How Can Two Parties Represent 300 Million Different Points of View?

Supporting the point of view proposed in: Two-Party Political System Threatens Real Democracy,
I'm Neither Democrat or Republican and Here is Why

In the United States elections are winner takes all contests for political power. If your candidate wins you have a representative. If your candidate loses, you get nothing. It matters little if a candidate loses by one percentage point or twenty, their supporters effectively are left without representation until the next election. The nature of our electoral system has led to the formation of two major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.

It matters little that the public as a whole is generally unsatisfied with the work being done by the two parties that dominate American politics. The general consensus is that voting for a thrid party is the equivalent of throwing you vote in the trach rather than the ballot box. Anyone who just plain disagrees with the major parties should just not vote at all. Many don't. The 2004 Presidential election managed to bring in only around 60% of eligible voters and that was a high water mark for elections in recent times. Midterm elections are far worse: In 1998 only 36.4% of elligible voters turned out at all. The numbers get continually more depressing for local elections.

Voters know that they only get one shot at representation. People of widely varying viewpoints are found under the banners of red and blue, but if white is designated as the third pary color it makes up only a tiny proportion of our political mosaic. We cluster behind the two major parties because the only way to win is to group together as one mass vote. Democrats and Republicans alike are severely limited in their ability to propose new ideas because they have to keep their base of variously minded supporters content.

Parties that once imaginatvely pursued the elimination of poverty now focus on personal attacks against the other side. Sex scandals, drug abuse, and corruption have taken the place of substantive political debate as the driving force behind political campaigns. Politics in America have hit a new low.