Two-party politics appears designed specifically to cause people to argue and overall to cause the public to be divided into two fairly equal-sized groups. While members of the public argue with each other the rich and powerful are free to do as they wish. It's the old 'divide and conquer' strategy.
I would suggest that from 1990 to 2016 the two parties were not all that different; both were neoliberal with some neoconservative. The way to keep the public fascinated during a period like that is to ensure the elections are always close right to the finish. The election of 1988 was the most recent election where one candidate gained a substantial majority (400 electoral votes). A 'photo finish' is achieved by handicapping any candidate who appears to have a clear lead and ensuring neither candidate picks up a very popular policy that would win the election by a large margin.
I understand countries with multiple parties often require alliances to form and only after reaching an overall majority does the new coalition government take over from the old one. I lived in a country with two and a bit parties, and the little party squeezed a compromise out of one of the major parties, and the coalition lasted a year or two.
I haven't ever seen anything as bad as what we have here now. In some or maybe most countries, the entire government can be recalled by a sufficient vote and have to stand for reelection by the public. As we now know, if someone destructive gets in, they can wreak havoc for the entire duration of the fixed term if their party stands behind them.
Well if you are referring to the US needing to dump two party politics, it seems like your real argument is to dump the constitution's system and adopt a Westminster style Parliament. I would oppose that of course. You say "two parties" but really that's not what we're talking about in the US. In a typical rinky dink European country with a parliamentary system, you have multiple parties competing, they win some degree of seats in Parliament, and after the election the parties work to form a governing coalition. So the voters don't really know what they're getting when they vote; they find out after the vote. In the US, the Democratic and Republican parties are coalitions. When you find out the winners, you know what the governing coalition is; the party that won.
For many years I'd suggest the US government worked better than the parliamentary system because the parliamentary system was about argument and the US system seemed founded on agreement, compromises. What I've heard recently is people complaining about the red party or about the blue party, rather than focusing on policies.
Any more than two parties and Americans would never agree on anything again. Let's let's leave it alone for now.
Even with just two parties, most people can't agree. I'm convinced the motto of Andrew Yang's Forward Party 'Make America Think Harder' (MATH) is a necessity.
I would agree that there was an unremarkable difference between the two Parties, during the 1990s, at least. But what I took to be your suggestion that both Parties actually try to keep the election close, attempt purposefully, to minimize the size of their victory, is just absurd, on its face. I will add that though, like you, I was once convinced that launching a successful, third Party in the U.S., was a necessity, it is clear that this is one thing, for which Americans do not have much of an appetite. Further, even in those countries, of which, we often think about having "multiple" Parties, many, in truth, have only two really "major," Parties (so that any ruling consortium, pretty much requires that one of those two take part). These two main Parties draw their battle lines, unsurprisingly, usually in something akin to our own Parties. That is, there is one, "Liberal," or "Labor," Party, and one more traditionalist, "Conservative," Party, such as the "Tories," in the U.K. That said, the overall governing agendas of "Conservative," Parties, in the European nations, with which we would be most inclined to compare our own country, are in many ways more liberal, than our own Democratic Party, in general. That is, they are in favor of (and make a reality) universal health care, and affordable, available childcare, and lots of other worker benefits; Germany's Conservative Party, which had been in charge, until recently, under Angela Merkel (2005 - 2021), is one example.
Party politics is like leaving the big guys to decide the future of the country, and then going out and playing tennis to see if the red team or blue team wins. Party politics is a distraction. And the rules are determined by the big guys; the teams have little say in who gets handicapped.
