It's the money, not the Internet perse, imho. The two political parties control the elections, making it almost impossible for third party or independent candidates to qualify on enough states' ballots to win or to gain enough traction to appear in debates or gain serious news and social media attention. Back in the day the oligarchs brokered nominations in the backrooms of the party conventions. Progressives finally broke their hold on the conventions by instituting the system of primary elections to select the delegates pledged to candidates having votes at the conventions. Nowadays, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens' United decision, the oligarchs flood the primaries with money for their candidates to the point that alternative candidates simply drop out very early and you wind up with two Nominees for President and the Nominating Conventions have yet to be even held.
