There are plenty of folks out there, who out of ignorance, prejudice, or whatnot, believe the duopoly still serves our interests. Below are a few excuses I have heard for the duopoly and/or dismissing the idea of dumping the duopoly, along with my response. Feel to lift this info as needed as we fight to spread the truth.
Apology #1: "There have always been just 2 parties."
Not true. Though a duopolistic political system has been the primary mode for a good portion of US history, particularly recently, it has not always been just 2 parties. The US has a relatively rich history of nonmajor parties since the beginning of the republic (Gillespie, 2004). Though I disagree with Gillespie’s, “natural dualism” argument (it’s equally plausible that the duopoly led to the development of the cultural dualism that Gillespie described), his summary of the role of third parties in the US political system is fair and accurate.
Beyond the point that the apologist statement above is not factually accurate, so what if it’s always been just 2 parties? Does that mean it’s not possible to have otherwise? That seems a bit defeatist and cynical. It takes no courage to be cynical. If our founding generation had shared such sentiments, the American Revolution would have never succeeded.
Apology #2:“Two parties is the way it was designed” or “The system was designed to have only 2 major parties.”
Related to statement #1, there’s a false assumption in the polity that “the system” was designed or meant to only have 2 parties. If we clarify what is meant by “the system,” it will be apparent that the above 2 statements are not entirely correct. The system – as in the set of institutions, documents, and social/political behaviors that define the US political system – has 3 main levels: constitutional, federal, and party.
Constitutional
The constitutional system defines how power is divided between the different divisions or “branches” of the government. The 3 main branches of the US government and their ability to serve as “checks and balances” on each other are easily identifiable to anyone who grew up in the US or studied its system: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Federal
The federal system defines how power is shared between government jurisdictions. The US is not the only country with a federal system, and any federal system involves a sharing of duties and responsibilities between regional versus national governments within the same nation (or between nations, as with the European Union). The history of the US federal system has always been contentious, but ultimately a stabilizing factor towards the endurance of the union. Indeed, the greatest threat to the union (the US Civil War, 1860-1865) was over the question of national versus state powers.
The party system is the collection of laws and customs that define the nominating process for citizens to be elected and represent their portion of the polity. The Constitution does not define how this will be done beyond setting qualifications for holding office and establishing the electoral college as the means to elect the President and Vice-President. The nomination process we have today is the product of historical forces, some intentional, some not, that has led to a party system highly protective of the duopoly.
Up to the time of the US Civil War, elections were held by voice or hand votes. As the population grew, color-coded ballots were adopted as a means to simplify the process, as well as enable a “voter’s market” where political parties would openly bribe for votes (Heckelman, 2004). As argued by Heckelman, the secret ballot did stop this open bribery, but it also gave incumbent parties an advantage. The government was now responsible for printing and distributing the secret ballots, and thereby empowered to decide who would be listed on the ballot; whomever controlled the government could control ballot access. Concurrent with adoption of the secret ballot was a specific act by Congress, the Apportionment Act of 1842, which required that members of the House be elected from single-member districts, and not at-large districts as had been the custom beforehand (and still is today in most democratic nations). Single-member districts means only 1 person can be named representative of that district, thus giving incentive for the development of only a few major parties.
Of the 3 levels of the US political system, the party system is the most malleable and open to change. If when we say the “system,” and we are talking about the party system, then yes, it has almost always been that way, but that does not mean it can’t be changed. Furthermore, we don't have to change the fundamental pillars of the US political system to make it better serve the polity.
In short, to use a computer analogy, the basic hardware of our republic (the constitution and federalism) is fine; it’s the software (the party process) that needs re-writing.
More silencing the apologists in the next post.
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