> I have to agree. The US is a two party system, ... I agree with the first part of your analysis, but the rest seems a bit off. Firstly, the fact that the US

> I have to agree. The US is a two party system, ... I agree with the first part of your analysis, but the rest seems a bit off. Firstly, the fact that the US is effectively a two party system comes from the fact that your electoral systems is based on district representatives. This winner-takes-all approach will by nature lead to a two-party system, same as it has in the UK. Secondly, you do not have to assume dark motives ("... badly wants to become an autocracy...") to arrive at extremism within the parties: This is a natural result of gerrymandering and segregation, where safe districts leads to candidates that pander to there single-party base only. Compare this with most of continental Europe, where you have proportional representation. Here multi-party systems prevail, and as you indicate in the start of your analysis, this does indeed appear to lead to a "better" democracy in the sense that it can handle multi-dimensional shifts in voter attitude much better than entrenched two-party systems.