Political DBAHC: The United States dominated by Two Political Parties

As crazy as it sounds, could the United States have 2 dominant political parties?

  • Yes

    Votes: 9 75.0%
  • No

    Votes: 3 25.0%

  • Total voters
    12
So this is a crazy DBAHC I thought of that I think may be ASB. Taking into consideration the political makeup in Congress which includes Democrats, Republicans, the Greens, Constitution, Libertarians, and Independents, congress is divided on many issues and while there have been compromises from the parties on issues that affect the American people, Congress is still divided.

We have had some crazy presidential election in the past year though the 2016 presidential election is highly divisive from what we have seen so far. It has got me wondering that what if the United States instead had two major political parties instead of five. How far back into US history do we need to go to back to have two dominant parties.

OOC: The 2016 presidential elections inspired me to write this “Double Blind A Historical Challenge” in which politics of America are divided by five major political parties but instead there was a “WI” in which the United States was dominated by two major political parties instead.

BTW here are Wikipedia links to the political parties I mentioned in the DBWI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Party_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States)
 
Well, it's pretty easy, actually.
The Founding Fathers wanted something called an 'Electoral College' to elect Presidents, as they were scared of direct democracy (crazy, eh?). Anyway, each State could pick its Electors anyway they wanted to - they could appoint the Governor's cousins or whatever. Since each State wants to maximize its own power, they'd probably allocate all their 'electors' to a single candidate, so the candidates would pay more attention to their State.
Well, the long and the short of it is that the results of such a thing pretty much guarantee a 2 party system.

What is also less well known is this crazy scheme was pretty much set for inclusion in the Constitution, and if it hadn't been for a young man named Martin Padway, who single-handedly managed to convince a majority of the Founding Fathers to change their positions, that's what we'd have been stuck with.

OOC: because of the EC, this is ASB after 1900, and probably ASB after ... 1785 or so. Seriously.
 
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