Boek
The closely contested presidential election of 2000 which many analysts feltwas decided by voters for the Green Party cast a spotlight on a structuralcontradiction of American politics. Critics charged that Green Party votersinadvertently contributed to the election of a conservative Republicanpresident because they chose to vote their conscience rather than choosebetween two evils. But why this choice of two? Is the twoparty system ofDemocrats and Republicans an immutable and indispensable aspect of ourdemocracy? Lisa Disch maintains that it is not. There is no constitutionalwarrant for two parties and winnertakeall elections need not set thirdparties up to fail. She argues that the twoparty system as we know it datesonly to the twentieth century and that it thwarts democracy by wasting thevotes and silencing the voices of dissenters.The Tyranny of the TwoParty System reexamines a once popular nineteenthcentury strategy called fusion in which a dominantparty candidate ran on theballots of both the established party and a third party. In the nineteenthcentury fusion made possible something that many citizens wish were possibletoday to register a protest vote that counts and that will not throw theelection to the establishment candidate they least prefer. The book concludesby analyzing the 2000 presidential election as an object lesson in the tyrannyof the twoparty system and with suggestions for voting experiments tostimulate participation and make American democracy responsive to a broaderrange of citizens. «
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