Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

America initiated the modern nation Democracy business, and its founders warned against and disdained political parties but it wasn't long before pragmatism set in and Thomas Jefferson himself co-founded the Democratic Party. Because America was first, and because there was no thought nor experience of political parties, the natural course of events was a winner-takes-all default 2-Party system. This is the simplist of solutions but has the glaring defect that second-place-is-the-first-loser & so nobody but the people in power get much of a say. For a country founded on representation, we sure didn't end up with much. But since elections in the U.S. tend to be a lottery, and as lotteries go the Party in power tends to change a lot so people have been mollified.

Because of our lame 2-Party system, strange bedfellows are forced upon us since every person must be wedged into one of the two Parties whether their ideas coincide or not. The Parties can't even be divided liberal vs. conservative because they have changed over time: a 150 years ago, Democrats used to be the conservatives, and Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was a raging liberal. It's virtually impossible to be elected without a "D" or "R" next to your name, so "independents" declare they are in one of the two Parties, however, the Party power structure does not support them: no money, no help, no organization, and tries to defeat them with a Party stalwart in the Primary.

Most nations that formed into democracies after America instituted various forms of more inclusive representation, such as a parlimentary system, but the U.S. has the advantage of being the only liberity nation, so people are less affected by the decisions of a handful of elites at the top than socialist-leaning nations experience. Also our clear winner has a dictator-like ability to control the direction America is going, at least until the next clear winner is elected.