How did the U.S.'s political system get to become dominated by only two parties?
107511
there is only one party: the 'capitalism' party
851714
both parties have moved in different directions. The extremists have taken over.\n\nSooner or later, a 3rd party may emerge for the middle.
687624
Political system of the US. Sorry to break it to you, but this will most probably not change.
1170689
The two party system works great when a spirit of compromise exists.  That is what is lacking today.  There is no commom ground.  Our representatives seek our votes on election day and have us believe that we choose the candidate who best serves our interests but as soon as they are elected they serve only the party and the big money lobbyists.  It costs so much to get elected now that one pretty much must sell his soul to the devil just to get his or her message across , let alone to get elected.  We have created a government of extremes where the vast majority of people are centrist our political system represents only left and right it appears.  The question should be not why do they do it but how can we stop it?  Vote, vote against every incumbent and keep kicking the bums out until they get the message
341492
Typically in a 3 or more party system the lesser favored candidate wins because the better candidates split the majority votes. Better the Dems. and Reps. offer up someone more to your liking.
199708
Yes, they are both useless.\n\nPolitical parties were not part of the vision of our founding fathers, and are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. George Washington actually opposed the formation of political parties. \n\nWe are taught in school that the strength of the American political system lies in the fact that we have a "two-party process." This is akin to teaching that babies come from storks. It is a fairy tale we spin out to avoid messy details of reality we prefer not to face.\n\nThe reality is that America is now a one-party state. The Democratic and Republican parties have become nothing but two divisions of the same party. Both divisions are corrupted to the core, lap dogs for the special interests. No matter who wins, we always get more spending, more taxes, more inflation, more bureaucracies, and LESS FREEDOM.
51836
United States has a democratic system, but during presidential elections, the electoral college is more favorable than the popular (majority) vote, which doesn't seem very fair. I suppose the U.S. is democratic enough because of all the different political parties and the fair system of how a bill is passed (introduced by the House of Representatives and goes through the House, then to the Senate, and finally the president, who can either veto the bill or pass it, or the bill is overturned with a majority vote from Congress members). Power usually rests with the higher, more affluent folks, like senators, because statistically they are known to be more active in the field of politics and more knowledgable.\n\nWell, feel free to disregard this reply if it was off-topic.
693182
We have a two party system.  It's the democrats and the republicans.  Right now, the Republicans are "in power" holding the bulk of the power in Congress and the Senate along with the Presidency.  The Democrats would be the opposition, but I've never heard it put quite the way you did.
234151
In the US, there are only two main factions.  They are the Democrats and the Republicans.  The Democrats are more for the working folks and younger people.  The Republicans are more for the older and richer people.\n\nSpecial interest groups are very influential in American politics, they invest millions of dollars into the campaign of many politicians from the lowest level to the highest.  Their influence is to try to pass legislation that will benefit their industry.
786954
There wasnt, when it was 50/50 the Vice President's tie gave the Republicans the majority, but soon after that one of the Republican's switched parties and became an independent that voted with the democratic caucus giving the Dem's the majority.
72147
If one ever does, one of the big parties will die off. The system is simply rigged to allow only two parties to survive reliably.
989947
Sadly those two parties are dominating our political landscape and the Republicans have certainly pushed the "us or them" division in recent decades.  There was a time where the division wasn't as polarized.\n\nWe do have choices, Green Party, Libertarian, independant candidates, but most of the media covers the Democrats and Republicans, and the other candiates are painted as "fringe" or just plain crazy.  Even a valid candiate is portrayed as wasting your vote.
763742
You had Stephen Douglas who was an old school Democrat but believed in keeping things the way they were. The Southern Democrats were not pleased and demanded a Constitutional Ammendment or a law that would protect slavery. The argument was so heated the Souther Democrats put up thier own choice; James Breckenridge who promised such. The other two parties were the Constitution Party, equivilent to today's Green Party in the sense that who cares about them? Bah. Then the Republicans. You see; back in the day you had the Whigs and the Democrats. The Democrats were the champions of the everyday man being in charge. The Whigs believed strongly in the smartest of the elite being in charge. Then the Whig Party suddenly went free soil and crazily liberal. The classic conservatives of the day all switched over to the Democratic Party. That left the shattered remnents of the Whig Party which soon collapsed under it's own weight. Then came the Republicans who failed to garner success in their first White House bid with John C. Fre'mont and God be praised for it; he was a loon. Thier next try they got in with Lincoln and then the rest is Civil War history.
243619
Honestly, the two party system is archaic and BS, they all "sleep in the same bed". Career politicians conflict with an American's interest... keep giving yourselves raises, dudes.  And if they continue to create contradicting laws, e.g., abortion is legal, yet prostitution is illegal [conflict of freedom of choice for women], and stray from the Constitution and Bill of Rights; then a modern revolution will happen within the next 50 years.
570256
Because two-party systems and lack of run-off provisions are inherently undemocratic, unsuitable for large countries and ones with lots of competing interests.\n\n"Why, orangemike," you say, "but the United States is a large country with lots of competing interests!"\n\nYes it is.\n\nIt is only since the First World War, when the two major parties acquired monopolistic control over the state and national legislative bodies, and started legislating all competing groups into permanent obscurity, that the United States has been without any viable alternatives to the major parties.  Prior to that, some places had as many as four viable parties, plus fringe groups.  (Wisconsin, for example, had the Republicans, Progressives, Democrats, and Socialists.)  Political scientists have strained long and hard to find excuses why this is a good thing, instead of a betrayal of democracy; most of them boil down to, "Don't rock the boat!"\n\nThere are several Yahoo! Groups filled with people who think this is an unhealthy thing. These include FAIRELECTIONSCOALITION, Voice4all, and instantrunoff (that I can think of offhand).\n\nThe obvious cures are: improved ballot access;  proportional representation; and instant runoff (the interests of the above three groups).
666202
No, is the short answer.  There is no legal foundation for political parties.  However, it was understood by the founding fathers that political parties would develop.  In the early federalist papers there is talk about  the rise of political parties.  However, they believe that there would be numerous parties, and that Presidents would generally be decided by the House of Representatives because no one could achieve a plurality of votes.  This has actually turned out rarely to be the case.  This is because they did not realize the effect of their electoral college system.  With a winner take all structure, it pretty much necessitates large parties working off a diverse platform, and it is unlikely that the United States could ever sustain more than 3 parties at any one time, at least certainly not for the President.  The reason for the growing divisiveness, especially in Congress is not related to the parties themselves.  For a long time they have been able to work at least cordially together.  That changed in the 1990's as the renewed process of gerrymandering gained more strength. Districts are increasingly polarized to make them non-competitive and ensure that one party always wins them.  This has led to increasingly few moderate congressman, creating a ripple effect that has polarized all of government and even the electorate.  Rather than dissolving parties, which is impossible because of the protection on the freedom of assembly, a more reasonable goal would be to limit the gerrymandering of districts to prevent party polarization.
619497
Well there are 3rd parties around, Libertarian, Green, even Constitutional.  The problem is they do not have high enough profiles to breakthrough.  Libertarians and Greens have the most press but not enough to overtake D/R's.  Mainly because of failed strategies of trying to take the Presidency without making a dent in local politics first.  \n\nAs I see it 3rd parties can have two successful strategies.  First, start locally and slowly build a base as you climb the political ladder.  That's a main reason the 2 majors are so successful they have plenty of candidates to choose from the lower political ladder.  Think baseball with their farm system.  This is slow but steady wins the race mentality.\n\nSecond, push for election change in the way we elect House members.  As it stands right now, House districts are based on population.  This dilutes 3rd party votes between several different districts and almost insures that the 2 major party candidates will never face a real opponent save one from the other major.  I think that deciding represention in the House by proportion would be a better.  My home state of Florida for exampele has 25 House seats if we went to a proportional system then 3rd parties could realistically gain 1-3 seats.  Not alot but if you consider large/bigger medium represented states then you could be talking what 20-25, and the difference today in the House is what 15?  3rd parties could realistically become the powerbrokers in the house and make the 2 majors at least pay attention to them.  It would also give them a jumping off point for bigger offices.