It's a good thing countries with multi-party governments don't have this equivocation problem. All ideas must get equal representation there.
Don't get me wrong, I would like to see third and fourth and fifth parties take a more prominent role in politics, but I have become a reluctant fan of the two-party system. I like spoilers, too.
This country has been abandoning the parties since the 1960's, although I
personally think you'll see an upswing again due to polarization, and more aggressive voter registration efforts on the part of the parties, 527's, and other interest groups. I believe (could be wrong) you will see a fresh generation of Democrats emerge over the next decade, primarily due to the aggressive voter reg. campaigns that went down from 2000-present. That doesn't mean we'll see the kind of party identity we saw in the past.
I look at the two parties as tools. I also look at their members as tools, but I digress. Since the 70's, the parties have taken less of a leadership role in terms of policy and elections, and have become more like vehicles for people, causes, and factions to advance themselves. While this has its share of problems, it certainly seems more "grassroots", no? I tend to like it this way, although I often miss the party discipline days of Van Buren.
For multiple parties to flourish in this country, the parties themselves need to be the vehicles of policy and leadership. The Green Party is suffering this right now. They want to win elections, but not at any cost, so good candidates ("Gasp! He was a Democrat and voted for Clinton! Gasp!") get rejected by the party. The result is a party full of old hippies and college professors. Neither work very well in a 30 second spot. I'm certain the same could be said of the Libertarian Party, just replace hippies and professors with disgruntled Republicans and people from Michigan and New Hampshire (although i think the LP has a firmer base in policy alternatives, but anyway).
I don't think we give the American voter (or non-voters) enough credit. Just like some of us might want less government in their lives, most people want less POLITICS in their lives. They don't want to vote every year. They don't care who wins town dog catcher. They are neither happy nor dissatisfied with the performance of government, and they vote accordingly (with non-votes being counted as votes in my book). Those of us on this board who think about this stuff EVERY SINGLE DAY are weird. We don't fit in, we ruin conversations at parties and bars talking about this shit. Am i right, or is it just me?
The reason I bring this up is that there seems to be this common third party argument that if the stupid voters KNEW about the third parties, they'd vote for them, thus toppling the duopoly. We tend to suffer from a case of the majoritarianism. We think that because our ideas make sense to us, well they MUST float with everyone else, and it's only because they are either uninformed or stupid that they simply keep voting for Coke or Pepsi...often not at all. This is clearly condescending, and also erronious, IMO.
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