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I can't answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties. Anyone taking a middle position cripples the side they're closest to.
Before Socialism was a thing, England had 'Liberals/Whigs' (what yanks would call libertarians, because they've somehow managed to repurpose the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it means) and 'Conservatives/Tories' (king and country and church and don't change things because you'll break them and hurt people).
And of course, like all political groups do, they hated each other.
The Church of England was once known as the Tory Party at Prayer. The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it's the future.
With the rise of socialism/fascism/anarchism/progressivism, a truly radical program to rebuild society on utopian lines and use totalitarian terror to enable even more freedom and progress and human happiness, represented in England by the Labour Party, the 'conservatives' and 'liberals' were squeezed, and combined to oppose socialist thought, which hated them both and wanted to destroy everything they thought was worthwhile in the world.
So there came to pass an uneasy alliance in England between classical liberals and religious loonies, who'd naturally detest each other.
That's the modern Conservative party, who want to use radical social transformation and the power of the free market to go back to the glorious past, and are very much in favour of freedom of speech and thought as long as it's the sort of speech and thought that they approve of.
The Liberal Party effectively ceased to exist, because in its radicalism and desire for progress, it was more sympathetic to socialist thought, and so it got crushed.
Socialism has rather collapsed as an idea after an hundred years of practical experience with utopia, leaving Labour as the party of 'every problem can be solved by stealing more money and spending it on subsidies'. A position which is popular with those who benefit from subsidy, and unpopular with those who get their stuff stolen.
And of course, few of the people in either party actually believe in the causes they publicly espouse. They're not stupid. But public communications have to be simple-minded and rally tribal support.
Obviously this is a terrible system, but it's better than regular civil war, which is what you get in all other systems of government.
*Democracies using first-past-the-post without proportional representation
Sure, but that's the only system we know is stable even over the hundred years or so we've been doing the experiment.
I would be cautiously in favour of STV, but PR systems seem to get rid of the 'you can vote the bastards out' feature in favour of permanent government by the same people in various coalitions.
Being able to change the government without violence is, I think, the only real argument in favour of representative democracy, and it's an important feature, because it's what stops democracies having periodic civil wars, and focuses the parties on at least trying to appear to represent the median voter.
Did you seriously just claim that FPTP is the only stable voting system?
err, no?
that was the most readable version of modern politics i have ever come across.
i learned a lot. thank you so much!
So kind! Thank you.
Forgive me, I am editing it in-place as more thoughts occur to me, so do make sure you still agree with it when I stop doing that, and edit your comment appropriately.
Your answer is both incredible specific to the UK and subtly incorrect. I don't quite have the time to write a full rebuttal, but the more egregious of errors is this one:
One of the core tenets of liberalism is the harm principle. Sure progress is important but so is not harming anyone. Your post seems to equate only socialism with bringing good to British society, when that quite simply is just not true, and refutable. The Labour Party in the UK quite successfully adopted a lot of the items on the liberal agenda, such as gender equality.
The FPTP system is quite poisonous to the political debate in the UK as the natural tendency that only one of two parties can dominate and thus removes all nuance and creates toxic tribalism.
Thank you for the correction! Where can I find the list of philosophical axioms espoused by the Whigs?