In most countries, there are usually more than two political parties and they usually have to form coalitions in order to gain control.
Our system is not like that since there are only two political parties and they've written all the rules so that it is next to impossible for a third party to get invited to Presidential Debates or even get put on state-wide ballots.
People have long complained about both our political parties as being bought off by industries but they have us by the balls. After all, what are you going to do? Vote Green party? Throw away your vote? Vote Lizard People?
Let's face it, both major parties have been bought off to some extent and there's widespread dissatisfaction and frustration with both parties:
Just 35% of voters said they felt positively about the Democratic Party, a 14-point slide since February. Ten percent felt "very positive."
...
But public displeasure with Democrats wasn't translating directly into warmth for Republicans. Twenty-eight percent of voters expressed positive feelings about the GOP -- a number that has remained constant through the Democrats' decline over the summer and fall. Only 5% said their feelings toward the Republicans were "very positive."
The survey, which was conducted Dec. 11-14, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
So there is a lot of anger and frustration with both parties which makes people cynical about politics. To some, it's the choice between coke or pepsi. Both are bought off so who's really fighting for me?
Now, I'm NOT saying that the parties ARE the same. Clearly, things are a 1,000 times better under Democrats than Republicans and we should continue to try to run our own candidates under the Democratic Party and try to push it more the left.
But if we are ever to break out of the 2 party system, now might be a window of opportunity.
I can think of two obvious examples when third parties actually played a role in politics. Ross Perot in '92 for Republicans and Ralph Nader in '00 for Democrats. More recently, there was the NY-23 fiasco for Republicans which allowed a Democrat to take over a district for the first time since the Civil War.
The problem with third parties is that when one has an impact, it always draws primarily from only one of the two political parties, thus throwing an election to the other major political party.
So third parties don't really work in our current system but perhaps FOUR parties may.
This is what I'm calling the Fourth Party Solution.
Tea Baggers, you start your own party and we Progressives will start our own. The key is that it has to happen at the SAME TIME and it has to have an equal draw from both parties.
So take all the batshit crazy people with and we'll take our Howard Dean, the House Tri-Caucus, and we'll start our own Progressive Party. One that will have a spine and we KNOW will fight for us.
If we do this, we could have an equal draw from both major parties, maintain balance so that we're not Nadering or Scozzafava-ing anyone to our own detriment, and become a legitimate threat to their entrenched 2 party power structure.
We could still caucus with the remaining Democratic party (like Socialist Bernie Sanders does) to maintain control of congress but it will increase our bargaining power with them. No longer will they be able to roll over us and expect us to always fall in line with corporate power.
I'm sure I haven't thought this through completely so feel free to pick it apart all you can.
After all, if some of the Ron Paulites could get together at the recent "End the US Wars" Rally with Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney, then perhaps our Progressive party to team with the Tea Party on the war issue to pull out of Iraq and Afganistan.