There are several institutional reasons for the two party system in America. First of all, the United States is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic. This is important in that in a true democracy, the people are continuously involved in the governing process, such as in Switzerland where there are elections almost every week. Second, our elections are fixed by the calendar, not by events. In the socialist democratic nations such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, any vote of confidence lost by the ruling party or coalition will result in a new election. Third, we have separation of our legislative and executive branches. In most democracies of the world, the legislature elects a prime minister who is the defacto executive of the country. Sure, the United Kingdom has the Queen and many nations have presidents, but these people are there to be the consistency rather than the power.

I remember when Gary Johnson was the governor of NM and he was all for "legalizing of MJ" and everyone was like "Oh my gawd, how dare he!" .... guess he's more progressive than most politicians

again another insult. are you trying to get people to see what's good about the libertarians and their candidate or turn everyone off to your message. usually when one is trying to convince others to do, be or believe in something the requester is polite and respectful. remember people judge the merit of this party by what you say. and right now it is the party that can't find anything good about itself to say so instead they have to resort to personal insults which is a real turn off

Meh, put him in a presidential debate...i know he would do well

Libertarianism requires more than the average American is capable of.

When this country was in its infancy, we had two parties; the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalist. After a few years, the Federalists dropped out and the Whigs came along. Just before the Civil ware, the Whigs collapsed and the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats and the Republicans. Most of the Federalists became Whigs when they lost several presidential elections in a row and were in a feeble minority in both houses. The same thing happened when most of the Whigs became Republicans

Present company excluded then.

I voted for him last round.

#feelthejohnson

I'm a fan of Gary, not because I think he would make a *great* president, but because I think he would make a *reasonable* president... I lean to the left and the green so Bernie looked pretty good to me and Jill Stein still does, but am also very Libertarian on some issues, so Gary looks pretty OK to me. Next to the *most absurd* candidate ever (you guess who I'm talking about) and the *most qualified* candidate ever (but one whose values and intentions I don't trust)!

no thank you.

Yes, the only election i vaguely remember that included a third party was ross perot...so its possible

It's a two party system JarJar, the deck is stacked against third parties.

I think I need to switch parties 😐... I only switched back to vote in the primaries

When i registered, i was torn in choosing a party because i have mixed viewpoints

Why isnt Johnson getting more media coverage? Half of america hasnt even heard of him

it depends on the third party, ross perot did well as did andrew johnson and bernie snders. i think the libertarians got a bad name when they kept running the head of the kk as their presidential candidate.

I'll pass but thank you for being the one who got his name out there.

I disagree, Tyremack ... I don't think they are realistic

Answering that question would take days JarJar

Ladycae, I'm not promoting Libertarianism, it's a waste of time. And I don't consider my comments insults, merely observations

Third parties can be good but not if you live in a swing state

It's a good fight, but a losing fight.

Whos Gary?

Hmm

😐

you definitely should be don't like.

The Libertarian party is the most reasonable and most reflective of actual American ideology. Unfortunately, most voters are too lazy, stupid, and entitled to embrace Libertarianism.

calling me lazy, entitled and stupid does not entice me to vote for your choice

Why do we have this stupid part system anyway? Arent we voting for the best person for a job?