Discussion 6 - The Two-Party System

Discussion Board 6 The Two-Party System

Lots of people are frustrated with politics in America today.

One common complaint is that they two-party system is at fault. People making this complaint worry that, for example, political views not represented by the two parties – Republicans and Democrats – are excluded from political discourse. Or that having only two parties limits the choices available on election day, and if neither candidate is desirable, there’s no one left to choose.

But there is another view, as you’ve read. This other view is that blaming the two-party system for today’s problems is misguided. This argument says, among other things, that citizens of other countries with multi-party systems are no more satisfied with the state of their politics than Americans are with ours. We blame the two-party system, they say, because we think “the grass is always greener on the other side,” when really it’s not.

And, they argue, we don’t really have a two-party system, anyway. As recently as 1992, a third party, the Reform Party, got almost 19% of the national popular vote in a presidential election. But is this a good argument when, having earned 19% of the popular vote, the reform party got no electoral votes?

Given what you’ve read, what do you think about the two-party system? Should we do something to change it? If so, what?

Remember you need to make your “Initial Post” of at least 250 words and you need to complete