*Opinions

It is late Aug. 2024, and incumbent democratic president Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential race mere weeks after growing calls for him to pass the torch. Handing the race to his Vice President, Kamala Harris overnight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the race, Trump became the latest addition to presidents who survived an assasination attempt since Ronald Reagan in 1981. Amidst the turmoil, prominent independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands at a podium in Phoenix, Arizona to declare that he “became a spoiler” in the race, Someone who can change the race, but has no chance of actually winning. RFK Jr. ended his speech to state he was effectively dropping out of the race to throw his support to Donald Trump. The 2024 presidential race might have been one of the most chaotic we’ve seen in history, but one thing stayed the same; only two choices have a chance of winning the White House, no matter how deeply unpopular either could be. 

Every four years we go to the polling stations to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” the leader that will do the least amount of damage to the country.  But this system has only motivated an embarrassing 66% of the American population to vote during the 2020 presidential election and just 64% in the 2024 election. Of 331 million citizens from wildly various backgrounds coming from all far-flung corners of the country, how could all of them fit neatly into just two dominant parties?

Supporters of the two party system might say that it brings “stability” and “consistency.” However, diverse interest groups from immigrant rights activists to big business lobbyists would be fighting for power within the same party, trying to get their visions recognized with just two parties to realistically influence, the Republican and Democratic parties will be pushed farther and farther away from each other in their agendas for the country. A study conducted by Pew Research Center said the two parties have moved farther away than ever before since the 1970s. With drastically different ideologies, how could any Republican and Democratic representatives even think about cooperating with each other to pass life-changing legislation?

Since the Democratic party takes stances on policies that are very popular with cities, they dominate in urban areas with virtually no competition, this also happens with the Republican party in rural areas, since they tend to be more conservative. For example, in 2024 of the 100 Kentucky congressional house seats up for election, 40 districts have only one candidate running, as the other party feels it has no chance since their policies aren’t favorable. This creates a one party state in a large number of districts and localities. Even if the Democratic mayor of New York City or the Republican governor of Texas would not see success in their term, what competition do they see against them? The opposite party will see no chance in fighting against the entrenched power. They have no punishment awaiting them at the ballot box, very reminiscent of authoritarian behavior instead of a proclaimed democratic safe haven.  

You might be thinking, if this is such a problem, where are the third party candidates that openly challenge this status quo? For the past two decades, third parties have seen very mediocre results in presidential elections, only gaining at most 5% of the national vote at best. But, in 1992, when unpopular incumbent George H. W. Bush faced off against the Democratic governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton, a third candidate scared both candidates into fearing he would take either candidate’s potential supporters. His name was Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire who was advocating for opposing trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Organization (NAFTA) and to balance the federal budget that the two parties had been consistently overspending. Perot had led a powerful people-centered movement that at times was polling higher than both of his established opponents. When the general election came, Perot finished in third with an impressive 19% of the national popular vote. But nonetheless, the movement had slowly died out due to Bill Clinton adopting his platform of a balanced budget, leaving the third party movement in the dust ever since.

The parties themselves are completely undemocratic too, in the run-up to the 2024 election, each party is supposed to have a primary election to choose who will obtain the nomination for president of the United States. But in recent elections, the Democratic and Republican party chairs have been cancelling party primary elections to protect their incumbent candidate. The Republican party in 2020 denied a primary election in 5 states. More recently in 2024 the democratic state party chairs cancelled party primaries in 4 states, even denying secret service protection to then democratic primary challenger RFK jr. When he ran as an independent he had cited this to be partly why he left the party and ran as an independent. Meanwhile in congress, moderates (those who take differing stances from the rest of their party) have been dying out since the 1980s, a decade that saw 20% of the house and senate being occupied by moderates on both sides, now only 10% occupy the political center now only 10% today occupy the political center. Only 10% have the ability to relate to the opposite party and can make bipartisan change, the rest must pass bills with slim party majorities. These moderates have been knocked off the ballot by a more mainstream member of the party or retire to be fulfilled with a party hardliner.  In effect, parties are very strict with their stances. Since most people do not entirely align with one party’s platform or another, candidates from these parties often try to appeal to the widest audience of voters possible, leading to unstable and overly broad party issues.

When our country was in its infancy, George Washington drafted his farewell address in a letter to the American people. He had warned this nation that it would go on to be a global superpower about what it must avoid to survive the coming decades and centuries. Including the importance of isolationism, entanglement in permanent alliances, and the political parties that would divide us “[political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”