[nopenopenopeno]

There are a lot of legal and historical reasons for the two-party situation in the US. Nobody except the ruling class likes it, but the ruling class really really likes it. There have been a lot of efforts made to change it. This is one of multiple worst strategies I’ve ever seen.

[AnthonyMouse]

There is exactly one reason for the two-party situation in the US. First past the post voting system. It causes any third party with non-trivial support to merge into one of the major parties to avoid splitting the vote with whichever one is most similar to them.

Switch to range voting, STAR voting, approval voting, and it goes away.

The incumbent parties don't have a lot of incentive to do that because tautologically the people currently in office are the people the existing system puts in office, so why would they want a different one? But even a lot of politicians are pretty jaded about the existing system. Get a couple third parties in there who are willing to turn a 51 vote majority into a 49 vote minority over this and you might get it through.

[nopenopenopeno]

>There is exactly one reason for the two-party situation in the US.

Fair enough! You are, of course, exactly right. But, the reasons for still having first past the post voting are arguably less clear. Many nations have reformed their first past the post voting systems while the US (along with some other countries) remains stuck.