Well we don't. Also, we have the electoral college which means that every vote does NOT count!

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Didn't know there was an analysis that proposed that. I just saw it as obvious. Winner take all = one winner and one loser = two party system.

Learn something new every day.

They didn't even want political parties in general, if you can believe it. They just wanted elected officials. The two party system came about due to the winner take all system, but it didn't happen overnight.

If we had approval voting the system would quickly fall back to what the Founding Fathers envisioned, imo. People voting for issues rather than party loyalty. If only they realized that back then, we'd probably be far ahead as a country than we've ever been.

There are Greens, Reform, Independent, Socialist, Communist, and The Rent Is Too Damn High Party...to name just a few. These parties aren't as popular as the two major parties. Part of the reason that they haven't caught on is that they tend to enter the fray at the national level, every four years for the Big Show--there's not a lot of effort and very little outreach to grow these organizations at the local level.

That said, a Democrat can run the gamut from very liberal to fairly conservative, and a Republican can run the gamut from very conservative to somewhat moderate, so the arc of viewpoints is pretty well covered. A Republican in Massachusetts is a very different creature than a Republican from Texas, for example. A Montana Democrat might lean conservative, a California one, not so much.

Howard Dean is backing Hillary Clinton. "The Two Americas guy," the former Senator Edwards, is doing penance by doing good works here and there and keeping his head down. He managed to avoid conviction by being fournd not guilty on one count and a mistrial on the remainder. The "some scandal" was cheating on his dying wife, having a kid out of wedlock, paying his paramour out of campaign funds, getting his staff to lie about that and squirrel the paramour away, and lying, lying, lying when he was called/caught out by, of all publications, a tabloid newspaper, the National Enquirer.

If not, you should. I'm often bored by stuff like that, but it was a rip-roaring good read.

I won't spoil the end.

And I actually wound up feeling a tiny bit sorry for Sarah Palin.

Just a tiny bit.

Really good. I hadn't known details about Edwards' wife. Obama seemed the best of the bunch, I thought (so far as I've read).

Although I don't agree with all of his politics, I can't see anyone reading that book and not thinking "This is the one."

Things went so smoothly for him that it's almost like he had witches on his staff, yaknow? One by one, all of his competitors just fell apart.

Felt like an utter fool afterward.

(Didn't even get his vote. Really embarrassing for me, caucuses are a bitch.)

I sure did want it back, too!

It could be that binary thinking is the norm though.

...and we have a center-left and center-right Party that have expanded to choke out other competitors.

Could you have a fringe left Party? Perhaps, but they'd never achieve significant political influence.

Countries are different. People are different.

The US doesn't have over 400 million people.

and have a winner take all system. Come to think of it, that about matches our economic system as well.

So much in so few words with that one.

China and India.

1) Very few differing religions. Unlike many other religions, mainstream Christianity and its different sects seem to have similar interests when it comes to politics.

2) We are a young country who have done a fairly good job at feeding people. Yes, there have been lapses.

3) Since the beginning, suppression of voter turnout has been a main goal of campaigning. AKA negative campaigning. This leads to more unified power system.

4) Contrary to popular belief at DU, there are vast differences between the parties, and within the parties. Calling one self a Republican or Democrat really doesn't narrow much down.

I do think this aspect does lead to much greater stability. Or government moves slow. Well, unless someone overseas needs to die. Then we are fast as could be.

In my mind, over the years, the Republicans and Democrats have divied up American. By passing election laws, filing requirments, rules at the federal, state, and local leves, both parties have made it next to impossible for viable third parties. In other words, they have rigged the deck and the fix is in.

Also we have more than two political parties.