens, the ruling elite begin to think that they know better than the people. And that begins the government down the path to totalitarianism. So all of these designer parties only enable the progression into totalitarianism. And if left to the sentiments of the voters will find degradation into a popular culture quagmire.

I think that our party system will transition into two new parties (sixth system). The Libertarian/TEA Party and the Progressive/Socialist Party. As long as the P/S Party stays within the 30%, it’ll remain a legitimate party under our Constitution. If not, it will be right back at its old ways of trying to undermine it.

[aztek]

Yet ONLY TWO are covered by the media.....

well yea, they are the ones paying the media.

[ninjadude]

Yet ONLY TWO are covered by the media.....

funny I saw green, libertarian, TEA, ....But you're right, by membership and political power they cover two for good reason. We don't have a parliamentary system, but a winner take all - which naturally lends itself to two strong parties. This has been known for centuries.

[F3SS]

Parties just aren't good enough. I'm inclined to say that republicans are most likely to represent my line of thinking and most people vote based on similar feelings whichever way they vote. It just isn't true though. The spectrum is too broad from the Paul's, McCain to the guy who made some comment about rape babies during the election last year. They're all in the same party but their views are as wide and varied as anything and I only like one of those names but if all those guys were up for election in different offices for one state most people would pull the lever for all three even though they aren't close to the same in how they'd govern.

I think party labels ought to go. Without them people would be forced to take a better look at who they are voting for rather than voting along party lines and officials would be elected based on the best ideals. Sure there will still be the Obama's out there who may gain cult followings due to sales pitches and feel good mantras but after a term in office (not just presidents) they'd be re-elected, or not, based on accomplishment and merit and with the lack of an entire party backing and endorsing it'd be almost entirely up to the incumbent to get his/her own damn votes. Of course, there could still be endorsing by other politicians but not so unanimously. Lobbyists could still exist but they'd have to be more careful who they back and there'd be more lobbyists backing a far wider variety of ideals rather than a few popular party faces. Combine these things with term limits and there'd be a constant influx of new fresh faces and ideas and a nation of voters who pay attention to who's who and what's going on. Without term limits corruption ensues and parties form because what happens is in time groups will form based on a few specific ideologies and with enough time those groups become larger and more polarized against each other and viola, a party has formed. With term limits there just isn't enough time for long time good 'ol boy cliques to form and contrive ill conceived schemes and influence naive freshmen with good intentions.

Edited May 21, 2013 by F3SS

[F3SS]

I wonder sometimes how is it that at the time of the American revolution there was such a conglomeration of genius, insightful, foresightful and passionate wise men with a wide variety of ideals known as our founding fathers could get together a compromise on writing the greatest document the world has ever known, while today you can't get two people from equal or opposing parties to work together to do anything without their egos and personal futures superseding the importance of the country? Where are the great ones today?

[regeneratia]

there are like 30 political parties. What are you whining about?

The mainstream media recognizes only two.

[ninjadude]

The mainstream media recognizes only two.

as they always have. Our government by design yields two strong parties because it is winner take all. We do not have a parliament.

[F3SS]

Nobodies asking for a royal rumble of political parties. Either a third or none. I prefer the latter but I'll take the former.

[ninjadude]

Nobodies asking for a royal rumble of political parties. Either a third or none.

our political system just doesn't work that way. PoliSci101

In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that plurality rule elections structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that "the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to multipartism."^[1]

The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle. Duverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[acidhead]

http://en.wikipedia...._Voters#Debates

The League sponsored the Presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984.^[2] On October 2, 1988, the LWV's 14 trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates, and on October 3 they issued a press release condemning the demands of the major candidates' campaigns:^[3]

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...

because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter

. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions.

The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

—League President Nancy M. Neuman, LWV October 03, 1988

*****

Ron Paul speech in September 2008 endorsing any 3rd party candidate at The Press Club after stepping out of the Republican nomination race.

Listen carefully. .. beginning @ 1:39

Edited May 29, 2013 by acidhead

[Yamato]

Went to the polls in 2008 to vote for Chuck Baldwin. He wasn't even on the ballot. Ralph Nader wasn't on the ballot. Cynthia McKinney wasn't on the ballot. Bob Barr was on the ballot. I wrote in 'Ron Paul'. Billion dollar campaigner and democrat darling Barack Obama takes office. Third parties can't get media coverage, can't get in the debates, can't get on the ballots. What choice was there in 2012 to make any difference from 2008? None. I avoided the ballot box and we got the same result. Doesn't matter to the bottom line which Ron Paul Ron Paul listens to and I can understand changing his mind over the course of four years for that reason. Peter Schiff ran for Senate in Connecticut as a Republican with the intention of reforming the Republican party from the inside. I'll give that strategy as much consideration as any other applying the axiom "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" simply because based on past election failures, we can't beat 'em.

[Kowalski]

I know many people who voted for Romney (*gag*) because they didn't want Obama back in office. They were like, "Well, it's the lesser of two evils".....

I told them, "But your still voting for evil."

I'm a proud Ron Paul supporter. Voted for him twice. But if we want things to change, we need to change the game and get a strong third party out there.

[Frank Merton]

It makes no sense to me why someone would bother voting only to waste time voting for someone who has utterly no chance of winning, and, indeed, whose vote is going to be so small as to be a joke. At least when one votes for the "lesser" of two evils (a hyperbole anyway)one is voting for the less bad.

US history has a considerable number of these guys who, one assumes just out of ego, waste time trying to change the flow of history, and who inevitably, along with their devotees, get flushed away. They may here and there get an issue discussed, but rarely with any success.

The reality is that Western style voting is pretty much a waste of time anyway. One's vote is so minuscule, but it is not made bigger by wasting it. The parties with their internal machinations decide who the nominees will be, and the public is left deciding among candidates they really have no opportunity to know or have even anything more than the most superficial notion about. It gives much of the public a sense of a sporting event, and is fun for some, but the outcome may as well be a toss of the dice.

Multi-party societies suffer from inherent instability. Two-party societies generally experience gridlock. One-party societies have a danger of dictatorship (actually they all have this danger) but otherwise are the ones that get things done.

[Yamato]

I know many people who voted for Romney (*gag*) because they didn't want Obama back in office. They were like, "Well, it's the lesser of two evils".....

I told them, "But your still voting for evil."

I'm a proud Ron Paul supporter. Voted for him twice. But if we want things to change, we need to change the game and get a strong third party out there.

*philosopher switch on*

The administration of our policy is evil, I'll agree with you there. But I'm not certain the politicians I also despise (like Romney or Obama) are more evil than Ron Paul. If leaders should be blamed for the wrongdoings of the country, then yes, Obama is evil for those things (and I suppose he must be Good for doing good things?). But that requires a political leap of faith I can't make anymore. I'm sitting on the embankment with my clothes on, holding my swimming trunks in my hand.

Ron Paul was the only meaningful difference in the race in 2008. As devout a follower as I am of his, I can't pretend I'm sure that his policies wouldn't create new evils to replace the old ones. And then would I blame Ron Paul for the way people in the lower ranks of government are executing the policy? With as quick as nearly everyone seems to be to blame politicians for every bad thing that happens in the world, it looks like I'd have to. Still, Ron Paul had/has the highest living example of principled honest leadership. From a moral standpoint alone, Ron Paul was the one and only. In 2012 we had Gary Johnson and I was sorry to see politics trump values when they didn't combine their streams of support. Ron Paul didn't ask him to be his VP and I think it's clear he had no interest at all in the Libertarian party.

The choice between Romney and Obama was a miniscule one. Romney meant war with Iran; Obama meant more food stamps. Some people would rather rabble rouse in Iran than feed poor people. I don't know if that's evil but it sure feels wrong.

[Kowalski]

*philosopher switch on*

The administration of our policy is evil, I'll agree with you there. But I'm not certain the politicians I also despise (like Romney or Obama) are more evil than Ron Paul. If leaders should be blamed for the wrongdoings of the country, then yes, Obama is evil for those things (and I suppose he must be Good for doing good things?). But that requires a political leap of faith I can't make anymore. I'm sitting on the embankment with my clothes on, holding my swimming trunks in my hand.

Ron Paul was the only meaningful difference in the race in 2008. As devout a follower as I am of his, I can't pretend I'm sure that his policies wouldn't create new evils to replace the old ones. And then would I blame Ron Paul for the way people in the lower ranks of government are executing the policy? With as quick as nearly everyone seems to be to blame politicians for every bad thing that happens in the world, it looks like I'd have to. Still, Ron Paul had/has the highest living example of principled honest leadership. From a moral standpoint alone, Ron Paul was the one and only. In 2012 we had Gary Johnson and I was sorry to see politics trump values when they didn't combine their streams of support. Ron Paul didn't ask him to be his VP and I think it's clear he had no interest at all in the Libertarian party.

The choice between Romney and Obama was a miniscule one. Romney meant war with Iran; Obama meant more food stamps. Some people would rather rabble rouse in Iran than feed poor people. I don't know if that's evil but it sure feels wrong.

I totally get what your saying.

It's just, it was either Obama or Romney, not much of a choice. I mean of ALL the people they could have run for office, and they pick these two clowns? It was a joke.

My grandpa had a saying, "You can take a jacka$$ out of the field and dress it up, and teach it to talk, but in the end it's still a jacka$$"....

Edited May 29, 2013 by Kowalski

[praetorian-legio XIII]

Wasn't it the media that betrayed Ron Paul by falsely reporting the percentage of votes he received for the republican nomination, barely mentioning him when in fact at times he was second in line. I think he scared alot of people in high places and as a result the media shut him down.

I would love to see him head up the libertarian party as their presidential candidate next election. Although a long shot, with the slumping trust in obama and the GOP, maybe the time with be right for a serious change to our present, inaffective, two party system.

However, as the last election proved, the voting system is rife with fraud so things will probably never change. Kind of depressing, right?

[Dark_Grey]

[...]They were like, "Well, it's the lesser of two evils".....

I told them, "But your still voting for evil."

I'm a proud Ron Paul supporter. Voted for him twice. But if we want things to change, we need to change the game and get a strong third party out there.

Wow - I'm using that line next time I'm at the ballots. "But you're still voting for evil"

I wish we had someone like Ron Paul in Canada...I remember when the presedential debates were going on between Obama, Mittens, and Ron Paul. The topic was the war in Iraq, and Obama and Romney started dancing around the issue and talking about strategies and so on. The usual. Ron Paul pipes up and says "maybe we should be questioning WHY we are over there in the first place!" It caught me so off-gaurd it gave me shivers. Our current prime minister (Harper,) is so wrapped around Israel's little finger it's disgusting.

[Jeremiah65]

The Libertarian party is the fastest growing party in the USA. Unfortunately, most people are buying into the media propaganda surrounding it. It's actual platform is generally not discussed and only the radical "opinions" of what it stands for.

If people would actually take the time and do a little research, I think they will find some solid ideas and positions that represent a growing opinion of how our country should operate.

Let me help you out

http://www.lp.org/platform

[Kowalski]

The Libertarian party is the fastest growing party in the USA. Unfortunately, most people are buying into the media propaganda surrounding it. It's actual platform is generally not discussed and only the radical "opinions" of what it stands for.

If people would actually take the time and do a little research, I think they will find some solid ideas and positions that represent a growing opinion of how our country should operate.

Let me help you out

http://www.lp.org/platform

Wish I could give this a thousand thumbs up.....

Thanks for the link.