Archive for May 13, 2011

In light of a recent Gallup poll which reveals that 52% of Repub­li­cans and a full 60% of Tea Party mem­bers now want a third polit­i­cal party,  this is per­haps a good time to take a very brief look at the his­tory and future prospects of third par­ties in Amer­i­can politics.

Third party pol­i­tics were the polit­i­cal norm in the United States through­out much of the 19^th cen­tury, con­sist­ing of the Democ­rats who appeared around 1832, the Repub­li­cans who fol­lowed a cou­ple of decades later, and a series of pop­ulist and spe­cial inter­est par­ties who were able to com­mand a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the vote. Even­tu­ally the two major par­ties orga­nized and gained strength, edg­ing out the var­i­ous other groups and coa­lesc­ing into the dom­i­nant two-​​party sys­tem that now con­trols Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. Since then, a long pro­ces­sion of third par­ties has had only pass­ing impact.

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