The Third Party Delusion and the Real Path Out of the Duopoly
At a recent dinner party, after the wine had done what wine does to tenured people, the conversation turned to American politics. This is never a good sign... A room full of educated adults, many with PhDs from institutions that charge more per year than most families earn, slowly arrived at the same conclusion reached nightly by Uber drivers, suburban fathers, exhausted teachers, podcast hosts, and men standing too long in hardware store aisles: We need a third party. Not as decoration. Not as protest. Not as a ballot-access hobby for people who own too many linen shirts. A real third party. A serious party. A governing party. And then, as always, the room became quiet. Because everyone knew the next question. If most Americans are politically moderate, if most Americans dislike the two-party cage, if most Americans can see the dysfunction clearly, then why does nothing change? The answer is unpleasant. It is not because Americans lack imagination. It is because th...
