Not Really a Two Party System in America

More Custom Than System

The lie makes its rounds at convenient times, in other words, opportunistically, during campaigns and elections for political office in America.  The lie is very powerful and potent, and its effect is amazingly consistent and dominating, and it goes something like this: "We have a two-party system, and don't you dare step outside it, because any other parties or political forces outside of our Democrat-and-Republican controlled apparatus is essentially misfit, trouble-making and unAmerican."  The problem with this lie is that even the relatively short history of the United States negates it as multiple parties beyond just two played a much more prominent role nationally in the first hundred years of the republic, and even since 1876, political parties outside of Democrats and Republicans have helped to shape and define the political landscape, especially on the state level.  So let's be absolutely clear, there is not a constitutionally set two-party system in America, nor has there ever been one. 

 

The only two-party system that we have in America is one that has been propagated for decades by those political insiders and politicians who personally benefit from a two-party system, thereby being in a position to traditionalize and engrave it into custom, and insisting that a two-party system is the de facto law of the land despite the anti-democracy nature of such a declaration, but also pacifying real democratists by not overtly casting the custom in stone, because after all, that would make it look too much like the Reds of the 1920s, the Fascists of the 1930s, or other renowned political forces in history that quite undemocratically oppressed opposition forces.  In other words, they will be smarter and oppress through subtlety, refinements of the statutes, but not the Constitution, and retelling the big lie over and over until it is ingrained into the national consciousness, which it pretty much has been.

The two party system doesn't even make common sense, let alone withstanding any kind of intellectual rigor, because naturally there will be more than two points of view among large groups of people, let alone an entire nation, and the current intra-party struggle within the Republican Party shows the limits of trying to politically confine a big country like ours' into just 2 sets.  Even the Democratic Party has their "left" and "right," though so far, in the Obama era at least, has pretty much managed to keep any polarization under wraps.  Although, it's hard to believe that they are going to let formerly "dead broke" Queen Hillary just have a coronation without so much as a ruffling of feathers on her left side, in others words, an actual primary fight for the 2016 nomination, and by the way, Queen Hillary, is probably to the left of Obama, notwithstanding Obama's rhetoric of being against the vote for the invasion of Iraq when he didn't happen to be in Congress.

Giving into the big lie of the two-party system without so much as merely casting a vote against it occasionally, let alone organizing into other parties, really shows the depths of how much the politicization of the nation has been conditioned into conformity by scoundrels, tricksters and opportunists, a kind of browbeating by those who benefit most from the status quo, and falling back to that old trick of patriotism and pie, an apple pie that's divided into two halves, of course; a "D" for thou, and an "R" for thee.

[revised on 6/29/14]

Commoner is 99% certain that the 2004 G.O.P. primary election was stolen from Mark Greene and handed to a political novice. Help us solve the mystery of "The Other Curious Election of 2004" (WA 9th Congressional District U.S. Rep. primary) by contacting real journalists and asking them to look into it, and writing or calling the U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, Jenny Durkan, and requesting that she make public all matters relating to the '04 primary. Regarding the journalists, ask them to use "Freedom of Information" requests to get to the bottom of this case. For more information: see 2/26/13 post entitled "Major Election Irregularities (Graph & Essay), and from there, there will be a list of other related posts on Commoner. Elections are too important for shams to be ignored and for accountability to be neglected.

If possible, please, consider contributing to the Party of Commons, by sending a check or money order ($10 recommended), or contribute to Mark's U.S. Representative campaign that will be on the ballot in August, 2014 (checks should be made out to "Mark Greene for Congress"); for either matter, write to P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009. Thank you!