old GOP standby; always appear to be playing defense, always be flabbergasted by those rascally democrats. Everything bad is always the result of the "radical libs" doing something. The details, and even the very veracity of the claims are immaterial. The trick is to sell, like a pro-wrestling match.
To be fair, the dems have given a go at a similar tactic, since their last 3 presidential campaigns had the implicit slogan of "At least we aren't those guys".
the 2-party system devolves into some kinda halfway dumb Hegelian dynamic where you are always opposed to what the other guy is doing while simultaneously being dependent on them for your existence.
Third parties did emerge and replace dominant parties, but rarely - say, once a century or less. It's hard to tell the difference between "does not happen any more" and "continues to happen at that rate".
third parties are very weak in first past the post systems. Anyone who thinks about the game theory quickly comes to the conclusion to not vote third party. With easier access to mass market news more people can be informed of that so less people vote third party
It does occasionally happen, though. e.g. in Britain Labour replaced the Liberals in the 20s and 30s. Conservatives got almost destroyed last election if polls stay were they are they will likely be replaced by Farage's party.
France maybe doesn't fully count but when turnout is very high they are almost FPTP. Also the second round when it happens is usually three way and sometimes even four way. And their party system is about as hectic as it gets (i.e. most PR countries in Europe are much more stable)...
Basic game theory, as well as the nature of the problemset. working with 30k items is very different from 30m items. You need different algorithms to efficietly solve each one.
This will sound very mean, but when you open up your voterbase to more people, you open up democracy to be swayed more by pathos rather than ethos/logos. An educated, informed voterbase can make smart decisions and have a 3rd party rise up and defy the philosophy of the splinter vote.
Now, the US is 300m+ people with a voter base of about 170m. the searches for "is Biden running for president" on elecion day spiked more than the day he stepped down. Sentiment at this size adjusts too slowly to have a 3rd party rise at the national level, and if one gains momentum, the panic of a lost election will scamble all that progress.
If we want 3rd parties, we need to vote to enact voting that ancourages it, like ranked choice voting.
The American electoral system makes this near impossible.
Certainly for congressional elections, at least. Presidential elections might be more feasible if still highly far fetched. Of course at this point any 3rd party candidate is more likely to split the left-wing and moderate electorate than the radical/MAGA voters who usually don't really carry about specific policies or stances on most economic or other important issues.
You need 60 votes in the senate to pass a budget so having a majority doesnt equal having a budget. The argument is generally that the majority party won a mandate from the people and therefore should be able to pass laws they want and when they cant the minority party gets blamed. Pretty much every government shut down in recent US history has been blamed on the minority party, dems won a lot of political points when the government shut down under biden.
Well historically Republican voters are absolutely supportive of the principle itself (i.e. minority party undermining the vote on the budget). So obviously that's what they voted for..
If Republicans cared about the government shutting down they would have made efforts to negotiate or compromise. They’re just as responsible. In fact, Trump seemed pretty gleeful about the extra people he could fire if a shutdown happened.
