[ks1723]

What I (as a non-US citizen living outside the US) never understood about the US political system is

1. Apparently none sees the (to me obvious) downsides of a two-party system where there is only black and white with cold-war logic of being either with us of against us, no grey zones and willingness for compromise.

and

2. monetary interests are so close to the political system by construction: candidates need to raise a lot of money during their campaigns which they get from companies, private persons and which is tied to their person. How can you not assume that all those people who get into office (senator, president, even judges as I learned recently) with money they got from someone is not in a conflict of interest right from the start? To me it seems there cannot be any independence.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Your second point explains the first. There is a one-party corporate-captured system with two wings. One pushes the country rightwards, the other pretends to oppose it, but never makes structural changes that would push the country back towards higher taxes on the rich and higher public spending, even when it has the means and the opportunity.

Behind this is the biggest propaganda and PR machine in history, with mass media, social media, lobbyists, think tanks and policy institutes, client journalists, astroturfing operations, and individual politicians all generating compliant prepackaged talking points that either support the corporate line or distract opposition with noise.

[nkrisc]

The downsides are obvious to any of us Americans with two brain cells to rub together (a minority).

The problem is those who benefit from it are also those who would have to do away with it. So they won't.

[const_cast]

It's not that simple. People who vote dem or rep understand the two party system is bad and has a lot of consequences. That's not at all a minority opinion.

The problem is that people are realistic enough to also realize they can't just magically, out of nowhere, break the two party system. The "vote third party!!" people are useful idiots, and we all know it.

The fall of the two party system must be thorough and deliberate. We cannot start at a presidential election, much less like two months before the election, which is always when the "vote third party!" people crawl out of the woodwork.

They don't actually give a single flying fuck about third party. Otherwise, they would vote third party locally and then on a state level so they can build up their reputation for the presidency. And, they would at least decide on which third party to support. But they're too busy fighting over each other to decide that. So they're delusional enough to think their .5% polling candidate out of 5 other .5% polling candidates can overthrow the dems and reps.

It has to be coordinated. Two party system has been build up for a very long time. We need legislation on PACs, on voting, on the electoral college, and we need the cultural shift.