Because America has a first past the post election system, which will always result in two dominant parties. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo for an explanation.
This is an important part of it. The other part is the fact that success in politics is very hard without money, and most rich people aren't progressives.
In no country in the world is the progressive party the main attractor of wealth. Progress means change that will lessen the comparative advantage of the wealthy.
But is that a cause or an effect? Because there are only two viable parties, all the money gets pumped into those. To get on equal footing with one of these parties, one would need a lot of money. With say a dozen parties, the money would be distributed more and thus the total money one party has would be much less.
But then again, it's the US, the first past the post thing is only part of the problem. The corruption on all levels of politics and government is a much bigger problem. Even with a dozen parties, all the money would be poured into the party that favors the rich. And saying that's legal and not corruption is only a sign the lobbiests have been so successful, they've made the corruption legal.
With capitalism money will always rule the world. Whilst this may have sounded great right after WW2, in reality it has caused the rich to get richer at the cost of the general public. It has caused mass consumerism to explode and destroy the planet, buying stuff we don't need. Shipping stuff across the world, because it makes the most money that way. To move issues of slavery, safety and pollution to parts of the world the buyers can't see. So people can pretend to live in paradise for one or two generations, whilst ruining the chances of future generations. Investments in sustainability have been slow due to the impact on the bottom line. Can't have people using the same durable repairable stuff for decades, they must buy new shit every year and be programmed to think this is a good thing. Why invest in clean forms of energy, that's expensive, just do the cheapest thing possible and then try to make it cheaper so we can make more money.
The US is one of the most Capitalistic and Imperialistic countries on the planet, and as such the parties available are the ones that uphold these positions. It's a positive feedback loop with power.
Because we have a first past the post system, which results in only two major parties. One party is straight up fascist, and the other is taking advantage of this to be as fascist-adjacent as they think they can get away with while still being able to call themselves second worst.
And neither party has any incentive to actually do better or follow up on their promises because who else are you going to vote for? They're both guaranteed to win while we all lose.
They know they don't have to do better. They keep getting rewarded with power in the face of things like genocide.
The same reason there's no true conservative party. Corporate interests have captured our political institutions.
The are progressive groups, but the best they get is a compromised Democratic Party beholden to corporations if they want to continue being elected. IMO.
What would a true conservative party look like?
Conservative policy theory aims to limit the over reach of the federal government by offloading the governing to smaller legislative bodies with a stronger feel for what needs to be done in a given location.
A good example would be your county managing taxes, laws, and infrastructure within its borders. Your state codifying laws that are embodied in the majority of the counties for the ease of travel between them, and the country doing the same based on states.
The vast majority of regulation would be left in the hands of the people and the community they participate in with the state and federal governments only stepping in for judicial reasons when a lower body can't come to agreement, if an outside threat moves upon the country as a whole, or if a crime crosses state borders.
While I quite like this model, it doesn't jive with our current view of politics.
Cut spending without cutting taxes; a balanced budget over the long term.
Protect the courts from tampering.
Protect public lands and other public resources.
Mostly avoid making new laws.
Claw back power that should rest with Congress from the Executive Branch, possibly.
Do away with binding Electors.
Revert control to State and local governments when possible.
Protect the First Amendment by keeping religion out of lawmaking.
Less interventionalist foreign policy.
...and so on.
I'm sure there would still be factions within such a party, groups that were more socially liberal vs. socially conservative; those who were more economically right-wing vs. those who favored more regulation on business; those who want to institutionalize some aspects of American culture vs. those who don't think the government has a role in defining culture.
Basically, a party of doing-as-little-as-necessary and stabiloty, rather than the reactionary, illiberal, often downright regressive, and fiscally-irresponsible mess that has the gall to call themselves the "Grand Ol' Party".
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The structure of the Constitution favors conservative movements because it's undemocratic and designed to resist change.
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Because too many voters only pay attention every four years and wonder why there is no bespoke candidate for them.
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Because it’s being BUILT. Follow Bernie Sanders to find out more.
Also text RESIST to 50409 to make your voice heard in Congress.
Sanders is a neoliberal sheepdog. He lured everyone to the polls with bright ideas only for them to be killed when he said we need to vote for the people that created the shithole government we have
Not true. He's one of the most decent people among us and he did what he could, the right thing in a fucked situation, to try to avoid infighting that would have certainly led to a guaranteed loss and a president they would do things like mismanage a pandemic to directly lead to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Your comment fits a 14 year olds developing mind, there's definitely a type for "fuck the authority no matter what", but it has no sense of scale or lived reality that a rational adult applies.
Lack of ranked choice voting and reference of the electoral college/gerrymandering force rational progressives to vote with the main liberal-ish party to avoid the alternative - which, even on its best days, is a fate exponentially worse and more destructive by every measure.
Would you mind explaining how introducing ranked choice voting would substantially help smaller/additional political parties? I always find it confusing how much Americans focus on the presidency and ranked choice voting when it comes to breaking the party duopoly. At the end of the day, there is only a single president and he/she will probably always come from one of the largest parties. The presidency somewhat inherently limits the influence of smaller parties.
What I would focus on, if I wanted to increase the number of political parties in the US, is the House of Representatives. If proportional representation (e.g. biproportional appointment, party lists, MMP, ...) was introduced there, it would allow smaller parties to hold real power. (With biproportional appointment, the seats are distributed according to party voter share while also ensuring regional representation). Do you know why this hardly ever comes up in the context of the US?
Ranked choice or proportional representation of any sort. The election system us finely tuned to be the most divisive possible.
Same reason there's no fascist party: the two main parties contain a broader range of the political spectrum than in most countries.
From there the question is does the moderate or radical wing of the party gain more influence. The far-right has won the Republican party years ago while progressives still haven't gained that much ground in the Democratic party.
Broader range? From my point of view as an outsider, the USA political parties only cover far-right and far-rightest
As representatives, this is absolutely the case. However I'm going to give OP the benefit of the doubt and take it that they're taking about the voter base. I myself hold very extreme political views, I feel we should move to a democratic technocracy with a heavy socialist lean and a community service focused punitive system, but as a US citizen my ideals aren't supported let alone championed by my representatives. So I can use my vote 3 ways. I can choose red who actively seek to attack my family and friends. Blue, who will never choose to improve the country, or no one and my vote is meaningless and actively helping whichever side is pressing the most harmful policy.
So alas I am a Democrat. Do they represent me? No. Do they support me? No. Do they want to kill me? No. Out of my very few options, the group that doesn't wish my death is the absolute best I'll see in my lifetime.
The GOP is fascist, and the DNC is center-right. That's not a broader range of political spectrum, haha.
progressives still haven't gained that much ground
Anyone that poses a threat to the duopoly is never granted any power to disrupt the system. Can't reform a system built on power and corruption.
There are plenty of such parties. They are just not electorally successful on a national scale. They may be moderately influential on a state level through the use of fusion voting. Fusion voting is where multiple parties can stand the same candidate in an election.
Most places in the United States use a "first-past-the-post" system. In this system, voters select one candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins. This system sounds fair on the surface but in reality, game theory dictates that the only stable configuration of political parties in such a system is a two-party system. In any other configuration, the individual actors will always find it more advantageous to join one of the two parties. The reason for this also explains why it's hard for smaller parties to win under a first-past-the-post system.
Suppose there are two existing political parties: Party A and Party B. Voters prefer Party A by a margin of 55-45, so Party A wins reliably in elections. Suppose we replay the same elections but with three parties. Party C holds similar views to Party A but is more extreme while Party A is more centrist. If everyone votes for their favourite candidate, then we will probably end up with a vote distribution where Party A wins 40% of the vote, Party B wins 45% of the vote, and Party C wins 15% of the vote. What has essentially happened here is that Party C siphoned votes away from Party A, causing Party B to win despite the fact that voters' preferences haven't changed. Voters know this and so even those who like the Party C candidate the most will vote for the Party A candidate (who shares at least some of their views) in order to stop Party B from winning.
This is why progressives forming their own political party is a losing idea in the United States. It will split the left-wing vote and hand elections to the Republican Party. Instead, what they do is compete in the Democratic Party's primary elections. In the US, who a party chooses to stand in a particular election is determined by means of a primary election. However, progressives often struggle to win intra-party primary elections because most members of the Democratic Party are moderate. The distribution of political leanings is shaped like a bell curve, and thus progressives like Bernie Sanders are simply outnumbered by moderates like Joe Biden. Moderates often have the numbers to sideline progressives in primary elections, and thus it is much more difficult for progressives to get elected since they need to run under the Democratic Party banner to stand any chance of winning.
Triangulation doesn't actually work though, we've seen this since Clinton.
If ideology existed on a spectrum and people voted for the closest ideological candidate, running one iota to the left of the opposition would win every election.
What happens instead is your "moderate republicans" vote for fascism instead of diet-fascism, and the majority don't vote because Diet-Fascism doesn't offer them enough to make up missing a day of work.
Most members of the democrat party are moderate.
You had me up until this statement.
It’s simply not true. In fact, most Americans are progressive and support progressive policies.
The issue is money in politics.
Our political system is a system of legalized bribery in corruption.
Most of the money in politics would be considered corruption and fraud in just about every first world country.
But on the policy itself,
Most Americans, including most democrat voters, are very progressive.
Even Fox News viewers are progressive on most of the issues that Bernie Sanders campaigned on. Which is why he is so dangerous.
We need to overturn citizens united and congress needs to legislate campaign finance reform.
Most Americans, including most [Democratic] voters, are very progressive.
I couldn't find anything that isn't 7 years old to substantiate this claim, but if you can, I'll be happy to change my mind and edit my comment. There are certainly many popular progressive policies, but I don't think that necessarily means they are progressive in general and will vote for progressive candidates.
The last time there was the government made it illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954
Communism is something different, that's not what I'm asking about.
What are you referring to? Something less right wing than Liberalism, but not able to be considered left?
Edit: for clarity, how would you legally distinguish any flavor of anticapitalism based on the nature of the law? The Democrats are already called Communists, if a genuine Socialist party took any meaningful amount of power they could be shut down on the basis of that law, because it's just a vibe.
People are downvoting you because capitalism is the biggest obstacle to progress.
Is there anything in the PSL's mission statement or program that you either disagree with or don't consider progress?
Because conservatives vote, and progressives stay home in droves. Might as well appeal to middle of the road to try to capture some of the people who actually show up.
Which comes first, the progressive candidate or the progressive voter?
What would constitute a political party virtually anywhere political parties are relevant is a political faction or caucus within one of the two establishment parties in the American system.
Progressives are generally a caucus within the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is predominately and increasingly a centre-right party and has consistently thrown its political weight behind incumbent conservatives against its progressive caucus.
These are the major components of there not being an electorally relevant American Progressive Party.
There's tons of progressive parties in America, there's none in the USA.
For better or worse in the anglosphere America = USA.
FWIW that's also true in Italian.
It's only Spanish speakers who make the distinction afaik (maybe also Portuguese but I don't speak the language so I'm not sure).
The country has a name that isn't America in all languages, it's just a bad habit that came from the USA and spread all over... and as an American that doesn't live in the USA, I'm just doing my part to remind people that America isn't the USA.
I would love to see people's reaction if France started calling itself Europe or China called itself Asia...
Japanese as well. Technically, there are at least two words for the US, one of which is Amerika (so phonetically really close) and the other beikoku (bei here being kinda like 'bay' in general US English -- neither of these have a stressed syllable like in English) which is typically only used in political contexts in my experience.
the cold war, probably
The only test that exactly no one will ever pass is a progressive purity test.
There's always something objectionable and it gives them the perfect excuse to do nothing instead of something that's not perfect.
That's not exactly good for making a party, let alone a viable one in a first past the post system.
Because there's too many old voters.
Because our government has the best propagandists in the world and they are aimed at us and it's working. Also, intelligence agencies sabotage efforts in their infancy.
Because money
You need radical politics - not "progressive" ones. "Progressives" are far too easy to buy - or intimidate.
One of the problems is that any party has to register on every fucking state in order to be recognized in the whole country. So you have parties that are stuck in a single state, because they can't get momentum/people outside in order to expand/exist.
