I think it’s better if you don’t ask “why were other parties unable to stake out a position?” but “how were the two parties able to claim such broad swaths of the political landscape?” No easy answers here of course, it’s one of the largest questions in political history.

I think the electoral systems, more so first past the post than presidentialism, come into it, but they’re not the main factor. Most of it comes down to America’s, all together now, material conditions.
As @cushbomb has been noting a lot recently, America’s wealth of wide open land which you could keep settling allowed potential labour unrest to be diffused. There was always more to get.
So you don’t end up with a Labour party, and around the time other countries did, America was going through the progressive era, which both parties were flirting with. The Socialists and Communists were repressed, so they couldn’t be the left alternative either.
The Progressive Party probably came the closest of anyone to breaking the GOP-Dem dynamic but honestly if they did they probably would have supplanted one of those parties entirely, just as the Republicans supplanted the Whigs, so it would have just been another 2 party system.
There’s a lot of other factors going on here, a lot probably has to do with the Civil War. In the years before the war and just following there were some pretty strong third parties at the legislative level.
Could be the War really altered the national psyche and turned people towards this one on one dynamic. I dunno that part is just throwing something out there. Like I said, hard question to answer so I’m just putting down a few of my thoughts.
The New Deal seems to have been another big third party killer, though I can’t really put my finger on exactly why. Take a look at this page and the ones it links to, hardly any people elected from proper third parties to Congress since the 1940s

https://t.co/ycFqTUNjH3
I should amend that, not just hardly any, none. The NY ballot sharing parties don’t count, nor does Joe Lieberman’s fake party.
In terms of Governors you have Ventura and the Reform Party, which put up a good show in a couple presidential races too. And then Connecticut and Alaska each had a third party candidate beat both parties. That’s about it.

More from Politics

We’ve been getting calls and outreach from Queens residents all day about this.

The community’s response? Outrage.


Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.

When we talk about bringing jobs to the community, we need to dig deep:
- Has the company promised to hire in the existing community?
- What’s the quality of jobs + how many are promised? Are these jobs low-wage or high wage? Are there benefits? Can people collectively bargain?

Displacement is not community development. Investing in luxury condos is not the same thing as investing in people and families.

Shuffling working class people out of a community does not improve their quality of life.

We need to focus on good healthcare, living wages, affordable rent. Corporations that offer none of those things should be met w/ skepticism.

It’s possible to establish economic partnerships w/ real opportunities for working families, instead of a race-to-the-bottom competition.

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1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.