Two Parties Just Ain't Enough

The current dilemmas faced by the two-party system demonstrate its inherent problem: two parties just ain’t enough.

We’ve got Republicans holding their noses while they tow the line, and others in outright revolt while the uncomfortably silent majority blushes and looks away. We’ve got Democrats trying to curry favor with disgusted Republicans by out-conservative-ing the conservatives and others wanting to burn it all down and start again.

And these fragmented divides demonstrate the limitations of the two-party system. Let’s face it, Independents are usually disaffected Dems or Repubs who switched parties to stay in office, and Greens, lamentably, don’t seem to count; so what we’re left with is the old left and right, elephants and asses, blue and red, blady, blady, blah.

Republicans are running from the Frankenstein monster they created by stoking race hatred and fear of white annihilation for decades, because now the monster made flesh (a.k.a. that Trump Chump) is threatening to burn down the party. Democrats can’t decide if they want to be Republicans-light or anti-establishment revolutionaries, and tend to be ineffective in either pose.

A two-party system leaves too many people holding their noses and voting against the greater evil, however they define it. And the results of that distasteful folly --- enter stage left --- our current but hopefully not future president.

What much of the rest of the world has already figured out seems to evade American political consciousness – two parties just ain’t enough. We come in all flavors in this country, so why should all our delicious messiness be confined to two square holes?

If we had political parties that were centered around a few issues of core concern: health, education, social services, economy, equality, defense, you get the drift; there’d be coalitions of parties that would be forced to cooperate with one group on some things and others on others.

We’d not only have a much more representative form of government, but one that would be less likely to be gridlocked by partisan politics, as has been the case for far too long with our current system.

Reform campaign financing on top of all that, and we might just start to look like the vision created a few hundred years ago, instead of like the fossils of an outdated system grinding its way into the dust.