America has essentially just two political parties, and none other. While there are indeed other political parties, they are pretty much a non-factor and a non-starter, for these very small parties simply don’t have the traction, the money, or the power to be of any real relevance in America, even when these other parties have excellent ideas that could be quite beneficial to the American public, if listened to and implemented. Lo, we have just the two political parties, that dominate our political system, and therefore any vote other than for one of the major parties should typically be perceived as a vote in protest, and not a vote that will make any meaningful difference, ever.
The problem with having just two dominant political parties is that the people really don’t have much of a say as to what does or does not happen concerning political issues, for these are basically decided by higher-up political operatives who do not answer to the people and are often in lockstep to those that donate incredible sums of money to either of the major political parties, to assure that those so elected as legislators are true to the hand that feeds them.
So too, the choices provided to the people are perceived as not really being a real choice, because neither the candidate nor the parties that they are part of seem to listen to much of anything that the general public desires, but pretty much just speak platitudes which thereby signifies that at the end of the day, nothing of merit, will change. In other words, powerful entities, whether that be individuals, consortiums of individuals, or corporations, aren’t really interested in the people having a true choice but prefer that it be binary, in which, no matter which choice is made, it’s going to be okay with these entities. Sure, there are going to be exceptions to this general rule, but essentially, the fewer parties that there are, the more concentrated the money can be and therefore the more effective that money will be in the buying of influence. Additionally, there has to be at least two parties, or else the people will understand that they don’t have any choice at all, though, the choice that they currently have, isn’t all that much of a choice, anyway.
So then, there are powerful interests that do not desire to see this country have anything other than the two-party system, and further to the point, have the abiding desire that each of those parties is structured so as to be good for what fundamentally is beneficial for those powerful interests which is what we see occurring in the present day. Indeed, the military-industrial-technology complex does not ever get smaller in budget, nor does it ever get smaller in influence, even though there are two political parties that in theory, have differences, but when it comes to the biggest amount of budgeted money earmarked for the “defense” of this nation, either party will get the job done to the satisfaction of those that wield the real power.
In sum, although the people have the democratic vote, nothing much seems to change for the better for the people, because the two-party system is specifically structured to preclude exactly that.