I really think that it's very unhealthy to only have two big parties.
Which other parties are there, and what do they stand for?
Why isn't there more support / so few votes for them?

Duverger's Law

It's two party because it's always been two party, and the parties are very entrenched. Duverger's Law doesn't really work outside of the U.S. I think there are more counter examples than actual examples.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...rrot-dunleavy/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverg...ounterexamples

In a nutshell:

1. The Libertarian Party believes in liberty.

2. The other parties less so.

Heard a good line on House of Cards from Doug Stamper, who's Frank Underwood's Chief of Staff:

"3rd parties are the wave of the future.... and they always will be."

The most successful 3rd party, in terms of the electoral college, won 5 states and 46 electoral votes. Their political platform was basically "black people are bad people" and "foreigners, foreigners are bad too".

Somewhat amusingly, the presidential candidate vowed to withdraw from the Vietnam war if it could not be won, while the candidate for vice president vowed to win it by "bombing it back to the stone age". Obviously a pair of masterful strategists running a well-oiled political machine.

The parties values change as culture changes. Gay marriage is the perfect example.

It's structurally impossible for them to succeed. Many states make it hard to get on the ballot (many signatures == much $$$$) and later there is no control of campaign spending, so they cant compete getting the word out.

Only possible if party is unipersonal led by a billiinaire.

The mibertarian party also has made the whole notion of a third party a joke because they have always been utopian clowns and that's evident to third graders.

@well named and EADGBE
Thanks for the links. I learned something new.

@Jimmy Proffett
Never and always are usually not in a good line, I think

@tame_deuces
That's really sad. "Well oiled" sounds well chosen there.

@ChiddyBang
Seems familiar to me, if I look at Germany. But in your example, that's good.

@bacalaopeace
Why do you need money for many signatures? How many are needed?
Wouldn't 10-15 people who want to build a new party be able to collect enough signatures, with let's say 160 hours of running around in malls etc each?

Guess the later part regarding money for PR is the way bigger problem, right? But couldn’t the internet and mouth to mouth propaganda make up for lack of funds, to some extent?

You mean the democrats (libertarians), right?

We have the green party here in Germany, which is/was the main cause that we already got heavily into wind-energy, despite the fact that even maxing out on that now in the whole EU (disregarding insane initial costs), while managing to connect the whole EU..., would yet only cover half of the needed energy. Not to mention how expensive and yet ineffective the possible storage power stations are atm. Aside of the fact that we (Germany) currently pay for too big upswings (to let others use it or lose it), and buy "dirty" energy from them, when we downswing. (in 30-40 years, we could maybe run it close to break-even for 100% supply, disregarding huge initial costs, as scientists expect. If the whole EU would be in, to smoothen out the swings in each country perfectly...)

In A state like Georgia it is easier to get on the ballot if youve been on it before. The number of signatures needed in some states can be on the order of 100k.

The libertarians are a long time third party that has never had any success because they are cranks.

And yet the Libertarian Party is the most successful of all of the third parties since 1972, except for the short-lived (1992-2000) Reform Party founded by Ross Perot.

This is good stuff, thanks.

I guess I'm not really shocked that it's not actually a law, and that other cultural/institutional factors are relevant. I had not seen data like this before though, and I think I was confused about how the UK voting system worked.

Perot's "I'm all ears" line was worth at least half his votes imo

Bernie Sanders would reach hi score if he ran 3rd now I'd bet

I agree.

Here' s a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

I find it interesting there are multiple Trotskyist parties to choose from. I also didn't know that the ideology of the Constitution Party was Paleoconservatism, never even heard of that term.

Pat Buchanan would fit that definition.

He was the Reform Party candidate in 2000.

And, he had an African-American running mate.