This is what happened.
Everyone knows that the Founding Fathers did not envision a two-party system. They established the blueprint for our nation, had studied many other examples, were rather keen on getting it right. So, what happened?
The States happened; they went around the US Constitution and established the two-party system.
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The beauty of the US Constitution is that it does two things at the same time.
- It established specific wording how to select our representatives at the Federal level — think two senators per state.
- It empowered the People — think freedom of governmental overreach.
1: With the descriptions how to select our Federal representatives, the Founding Fathers put specific restrictions in place.
By then, Thomas Jefferson had already devised the new voting system of Proportional Voting. Yet it was not put in place for the Federal level in the United States Constitution. They implemented the old English voting system instead.
That was a wise decision, simply because a nation that can vote twenty little parties into all its seats will not withstand foreign enemies well, nor survive all too many extreme internal conflicts. Concentrating power at the Federal level was a very smart move to ensure fortitude and stability. We can be happy about these specific restrictions at the Federal level.
2: To counter the concentration of powers at the Federal level, the Founding Fathers empowered the People as well. We the People is not just a banner; it is in our Constitution. It makes the United States unique. Where other nations have specific descriptions on what their people can and cannot do, the US Constitution hands powers, even unmentioned powers, to the People.
As a result, we find a balancing of powers in our Constitution and not just a list of descriptions on what must be done.
- The primary balancing of powers in the Constitution is between the government and the People. The Founding Fathers were awfully smart.
Today, we may be more familiar with the balancing of powers between the States and the Federal government. They take up much of the oxygen in the room.
Yet the true and fundamental balance between powers in the United States Constitution takes place between the People and its government. This is not emphasized much, and that lack of emphasis is likely all by itself the result of the two parties having taken control more than the Founding Fathers had in mind.
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How did the Two Parties end up with more control over the People than intended?
The restricted voting mechanism for the Federal government put in place by the Founding Fathers got copied and pasted by the State legislatures. The States were given wide-ranging freedoms in the US Constitution and all States decided to keep their voting system the same as established for the Federation.
This means that the specific restrictions got enforced by implementing the same restrictions once again for that secondary level of State governments.
The States are responsible for establishing the two-party system.
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To make matters worse, the third level of local governments ended up with the same restricting voting mechanism as well.
Guess who put that in place? The States!
- Where the original intention helped the nation become and remain a stable nation, the copied mechanism put a governmental overreach in place that led to repression in specifics. It fortified more than just the nation; it fortified the powers within.
Naturally, the separate-but-equal cases of the 1950s that were successfully fought in courts show us exactly what specific restrictions looks like and how they are unconstitutional. Yet addressing the superficial reality of skin color did not end the entire set of overreach perpetrated by the government. The governmental specific restrictions are on-going today, not hurting all, but hurting many more than what a healthy nation should aspire to inflict on its own citizens.
Mass shootings, highest incarceration rates in the entire world, deep-rooted problems with good education for all, transit at an underdeveloped level, health care not organized for all, not regulating big pharma and other industries well, the list goes on and on. The specific repression is quite substantial in the United States and it is plain to see (for everyone in the entire world). Something is amiss in the United States indeed. A large number of people benefit from the setup — let’s be clear about that — and yet a rather substantial group of people are pushed down much further than what is healthy.
That is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
- Nations using Thomas Jefferson’s clean voting system are found in top of the happiest nations in the world, not the United States.
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The specific restrictions put in place to save the nation from falling apart at the Federal level and limit the options for the people to express themselves politically got copied and pasted for State levels and for city and county levels. For no other reason than doing the same.
Concentration of powers x3 is found in place, while the US Constitution talks about concentrating powers x1.
Now you know why we ended up with a two-party system while the Founding Fathers did not have that in mind. The States walked into the realm of the People, after having received broad freedoms by the Founding Fathers, and the States used that freedom for themselves, not giving the voters the freedom for picking their own representatives in the most optimal manner.
The States are the reason we have a two-party system. They desired to be strong for selfish reasons, and not for political reasons because the nation as a whole was strong already, shielding them from foreign enemies and extreme internal conflicts. There was no reason to restrict voter expression.
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In this image, we have the largest circle representing all voters. It does not matter that Sweden has a much higher percentage of voters coming out to vote than the USA. By starting with all voters in both nations, one can see what doubling a mechanism can do for the result.
In Sweden, all voters are represented in the seats because they have Proportional Voting. With 349 seats in parliament, the Swedish voter is guaranteed a 99.71 percent success rate that their vote is used to establish a representative in an actual seat. A Swedish voter really has to work it hard to not get represented by the vote that was cast. It is almost impossible in Sweden to vote and not be represented through that vote.
- In the USA, all voters come out and there is just a guaranteed rate of 50 percent (plus one) that their vote is used to establish a representative in an actual seat. This is the specific repression. The mechanism does not hurt the ones that got represented, but it definitively hurts the ones that got nothing but the person they did not want.
In Sweden, the majority of the seats equal the majority of the voters. The majority decision has the support of the majority of the voters. A singular voting mechanism is found in place in Sweden.
- In the USA, the majority of the seats equal about 60 percent of the voters, because that is what it takes for the average US Senator to obtain a seat. That is just the first part of the voting mechanism.
- Then… the US Senators make a majority decision, and we all know that that is not 60 percent, but often close to 50 percent. The filibuster actually prevents many decisions from being made.
- When officials represent 60 percent of the voters and when they make a 50+ percent decision, then 30 percent of the voters are actually directly involved with that ‘majority’ decision. The math is that .6 x .5 delivers .3 as the outcome.
The Swedish circle represents the majority with a minimum of 50 percent of all voters. Meanwhile, the circle of the USA represents the majority with a minimum of 30 percent of all voters (half of the 60 percent). The mechanism got doubled in the USA and the voter got less empowered because of it.
When we multiply repression in specifics by putting it in place not x1 but x3 with each and every level of government, then the People are not free as desired by the Founders.
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The Founding Fathers did two things at the same time: establish a strong Federal government and empower the People against governmental overreach.
Yet the People let their freedoms slip away. The People looked at the most important government first and when the State copied that behavior, the People did not see the danger. Not one, not two, but three levels of governments are restricting voter representation, while the Founding Fathers were worried only about the Federal government.
The People have been shooting themselves in the foot ever since the States and the cities and counties put the restricted voting system in place.
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The interesting part is that local governments are not given any freedoms in the US Constitution, and no government of any level is given the freedom to establish a restricted voting system at that local level.
So, if you want your political freedom, then come join the Local Revolutions grassroots organization.
We need to get our Founding-Fathers-given freedom back. Come join.
