BoatShoes;951844 wrote:The U.S. only will have two major parties because we have winner take all districts in the House of Representatives. Countries that have proportional representation in their deliberative bodies like Australia have multi-party systems. So, if we retain our current system we're always going to have two major parties. Perhaps a new one could replace one of the major two but we won't have a third powerful party.

I agree. I think we would have a better chance of having a 4 party system than a 3. I really think that if a 3rd would get powerful, it would generally replace one of the current 2.

Originally Posted by Lakebluestreaks
I would say that there will never be an actual 3rd party, or 3 party system. Assuming a party starts whether left or right, it would pull like minded people from one of the 2 existing parties. Once it would get to certain point it would either die or grow. By growing, it would kill the other party that it took people from. We would still be left with 2 parties. The only way to get a legimate 3rd party would be to get more people active in voting. Then it would be possible. The problem is that most people that don't vote are too lazy or uninformed to get out there. The people that would create and be active in a 3rd party are already involved and voting.[/QUOTE]

O-Trap;950409 wrote:
I disagree. I think MANY people who hold very strong stances on different issues (some of which are agreed upon by either one party or the other) could indeed form a third party. Middle doesn't refer to the level of conviction. It refers to the views themselves being adopted.

I don't think we really disagree. The original question referred to being in the middle. That's why I answered like that. I do think that the strong stanced people could indeed form a party and gain power, but in my opinion it would most likely replace an exisiting party.