Why the U.S. Needs a Mulitparty Political System

The U.S. presidential election has historically been a battle between the two big parties leaving little room for a viable candidate from a third party. Consider the historical example of Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party that cost liberals an election by siphoning votes away from their main candidate. This threat looms over the two party system, trapping us with a mind game. Do I vote for the candidate I truly think will be the best president? Or do I vote for the most viable candidate that I agree with more than I disagree?

Since the last presidential election, it has been almost a given that Hillary Clinton would run as the next democratic nominee. However, continued "rough patches" for her campaign have been making it increasingly unlikely that she can actually win the election. Her most potent opponent, Bernie Sanders, runs under the banner of socialism, which already scares a decent proportion of Americans away from voting for him.

On the republican side, Donald Trump continues to poll well above the other participants even though he comports himself with grace of a beached tuna. Then you have the run of the mill Tea Party candidates like Cruz and Rubio that are increasingly overshadowing the more moderate candidates like Kasich and Graham.

In the upcoming 2016 election, the two party system shows its ugly underbelly for us all to witness. At the moment there is but one viable candidate for the democratic nomination: Hillary Clinton. She has boatloads of cash, a long political history, and she is a fairly middle of the road democrat. However, scandals follow her like dementors. We're not entirely sure she is viable as a candidate any more, but because she has been the front runner for so long we don't really have a choice. Bernie has a lot of good ideas, but he is fairly extreme in the American political sphere. I think he would have a hard time getting moderates, especially those with conservative leanings, to vote for him.

The Republicans have a much more difficult decision to make if Trump continues to run high polling numbers. Trump in no way would make a good president and most of the true political candidates know this. However, Trump has insinuated that, were he not picked to be the GOP nominee, he would run as a third party candidate. Now, in a two party system that is a significant threat. Were Trump to run an independent campaign he could very well pull enough votes away from the GOP nominee to lose the race for conservatives and hand it to the liberals. Are the GOP party heads willing to take a risk like that?

Essentially, what the two-party system does is that it requires the American public to pick between the least offensive candidate. You may not like the candidate you vote for, but they're an awful lot better than the other guy. In a multi-party system there would be options for more candidates to have viable presidential runs, as well as necessitating compromise and deal-brokering to accomplish anything. We would turn a "winner take all" race into a power sharing system where more Americans are represented at any one time.

Congress would also benefit significantly from a multi-party system in the same way the presidential election would. One of the biggest issues in Congress right now is the massive amount of partisan bickering that occurs and routinely causes idiotic situations like the government shutdown. If there were even three parties in congress no single side could hold the government hostage, nor could they pass anything without the help of one of the other groups. This would necessitate cooperation instead of scorched-earth policies we see today. You would also get a wider spread of candidates into the house for greater representation and introduction of ideas.

In conclusion, I would hate to see an obviously poor candidate be a 50/50 chance away from the white house because polling numbers gave them the upper hand in a game of chicken between the two existing political parties.