‘We’ve lost our way’: Americans rejecting the two-party system

The Republican and Democratic Parties have had a two-party lock on American politics since the U.S. Civil War, with comparatively few successful third-party campaigns at the federal level over the past 150 years. While some Americans appreciate the two-party system, others argue for a more open multi-party democracy and want to make it easier for independent and third-party candidates to run. Some Americans, out of protest or for other reasons, choose not to participate in the current two-party system at all.

In this 33-minute episode of America Speaks, pollster and political analyst Dr. Frank Luntz interviews a sample of Americans who are either abstaining from voting or planning to throw their weight behind a third-party or independent candidate.

Luntz dives deep into the reasons why they made this choice and uncovers a near-unanimous unifying truth: Voting third-party is more about rejecting the current state of the two-party system, rejecting Trump and Biden personally, and rejecting what U.S. politics has become, than it is about embracing any particular third-party campaign, candidate or ideology.