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> America is a two party state. US are a multi-party state with two dominant parties. There are many unrepresented legal political parties.

• dragonwriter 8y ago
  > US is a multi-party state with two dominant parties. The US federal government is a two-party system with some non-party representation; not only is a multi-party system is defined by having multiple represented parties, but the US has a number of government systems set up whose structure is fundamentally predicated on their only being two parties that matter, and both the major parties observe that structure even when they have the political opportunity to gain immediate advantage by exploiting the huge loopholes that this opens in theory; e.g., a party could pack the so-called “independent” government commissions whose members are Presidentially appointed with a limit of a bare majority (3 on 5-member commissions) from a single party by appointing friendly independents or members of ideologically-aligned minor parties, but even when the President’s party controls the Senate and so shutting the opposing party out completely would not provoke confirmation battles that might be lost, the form of duopoly is strictly adhered to. It's clear that functionally, everything outside or the major parties is decorative and non-functional; even the independents in office functionally are tied to one or the other of the major parties (whichever they caucus with).