Guest Essay: The Deception of Duopoly

Long accepted and widely regarded by Americans as the quintessential political structure, the two-party system in the U.S. was not part of its founding, has no legal basis, and subverts representative government in favor of partisan loyalty.

Editorial note: This commissioned guest essay by Kimber Fountain is published as commentary. To learn more about her work, visit her Linktree. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Political Report or the Outsider Media Foundation. Readers may share submissions, responses, or other contributions with the editorial team.

The United States of America, a rare and extraordinary country in that its 350 million residents all think and believe only one of two ways. Such a statement would be observed almost unanimously as an absurd oversimplification, and yet far fewer comprehend that the two-party political system in the United States is likewise as irrational and short-sighted.

Unfortunately, the Republican-Democratic dichotomy has defined U.S. politics singularly for such a long time that only in the most recent decades of its 250-year history has the voting population started to sway heavily independent. Yet despite the fact that a stunning 45% of voters no longer identify with partisan politics, the duopoly continues on as normal, a scathing indictment of a political system that has forgotten its duty is to represent, not to govern.

Moreover, two-party systems are not the norm across the globe as most Americans have been led to believe. A political survey from World Population Review ranks the world’s countries using a metric called Effective Number of Parties (ENP) which assesses not only the number of political parties in a country but the relative strength of each. With a score of 2.0, the United States ranks 120^th out of 151 countries listed. Furthermore, out of 48 countries that scored integers of 2 (less than one-third of the world), it is the only one with an exact 2.0. This indicates that out of all countries with two dominant parties, the U.S. is the only country where two parties are so central that they completely cancel out any others. Even Nigeria and Ghana scored a 2.01.

As seen in the widespread criticism of countries like Brazil where as many as thirty parties are registered in each election cycle, the most common argument against multi-party political systems is that they lead to slow, inefficient government and legislative gridlock. Clearly an assessment made long before the U.S. Congress came to demonstrate that these issues have failed to elude two-party systems, the argument should still be dismantled in contrast to the isolated eras when American government did appear to function even if it was not perfect.

If a country with a multi-party system has a legislative body that is representative of the collective constituency, and then that body becomes gridlocked when each vote is cast relative to the values of the party it represents, then that signifies that the represented population is gridlocked on the issue as well and therefore the measure would not have adequate support from the people to pass, either. Thus, by applying inversion thinking, one can assess that the two-party system intrinsically favors selfish, power-hungry politicians, because a two-party system in fact makes it easier to pass legislation that does not represent the population.

“Congress doesn’t listen to the people,” says Chris Jerome, administrator of The Radical Independent on Facebook who boasts a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and two Masters Degrees. “A lot of studies have been done analyzing that what they legislate and produce has zero to do with what their constituents actually want. There’s a huge disconnect there.”

A two-party system may in fact make a government more productive in regards to the amount of legislation it passes, but this purported efficiency comes at an enormous cost to democracy. Instead of operating on the sound and ethical premise of voter representation, the duopoly is specifically structured and used to elevate individuals and party ideologies and reward lobbyists and special interests. This also reveals why it has been kept in place by a manufactured cycle of increasing dependence on a binary system, consistently perpetuated regardless of which party is in power.

“I call it the ‘humiliation of the systemic cheat,’” Jerome continues. “Who has been making the election laws for 150 years? Republicans and Democrats. Who has made it practically impossible for third parties and independents to gain any sort of traction? Who do you think? When you get to write the rules, why worry about competition? And so, ballot access, and our voting method, plurality, ‘first past the post,’ favors a two-horse race. Everything from legislative rules in congress to other state legislatures favor a binary system.”

Systemic issues, Jerome analyzes, are only one half of the two-toned problem of American politics. “So, we have the systemic, the structures in place that have been created for the past fifty, sixty, one-hundred years, but especially since the 1990s, it benefits the two-party system, it protects the two-party system…Then, you have the cultural aspect, which does get pretty psychological in some ways.”

As polarization between parties grows and extremism continues to rise, Jerome notes that experts with whom he has spoken continually refer back to this social-psychological aspect as a key component in maintaining the two-party’s grip on American politics. “We’re not even arguing over policy anymore. The polarization is rooted in group-think biases and emotional tribalism.” He adds that the duopoly aggravates natural human instincts, often intentionally.

“We’re the product of 200,000 years of genes, right? We have a lizard brain in a miraculous world and we’re trying to navigate it while being bombarded with stimulus and input, and we’re not doing very well, honestly, but the duopoly capitalizes on that, and they appeal to the clickbait, the rage, and it works really well in turning people against each other.”

“That’s what I liked about [2016 Libertarian Presidential Candidate] Gary Johnson, he was pragmatic,” continues Jerome, who identifies as a Classical Liberal. “He had his beliefs, but he wasn’t going to force them on everybody. It was simply, ‘we’re going to move in the right direction.’ He understood, he had a mature, sophisticated outlook which is missing today. And within the major parties, even the Libertarian Party and some of the smaller parties are almost just as bad in some ways: there’s a certainty and a rigidity, a group-think, don’t step out of line, this is what we believe, take it or leave it 100 percent. There’s no nuance, there’s no grey, it’s really detrimental. And you can’t function as a democracy like that, by the way.”

The framers of the Constitution would have heartily agreed, although it was with searing irony that their resolution against political parties is precisely what led to the formation of the duopoly. Human nature’s innate ache for the familiar often leads the brain to assume that the way things are is the way they have always been, and yet political parties were believed by the American Revolutionaries to be a distinct reason for the dysfunction of British government and therefore vehemently opposed. Unfortunately, this disdain led to a reluctance to debate, mention, or recommend against them as the founding documents were penned, which in turn led to a sin of omission. Since political parties were not deemed expressly illegal, they were allowed to develop unchecked, with no mechanism in place to establish guardrails.

Even still, what is regarded as the first political party in the United States, the Federalists, did not originate as an established entity but rather from the coalescing of business interests. Their vision of the country was championed most vocally by Alexander Hamilton, a man whose desire for a strong central government germinated from his “contemptuous attitude” towards the lower classes and his disregard of their relevance or ability to participate in federal government. This prejudice served as the kindling eventually ignited by his severe insistence on more executive power, prioritizing commercial interests above citizenry, and promoting industrial growth through a central bank.

Although the Federalists were not technically an organized political party by the election of 1800, their numbers were imposing and their power, growing. Supporters of the movement were winning local and state elections across the country. With extreme trepidation and concern, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson witnessed this increasing influence of big business, as well as Hamilton’s vision nearing that of a monarchy they fought to overthrow.

Undoubtedly, Madison and Jefferson were acutely aware of their colleagues’ opinions on political factions. Benjamin Franklin warned that “the infinite mutual abuse of parties [tears] to pieces the best of characters.” Even John Adams, who was the incumbent Federalist candidate in the 1800 election, remarked that “the division of the republic into two great parties…is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” However, the two saw no choice but to organize. In order to oppose the greed of special interests, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson formed the Democratic-Republican Party.

Although Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800, effectively ending the Federalist non-party and steering the country back towards the values that propelled the Revolution, at least temporarily, the proverbial seal was broken. The country was officially cleft in two, and despite no legal authority, no federally sanctioned processes or primaries, and no real standing except for what exists in the minds of American voters, the two-party system continues its reign of divisiveness more than two centuries later.

Fortunately, like Winston Churchill may or may not have said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” Two hundred years of trying to make the duopoly work, and finally the foundation is starting to shift. Independent votership is rapidly nearing the halfway point, signaling that a permanent fracture in the system is imminent. Its progression is made more rapid, for better or worse, by the glaring increase in authoritarianism in the federal government.

“I do think things can change,” Chris Jerome says. “And I think the most likely way it will happen is going to be slow and steady growth, grass roots movements… the numbers are there, and I think it just has to sort of manifest itself and organize in such a way for it to become a force.”

“Sometimes on my page I talk about an inflection point, a tipping point, where I’m spreading the word, other groups and other people are spreading the word, we’re getting the message out,” he continues. “A lot of people are receptive once they hear it, but they don’t really see a path or a way to get from here to there. So, we’re pushing the way forward.”

“I don’t know when or how, but I think we’re getting closer, and we will reach a point where we will see a paradigm shift. We will see where this becomes a top-two issue in the national consciousness, and then it will start growing exponentially, and then you will see the downfall of the duopoly. There will still be a Republican and Democratic Party,” Jerome predicts, “but we need to reduce them to their proper stature, not have a rigged system that keeps them in power. But the Republicans might splinter into several groups, and the Democrats might too.”

In the meantime, he suggests a practical first step for those new to this arena of political understanding. “I talk about checking out, checking out of the simplistic binary, the black and white, just detach from that garbage. We get so wound up, [like] we’re supposed to engage in this toxic nonsense. So, disengage, detach, become a political buddha, right? Then you can start developing your critical, independent thinking and not be so much guided by the biases and develop yourself.”

“It sounds cheesy, but we have to become better thinkers,” Jerome insists. “Because that’s where we’re failing the most. We’re not thinking well anymore, we’re not reasoning well anymore, so check out, become a better critical independent thinker, and then just help spread the word and get involved.”

He also has sage advice for those who have been fully aware of the partisan problem for a while but may think that the situation is hopeless or insurmountable. “Self-fulfilling prophecy, you can’t do that. Every book on leadership, every book on pushing for change, you have to be positive. Be realistic and be pragmatic and don’t be risk averse, but at the same time, you have to believe—without that you have nothing. I just feel like, being positive and optimistic—what choice do we have? We have to go that direction.”