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THE TWO-PARTY TRAP by Steven Verrier

THE TWO-PARTY TRAP

Recipe for Dysfunction in American Politics

by Steven Verrier

Pub Date: Aug. 16th, 2022
ISBN: 978-1476689456
Publisher: McFarland

Verrier presents a critique of the two-party system in American politics.

Most citizens of the United States are frustrated with the endless hyper-partisanship that plagues their country’s government, observes the author, and they’re equally disenchanted with the representation provided by the two-party system. In fact, he asserts,many interpret the past 168 years of “Democratic-GOP domination” as a “chronic, debilitating disease.” Republicans and Democrats have never been farther apart, he says; the ideological distance between them has grown so vast that the expression of “obvious acrimony, if not outright hatred” has become the norm. However, overturning this arrangement is nearly impossible, as the entire electoral system is designed to enshrine it; even the Federal Election Commission favors the two-party setup. Also, Verrier says, even independent voters generally neglect alternative candidates in favor of the those offered by traditional parties, according to a Pew Research report. In this tightly argued, empirically rigorous study, the author paints a bleak picture of what he calls the “fracturing of American society,” and the ways in which the ideological gap between the parties is encouraged by the American electoral system. Verrier vividly compares the major parties to professional sports teams: “Those two teams destined for the showdown—year after year after year—may overlook the other ‘competition’ and spend the whole regular season trash-talking each other,” he says, but the pair do agree on at least one thing: that no other teams should play the game. The author’s command of the material is impressive, as when he details the condition of independent candidates in every single state for the 2018 general election. However, some readers may find his granular presentation of it to be overwhelming, and he also makes no attempt to furnish a “specific blueprint for change.” Instead, he presents a forlorn “big picture” without hope. Nevertheless, Verrier’s survey is a remarkably exacting one, and brings great clarity to an important topic.

An intellectually scrupulous study that brings a complex political issue into sharp relief.