The political system of the United States does not allow opposition, even though the majority of citizens want one.
The U.S. regime considers itself the most democratic in the world. This is what the presidents of the United States have always said from the rooftops, and what their monopolistic communication system has always propagated throughout the world. This has already become common sense, proving one of the most famous Nazi maxims: a lie repeated a thousand times ends up becoming the truth (in the consciousness of the general public).
But how can a system be considered democratic if there are only two parties, which do not differ in any way on the main national and international issues, and which, as many have pointed out for some time, are nothing more than two sides of the same coin?
For the presidential elections in November this year, the script is the same as always: Democratic Party vs. Republican Party. Even though the majority of voters do not agree with the candidacies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as a Reuters/Ipsos survey on January 25 pointed out: “in general, an absolute majority of Americans (52%) are not satisfied with the system of two parties and wants a third choice.”
This feeling is not new today. In 2008, when the presidential elections pitted Barack Obama (D) against John McCain (R), 47% of voters surveyed by Gallup wanted an alternative to Democrats and Republicans. In October 2023, the same institute pointed out that 63% of Americans thought that the two parties do such a “bad job” of popular representation that a third major party is needed.
A third highly prestigious institute in the USA, the Pew Research Center, showed, on April 24, that 49% of voters would replace both Biden and Trump as candidates in these elections, if they had the “ability” to decide who would be the candidate for each party.
Even with such dissatisfaction, which highlights the American people’s opposition to the two-party regime, this opposition does not materialize in a political party with a chance of victory.
Only on eight occasions in U.S. history (the first in 1848 and the last in 1992) has a third candidate won more than 10% of the popular vote. And only in two of them did he manage to be ahead of one of the two main candidates, but never ahead of two, that is, he never managed to get elected. These two third-way exceptions who came in second were John Breckinridge for the Lecompton Democrats in 1860 and Theodore Roosevelt for the Progressive Party in 1912.
For more than a hundred years, Americans have not been given any option other than the Democratic Party candidate or the Republican Party candidate, even though, as polls show, voters demand this third option. But the pulsating U.S. democracy does not respond to the will of its citizens in its most important moment, the presidential election!
In fact, parties and candidates that try to compete with the two-party regime are systematically prevented by the electoral apparatus. Few are able to qualify to appear on electoral ballots, the criteria for which vary by state. Voting intention polls do not mention names other than those of the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate – very few mention a third or fourth candidate. The press does not report on the activities of the other candidates, nor does it interview them. To participate in the debates promoted by the Presidential Debate Commission, the candidate must have at least 15% of the voting intentions in the polls (how, if his name is even mentioned?) and appear on a sufficient number of ballots to have a chance of winning in the Electoral College.
The entire apparatus of the U.S. regime (electoral justice, institutions, press, search engines) works as if there were only two candidates: the Democrat and the Republican. And, in fact, this is the reality. The other four or five who perform the feat of overcoming difficulties to appear on the ballot do not effectively compete.
This same apparatus, headed by the U.S. government, usually demands that other countries – especially those that do not accept American interference – hold elections where all candidates have equal opportunities to win. Of course, these demands are just a ruse to force regime change in the countries to be dominated. The American regime itself does not offer any chance for the opposition to win the elections – and does not even accept international observers, just “escorts”.
But not only that. The hole is much lower. The poor souls who, after much suffering, manage to run against the bipartisan machine and have no chance of winning it are actually not even a consenting opposition. They are simply not opposition.
An exponent of this thesis is Robert Kennedy Jr. He gave up his candidacy for the Democratic Party to run as an independent. But, despite having left the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party did not leave RFK Jr. Its proposals are not very different from those of the two hegemonic parties – in fact, throughout history, there has always been a bloc of Democrats and Republicans with proposals distinct from the party leadership, with a social and more isolationist inclination. The son of former senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy is not even an outsider: the most conclusive proof of this is his faithful support for the genocide promoted by the USA/Israel in Gaza. Just like Democrats and Republicans, RFK Jr. is in the pocket of the bourgeoisie that controls the American regime.
It is because he is a facade opposition that Kennedy has the best rate of voting intentions among third-way candidates since the 1996 elections. The rare polls that mention his name present him with a rate of between 10% and 15% of intentions of vote. But the reason for this performance is less an agreement on the part of voters with his program than a rejection of bipartisanship (particularly the Biden vs. Trump dispute) or sympathy for his traditional family. A survey published last year by CNN showed that 39% of those who intend to vote for RFK Jr. don’t even have an opinion about him, that is, they barely know him. They only chose him because he doesn’t belong to the Democratic or Republican party.
In addition to RFK Jr., five other candidates will appear on the ballot in less than half of the states. Therefore, they will not have the slightest chance of tickling bipartisanship. The remaining five parties that attempted to compete did not even gain access to registration on the ballot in a single state. In practice, they are all completely unknown to the American electorate. And even if voters knew them, they would realize that their programs and ideology are poorly formulated copies of those of the Democratic and Republican parties.
All attempts to create a party truly distinct from the Siamese brothers were sabotaged and suppressed by the American dictatorial system. These were the cases of the Progressive Party, which lasted only two years (1912-1914), the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party (the latter two brutally persecuted and repressed by the State).
In effect, the political system of the United States does not allow opposition, even though the majority of citizens want one. Donald Trump, whose political platform and social strength is a threat to this bipartisanship, had to capture the Republican Party – with many internal difficulties – and, against the entire system, managed to run for office. But not even he, a tycoon who represents a powerful sector of the American bourgeoisie and who has no ideological differences with the imperialist system, is welcome in the electoral system. Those who control the system will do anything to prevent his victory. This is the most perfect true democracy man has ever created! God save America!
Eduardo Vasco is a Brazilian journalist specializing in international politics.