Two-party system

A two-party system is a system where two major political parties dominate politics. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority or governing party while the other is the minority or opposition party.

The establishment left disguises its government intervention on behalf of the rich as government intervention on behalf of the poor, while the right disguises its government intervention on behalf of the rich as an opposition to government intervention per se. ~ Roderick Long

The Republican and Democratic parties are alike capitalist parties—differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests—they have the same principles under varying colors, are equally corrupt and are one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labor. ~ Eugene Debs

There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party. ~ Noam Chomsky

Quotes

• There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party.
  • Noam Chomsky, interviewed by Adam Jones, February 20, 1990

• The Republican and Democratic parties are alike capitalist parties—differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests—they have the same principles under varying colors, are equally corrupt and are one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labor.
  • Eugene Debs, "Capitalist Parties," in Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought, Volume 2: Reconstruction to the Present, p. 288

• I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.
  • W. E. B. Du Bois, "Why I Won’t Vote," The Nation, October 20, 1956

• If you exempt the appeal of strictly local nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, British society is actually a three-party system stitched and corseted into a two-party duopoly. The duopoly is reinforced by the apportionment of seats in Parliament, which fails to reflect the number of votes cast for each party and instead bases itself on a winner-take-all regime. About once every generation this breaks down. In the mid-1970s, Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party suddenly won 6 million votes and upset the re-election plans of Edward Heath’s Tories. Those Liberal ballots were votes cast, in part, as an oblique demand for proportional representation. On that occasion, though Heath had not exactly been defeated, as the incumbent he could be said to have lost much more than he had won, and he had to go. The same harsh logic will face Gordon Brown later this week if his party is anything but convincingly ahead: The Clegg forces will not wish to bond with Labor in such a way as to prolong a discredited status quo. That would be change nobody could believe in. Even David Cameron’s Tories look fresh and uncorrupted by comparison.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "British society is a three-party system stuffed into a two-party duopoly" 3 May 2010, Slate.com

• I really do think that the two-party system is broken. I don’t think Democrats are able to balance a checkbook these days. That’s it’s all about bigger government and higher taxes. And then Republicans with, I think, the social agenda. Look, whatever your social inclinations are just don’t force it on me. And I think the Republican Party has gotten really extreme in that category.
  • Gary Johnson, interview on Morning Joe. [1] (September 8, 2016)

• In the U.S. corporatocracy, as in most modern tyrannies, there are elections, but the reality is that giant corporations and the wealthy elite rule in a way to satisfy their own self-interest. In elections in a corporatocracy, as is the case in elections in all tyrannies, it’s in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the appearance that the people have a say, so more than one candidate is offered up. In the U.S. corporatocracy, it’s in the interest of corporations and the wealthy elite that the winning candidate is beholden to them, so they financially support both Democrats and Republicans. It’s in the interest of corporations and the wealthy elite that there are only two viable parties—this cuts down on bribery costs. And it’s in the interest of these two parties that they are the only parties with a chance of winning.
  • Bruce E. Levine, The Myth of U.S. Democracy and the Reality of U.S. Corporatocracy, Huffington Post (25 May 2011)

• The widespread assumption that big business and big government are fundamentally at odds, and that big business supports a free market, serves to maintain the ruling partnership in power. ... The establishment left disguises its government intervention on behalf of the rich as government intervention on behalf of the poor, while the right disguises its government intervention on behalf of the rich as an opposition to government intervention per se – and each side has an interest in maintaining the myth propagated by its nominal opponent. For those who are repelled by the realities of corporate capitalism are lured into becoming opponents of the free market and foot soldiers for the left wing of the ruling class, while those who are attracted by free-market ideals are lured into becoming defenders of corporate capitalism and foot soldiers for the right wing of the ruling class. Either way, the partnership as a whole has its power reinforced.
  • Roderick Long, "Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice," Griffith Law Review, Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2012), pp. 413-431

• Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right. ... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.
  • H. L. Mencken, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956), p. 222

• Upload: a two party system
  The lesser of two dangers
  Illusion of choice.
  Download: a veiled form of fascism
  Nothing really ever changes
  You never had a voice.
  • Prince, "Colonized Mind" Lotusflow3r (2009)

• If nothing is done to counter present trends, the major fault line in American politics will no longer be between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. It will be between the 'establishment'—political insiders, power brokers, the heads of American business, Wall Street, and the mainstream media—and an increasingly mad-as-hell populace determined to 'take back America' from them.
  • Robert Reich, Aftershock The Next Economy and America's Future (2010), p. 145

• The two-party system is breaking down into a race system.
  • Crispin Sartwell, White Liberals: We’re Not Racist, Splice Today (August 29, 2016)

• Allegiance to the group identity forged by political party affiliation renders Americans blind to the essential similarities between the agendas of the two parties, similarities that can be expected to be exactly the ones that run counter to public interest, in other words, those interests of the deep-pocketed backers of elections to which any politician must be subservient in order to raise the kind of money necessary to run for national office.
  • Jason Stanley, How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press: 2015), p. 20

• The true divide in the population has never been between Republicans and Democrats, but between haves and have-nots.
  • Matt Taibbi "Goodbye, and Good Riddance, to Centrism" Rolling Stone, June 13, 2017

See also

• Political parties