Nov 30, 2024 4 min read

Dissatisfaction with two major parties is an American tradition

Since the demise of the Whigs and the rise of the Republican Party in the 1850s, American politics has largely been a slugfest between the GOP and the Democratic Party.

And, for probably much of that 170-year span, Americans have wished they had another party to pull the lever for.

The dissatisfaction has, periodically, come from people in high places. When he was out of the White House and about to launch his own independent bid under the Progressive Party banner in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt groused that “only a third party will relieve the honest and far-sighted man of the necessity of voting either for the puppet of the machine Republicans or the highly undesirable Democratic Party.” In 1948, Henry Wallace, who had been one of Franklin Roosevelt’s vice presidents, was a third-party candidate, contending that “there is no real difference between the Democratic and Republican parties on the important issues confronting the American people.”

It turns out the rank-and-file also hasn’t exactly been turning cartwheels for all these years. Gallup has been conducting annual polls to gauge Americans’ feelings about the two major parties, and in results released about a month before the election, the pollster found that 58% of adults believe there should be a third major party because both Republicans and Democrats “do such a poor job” of representing their needs or concerns. This actually marked a bit of an improvement over 2023, when 63% of adults supported the idea of a third party. Gallup pointed out that the organization has been asking the question since 2003, and the first time was the only time a majority of adults did not think a third party was necessary.

In addition, Gallup noted that partisans often believe a third party is needed when a president they oppose is in the White House, and conceded that it’s unclear whether the perennial frustration with the two major parties is the result of a genuine desire for a third party, or voters are “simply frustrated with the two existing parties.”

The smart money is on the latter option. And probably not for entirely rational reasons.

First, there actually are third parties that dot the political landscape, ranging from the Libertarians and Greens to the Prohibition Party, which has been around since the 1860s and ran a retired postal clerk from Toledo, Ohio, as its vice presidential candidate in the just-concluded election cycle. But those parties tend to be most animated by niche issues and don’t stand much of a chance of growing beyond their own committed die-hards. There were also a handful of times in the 20th century when third-party presidential candidates were somewhat competitive, with the most notable examples being Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 independent bid, the 1968 campaign of Alabama Gov. George Wallace and the 1992 and 1996 candidacies of billionaire Ross Perot. None were able to make it over the finish line.

The reality is that voters likely see Democrats and Republicans as representing the grubbiness and combativeness of politics, and believe an alternative would be better behaved and more high-minded. They probably also believe that this imagined third party would line up with them perfectly on the issues – say, they would support the right to choose, but also want to cut taxes, or they believe in stricter immigration controls while also backing single-payer health care. Given that the two major parties both have wide-ranging coalitions of voters with sometimes-competing interests and values, finding a party that matches up with you on virtually everything would be about as likely as coming across Bigfoot riding a unicorn in a forest.

We may not be wholly enchanted with them but, like it or not, the Democratic and Republican parties are almost certainly here to stay.