The Democratic and Republican parties are substantially drifting further apart every year. This polarization has contributed to greater attention and support for far-left-leaning Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and others getting elected to office, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush. A vast ocean of political ideologies now exists in the United States that cannot be easily identified amidst the two large classifications of Democrats and Republicans. As of 2019, Independents make up a greater portion (38 percent) of registered voters than Democrats (31 percent) or Republicans (26 percent). But this does not mean that they are non-partisan. Only 7 percent of voters overall have no political leaning. AOC said it best in 2019: “Forty percent of the American public identifies as Independents, and that doesn't mean we're in the middle, that means we hate this thing.” She even has implied, in other interviews, that she would not mind a few more parties in U.S. elections.
As the barriers of ideology widen, many disagreements stir within the two parties. Some wonder whether the U.S. should adopt a multiparty system common in many European nations to account for this new intra-party divergence. In a 2020 interview for New York Magazine, AOC stated that “in any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.” Obviously, Joe Biden and AOC have plenty of disagreements, so it would make sense that they should not have the same political label.
Why does the U.S. have a two-party system if it produces such intra-party disagreement? I decided to research how governments with multiparty systems work and how they differ from that of the U.S. I reached out to my “Introduction to American Politics” professor, Dr. Patrick Campbell, to get some info on the topic.
The U.S. has a two-party system because of how our elections work. Professor Campbell brought up a Political Science concept known as “Duverger’s Law.” This law asserts that if elections are determined by who gets a simple majority (the most votes), and only one person can win the election, then a two-party system will be the result. Professor Campbell pointed out that this majoritarian system is precisely how the United States House of Representatives works. Each district has one representative, and whoever has a simple majority wins the seat. “It’s logical,” Professor Campbell said, “let’s say you’re a libertarian...you cast your vote for the libertarian candidate, that’s going to draw votes away from the person who is next closest to your views [the Republican]...you’ve just taken a valuable vote away from that Republican, which means it’s more likely now for the Democrat to win.” This principle occurs not only in congressional elections but in federal elections as well. Every four years, millions of people are dissatisfied with both candidates on the ballot, but they settle for the candidate closest to their views. I know plenty of people who could barely stand Joe Biden but voted for him anyway to beat the incumbent Donald Trump.
The U.S government would have to implement proportional representation into its elections to represent more than just Democrats and Republicans. Professor Campbell explained proportional representation as “the number of seats that a party has in a given legislature [mirroring] the proportion of votes it received among the people.” Additionally, a candidate needs to get enough votes to pass a certain threshold to gain representation. It wouldn’t make sense for candidates to get a seat with just one vote. Anybody could run, have their mom vote for them, and get a seat in Congress. Nevertheless, proportional representation would solve the problem of constituents voting for candidates that they were not supporters of. Even if a voter’s party didn’t get the most votes, their party would still be represented, assuming the candidate got enough votes to pass the threshold. This would then generate more parties represented in Congress.
However, I am not in favor of proportional representation in the United States for various reasons. The 2020 election was controversial enough with just the increased mail-in ballots. Changing to proportional representation would produce immense public outrage. A change as drastic as this in our electoral process would open up the door for countless conspirators to chant “election fraud.” This would be reflected in Congress, with politicians debating the legitimacy of every federal election. Keep in mind that it is every two years.
It would also be challenging to implement proportional representation into U.S. elections. Firstly, executive power is held by one person in the United States: the president. Since it is one person that is elected democratically, Duverger’s law applies in presidential elections. It is impossible to have proportional representation in the executive branch so long as it is headed by a single person.
It would be more plausible to have proportional representation in the legislative branch, specifically the House of Representatives since it has so many members already. One way to do this would be to give each district multiple representatives. The claim that this would be a problem is debatable, but I believe that the excess representation would slow our legislative process even further. The House could have the same representative-to-constituent ratio as it already does, but multiple districts would need to merge and be cumulatively represented by the same number of representatives. However, this would still be a problem because seven states only have one House member. How would you divide those districts up without giving those states more representatives?
The final problem I have with proportional representation is that it enables extremist representation. Many proponents of more political parties forget that the creation of social justice political parties creates room for fascist ones as well. Professor Campbell noted how most people forget that “our ideologies run the gambit in the United States, just like any other country.” In 2018, a Neo-Nazi ran for Representative in Illinois 3rd district and received 26 percent of the total vote. Most thresholds for proportional representation in European governments are well below that. Under proportional representation, Neo-Nazi ideology would be represented, and a U.S. Neo-Nazi nationalist party would be born.
These far-right nationalist parties are present in European parliaments that have proportional representation. A far-right party exists in Cyprus known as the “National Popular Front.” They won two parliament seats in 2016. In Slovakia, Marian Kotelba leads a fascist party, “Peoples’ Party in Slovakia'' (LSNS). In 2016, they won 14 seats in the Slovak National Parliament. They have proposed numerous pieces of legislation that prohibit LGTBQ rights and restrict Muslim immigration. Fortunately, none of their proposals have passed. But a party does not necessarily need to produce legislation to have power. The LSNS continues to grow, spreading its influence more and more with rallies and over social media.
Under a two-party system, the extreme ideas are flushed out with more moderate candidates. Professor Campbell explained that in a two-party system, extremists and moderates “have to work with each other to get their items on the agenda and that process... leads to moderation because they [extremists] have to [be] moderate to get their voices heard.” That may be an annoyance for young progressives that cannot stand Joe Biden, but it also keeps white nationalists from voting for a candidate that perfectly matches their ideology.
Proportional representation would undoubtedly make other parties more competitive and gain more representation in Congress. But, altering our electoral method would be nearly impossible to implement into our current system of government. Additionally, it would generate extremist parties that would gain representation in government, as seen in eastern Europe. A two-party system may be inconvenient for distinguishing politicians in the same party, but it keeps extremists in check. There may be intra-party disagreement on issues, but that just means that voters need to understand that every politician is more nuanced than their party label.