We’re here at YouTube Studios at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!
Tonight Hillary Clinton will accept the nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate.
A lot of voters, upset with the Democratic pick, are calling for a third party option.
But in the last 163 years, the president has been either a Democrat or a Republican.
So how did the United States end up with this exclusive two-party system?
Well, it’s important to note that the US has not always operated this way.
During the first official presidential election, there were no political parties, and George
Washington won without even campaigning.
And in fact, most of the founding fathers were sceptical of political parties.
In his famous Farewell Address, Washington argued that opposing parties would mercilessly
seek to undermine each other at the expense of the American people.
Nevertheless by the time he left office in 1797, the country had split into two parties:
The elitist and business-minded Federalists and working class Democratic-Republicans.
This persisted until the mid 1800’s, by which time the Federalists had dissolved,
and the Democratic-Republicans had split into the modern Democratic Party, and the New Republican
Party.
After a brief 20-year run as the Whig Party, the New Republicans evolved into just “Republicans”.
So, by 1854, the US had what we know today as the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Their duopoly has persisted over the last century-and-a-half, largely because of the
country’s unique first-past-the-post voting system.
That is, each state has a set number of electorates, and whichever candidate gets the majority
of votes- even by a fraction - wins all of the electorates.
There is no reward for second-place, and therefore little incentive to create a party that will
get some votes, but not the majority.
For example in the 1992 presidential election, independent candidate Ross Perot received
nearly 20 percent of the popular vote and still did not garner a single electoral vote.
The United States is one just a few countries that has this first-past-the-post system.
As a result, most other democracies see representation from more than just two parties.
Japan, for example, sees representation from five major parties, as well as a number of
minor parties.
And in Israel, ten parties or party affiliates are represented in the national legislature.
That’s because these countries use proportional representation to elect officials, rather
than a winner-take-all system.
Many have argued that America’s two-party system is unjust, not only because it limits
voters options at the polls, but because it encourages politicians to go to great, oftentimes
shady lengths to grow their party.
One example of this is gerrymandering.
Because voters will ostensibly vote one of just two ways, policy makers can easily draw
up and manipulate voting districts to favor their own party.
The electoral system also creates an environment where parties aim to be as large as possible,
even if it means absorbing ideas that don’t necessarily square with their base.
As a result, voters tend to identify with their party
less
and less over time.