Do you believe the duopoly (2 party stranglehold) really does hurt the American people?

[progressive85]

I would of course say yes, despite feeling I only have one possible choice and that is a full Democratic ticket from top to bottom, but that's more about me strongly believing in federal, state, and local policies that advocate for Rainbow Kids (LGBTQQQAtoomanyletterstoreallyusethemall+ youth) more than any other single issue.

I've been registered under three parties in my lifetime: D, R, and Green.

All of them suck in some way.

[smoltchanov]

101%. As a result (especially now, when both US parties tend to be an "extremely pure") - 35-40% of people in US (much more, then Black percentage at any time in US history) are, essentially, disenfranchised, being forced to vote for "lesser of 2 evils" and not having their OWN party

[MarkD]

I lean toward Option 1, but I say that American voters are hurting themselves; I don't blame the parties per se, because the parties are giving American voters what they want.

Independent Voter Network loves to claim that a very high percentage of American citizens self-identify as independent - more than either Republicans or Democrats - but their proof is in polls, not elections, nor the voting records of elected politicians. Very often there are more than two options on the ballot, but extremely few voters take advantage of the third, or fourth, options. If most voters who identify as "independent" were to actually vote for a third-party option, or vote for split tickets, gerrymandering would not be as successful as it is, and the members of Congress and the state legislatures would not be as polarized as they are, with more and more Republicans becoming extremely conservative and more and more Democrats becoming extremely liberal. We would have many more "moderates" in both parties in office.

[CEO Mindset]

yes, but there's also the issue of it being stuck with the same two parties and no turnover

[OSR stands with Israel]

The issue is a majority of the voters no longer beleive in upholding the parts of the constitution/bill of rights that they view as more favorable to the other side

[LBJer]

I'm amazed I'm the only one so far to vote for Option #3.  Yes, we are very polarized, but that doesn't seem to be because of the two party system.  The U.S. has had two major parties since the Civil War period, and has gone through different periods of greater/lesser polarization during that time.  Having many different parties can result in the extremist elements of a society having disproportionate power (Israel is a good example of this) because minor but extreme parties can make or break a coalition.  This would be particularly true if we adopted the proportional representation system that Israel and other democracies have.  Imagine a president needing the support of David Duke or Louis Farrakhan. 

[Samof94]

I would of course say yes, despite feeling I only have one possible choice and that is a full Democratic ticket from top to bottom, but that's more about me strongly believing in federal, state, and local policies that advocate for Rainbow Kids (LGBTQQQAtoomanyletterstoreallyusethemall+ youth) more than any other single issue.

I've been registered under three parties in my lifetime: D, R, and Green.

All of them suck in some way.

Imagine a secular Conservative party relatively neutral on abortion.

[Canis]

Yes the current system always trends to the right Second Thought came out with a great video about this a few hours ago

MMP and RCV would allow us to have more options and vote for people not out of fear but out of love of our candidate's party's and platform.

[Damocles]

We need proportional representation.