Our long history of maintaining the same two major political parties—the Democrats since the 1820’s, and the Republicans since 1854—is actually a sign of flexibility rather than of rigidity. That’s because, whenever a third party started to become significant (such as Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party, and George Wallace’s American Independent Party), it soon faded because its program became partly co-opted by one of the two major parties.
The US
