Stubborn Facts about the Two-Party System
Show notes
We’ve always had two parties and we’ve always had people who hate it. Some point to Madison as the reason why our government favors two strong parties over a dozen weaker parties. But Madison and Jefferson’s support of the Republican party was to sound the alarm to voters about bad actors in Congress. In large part, it seems like our parties do just that: shine the light on how the other party is flawed. Why two parties?
Some hypothesize that our representational government gives way to two-way arguments in which the coalitions form the two stronger parties. Sean points out that it’s not like third parties have always been unsuccessful, such as Ross Perot of the Reform Party. But Jay reminds us, the third party fades as soon as it rises since one of the major parties assumes the energy and motivation of the new group and often their platform gets put into law, as we saw with how Clinton and the Republicans handled the debt in response to the Reform Party.
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