Maybe Time For A Third Party?

The USA has reached an impasse. Rather than deal with the real needs of the nation they continue to pussyfoot about to extend the debt ceiling rather than actually sitting down and agreeing a course forward which would allow for effective government.

The cause of this is in my opinion the fundamentalist ideologues in both parties, but primarily I believe in the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, 70% of whom would rather stick to their guns and close the government despite 40% of that same group admitting to do so would cause severe economic harm to the USA.

So they hold the Republicans hostage in these negotiations.

In Europe given the multi-party systems no one party generally wins a majority and so has to spend many hours negotiating with their erstwhile opponents/soon to be co-rulers resulting in a government which has to take into account the major thrusts of both parties.

So in Germany there is a marathon negotiation going on between the centre-right party of Kanzlerin Merkel CDU/CSU and the centre-left party the SPD. The result could be a "Michael Bloomberg" government: the fiscal conservatism of the Republicans and the social conscience of the Democrats.

My personal favourite in Germany would be for the CDU/CSU to join up with the environmentalist "Gruenen" party thereby expanding the theme of fiscal conservatism with a social and an environmental focus.

But back to the US.

The history of the two party system is that the nation generally has 45% who vote for the Democrats and 45% who vote for the Republicans almost by rote and the remaining 10% at best is fought over with the final margin of victory being slim such that a "landslide" win captures 55% of the popular vote.

Two things. First, yes, the US elections are based on Electoral College votes, not popular votes and yes, Reagan got close to 60% of the popular vote. The former is the way it is the latter was an anomaly.

The point is that the two party system results in a large percentage of the nation not being represented by the elected president, and even more worryingly is that it is the 10% of the undecided that actually tip the scales one way or another.

Yes, the Congress does help balance this out, and according to the constitution the third arm is the judicial.

Be that as it may, a splintering of political parties such that the plethora of "single-subject" groups could be elected-or not-as part of their own party as opposed to wreaking havoc for the main-stream parties forcing their platforms into essentially a gerrymandered hodgepodge.

And I would like to see a 5% hurdle for parties to be accepted into a national government so they can't disrupt the business of government as they do today.