George Washington's farewell address is often remembered for its warning against hyper-partisanship: "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism." John Adams, Washington's successor, similarly worried that "a division of the republic into two great parties is to be dreaded as the great political evil."
Though America's two-party system goes back centuries, the threat today is new and different because the two parties are now truly distinct, a development that I date to the 2010 midterms.
The two parties contained enough overlapping multitudes within them that the sort of bargaining and coalition-building natural to multiparty democracy could work inside the two-party system.
The four-party system collapsed into just two parties.
These triple developments-the nationalization of politics, the geographical-cultural partisan split, and consistently close elections-have reinforced one another, pushing both parties into top-down leadership, enforcing party discipline, and destroying cross-partisan deal making.
The two parties are fully sorted by geography and cultural values, and absent a major realignment, neither side has a chance of becoming the dominant party in the near future.
At the time, the Framers believed they could have a democracy without parties, and the only electoral system in operation was the 1430 innovation of plurality voting, which they imported from Britain without debate.
https://outline.com/dZPhcr
Though America's two-party system goes back centuries, the threat today is new and different because the two parties are now truly distinct, a development that I date to the 2010 midterms.
The two parties contained enough overlapping multitudes within them that the sort of bargaining and coalition-building natural to multiparty democracy could work inside the two-party system.
The four-party system collapsed into just two parties.
These triple developments-the nationalization of politics, the geographical-cultural partisan split, and consistently close elections-have reinforced one another, pushing both parties into top-down leadership, enforcing party discipline, and destroying cross-partisan deal making.
The two parties are fully sorted by geography and cultural values, and absent a major realignment, neither side has a chance of becoming the dominant party in the near future.
At the time, the Framers believed they could have a democracy without parties, and the only electoral system in operation was the 1430 innovation of plurality voting, which they imported from Britain without debate.
https://outline.com/dZPhcr
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