Why the United States has only two-party political system?

Answer 1

There are many more than two parties. Some of the others have been elected and hold office locally and nationally. The big two tie up most of the money and have the PR firms to groom their image, speech writers and campiagn managers to distract you from the issues. The rest run on issues, which most people don't seem to understand. Also Americans have an awful habit of wanting to vote for a winner instead of who they beleive would do the best job. The two parties dominate because we are lazy voters.

Answer 2

The US is two-party only in practice. On the ballot will often be several splinter parties offering different agendas. Interesting that wherever the US military imposed a government they left a parlimentary system installed as the government. The US is set up as the majority rules all for a specific time in office. A parlimentary system requires a coalition of parties to take on the majority until a vote is called.

The US political system runs on money. To appeal to the most political donations both parties must offer middle of the road agendas to reach the widest mass of voters. We have two major parties as this is the simplest division of the vast wishes of the population. The smaller parties don't have a chance with the money or with accomodation with sharing power.

Answer 3

We shouldn't even have political parties. All it does is divide people and leave in between voters undecided. I'm a Republican who cares about the enviroment and wants to raise minimum wage, but if I ever ran, no Democrats or Republicans would vote for me because they don't completely agree with me.

Answer 4

The reason is that ig the big 2 allow a 3rd party, they have to take a smaller split. They like being in charge. And truth is, it is getting harder to tell the two apart.

Answer 5

Because the system is corrupt and run for the benefit of rich white men. They don't want anybody else to get near the money.

Answer 6

Money. Really, at the end of the day it all boils down to money.

--Our political system is by nature a big honking system, ok? Lots of people running for office, federal, state and local since at least at the state level, people try to mimic the features of the federal level (having the executive, judiciary and legislative offices separate, having a bi-cameral legislature with a "house" and "senate", and so on), and along with them the checks and balances....

Meaning? You get a lot of people running around asking for the *vote*, and also a lot of *career* politicians who either stay in one office as long as the public tolerates them or bounce from one office to another to stay in the public eye....

--Combine that with the *mass media intensive* nature of elections and you get a system geared towards the "discreet" bribe and the payoff. Really....all those career politicians have to raise *millions* to run for state office and often need *Billions* to run for federal office....and beyond a certain point, once you've *been* a Senator or a Governor, your career options narrow considerably as the minimum age limits in state and federal constitutions alike conspire to snag people who *have to stay put* to earn a living....so you have lots of people looking for cash, *desperate* to stay elected and *working for a living*....

And on the other side, you have Big Business, who wants to pay as little in the way of taxes as they can legally get away with, and who generally doesn't want That Gubmint spending *one red cent* on anyone *but* them....so what do they do?

They fund campaigns, and generally tend to fund *only* the most strait-laced, tightwad politicians they can get away with, on "both" sides.

And that "both" is in quotes because it's been clear for some time now that *politics* in America, at least Federal politics, is more fake and more flagrant about it than *professional wrestling*. The "two parties" are separate in name only, it is best, or at least closer to reality, to think of them as the Rude and Polite versions of the CEO Corporate Plantation Party.

I mean, yes, the Dems (Polite party) give lip-service to civil rights and to keeping poorer citizens from being totally ran into the gutter, but when push comes to shove, the rich guys still *win* every single damned time. Really. Clinton was no different from Reagan when it came time to talk about *outsourcing* or *illegal aliens*, was he?

And we are still *screwed* on the issue of Big Terror, because these "two" parties both get a lot of money from Big Oil, which IS the funding arm of Big Terror, once you get past the religious-seeming ruses of the Wahabbi Menace.

But I digress, sorry....point is, if Big Business felt they could get away with a one-party dictatorship, they *would in a heartbeat* here in America, just like they do in China, in the Arab world and elsewhere. But for the time being at least, some few of us still have delusions of "freedom" in this Plantation State. ;) And we, on occasion, act coherently enough to raise a stink....

So....it's "two parties" that are basically Tweedledee and Tweedledum....and the rest get screwed, because they might actually represent the interests of non-CEO *citizens* and God Forbid if the CEO clique should lose one *iota* of power and authority and exploitative profits....hell, didn't you get the memo?

Folks were making too much money in the New Economy, and Big Oil and their *boys* had to shut it down. That is the real story behind 9-11....Bush and Cheney couldn't kill the New Economy at the *street level*, among ordinary citizens, by themselves, so....

The ex-CEO of Halliburton Inc., and former *first name* business partner of *Osama Bin Laden's DADDY* called in a *favor*. He got "help" in shoving an agenda of fear and hopelessness down *everyone* else's throats.

Really. *That* in a nutshell covers the "why" of that "two-party" system....Rich Guys insisting on being Have ALLS ruling a browbeaten and terrorized citizenry of Have NONES.

Follow the MONEY. It's all about the Robber Barons, always has been, the only things that change are the names of the people involved and the *details* of the bribery and coercion.

Answer 7

People are much easier to control when they can only choose between one or another. Basically, its like when you tell a little child they can have french fries or tater tots, it makes elections far easier to predict and thereby to control.

Answer 8

With %40 participation rate it's not even a democracy.