General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: No group has done more to harm their own cause than the Green Party USA [View all]Celerity
(43,749 posts)I have lived under 3 different political systems (UK, US, Sweden).
I am very well aware (one of my uni degrees is from a political science/international relations hybrid programme) of the differences and of course the spoiler effects of 3rd parties in the non proportional representation, single member district, first-past-the-post majoritarian American system. The US system auto-defaults to 2 main parties (see Duverger's law) because its basic constructs.
The two parties, whilst very divergent in their two main overall ideological superstructures, are also internally (far more the Dems than the Rethugs at this point) fairly heterogeneous. You see that Democratic Party heterogeneity play out every day here on DU, and of course in the real world of legislative power.
https://archive.org/details/politicalparties0000duve