Harvard Biz School prof Michael Porter and coauthor Katherine Gehl have observed that the two-party political system is a classic pepsi/coke duopoly, and it fun

Harvard Biz School prof Michael Porter and coauthor Katherine Gehl have observed that the two-party political system is a classic pepsi/coke duopoly, and it functions as designed. It's designed to perpetuate the revenue / power / relationships of members of the political-industrial complex. These are elected officials, but they're also staff, fundraisers, pollsters, ad agencies, newspapers, TV companies, even Facebook and Google; anybody who depends on politics (different from government) for their living. I suspect the UK's Tory/Labour system is just as much a duopoly as the USA's Republican/Democratic system. Look at the House of Commons. The two parties sit across from one another shouting the equivalent of "Pepsi!" "Coke!" We tech entrepreneur types know something about how hard it is to disrupt duopolies: they focus their efforts on resisting disruption. And the political duopoly is great at resisting disruption. When the public perceives elections as drag races we pay attention to rubbish like "momentum" rather than good government appropriately sized. And that sets the duopoly free to serve themselves and not the population. In the USA 2016 federal election, HRC was perceived as a duopolist and DJT as an outsider. Attempts to limit campaign spending have the purpose of disrupting the duopoly. But that's a head-on disruption, like me developing a jet engine and trying to sell against GE and Pratt&Whitney. Doesn't work. Maine has introduced rank-choice voting to allow candidates to make strong pitches about policies without becoming "spoilers." That can only help disrupt the duopoly. In fact it did in 2018. Some "minor" candidates had their voices heard. California's primary elections are no longer in the duopoly system: all candidates are on one ballot, and the top two contend with each other in the general election. California could simply introduce a ranked-choice general election, which would have the same effect. Here's the paper by Gehl and Porter. Worth your time. https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competitio...