Can the Democrats Save Our Democracy?

Ideologues of all stripes are perennially frustrated with America’s two-party “duopoly.” They say it stifles voices of radical reform, fails to offer voters meaningful choices, and delivers only tepid incrementalism. Many yearn for the doctrinal coherence and discipline shown by parties in Europe, where multiparty systems are the rule.

Whatever the merits of these complaints, it’s true that America’s two-party system seems immutably entrenched. Third parties come and go; but except for the Republicans in the 1850s, none has succeeded in supplanting either of the two major parties—and it took the Civil War to make that happen.

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