I am back from vacation, but in my previous post I proposed that "a pure two-party system promotes ideological politics" and said that my next post would consider the question of why ideological differences between American parties were small until about 50 years ago. My answer is "tribalism"---at one time, many people voted purely on the basis of ethnic, religious, or regional loyalties, without paying much attention to ideology. As more people started to think in ideological terms, the tendency towards divergence started to take effect.
For comparative purposes, the key facts are that "tribalism" was an unusually strong force in the United States because of size, ethnic diversity, and other historical factors, and that we have an unusually strong two-party system, probably because of political institutions. That combination produced a unique path in the ideological differences between parties.
the legal order is the only thing holding up the current one and half party non-system. there is one ideological political party and one "fan-club"-waiting- for-an-Elvis-partisan-party. remove the legal struts and it collapses more quickly. ossification has set in. cheers.
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