what would happen to the US if...

[rasczak]

Either the republican party or the democratic party just quit? all hypothetical of course, but what do you think?

Is having two parties really that great? For obvious reason they can never get along, and hence nothing ever really gets done imo anyway. what if the democrats just upped and left their seats or vice versa?

 

[JS80]

The status quo. Whatever party that is left will just split into Conservative-Democrats vs Liberal-Dems, or Liberal-Republicans vs Conservative-Republicans. Nothing would change.

Unless you are implying the political compass of individual Americans shifts left/right...

 

[Craig234]

Each party has various interests. The interests of the remaining party would gain a big advantage for a while, while the other interests backed another party. It wouldn't last.

A party disappearing doesn't get rid of its voters.

Other reforms are needed to make more than two parties real options, in particlar ranked voting so you can vote for who you really want and it stilll counts.

 

[RedCOMET]

What has happened historically is that, either of the leading two parties alwasy seem to incorporate a third parties platform into their own. So in the end, an emerging third party gets absorbed into one of the leading parties in the system.

Until that happens, there won't be much of a change.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Quitting would be meaningless...fracturing to meaningful parties would be salvation however. To truly be democratic a society needs 5-8 clearly differentiated parties. Ideally they'll be based on theoretical models, but even logically isolated voting issues could work better than what we have now with just the two.