1. Why has the two-party system dominated U.S. politics?
The two-party system has dominated U.S. politics because it has its roots in the early Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist factions from when the country was young ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). With the Federalists representing capitalist ideals and the Anti-Federalists representing the working class, such as farmers, these two groups easily evolved into today's Republican and Democratic parties, respectively ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). Since that time, it has been difficult to introduce other parties into the political system, because those two parties essentially cover all the bases. As a free nation, the United States does not have much demand for communist or socialist parties, and although libertarian ideals are sometimes popular, they are always in the minority ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). No one wants to vote for a candidate that will probably be far outnumbered in the vote, because that is a waste of a vote ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). In addition, the power of the Republican and Democratic parties is "self-perpetuating through the fact that many children simply inherit the political party of their parents, guaranteeing the two major parties a built-in voting bloc with each generation" ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). State and federal laws also mitigate against the addition of further parties. In many states, it takes substantially more signatures to get a minor party candidate on the ballot than to get a major party candidate on ("Why the United States Has a Two-Party Political System"). At the federal level, since most of the power in Congress is either Democrat or Republican, "even if a member of a minor party were to be elected, he or she would be either completely powerless or would have to join <...