The Collision Course

  

  There is a reason certain founding fathers like George Washington and James Madison warned us against factions within government and criticized a two party system. Factions predispose political leaders and actors toward  loyalty to faction over nation. They are, by nature, inherently divisive. 

       Many of our founders had the sense that faction based government was bad for the long term health of our nation. For all intents and purposes, they were right. Unfortunately, factions are naturally occuring in any government or body of people, in the same way that cliques are formed in schools often at early ages of children. Factions form naturally because of shared interests, shared beliefs, and shared commonalities between human beings.

      I would argue that they are inevitable. It's more about how you manage them and how you contain the often dangerous division and combativeness between them.

       As far as the two party system goes? Well, two party systems are the simplest arrangement of a democratic/republican form of government (that's not refering to the political parties. That statement is referring to governmental systems.) However, they are not the only way of arranging political systems.

      Two party systems often form naturally because of a simple rule in politics. I like to call it the dichotomy of choice. In any legislative body that makes laws, when an issue is brought to a vote, there are only two choices; pass or fail. Yes or no.

       This almost always creates two factions on every issue or bill, no matter how many political parties there are in the system. 

The downside of a two party system is the factions become more rigid and less flexible. Over time, the resulting inability to compromise leads to a combativeness and hostility in system between the two parties that threatens the stability of the system. The "towing of party lines" approach is quite divisive and cripples compromise because it forces such a strong ideological unity within the two parties that it amplifies the "us-or-them" mentalities that lead to conflict and instability. 

       This is where a third party would be useful. It would help stabilize and balance the party system. It would do this because it would force coalition building and weaken the rigidness and lack of compromise between the parties. It would force each individual issue to be decided on an ideological basis instead of a party basis.

If the third party is ideologically diverse, with a mixture of left leaning policy approaches and right leaning policy approaches, coalition building would be easier between the three parties and each individual bill or policy could swing either left or right depending on the coalition instead of one political party dominating the passing and failing of policy for an entire government session.

         I believe this would reduce combativeness and hostility in the system because of this. Each issue would be decided by unique and isolated coalitions instead of rigid dichotomous parties, diffusing the conflict-inducing dichotomy of a two party system that eventually always destabilizes a government.

      Essentially it turns each of three parties into an arbiter. Each one can take on an arbitrating role between the other two parties on a given issue which balances the system. It has the same kind of spirit and effect as what the system of checks and balances intended for our three branches of government. 

      A three point power structure and hierarchy is always more stable than a two sided system because of the balance a third power plays in a competitive political game scenario. It is so because of arbitration and the diffusing of the natural predisposition to conflict dichotomous systems are almost always prone to.