Examine the dynamics of the American two-party system, the role of elite influence in politics, and the impact of outsider candidates like Donald Trump.
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The American two-party system is built around the old British principle of a party of the “court” that is in power and a party of the “country” representing those who wish to replace those currently in office, not to overthrow them. A loyal opposition, which wishes to extract concessions or shift the balance of power within the system, is tolerated. A revolutionary opposition, which threatens to shake up the entire system, is not tolerated. Candidates with the support of only a minority of the American elite such as Richard Nixon, Teddy Roosevelt, or Ronald Reagan, are tolerated, though often undermined. Those who are viewed as a threat to the entire system – i.e., Donald Trump – are a different matter.
The American two-party system isn't built around any British principle of a party of a court. It's not even built around
anything; it wasn't intentional, it was just an accident of the voting system they set up because unlike nowadays, they didn't have centuries of clear evidence that first past the post voting practically guaranteed two dominant parties.
The
Federalist Papers (written pseudonymously by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay; the specific one linked is believed to be by Madison) confidently predict that the size of the United States will cause there to be a lot of different factions:
"The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other."
So basically, the idea is that since the US is so big, obviously we'll have a lot of different parties and interests rather than just a few dominating it. Clearly, this didn't happen at all. As soon as the unifying force of Washington's presidency was done, the Federalist Party and Democratic-Republican Party became the only factions that mattered in politics, and while they in subsequent years they might have been replaced by different parties, there being just two dominant parties has stayed fairly consistent in US history.
The reason for that is the
actual cause of the two-party system, which has nothing to do with any British concepts of courts: The country used, and still largely uses, first-past-the-post, also known as plurality, voting. This is in which everyone votes for one candidate and whoever gets the most votes wins. This strongly favors two parties because of the concerns of vote splitting. Other methods, like proportional representation (people vote for a particular party and seats are allocated based on what percentage each party receives) or even two-round first-past-the-post voting (the way France does it) are much more likely to cause there to be more than two major parties.
So the two-party system in the US isn't built around any kind of ideas of courts in power, it's an accidental effect of a particular voting system that was used because back in the 18th century they didn't, as we do now, have so many years of clear evidence on how voting systems affect political party strength.
