the two party system undermines democracy in U.S. presidential eletions.

To undermine means to ruin or make pointless. The two party system is assumed to be refferring to the current two major parties, the Republican Pary and the Democratic Party. Democracy is the political structure recognizing the ability to elect positions of power. Background: The major reason we have a two pary system in the United States is because of the two major political movemens of our current era. They are the Liberal Movement and the Conservative Movement. The Liberal Movement aims to increase the size of government and ensure all kinds of equality to everybody. The Conservative Movement aims to lessen the size of government and preserve traditional values. Other political movements, such as the Libertarian Movement and the Green Movement are not as influential as the Conservative Movement and the Liberal Movement and have a lesser following. The Conservative Movement is mostly backed by the Republican Party, and the Liberal Movement is mostly backed by the Democratic Party. .............................................................................................................. To answer my opponent's question, "Why do they not deserve and equal chance to for president?", it is because they have a lesser following in the first place. People join political parties parties because they believe the party's principles. My opponent brings up the media. Yes, the media is often biased and that is often a way to get ratings. However, if one wanted to get information of other political candidates, there is the internet, which is widely availible in the U.S. Again, if there was a higher demand for coverage of these two parties, they would get more airtime. "America gets all of it's information about the presidentail candidates from the media..." No, it doesn't. In fact, the media provides almost no coverage on either of the candidates' stands on the issues. most of these stands can only be found on the internet, such as http://www.barackobama.com... and http://www.johnmccain.com... These websites give a much clearer understanding of the issues than the media and many people do use them to decide how to vote. "...and the media has failed to inform us about the other political parties such as the pot party, the libertarian party, and many others." Often, there is a low level of interest in what goes on for each of the "other" candidates, so very, very little aritime is given to them. However, should the voter want to be educated, the voter would go to thieir websites, too. http://www.bobbarr2008.com... http://www.gp.org... As an alternative point of view, the two-party system has organized and improved democracy. Let's say there were three candidates. To keep it simple, there is only two issue at stake. They are loose vs. strict interpretation and war. The first candidate believes in strict interpretation, which further leads him to support the war, because it is constitutional. The second candidate believes in loose interpretation, and is morally against war. The third believes in loose interpretation and has no problem with war. The people of the country think as folows: 10% oppose war and strict interpretation, 30% support war and strict interpretation, 35% support war and loose interpretation, and 25% oppose war but support loose interpretation. So, 65% for war, 35% opposed; 60% loose, 40% strict. So, the winning candidate should be the third, right? No. 40% go for the first, 35% the second, and 25% the third. However, if the second and third would have been associated in a major party, there would have been a primary process that would have ran the second and not the third. Then the second would have beat the third and the majority of the population would have been happy. Instead, only 40% of the population is happy with the results. This is similar to the way political parties formed in the first place. Therefore, the two party system improves democracy, which is based on majority rule as opposed to minority rule. Most issues are polarizing, like abortion, in which one can either support or oppose. This makes a two party system fit the politics of today. As an alternative to the two-party system, I propose that it is the media that undermines democracy in the presedential elections, and there is little we can do about that. Don't blame it on our two party system.