Most people hate the political duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans (some people insist on calling it a Uniparty and while there’s a whole lot of corrupt and faithless pols, if you really can’t see the difference between the people calling for the abolition of ICE and those funding it, well…) but it’s hard to look at true multi-party systems elsewhere (or in American history) and think they’re better.
Most multi-party systems depend on parliamentary coalitions which we fortunately don’t have. To see why they’re so terrible, take a look at the trouble that Geert Wilders had in the Netherlands or Netanyahu in Israel. Parliamentary coalitions maintain a kind of political center that is forever sliding leftward. In other words, it’s everything you hate about our political system, but made much worse.
There’s the Latin American model, which we are moving toward, but that’s even worse for anyone who doesn’t like civil wars every other decade. (Jefferson did argue in favor of them.)
How would an actual effective third party work in America today? The two parties used redistricting to minimize the number of swing districts. Much of the public hates both parties, but running a candidate in any district would require competing against that district’s existing formulation. That means trying to beat either party in a district created just for its candidates. And running third party candidates in swing districts would most likely chip away at whichever two party candidate is likely to pick up independent voters. And that would likely end up favoring Democrats over Republicans.
There are a number of reasons that no third party has taken off. Lack of serious financing is one. And the lack of compelling candidates is another. And then there’s the lack of infrastructure. Trump took off once he ran as a Republican. Not when he was trying to run as a third party candidate twenty some years ago. But the bigger picture is that while a lot of people hate both parties, they’d rather pick someone from either party than vote for a third party. It’s not just the perception that they’re throwing their vote away. There really isn’t any meaningful space for a third party to come into.
Some variation of fiscally conservative and socially liberal has been tried again and again. But for anyone who really objects to social conservatism, the Republicans are more socially liberal than they’ve ever been. They’re not fiscally conservative anymore, and that’s what some of the current controversy is about, but considering that political power comes from spending money, is a ‘fiscally conservative’ political movement even possible as a reality rather than just as rhetoric?
When push comes to shove, members of Congress get power from spending money. It’s easier to create a third party than to fundamentally change how this system works.
