@Melpomene@erisly.social

You're missing my point:
Yes, the parties do do underhanded and even unfair things in their self-interests, absolutely.

BUT

Fundamentally other parties are disadvantaged by the math of our voting system.

The two parties didn't create vote splitting. That's created by a system where we have to choose one candidate from a list, and so we have to also guess how our neighbor is going to vote to try to avoid wasting the vote.

THAT's what keeps other parties down, the math involved, regardless of what the Democratic and Republican parties might think of it.

And the funny thing is that with the two party system representing mitigation for this deeper issue, their maintenance becomes as positive thing, in that sense.