Why the United States has only two-party political system?
962742
There are many more than two parties.  Some of the others have been elected and hold office locally and nationally.  The big two tie up most of the money and have the PR firms to groom their image, speech writers and campiagn managers to distract you from the issues.  The rest run on issues, which most people don't seem to understand.  Also Americans have an awful habit of wanting to vote for a winner instead of who they beleive would do the best job.  The two parties dominate because we are lazy voters.
1178868
Potentially, there would be NO restrictions that would limit or refuse the coming of a 3rd political party. In fact, the history of the United States has actually had 3 political parties yet one of them seemed to always fail. (This was easily seen in the 1800's while Americans continued to establish their democracy).\n\nToday, we know this "3rd" political party as the "Independents." Independents claim they do not pick and choose which party they want to belong to. Instead, they "supposedly" agree with neither the Democrats or the Republicans. They are a party of themselves and create new ideas that do no lean to one side or the other. Some might even consider the Independents as the "middle" man.\n\nHowever, because the U.S. is so politically divided, the Independents rarely make it into office due to their scattered infrastructure and organization. Because in a political system that either goes one way or not, a majority of citizens find it hard to "come between." This isn't to say that this cannot exist, but it's difficult. It's like the ole saying, "You're either with us, or against us."
691269
This is a thorny issue.  The Democrats and Republicans seem to be very non-responsive to their constituencies.  It seems that the goal of both parties is simply to get re-elected.\n\nOn the other side, I lived in Germany for almost 10 years, and I can say that having multiple parties seems to lead to weak, ineffective governments.\n\nLooking at the the two options it seems that our choice is "six of one, a half dozen of the other".\n\nIf anyone has a plan, let me know.
94069
The two party system is as old as the country itself.  actually, it is patterened after the house of commons in merry ole England.  If you think our party system is volitile, you should see and hear the antics used over there.  the two party system works as well as any other, probably better, given its longevity. I vote that we leave it alone except for one factor, that is popular vote.  I believe that we should still base our outcomes on the popular vote of this country.  In this way, the people have truly spoken! By the way, the hell with abroad.  We owe no other nation, or group of people, an explanation as to the domestic decisions of this country.
451392
Simply, we have a constitution that states we have a president.  It is possible to change it, but understand that throughout the world, we have one of the most stable elected government.  We have two choices because we have two major political parties.  There has been other parties with different platforms, but those platforms were absorbed by the major parties.  Having too many parties is not good.  Just like having too many choices.
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.
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.
577196
The track record for third parties in this country has never been one of success. Even the Republican party only became viable after the whigs disbanded. I'm afraid the answer is yes, but not successfully. Americans only have the capacity to understand a binary political system. As long as the majority of the American sheeple continue to blindly toss thier votes away on these bufoons, we won't make any progress.
441201
We have a two party political system that has developed in our country.  In what we call our primary election, the two parties put up candidates that want to run for the presidency. Each party holds an election to see who will be the candidate for their party. Each party could have as many candidates as people that want to run. In the last election there were at least 6-8 democrats that ran to see if they could get elected from their party to fun against the republican party.\n\nNormally the party that is in office don't run anyone against the person that is occupying the office of president because they want to show unity. It is not to say that at sometimes others don't run it just that on a norm others don't run against a candidate that is already in the office.\n\nOnce the two parties have selected their candidates the two then run against each other to see who will be the president of the United States.\n\nEvery now and then you might find a third party candidate that have met a majority of the states requirements to run a third party candidate. This does happen a few times as we have several small parties that put up candidates like the Green party and Independent Party are the two most outstanding ones I know.\n\nThis is basically why we normally have two people running for the office of the presidency.\n\nOther countries such as England and France have a different system with lots of parties.\n\nI hope this will be of help to you, good luck
1096390
1)Party discipline is always weak in Congress compared to, for example, the British Parliament.  It's the nature of the beast. There are only two viable parties in the US, so they both have very big tents and allow a lot of freedom of political movement for members.\n\n2)Democrats, in particular, always have poor discipline because they haven't really advocated a major policy shift since Clinton's health plan in like 1994. They don't have anything unifying them except their hatred of Republicans.\n\n3)Republicans have poor discipline because they are running away from the President like he's a time bomb. With his approval ratings in the 20's, any political figure seen as close to the President has a good chance at losing reelection.
340491
The is no 2-party system in the US anymore. What we have is Republican and Republican-lite, all the corruption with half the aftertaste. Two different flavors of the same crap.\nVoting for someone because they are "Republican" or "Democrat" is taking the easy way out. I have voted Democrat, Republican, Green, and Libertarian in my life. I don't vote on meaningless buzz-words, I vote on issues.\n\nI, too, am for a complete housecleaning. Throw them all out and start fresh.
977011
There are two major parties in the United States.  The Republican Party is the President's and the outgoing Congress's party; they are traditionally conservatives who values limited government interference in the States' affairs, limited taxes and government spending, corporate support to encourage "from the top down" growth, and conservative social values.  The Democratic Party (or simply the Democrats) are the party of the incoming Congress, as well as former President Bill Clinton.  They are traditionally liberals or liberal-leaning centrists who values Federal authority above States authority, controlled taxation to provide for spending for social programming, support of labor and the disenfranchised to support "from the bottom up" growth, and liberal (or liberal-leaning centralist) social values.  These two parties are protected by the law to be entitled preferential treatment in elections, campaign financing, and ballot positioning.\n\nHowever, these are not the only two parties.  There are more than I can count.  Traditionally grouped as "third parties" or Independents, these parties--while discouraged by the preferential treatment granted by the two-party system--have been gaining ground as of late; two Senators are currently Independents.  These "third-parties" include the Green Party, the Progressive Party, the Socialist Party, the Working Mothers Party, and on and on.\n\nInterestingly enough, the Republicans were a "third party"; they came into prominence when one of their candidates--Abraham Lincoln--won the Presidency.  So, while there will always be a two-party system, it doesn't necessarily have to be the two parts we have now (originally, it was the Federalists and the Republican-Democrats when the nation started).\n\nI hope that helps.
128036
Because our government is set up along a "winner take all" system.  Only the top two contenders in any race will ever be taken seriously, that's why we only have two parties.\n\nThe other countries that have multiple parties are one with parlimentary goverments.  With the parlimentary system, in the election you vote for a PARTY instead of a candidate.  Then each party get a number of MP's (Members of Parliament) based on their percentage of the vote and then the new MP's choose the prime minister.  Since your vote won't be "wasted" voting for a 3rd, 4th, or 5th party, people feel fine doing so in a parliamentary government.
257594
I cannot see the future, but I certainly hope so. There are no check in the system and with one party rule it is not good. With checks and balances come compromise and usually good legislation. I think that the legislation of the last 6 years is proof that it is not good for America to be a one party country.
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.
1143762
We already have a one-party system.  It's called the "Property Party".
130821
The best type of Government is a democracy without the party system....that is representatives vote on each issue independently keeping the interests of their repective constituencies in mind and without being held ransom to common party interests and ideology. This enables a healthy national debate on each issue separately so that views of all the people are taken into consideration before a decision is made.