Should Two Parties Be Enough For Anyone?

Many American political parties exist, at least in name, but only the Democratic and Republican parties field candidates that regularly win high offices. In contrast, more than a dozen political parties are quite active participants in Israeli elections. This big contrast is largely due to the vast differences between the political systems in Israel and in the United States, but nonetheless I still wonder why it is that the American voting public seems to meekly accept that they only have two options while Israeli voters seem to, if the sudden and frequent emergence of new parties and alliances is any indication, continually clamor for more and more choices. There are at least three factors at work here: the weakness of America's would-be "third parties," the chameleon-like nature of the two major parties, and a political climate that is unfriendly to new and emerging parties.

The history of American political parties is a fascinating one which I am still learning, but most minor parties seem to fall into one of two categories. Some parties are or were dominated by a very charismatic leader and have been unable to emerge out of the shadow of that leader. For example, George Wallace was able to move the American Independent Party into prominence in the 1960s, but after the Alabama firebrand returned to the Democratic Party the AIP's popularity dwindled. Nonetheless, the party still exists some forty years after its glory days, primarily as an affiliate of the Constitution Party. The other group of parties has been severely handicapped by vicious infighting. The Reform Party is a recent example of one such party: after a promising start, it quickly became apparent that the party base was not quite broad-minded enough to provide a political home for Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura, Pat Buchanan, and Lenora Fulani all at the same time. Both the American Independent Party and the Reform Party were the leading fringe parties in American politics for a time, but neither remained political forces for long in large part due to their internal weaknesses.

The Republican and Democratic parties each have their own platforms, but over the years these parties have shifted positions on various issues many times and incorporated many diverse viewpoints into their organizations. Thus, it happened that the party of abolition was the Republican Party and the party of the "Solid South" during the Jim Crow era was the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party in the 20th century became the major party most closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement while the Republican Party became the new home of some former segregationists like Strom Thurmond. The Democratic Party largely absorbed the Populist Party just as it was emerging as a force to be reckoned with in American politics in the 1890s, while the Republican Party has more recently welcomed neoconservatives and Christian conservatives into its ranks with open arms. As a general rule, both Republicans and Democrats seem to tend to run more to the right in conservative areas and more to the left in liberal areas. Thus, there are pro-choice Republicans who run for office in New York City and California like Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger and also pro-life Democrats like Gene Taylor and Ben Nelson who campaign in Mississippi and Nebraska. The very fact that the Democratic and Republican parties don't adopt very many stances on issues which they hold to solidly and consistently has been key to both their longevity and their nationwide appeal. Since both Democrats and Republicans fiercely resist being pushed into an ideological corner, it is that much harder for a fringe party to present a platform to the American people that is both unique and appealing.

Ultimately, the biggest reason there are only two major political parties in the United States is because those two parties already have the resources needed to compete in races big and small and across the nation, and those resources are substantial. Small parties have to start from the ground up and face resistance at every turn. Their key to growth is winning votes, but it is hard for them to win votes without money and hard for them to raise money without already having votes. The most visible of offices is the Presidency, but few third-party presidential candidates can even manage to get on the ballots of all fifty states. The political climate in the United States makes it extremely difficult for a minor party to ever emerge out of obscurity, so it is hardly a surprise that the few parties that avoid internal chaos and whose messages are not co-opted by the major parties still find it almost impossible to make a dent in the American political scene.