The game is rigged in favor of the two-party system. It’s rigged by the Constitution, which mandates that the president be chosen by simple majority in the Electoral College rather than by popular vote; and it’s rigged by the Democrats and Republicans, who (to quote Micah L. Sifry in The New Republic) “artificially lock themselves in power” by “instituting onerous petitioning requirements to hinder other upstarts” from getting on ballots, which are controlled by state legislatures — which are controlled by (surprise!) Democrats and Republicans.
For all that, it’s still possible to be part of the U.S. political process on the highest levels without belonging to one of the Big Two. But sometimes it seems like the news media don’t want you to know.
Consider the coverage of Jan. 5’s Georgia runoff elections, when Democrat challengers Jon Ossoff and Ralph Warnock bested Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively. “Should Ossoff be certified the winner, Democrats would have 50 seats [in the Senate],” the Washington Post reported as the final results came in. “That gives Democrats the two victories they needed to secure a 50-50 tie in the Senate,” said the Los Angeles Times. “Democrats will hold 50 seats in the Senate,” proclaimed the New York Times. “With Warnock and Ossoff’s wins, the Senate is deadlocked with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans,” stated Fox News. CNN generated a neat little half-blue, half-red “Democrats flip the Senate” graphic for the occasion: “50 DEMOCRATS, 50 REPUBLICANS.” Etc. Etc.
But it’s fake news. In reality, the Georgia results created a Senate composed of 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and two Independents: Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME). Peruse the above articles — which represent the vast majority of print, online, and TV reportage — and you won’t find a single mention of Sanders or King or any sort of clarification such as we find parenthetically in a January 7 Bloomburg.com article: “(The Senate technically has 48 Democrats and two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, who reliably vote with them.)”
It may be captious to complain about the “technically” or the claim that Sanders and King “reliably vote with” Democrats (ProPublica documents that Sanders and King don’t even vote with each other 1 out of every 3 times; and FiveThirtyEight reports that King supported President Donald Trump’s positions more than twice as often as did Sanders). We know what they mean: in straight “party-line votes,” Sanders and King almost always line up with the Dems against the GOP.
But reporting that there are 50 Democrats in the Senate is not the same thing — and “we know what they mean” doesn’t cover it, because this isn’t a matter of nuance or interpretation. As a matter of fact, there are 48 Democrats — not 50 because Sanders and King caucus with the Dems, not 51 because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris presides over the Senate and is the tie breaking vote, but 48.
This widespread misreportage may be nothing more than journalistic laziness — inexcusable if you believe accurate reportage of fact matters, but not the same thing as calculated falsehood. But might corporate media have a vested interest in preserving the two-party system?
The obvious reason they might is money. With virtually no limits on campaign spending, American elections are a cash cow that the media managed to milk for more with every passing election cycle. According to Advertising Analytics, “Political ad spending has grown an average of 27% per year since 2012,” including about $8.5 billion in the 2020 election cycle alone, plus the Georgia runoffs, which accounted for an additional $600 million. Split that number, $9.1 billion, in half (it’s not quite that simple, with PACs, etc., but third parties account for almost no ad revenue, so you get the idea), and that means the Democrat and Republican Parties are each in the top five among all U.S. advertisers, despite the fact that their products — elections — are generally available only once every two years.
The reason they have so much money to spend is because together they hold a virtual monopoly — and just as importantly, a perceived monopoly — on the American political process. If everyone believes Democrat-or-Republican is the only game in town, then all political donations will go to them regardless of how many others are running for office. This keeps both parties rich enough to blanket media with ad buys across the country, including negative ads — a strategy that yields diminishing returns when you have multiple opponents rather than a single target. Perpetuating a political milieu where two and only two superpowers are engaged in a political arms race in which they have to keep spending to avoid annihilation is the ideal way to maximize media profit.
The best way to perpetuate the idea that Democrats and Republicans are the only viable options is to perpetuate the falsehood that there are no other options. Nationally televised presidential debates certainly perpetuate this idea, giving voice only to Democrats and Republicans. At first you might guess it’s a numbers thing. After all, we have to draw the line somewhere to limit the number of participants in a debate. But consider the first two 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates in June and July, where NBC and CNN each accommodated 20 candidates spread out over two nights. If a debate can accommodate 10 candidates on stage at a time, why not open them up to more parties — especially in a country where (according to a recent Gallup poll) half of voting-age Americans identify as independents and 62% say “[the two major] parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed”?
As it stands, the bipartisan (read: Dems and Repubs only) Commission on Presidential Debates mandates a 15% nationwide polling threshold — an arbitrary number seemingly calculated to keep third parties from getting a foot in the door — for admittance into an “official” presidential debate. However, any network inclined to let the public know about other candidates could do so at either the primary or presidential level. In 2012, for example, Democracy Now!, a nonprofit news organization not beholden to advertising, held a debate for third-party candidates Jill Stein (Green Party), Virgil Goode (Constitution Party), and Rocky Anderson (Justice Party), providing them with a platform to answer the same questions Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney fielded in the primetime telecast.
In other words, it’s simply a matter of will — just as it’s a matter of will to accurately report the number of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. Back in November, USA Today demonstrated how simple it is to do so: “Republicans currently hold 53 seats, while Democrats have 45, plus two independents who caucus with them.”
When it’s so easy to accurately report the facts, we should wonder with chagrin every time so many in the media choose to do otherwise.